Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i know, right? especially now, that Crocs has gone nearly bankrupt. what else is left? Mom Jeans will only get you so far.
Baby refuseniks
- Thread starter AliEnvy
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
i know, right? especially now, that Crocs has gone nearly bankrupt. what else is left? Mom Jeans will only get you so far.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Plenty of ugly people have kids
Ugly baby judges you
What do the ugly guys do to have sex and have kids?
Ugly baby judges you
What do the ugly guys do to have sex and have kids?
U2isthebest
ONE love, blood, life
No spoken words
Blue Crack Supplier
adamswildhoney
ONE love, blood, life
AnnRKeyintheUSA
War Child
It doesn't matter if the guy is ugly, because he can get sex anyway. There are lots of girls out there doing it with very ugly guys. But a guy wants a girl who is hot, so it's harder for an ugly girl to get sex than an ugly guy.
No spoken words
Blue Crack Supplier
You speak from experience?
Are you saying that women are sluts, cos they'll just fuck anything that moves?
AnnRKeyintheUSA
War Child
Actually, I'm just fucking with you (not literally)
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
true. this is a very serious social problem, and i'm glad you've had the courage to address it.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Tongue - R.E.M.
elevated_u2_fan
Blue Crack Supplier
have you been talking to my wife again?
U2isthebest
ONE love, blood, life
elevated_u2_fan
Blue Crack Supplier
exactly
U2isthebest
ONE love, blood, life
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
‘Bumpaholics’ crave the belly-rubbing high
Some women procreate for the same reasons people turn to booze or drugs
By Martha Brockenbrough
Womens Health
updated 9:38 a.m. ET, Tues., Aug 11, 2009
It's not just in your head. There really is a bumper crop of baby bumps out there, from the famously fertile, like Heidi Klum, who's flirting with her fourth set of stretch marks in five years, to the infamous Nadya "Octomom" Suleman, who earlier this year bore eight babies at once even though she already had six other kids at home that she could barely afford to take care of.
In 2007 alone, American women birthed more than 4.3 million babies — the highest number ever. More than a quarter of those were to women having their third or fourth child, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And despite the infertility freak-out the entire country seems to be currently engaged in, only a small number of these babies — perhaps 100,000 — resulted from medical interventions such as in vitro fertilization, says Jamie Grifo, M.D., Ph.D., director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at the NYU School of Medicine.
That doesn't mean that we're transforming into a nation of Duggars (the Arkansas family with 18 kids often seen announcing their latest conception on NBC's TODAY show) and Novogratzes (the New York City clan of seven kids soon to be the focus of a new Bravo reality show) — the average number of children per American family is still hovering right around two.
Still, certain mothers, like 31-year-old Meagan Francis, who is raising her flock of five in Michigan, have big broods because that's what they're used to. "I grew up in a relatively large family and always loved having lots of people around," she says. "So it's natural that I'd try to re-create that experience with my own family."
But it's not always quite so simple, psychologists say. Some women may like being pregnant a little too much, often driven to rapidly reproduce out of insecurity, a craving for attention, or feelings of abandonment by their own parents.
The high of pregnancy
Having babies isn't addictive in the way that alcohol and narcotics can be. But bumpaholics feel compelled to procreate for many of the same reasons that substance abusers turn to booze or drugs.
"Women who are obsessed with being pregnant are literally filling an emptiness inside of them, just as alcoholics and drug addicts use substances to fill a psychological void," says Beverly Hills psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, M.D. Every one of us at some point encounters this void, adds New York family therapist Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D., author of "Financial Infidelity." "You want to have a purpose in this world. You want to feel less lonely."
For some women, babies fill that gap perfectly. Infants are dependent creatures. They can give their mothers a clear identity; they can also become handy social buffers. At a party or on the playground, a woman struggling with feelings of social anxiety or self-consciousness can hide behind the adorable infant in her arms. Any pressure to be cute or charming or funny disappears — your baby has that covered. "Bumpaholics breed to blot out their feelings of insecurity," Weil says.
