This article at Salon I thought was very amusing

 I even wrote a letter, which was picked as editor’s choice

It has become my firm conviction that there is a gulf separating parents from non-parents that cannot be crossed with information of any type, only experience.  In my opinion, there is nothing that even comes close to as life changing as having a child (except, perhaps, death)–especially for women who leave their work to stay at home in this totally non-supportive culture.

I remember reading The Mask of Motherhood when I was pregnant and thinking how horrible and pessimistic it was.  I picked it up again six months after my daughter was born and thought-shit, this is so accurate but I couldn’t have known until I actually went through it.  That book made me feel so much better about feeling bad regarding motherhood, it was a lifesaver.  I’m willing to bet, as I wrote in my letter about the Salon article, that the author of that piece will look back at her naïveté with a chuckle several months after crossing the gulf. 

When you read negative things about motherhood when you are pregnant you think, “it couldn’t possibly be that bad!”, but, for a lot of women, it is and then some; but that’s OK, it’s normal and it will pass eventually as things get easier, every single new mom needs to have that drilled into her head.  Everyone spouts the platitude about how much you will love your child—and while it’s true—what they don’t tell you is that you will, on occasion, hate them too; that doesn’t make you a bad mom, it makes you a normal human being.