Google Is My Sex-Ed Teacher
When my daughter turned one, a friend of ours got her a baby doll for her birthday. She had never been introduced to a doll before, but she immediately grabbed it, hugged it, and cuddled it like a baby. From that day forward, I have watched her love and care for this thing as if it is her own. Isn’t it crazy that even as little girls, we instinctually know that one day we may become mothers?
How odd is it then that those little girls go on for the next 20+ years of their lives never receiving any sort of formal education about motherhood? Sure, they go to their sex-education classes in school to learn how to prevent pregnancy, but once they’re actually pregnant? Girl, you’re on your own!
How in the actual world does that make sense?
When I was 22, my husband and I became pregnant with our first baby. Three days before my 23rd birthday I miscarried. On the day that the blood appeared, I started frantically googling questions like,
“What is a miscarriage?”
“How do you know if you’re miscarrying?”
“What happens during a miscarriage?”
“Are miscarriages supposed to be painful?”
“How long do miscarriages last?”
“How long after a miscarriage can you get pregnant again?”
Question after question frantically flew through my head, none of which I knew the answer to. Do you know when the wrong time to get educated on miscarriage is? While you’re having a miscarriage. Do you know what the wrong educator of miscarriage is? Google.
If the statistics tell us that somewhere between 25-33% of women will experience a miscarriage, why are we never educated on what that is?
Does that seem absolutely bizarre to anyone else? How has our society just skipped right over this?
Likewise, why are we not educated on a whole myriad of women’s health topics?
We should be educated on pregnancy long before we are pregnant, rather than having to google “Is (fill in the blank) a pregnancy symptom?” for 40 full weeks. Or finding out that soft cheeses and deli meats are not safe for a fetus only after you’ve scarfed down a Subway footlong.
Equally as important, someone should talk to us about the realities of postpartum life. Those first 4-12 weeks after having a baby are fierce y’all. The only thing I heard about beforehand was the euphoria of baby snuggles and the incredible lack of sleep. But what about the rest of it? Did no one think I should know about the plummeting hormones, my car crash of a body, the piercing cries, the damaging isolation, the do’s and dont’s of breastfeeding... Why do you think baby blues, and even more severe postpartum depression are so prevalent? Maybe because our expectation of going home with baby is nothing more than newborn bliss with an occasional sleepy yawn.
One thing is for sure, something has got to change. Women need to be more educated on motherhood and all that comes with it. If no where else, I hope this is a place where you know you can get the information you need to be more prepared. More so, I hope this is a community of women who will take responsibility into our own hands, and start speaking transparently to the other women in our lives. The culture needs to change, and it undoubtedly starts with us.