Boston psychiatrist and Fox News consultant Keith Ablow, M.D., says some women seem to view having more children as an alternative to addressing their own personal problems. "Bearing another child can sometimes provide a substitute for deciding on a career path, making a marriage work, or even wrestling with questions of self-worth," Ablow says.
And the baby fix can become a cycle. When an infant becomes a more independent toddler, "the mom may feel abandoned and act quickly to fill the void again with a new baby who will rely upon her and her partner and define their lives," Lieberman says.
Procreating isn't just a psychological balm; it also feeds genuine physical cravings. According to Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, humans developed a set of three related brain systems that are intended to push them toward parenthood: sex drive, hunger for the romantic love of one partner, and a desire for the calmness and security of attachment.
Mother Nature prods us by making sex and its aftermath feel amazing. Oxytocin, the so-called "cuddle" hormone that promotes bonding, floods women's bodies during intercourse, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. "[Pregnancy] is like a love drug," Weil says. "A baby-love drug."
Then there's the constant attention you garner from others when you're bursting with child. Bumpaholic or not, it can be pretty great. Barb Pomeroy, 42, of Longmont, Colo., is a mother of six girls. She admits that she reveled in the questions and comments her pregnancies elicited from family, friends, and even complete strangers. She also loved the compliments people fed her about how good she looked when she was pregnant with her daughters. Even though she's not planning to have any more children, she misses the heightened interest and confidence pregnancy often brings. "There's this feeling of being special when you're pregnant," she says. "I feel like I become ordinary again when I'm not expecting."
It's not hard to understand why: People smile at you, throw you baby showers, buy you lots of gifts. And the rounder your belly gets, the more space you take up in the world, and the more people take notice of you. In many respects, you become impossible to ignore.
Spouses and partners dote on you, gladly delivering soup at 10 a.m. or antacids at 11 p.m. "My husband constantly rubbed and coddled me, and I ate it all up," says Liz Bustamante, a 39-year-old financial advisor from Forest Hills, N.Y., who has one child and is currently planning for the next. "And for the first time in my life, instead of feeling insecure about my body, I wanted to run around naked! I'd never felt sexier."
Magazines conduct celebrity-bump watches, and nude maternity portraits are becoming de rigueur for celebs and civilians alike. Pregnancy lets every woman be a star in her own world, and the rest of us are all too happy to shine the spotlight. A pregnant woman is exciting because the child she's carrying represents "that tie to the future," says Holly Donahue Singh, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Virginia who teaches a class called Anthropology and Reproduction: Fertility and the Future.
Filling a void?
The belly-rubbing high hits the pregnant woman as well as the people who surround her. The expectant mother gets an oxytocin blast and rubs her belly as a way of bonding. Admirers who rub her belly get a hormone rush, too. "As social creatures, our brains have evolved to make positive social behaviors feel good. Touch causes the release of oxytocin, and this causes the release of dopamine in reward regions of the brain," says Paul J. Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University.
Given all the psychological, physical, and social rewards associated with pregnancy, it's no surprise that so many women like it. But plenty of couples stop at one or two children, despite the fundamental drive to reproduce. This is because we can use our higher brain functions to keep those instincts in check, reminding ourselves that children cost money — about $950 a month until they're 18 — and require an extraordinary amount of time and energy.
This is precisely why the bump-loving Bustamante says she'll stop at two. Much as she loved her pregnant body and adores being a mom, she wants to allow for some financial flexibility — childcare, ballet lessons, summer camp, and college tuition add up. Having sufficient funds isn't a deal-breaker for everyone, though. Nan Mooney, a 39-year-old single mom, is living with her parents in their Seattle home because she doesn't make enough money to support herself and her son. Still, she desperately wants more kids. Her friends and family call her crazy, she says, but "I knew enough people growing up who had plenty of money who were not necessarily loved and not necessarily happy. I don't think it's an essential ingredient to raising well-adjusted children."
Figuring out the right number of kids to have is a personal decision, to be sure. And not all women with lots of children are bumpaholics. But an important question for pregnancy-craving mothers to ask themselves is why they want more children, Weil says. Are you having them because you don't want to deal with your husband? Or so you don't have to go back to work? Or because you love the attention? Nadya Suleman, for one, is blunt about the fact that she got pregnant to fulfill an emotional need. As she reportedly told one journalist, "I just longed for certain attachments with another person that I really lacked."
