Having never had children, you will be unable to comprehend the apparently limitless love, that allegedly heart-expanding level of consciousness that a biological mother has for her child. It seems to be something more epic than James Cameron’s version of the Titanic, an indescribable thing espoused by generations of women oozing maternal contentment. It has spawned a million hashtags, not the least of which is the execrable #blessed.
I’ve had some of my most simply sublime moments watching Netflix with a sauv blanc and a snoozy cat – yet these are apparently not on par with the emotion between mother and child.
This blissful bond is the payoff offered by Mother Nature for the ordeal that is represented by pregnancy and birth. The payoff NEEDS to be sublime. To be prepared to have your own child is to knowingly go into a scenario where you will have a blood–and-scuzz-covered infant extracted either:
- Through a gaping scalpel wound that will render you virtually immobile for several weeks and possibly unwilling to ever wear a bikini or contemplate a plank position at the gym, or
- In a manner which has been successfully negotiated for thousands of years but still seems frankly barbaric, and will likely involve stitches where stitches should never be.
Biological mothers prove themselves willing to go through this ordeal and many other unmentionable symptoms:
- Daily projectile vomiting that you can’t comprehend without recalling that late-teen experimental phase fuelled by cheap wine coolers.
- Helplessly observing bulging silvery stretch marks etch themselves permanently on a previously taut stomach.
- The indignity of wearing elasticised everything.
Even celebs who appear genetically blessed with talent or gorgeousness suffer along with the mere mortals:
“I just started calling myself ‘Swamp Ass.’ Like, I have swamp ass right now. I had major swamp ass because I was wearing these Spanx to hold in my gut … It’s like the bayou up in that region” – Jessica Simpson
Although the connection between this and Spanx is brow-furrowing at best, it’s fair to say that no-one has ever celebrated a moist, swampy, inner bayou.
“When I got pregnant, I had so much testosterone in me that I grew a beard. I only cropped it last night. It’s actually true. I’m not telling a joke. I actually have a beard, but I’m proud of it. I call it Larry.” – Adele
As if we are not already obsessed about hair removal.
“When I was pregnant, I just wanted to get lots and lots of animals, for some reason. We talked about cats but David said absolutely not” – Victoria Beckham
I venture to say that Victoria would have been a more cheerful woman if she’d been successful in getting all the cats.
‘The pregnancy, I wouldn’t really wish that upon anyone. Anyone. It’s all worth it in the end, so I would definitely suffer through that, but pregnancy was not a good experience for me. At all.’ – Kim Kardashian.
About as real as you can get from a Kardashian.
The only one that appeared to breeze through it?
‘I sometimes forget I am pregnant’ – Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge
Spoken by someone whose pregnant belly looks like nothing more than me after a reckless night of beer and bolognaise.
All this, and more, means that women who give birth totally deserve the hormonal payoff that appears to be generated as soon as they lay eyes on the squalling infant.
The reverse is also true. If you are unwilling to go through all of the above to generate your own child and merely acquire one as a result of dating a dad, you simply cannot expect to feel the biological bond that results from sharing a large chunk of DNA with another miniature person.
The only thing that you did to deserve having a child thrust into your life was to fail to declare offspring as a deal-breaker on your online dating profile.
So the fact that you have not created this small human through blood, sweat, tears and the sacrifice of your pelvic floor means you don’t earn the biological bond. The sooner you realise this the better.
What you need to know is that regardless of any investment in swamp-ass, you have the potential to regard with extreme fondness this youngster who shares some DNA with someone you are actually crazy about.