#intj parenting

Yeah, not talking about those people. I’m talking more like the person who doesn’t think they want kids because they dislike children in general, yet they treat their pets like surrogate children, without realizing that that’s exactly what they are. They have an insanely high mothering instinct that’s operating right under their nose. I’m not saying that they absolutely should have children (that’s a very personal choice and not something I’d push for), just that I can smugly judge them from the sidelines because I’ve been there and can now identify their behavior for what it really is. (Another thing people don’t realize is that you can like your own kids without liking kids in general. Lots of us do.)

Anon Asked:

Does being a mom change you? I'm afraid I won't love them. Did you have these fears before motherhood? Were they unfounded? My own mother told me that she fell in love when she laid eyes on me, but it feels false. Some aspects of motherhood seem like lies perpetuated because no one wants to be the bitch.

It changes your life more than anything else. I was actually far more prepared than most people for the logistics involved. Animals have always been my life, as I’ve generally preferred them to people. In sixth grade I got into birds and began breeding. Nothing like handfeeding birds every few hours around the clock to prep you for parenthood. In high school my anatomy teacher let me keep them in his classroom so that I could feed them throughout the day. At the end of the day they came with me to art class (yes, I had some pretty chill teachers). If I wanted to go anywhere, like lunch plus a movie, I had to make sure family members were willing to handfeed for me while I was gone. Most people aren’t used to having their life constrained by other living things like this, but when I had human babies it was something I’d already been doing for years.

Something weird happened though. After I had kids I no longer gave a shit about animals. It was really bizarre to look back on my life which was completely and utterly consumed by animals and realize that everything I was doing was just misplaced mothering instinct. I see so many “animal people” out there who are just like I was, and I quietly whisper to myself “they need to have kids.”

Bonding is pretty biologically ingrained. Humans require a lot of care in the beginning compared to many other lifeforms. Our species would have gone extinct long ego if there were no evolutionary checks in place to keep us from just smothering the lot of them when they became too much trouble. Bonding can take place even prior to childbirth. Baby hears your voice in utero and can recognize it. During the last trimester you feel the kid moving around a lot. I used to play with my son. He’d push out on my belly and I’d push right back. We basically prodded each other through layers of skin until one of us got bored.

Your mother wasn’t lying about love at first sight. During childbirth oxytocin (the “love hormone”) is released in large amounts. They pop out and you’re literally like OMG I MADE A PERSON GIVE IT TO ME NOW SO PRECIOUS. They’re wrinkly, covered with slime and vernix, and have misshapen heads, but none of that matters. My husband was kinda grossed out and wanted my daughter to be cleaned off first- nuts to that. Immediate skin to skin contact also facilitates bonding. 

Yes, there are some women who have trouble bonding. For many the process is immediate, while for others it can take a bit longer. Hormones play a role a big role. In addition to childbirth, oxytocin is also released during breastfeeding, so every time you nurse you get another shot of the love drug (so does baby). Infants are also wired to look at faces, which makes them far more personable when they’re awake (which, granted, isn’t all that often).

Conversely, you release stress hormones when the baby cries. Other babies crying won’t bother you at all, but your own baby crying will be like nails on a chalkboard. My husband thought my reactions to this were insanely over the top but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Again, biology is trying to get you to take care of kid and soothe them.

You also start to see death everywhere. Think you worry about stuff now? Ha! Your brain is constantly simulating horrible ways in which your kids can die, probably so you can prevent such a thing from occurring. You have to try to look at your fears rationally and see whether or not they’re well-founded. A lot of moms don’t, which is why they can be so incredibly paranoid about bad stuff happening to their kids. One lady we knew was convinced her child was going to freeze to death at night so she bundled it up excessively, even in the summer. The kid woke up soaked in sweat and the father was really concerned but had no luck convincing his wife that her fear was completely illogical.

As for myself, bonding was never really a concern for me, though I did worry I wouldn’t like the second one as much. It’s a pretty common fear. You’re so involved with the first that you think the second can’t possibly compete, like there just isn’t enough room in your heart for that. Turns out that’s unfounded. I can’t explain it. Yes, your time between multiple children will be divided, but love won’t be (unless you’re a dick who plays favorites). I love my parents, my siblings, and my husband so I don’t know why I thought I would have trouble loving more than one child. It’s not like there’s an inherent cap on the number of people you can love.

