Comments on: Baby Lust (And How It Clashes With Mean Mommyhood)

By: Confessions of a Mean Mommy » Blog Archive » Why Good Parenting is Less Work Than You Think

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:22:05 +0000

[...] don’t have a big family; for better or worse, my two kids are enough for me. But one of the arguments people make against breeding beyond two (or maybe three) offspring is that [...]

By: Confessions of a Mean Mommy » Blog Archive » A(nother) Farewell to the Daughter I’ll Never Have

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:54:45 +0000

[...] fact, they’ve intensified. As I’ve written here, we’ve had a baby boom in the family, and it’s not gone unnoticed by my boys. When I had James, Daniel was not quite two; bringing [...]

By: Confessions of a Mean Mommy » Blog Archive » When it Comes to Babycare, What Happened to Instinct?

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:02:26 +0000

[...] I have a brand-new nephew, Nicholas (Nico, for short). His parents, my brother and sister-in-law, are mostly going minimal when it comes to baby gear. Part of that is a space issue–their house is pretty compact. But a bigger part of it is that, from what I can tell, and not including having read probably four million books on pregnancy, birth, and babycare (they approach most things fairly intellectually), they plan to rely largely on instinct. (And by the way, the photo above is not little Nico, but stay tuned to the end of this post for a gratuitous, isn’t-he-the-cutest photo of the latest member of my rapidly expanding family). [...]

By: Lisa T.

Lisa T. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:49:40 +0000

I don’t think you ever lose that baby lust no matter how many you have. Newborns are just so delectable. I just had my third and last (2 mo. ago) and I fear the end of each day as it’s one more day that she’s grown away from infancy. Since I already had two other children and experienced the newborn stage as a blur of exhaustion, colick and self doubt of what to do, this time I find myself holding on for dear life in an effort not to miss out again! But I am sure that in retrospect I’ll still feel that I didn’t embrace every single moment as I could have because in the reality life how can we?

By: Christina Baglivi Tinglof

Christina Baglivi Tinglof — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:03:15 +0000

I, too, have felt “baby lust,” and I’m a bit older! And then one day my sister was visiting with her 6-month-old (she had her at age 47, BTW). We were sitting by the pool–I was reading, my sister was entertaining her baby–but then my sister needed to go inside for a moment. Naturally, she handed the baby to me. I bounced my niece for awhile and made faces, but after about 5 minutes, I began looking around. “Where’s your mother?” Then my niece began to fuss. I began to get ansty. Finally, my sister returned and I gave the baby back to her. When she walked inside, I turned to my husband, “Wow! I’m so over that part of my life!” I realized that I could actually read a magazine while my kids played in the pool. Nice.

By: Briefly Noted: 3 other blogs in the LeapFrog Tag Reading System giveaway «

Briefly Noted: 3 other blogs in the LeapFrog Tag Reading System giveaway « — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:10:41 +0000

[...] read it, doesn’t it? Denise Schipani, Mean Mommy extraordinaire, blogs about everything from baby lust to why she didn’t childproof. On her “Why ‘Mean Mommy?’” page, Denise [...]

By: Marcy

Marcy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:15:35 +0000

I was a mostly miserable pregnant woman, a barely coherent mother of a newborn (recovering from an unplanned, not-quite-right C-section), and then a straight-back-to-work mom, all by necessity of course. The Army, my bread and butter at the time, was not the most accomodating environs for any of those mommy-life stages. And now my husband and I are supposed to have another kid, because wouldn’t it be cruel to try to raise our wonderful, terrific, almost completely perfect in every way son without the benefit of a brother or sister. Honestly, if someone plopped a 6-year old clone of our son into our family I would be thrilled, but that’s not really how it works is it. So I think, at least for now and probably forever, one almost completely perfect in every way son will be enough for this very mean (and deleriously happy!) mommy.

By: nappyvalleygirl

nappyvalleygirl — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:14:42 +0000

Excellent post – mirrors many of my feelings about having a third. I’m a British freelance journalist and blogger, recently moved to Long Island – was very interested to find your blog after reading about you in the NY Times.

By: LA

LA — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:10:28 +0000

Hi. Linked through from a NYT article. Glad I did.

At 46 I know for certain I’m all finished making babies. My elder son is 24 and the younger is 12. When the elder son was 12 we said, “It’s now or never for another.” We did it and having two ‘only’ children has been wild. Now older and much, much tired-er I couldn’t possibly see starting over again, but do understand that burst of longing. Fortunately for me that longing is neatly assuaged by a trip to the grocery and watching a mom with little ones trying to do her shopping. It all comes back- the exhaustion, the frustration, the juggling…um, yeah. We’re all good on the baby thing here. ~LA

By: Judy N

Judy N — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:26:37 +0000

Great blog. If I had known how much I would love being a Mother, I would have started earlier, and tried for a 2nd. My 13 year old claims he’s tall enough to count as 2 kids, and he’s a wonderful son, so I am very very fortunate to have my 1 large enough for 2 , and have no regrets, only happiness.