Jezebel: Something’s wrong with new moms who don’t have post-partum depression

Feminists hate happy mothers (trigger warning: repetitious F-word plus TMI):Proper response to newborn: I’m depressed and I feel like hell

In a post called “They Should’ve Warned Me,” we hear from a woman named Jensy that perfectly well-intentioned advice about pregnancy and new parenthood can come off as pure fear-mongering. I agree—for the advice-giver, this is a hazard of trying to tell it straight, and for the advice-receiver, it’s a rite of passage—and I support all reminders that everyone’s response to this experience is highly individual and can’t be generalized. But most importantly, Jensy teaches us about one particular type of postpartum experience: a one-dimensional happiness so powerful that the new mother literally doesn’t experience any bad thoughts, feelings, frustration, moods, or major changes in a negative way worth saying out loud. They feel the opposite, in fact—so incredibly over-the-moon happy they feel like someone should’ve warned them about how dangerously happy they would be.

***

Look, I got nary a beef with anyone’s happy feelings about having a baby. Having a baby is a wonderful thing. But it’s also a notably complex thing. Children inspire all sorts of feelings, test all sorts of limits. They are one of the best examples of the literal and figurative messiness of life, in that they evoke your best and worst selves, sometimes simultaneously.

***

I know it’s just an article, a trope to flip the script of what you should’ve been warned about. But I also have a really soft spot for women and pregnancy and difficult feelings and anything that attempts to make it seem like their experience is just being negative, or that postpartum depression and the numerous complicated feelings that can come with such an enormous life change can be reframed simply by turning that frown upside down.

***

Hey, I’m not a doctor, but does this blissful, transcendent, one-dimensional happiness in spite of any and all frustration last all day, uninterrupted? Look up mania. Or malaria? I think relentless positivity is one of the symptoms of malaria.

 Lesson to be learned from this: There is one thing a feminist is never allowed to experience–happiness,.

h/t: Dalrock

Posted by Charlotte Allen