Having too much information sure will keep you from jumping off the diving board.
It's *almost always* better to not know what awaits you in the swimming pool. Is it really, really, cold in there, guys? I'd rather you not tell me, thanks! After I jump in we can commiserate!
I needed this piece on happy moms so bad.1 I’ve noticed that there’s been a proliferation of the “motherhood is so hard and so brutal and so awful” and “don’t do it” discourse. It’s a close cousin of the “here’s every detail about my tearing from labor” dialogue. I’ve struggled to put words to this and it’s why I haven’t written an issue of my own— mothers are, of course, VERY entitled to express themselves and talk about their experience however loudly they’d like. It’s an essential part of the tapestry of the human experience, we truly all came from someone, somewhere.
At the same time, like every other thing on Earth, we have too much information now. As a not-yet-mother, I actually don’t want to hear about how bad it’s going to be, how miserable I’ll be, how awful my body will feel. I don’t like it when women a few years older than me at work tell me I shouldn’t have kids.2 Thanks, but no thanks!
I get that there’s a desire to prepare people for an undertaking that is brutally challenging— I do that often in my newsletter about entrepreneurship and taking risks and striking out. I’ve given advice on why you should or shouldn’t start a business recently, in fact… but I do try to toe the line and acknowledge the obvious truth, which is that your life is your life and you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do and learn what you’re gonna learn, which will very well be different from what I’m learning. And if it’s the same? Great! Another person in the comments or in my inbox being like “that’s so me, bestie!”