Babycenter mostly sucks as a site. I feel like their info is so sponsor-driven and mainstream. The bulletin boards drive me nuts. Back when I was pregnant I was posting there in my frenzy to research this impending motherhood thing as much as possible. There seemed to be a lot of horrifying posts from moms and moms-to-be who were boozing, drugging, on the streets, in terrifically abusive relationships, had no prenatal care, etc.

I would often write back to suggest something helpful like free/low-cost prenatal care from Planned Parenthood, or maybe if you're in an abusive relationship and have no education or money, getting pregnant isn't really a way to fix things right now and maybe birth control would be a better plan.

I got a lot of weird, fundamentalist types flaming me and threatening me with eternal burning hellfire for even mentioning PP, and a bunch of nutty Quiverfull types saying that birth control is babykilling and the more children you have, the more blessed you are. Sigh. So for my own sanity, I stopped visiting BabyCenter

But Catherine Newman's journal Bringing Up Ben and Birdy is still there, and still fabulous, so I stop by from time to time. She seems to perfectly put into words whatever vague idea or feeling about motherhood I've had floating around in the back of my brain. Plus she is one of the few writers on ANY subject who can make me absolutely belly-laugh. She has a great way of pointing out the absurdity of about 99% of our daily child-rearing activities, and how funny they can be when pointed out by someone who has been there. But she also nails the more poignant moments.

For example, the following from her most recent entry hit me right in the gut:

The kids are great, really, they're full of life, and they're testing their world, and they're fun to be with. I think I'm just weary of noise, of conflict. Or maybe I've been a little blue lately? I think it's true; I think I have been. When we were in the Brick Dwelling building of the Shaker Village, I was filled with melancholy, and I can't exactly describe it. Partly it was the beautiful simplicity of the rooms: wooden beds and chairs and tables, beautiful built-in cabinets (Do I sound like a real estate agent? See? Totally un-shakerlike.). Everything was spare, everything useful. I loved it, and it was as much like our house as a rag doll is like a Look-Up-My-Skirt Barbie, which is too bad for me.

But also it was the idea of a hundred people all living under the same roof, but as a community, not in their individual apartments. Sometimes I think that's how I really want to live. I mean, we are blessed with beautiful, close friends, we visit with them often, we share lots of meals. But often I can picture all of us grocery shopping with our kids, returning home to make dinner, and eating alone with our families. And often it's heaven on earth, this contracting of the world to the intimacy of our closest ones around the table. But sometimes it can be a little lonely, like, in the satellite picture of a neighborhood, you'd see the same woman shape in every house, bending down to brush little teeth, and all of us everywhere are doing the same thing at the same time, but alone.

I'm not explaining this right. I think that sometimes it can feel a little lonely, that's all. In the infirmary at the Shaker Village they had an enormous cradle to comfort ill adults. Maybe that's what I want. I want to say, 'Come over, after your kids are asleep. I'll rock you here in this cradle for a while." And then maybe you could rock me.

I have had the same image of each little house with a woman-shape, doing the same kid-centered tasks all alone. Cleaning the kitchen, making dinner, all alone. True, maybe it would be a drag to have other people around all the time, but then again, maybe not. Because this job is hard, and that's one thing. But to be hard and LONELY, that's another thing.

A village, yes...that would definitely be nice at times.