I suck at the emotion part. My mom did too, which bothers me because I disliked her growing up due to stuff like this. My dad was always more of a buddy than a dad and my mom went on overdrive being an authority figure in an attempt to make up for his lax attitude. Of course I found many of her rules to be stupid and unreasonable, so that didn’t help.

She was always pretty cold and dead set on proper appearances (pretty sure she’s xSTJ). After I returned from my adventure in abuse I was feeling as low as I’ve ever felt in my life. I’d made it out safely but my life plan was a complete wreck. I’d dropped out of my ideal university and given up on the career I’d had in the works since I was five. We had to pick up some of my stuff from college and were driving back home. On the way she turned to me and sternly said “I am very disappointed in you.” Yes, Mom, it’s all about how YOU feel right now. How dare I screw up my own life and ruin your perfect perception of your daughter. It was absolutely the last thing I needed to hear and I didn’t say more than a brief word here or there for the rest of the drive. We have a very good relationship now, but she is still very much into appearances and how things make her feel, regardless of what others are going through.

So yah, I’m worried about being my mom. My husband is the touchy-feely one. There have been times when I’ve been mad at our daughter and made her cry and my husband has been the one to pick up the pieces. If she does something stupid and hurts herself, my first instinct is not to comfort but to criticize. “That’s why you don’t do [whatever thing I repeatedly told you not to do].” I’m really trying, but it’s difficult when you’re wired this way.

It doesn’t help that I’m completely different with our autistic son. He’s basically a giant baby right now. He doesn’t understand things, so the rules are different for him. If he does get hurt I immediately comfort. I’m incredibly good with him, and that has to be hard on my daughter. Rationally, I know that she’s just a kid and hyper-emotional and is going to do stupid things, but because she is reasonably intelligent I automatically treat her more like an adult, which I shouldn’t.

So yes, I’m not good at the emotional support part of being a parent. At least my husband is there to help make up for my deficit, and I his (he’s no good at the logistics, like remembering to feed them meals). So I take care of the physical needs and he takes care of their emotional needs. They get a bit of both from each of us, but the quality is certainly slanted depending on the parent.

Regarding the introvert part of parenting- it’s tough. Kids are attention whores and I’m a stay at home mom so I’m constantly on duty. Vanishing into la-la land and recharging is damn near impossible. I’ve learned to tune out a lot of the constant chatter unless it’s specifically directed at me in the form of a question. My husband can’t do this. Sometimes we’ll be driving and he’ll ask me why I don’t respond to our daughter, who has apparently been talking to me for the past five minutes. I’d probably go insane if I couldn’t tune her out like this.

Thankfully, I’ve schooled our daughter to be fairly autonomous. Most of the time she’s perfectly happy to play by herself or screw around on the iPad. At age 2 if she got up early I’d stick her in the livingroom with the TV on and some snacks while I went back to bed. Ditto for if I needed to nap. She was perfectly content to leave me alone. It’s even better now that’s potty trained and can get most snacks for herself.

My son can’t do much by himself, and even if he could he’d still be checking in with me every 15 minutes or so. He’s pretty demanding and won’t let me hang out in the office for very long. I’m forever being called on to get a snack, or water, or change a diaper, or turn on a toy, or change the movie. If he’s watching TV he wants me in there with him. If I’m napping he wants to jump on me. Independence is an impossible thing for him at this point, but it may be that his personality is just more like his father. My daughter takes more after me, so the independence seems more natural for her.

Teaching autonomy isn’t an IxTJ thing- plenty of my mom friends do this too. We don’t play with our kids except on rare occasions. It’s their job to entertain themselves with their toys. This may come with being a stay at home mom. A friend of mine was just complaining that when she goes to the park with a friend this woman spends the entire time playing with her child. We don’t do that. Park time is our chance to socialize with other moms while the kids play with other kids. This friend is a working single mom though, so she probably feels the need to up the quality time. We see our kids ALL DAY EVERY DAY so we take every break we can get, however brief (which is why stuff like this pisses me off).