Fearmongering
When I was planning my wedding*, I was treated to a lot of fear-mongering about the process. A lot of warnings about how hard and exhausting getting married is, and how many compromises you'll make, and so on and so on. If you say how you'll simplify your wedding, you get a lot of "but you HAVE to have flowers/assigned seating/bridal party." A blog I frequented at the time put a name to it for me, calling it the You'll seeeee phenomenon.
That blog sums it up well. It's not that people don't mean well, or want to upset you, it's just a way of sharing an experience: "I had this experience, and I'm assuming my experience is universal and you'll have the exact same one. And mine was like this, so yours will be too - and then we can roll our eyes and bond over how awful it was together." We all love a common enemy, and all too often in pursuit of this shared experience, we project our challenges onto others.
I was thinking about that blog entry recently, because being pregnant comes with its own version of this. And re-reading the entry I realized it covered the pregnancy "you'll seeeeees" as well.
For pregnancy the "You'll see" becomes a "Just wait until" phenomenon. It's even a little more scary. "Just wait until your nice tummy is a roadmap of stretchmarks...forever!" "Just wait until it kicks you all night when you try to sleep." "Just wait until you get it home and it cries for 92 hours straight." "Just wait until your boobs triple in size and want to explode!" People really really really want to tell me birth horror stories (their own or that of someone they know). And painful breastfeeding horror stories. And how hard it is to have kids and how your marriage will suffer.
For every "oh, you'll be so in love and it's so rewarding" I think I hear 6 negative warnings. Some people seem very afraid that I haven't been properly warned! Because no one properly warned them, perhaps.
It's sort of sweet in a way, this worry, and the warnings. But I cling to the "We had some challenges and we worked them out." Or the "Yeah, that was nuts, but it's actually very rewarding." Or "Don't worry, you'll figure it out."
I'm certainly capable of going to the dark place myself, I have no sugary illusions about this process. All I ask is balance. A little sweet with the sour. A little silver lining with the dark cloud. A little "YOU'LL SEE...you'll be FINE."
*For the record, my wedding was super fun, we planned it in less than 4 months, the day itself was pretty much drama free, we did it OUR way, and we only had one big fight during the planning.
That blog sums it up well. It's not that people don't mean well, or want to upset you, it's just a way of sharing an experience: "I had this experience, and I'm assuming my experience is universal and you'll have the exact same one. And mine was like this, so yours will be too - and then we can roll our eyes and bond over how awful it was together." We all love a common enemy, and all too often in pursuit of this shared experience, we project our challenges onto others.
I was thinking about that blog entry recently, because being pregnant comes with its own version of this. And re-reading the entry I realized it covered the pregnancy "you'll seeeeees" as well.
For pregnancy the "You'll see" becomes a "Just wait until" phenomenon. It's even a little more scary. "Just wait until your nice tummy is a roadmap of stretchmarks...forever!" "Just wait until it kicks you all night when you try to sleep." "Just wait until you get it home and it cries for 92 hours straight." "Just wait until your boobs triple in size and want to explode!" People really really really want to tell me birth horror stories (their own or that of someone they know). And painful breastfeeding horror stories. And how hard it is to have kids and how your marriage will suffer.
For every "oh, you'll be so in love and it's so rewarding" I think I hear 6 negative warnings. Some people seem very afraid that I haven't been properly warned! Because no one properly warned them, perhaps.
It's sort of sweet in a way, this worry, and the warnings. But I cling to the "We had some challenges and we worked them out." Or the "Yeah, that was nuts, but it's actually very rewarding." Or "Don't worry, you'll figure it out."
I'm certainly capable of going to the dark place myself, I have no sugary illusions about this process. All I ask is balance. A little sweet with the sour. A little silver lining with the dark cloud. A little "YOU'LL SEE...you'll be FINE."
*For the record, my wedding was super fun, we planned it in less than 4 months, the day itself was pretty much drama free, we did it OUR way, and we only had one big fight during the planning.