But psychologists say there are far better ways of making meaningful connections. In order to have a healthy relationship, married moms need to spend quality time alone with their husbands — whether it's taking a vacation without the baby or just going out to dinner together once a week and leaving the kids with a sitter. "Women who focus on their children to the exclusion of everything else inevitably face an emptiness when their kids grow up and become more independent," Weil says.
If you do find yourself feeling a void as your bundle of joy becomes a toddler, "that's a good sign that it's time to look in the mirror and figure out what's going on with you," says Ann Pleshette Murphy, author of "The Seven Stages of Motherhood: Loving Your Life Without Losing Your Mind." "Invest in yourself. Though it may never be as satisfying as what we get from taking care of our kids, it's important to feel proud of something you do outside of child-rearing so that you don't think of yourself as 'only a mom.'"
"Me time" can include big things — like going back to work or starting your own business from home — or small, daily experiences that enrich your life, such as heading to the gym or joining your girlfriends for dinner and cocktails. It's only when you have a balanced life that you can be sure the inner call for a new addition to your family should be answered.
Some women procreate for the same reasons people turn to booze or drugs
By Martha Brockenbrough
Womens Health
updated 9:38 a.m. ET, Tues., Aug 11, 2009
It's not just in your head. There really is a bumper crop of baby bumps out there, from the famously fertile, like Heidi Klum, who's flirting with her fourth set of stretch marks in five years, to the infamous Nadya "Octomom" Suleman, who earlier this year bore eight babies at once even though she already had six other kids at home that she could barely afford to take care of.
In 2007 alone, American women birthed more than 4.3 million babies — the highest number ever. More than a quarter of those were to women having their third or fourth child, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And despite the infertility freak-out the entire country seems to be currently engaged in, only a small number of these babies — perhaps 100,000 — resulted from medical interventions such as in vitro fertilization, says Jamie Grifo, M.D., Ph.D., director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at the NYU School of Medicine.
That doesn't mean that we're transforming into a nation of Duggars (the Arkansas family with 18 kids often seen announcing their latest conception on NBC's TODAY show) and Novogratzes (the New York City clan of seven kids soon to be the focus of a new Bravo reality show) — the average number of children per American family is still hovering right around two.
Still, certain mothers, like 31-year-old Meagan Francis, who is raising her flock of five in Michigan, have big broods because that's what they're used to. "I grew up in a relatively large family and always loved having lots of people around," she says. "So it's natural that I'd try to re-create that experience with my own family."
But it's not always quite so simple, psychologists say. Some women may like being pregnant a little too much, often driven to rapidly reproduce out of insecurity, a craving for attention, or feelings of abandonment by their own parents.
The high of pregnancy
Having babies isn't addictive in the way that alcohol and narcotics can be. But bumpaholics feel compelled to procreate for many of the same reasons that substance abusers turn to booze or drugs.
"Women who are obsessed with being pregnant are literally filling an emptiness inside of them, just as alcoholics and drug addicts use substances to fill a psychological void," says Beverly Hills psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, M.D. Every one of us at some point encounters this void, adds New York family therapist Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D., author of "Financial Infidelity." "You want to have a purpose in this world. You want to feel less lonely."
For some women, babies fill that gap perfectly. Infants are dependent creatures. They can give their mothers a clear identity; they can also become handy social buffers. At a party or on the playground, a woman struggling with feelings of social anxiety or self-consciousness can hide behind the adorable infant in her arms. Any pressure to be cute or charming or funny disappears — your baby has that covered. "Bumpaholics breed to blot out their feelings of insecurity," Weil says.
Boston psychiatrist and Fox News consultant Keith Ablow, M.D., says some women seem to view having more children as an alternative to addressing their own personal problems. "Bearing another child can sometimes provide a substitute for deciding on a career path, making a marriage work, or even wrestling with questions of self-worth," Ablow says.
