Vicki Glembocki: The Annoyances of Motherhood

[James Brody]

Glembocki is a relatively new mother who would prefers writing her column to rearing her infant. The Victorians, even without typewriters, had a similar problem maintaining their population.

She sounds "depressed" but giving her a label obscures her details (see my earlier remarks about Andrea Yates). I might wonder if doing "instinctive" things is more complicated now that we have so many tools from which to pick and on which to spend money, and remember that the Hmong, the Kung, and the Yanomamo ladies also avoid their husbands for several years after a birth. I also wonder if prenatal investment in a neocortex makes the hypothalamic things more of a nuisance. Of if genomic imprinting deals the cards that Glembocki finds in her hand...

"...I can't wait to go back to work. Work is easier than the past three months have been. People rarely cry at work, and when they do, they don't need me to swaddle them. I am good at work.

"I realized about two weeks into this mommy thing that I am not very good at it. Aside from one brief interlude of that maternal bliss everyone tells you you're going to be stoned on?during our first night at home, I could barely wait for Blair to wake up to nurse so I could hold her tiny head in my hand?I mostly spend my 22.5 hours awake each day wondering, "What in God's name have I done?" Having this baby?I mean actually having her in my possession?is grueling, way more intense than "You're going to be exhausted" and "You won't have time to shower," which is how books and friends told me it was going to be. I don't go a day without screaming at my husband Thad, who protects himself by staying away from me. I can't look at my body in the mirror without feeling resentful, which then makes me feel selfish and guilty and, basically, evil. I can't make a single decision, convinced it's the wrong one. I cry at least twice daily, often with Blair, who has been bawling pretty much nonstop since she was born. And, worse, I really don't feel bonded with her at all. I feel more like she's a parasite hanging from my boobs."

References:Http://www.phillymag.com/articles/ph...s_of_a_new_mom
Goos, LM & Silverman, I (2001) The influence of genomic imprinting on brain development and behavior. Evolution & Human Behavior. 22, 385-407. (great introduction, complicated topic)
Haig, D. (2002) Genomic Imprinting and Kinship. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.