And the baby fix can become a cycle. When an infant becomes a more independent toddler, "the mom may feel abandoned and act quickly to fill the void again with a new baby who will rely upon her and her partner and define their lives," Lieberman says.
Procreating isn't just a psychological balm; it also feeds genuine physical cravings. According to Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, humans developed a set of three related brain systems that are intended to push them toward parenthood: sex drive, hunger for the romantic love of one partner, and a desire for the calmness and security of attachment.
Mother Nature prods us by making sex and its aftermath feel amazing. Oxytocin, the so-called "cuddle" hormone that promotes bonding, floods women's bodies during intercourse, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. "[Pregnancy] is like a love drug," Weil says. "A baby-love drug."
Then there's the constant attention you garner from others when you're bursting with child. Bumpaholic or not, it can be pretty great. Barb Pomeroy, 42, of Longmont, Colo., is a mother of six girls. She admits that she reveled in the questions and comments her pregnancies elicited from family, friends, and even complete strangers. She also loved the compliments people fed her about how good she looked when she was pregnant with her daughters. Even though she's not planning to have any more children, she misses the heightened interest and confidence pregnancy often brings. "There's this feeling of being special when you're pregnant," she says. "I feel like I become ordinary again when I'm not expecting."
It's not hard to understand why: People smile at you, throw you baby showers, buy you lots of gifts. And the rounder your belly gets, the more space you take up in the world, and the more people take notice of you. In many respects, you become impossible to ignore.
Spouses and partners dote on you, gladly delivering soup at 10 a.m. or antacids at 11 p.m. "My husband constantly rubbed and coddled me, and I ate it all up," says Liz Bustamante, a 39-year-old financial advisor from Forest Hills, N.Y., who has one child and is currently planning for the next. "And for the first time in my life, instead of feeling insecure about my body, I wanted to run around naked! I'd never felt sexier."
Magazines conduct celebrity-bump watches, and nude maternity portraits are becoming de rigueur for celebs and civilians alike. Pregnancy lets every woman be a star in her own world, and the rest of us are all too happy to shine the spotlight. A pregnant woman is exciting because the child she's carrying represents "that tie to the future," says Holly Donahue Singh, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Virginia who teaches a class called Anthropology and Reproduction: Fertility and the Future.
Filling a void?
The belly-rubbing high hits the pregnant woman as well as the people who surround her. The expectant mother gets an oxytocin blast and rubs her belly as a way of bonding. Admirers who rub her belly get a hormone rush, too. "As social creatures, our brains have evolved to make positive social behaviors feel good. Touch causes the release of oxytocin, and this causes the release of dopamine in reward regions of the brain," says Paul J. Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University.
Given all the psychological, physical, and social rewards associated with pregnancy, it's no surprise that so many women like it. But plenty of couples stop at one or two children, despite the fundamental drive to reproduce. This is because we can use our higher brain functions to keep those instincts in check, reminding ourselves that children cost money — about $950 a month until they're 18 — and require an extraordinary amount of time and energy.
This is precisely why the bump-loving Bustamante says she'll stop at two. Much as she loved her pregnant body and adores being a mom, she wants to allow for some financial flexibility — childcare, ballet lessons, summer camp, and college tuition add up. Having sufficient funds isn't a deal-breaker for everyone, though. Nan Mooney, a 39-year-old single mom, is living with her parents in their Seattle home because she doesn't make enough money to support herself and her son. Still, she desperately wants more kids. Her friends and family call her crazy, she says, but "I knew enough people growing up who had plenty of money who were not necessarily loved and not necessarily happy. I don't think it's an essential ingredient to raising well-adjusted children."
Figuring out the right number of kids to have is a personal decision, to be sure. And not all women with lots of children are bumpaholics. But an important question for pregnancy-craving mothers to ask themselves is why they want more children, Weil says. Are you having them because you don't want to deal with your husband? Or so you don't have to go back to work? Or because you love the attention? Nadya Suleman, for one, is blunt about the fact that she got pregnant to fulfill an emotional need. As she reportedly told one journalist, "I just longed for certain attachments with another person that I really lacked."
But psychologists say there are far better ways of making meaningful connections. In order to have a healthy relationship, married moms need to spend quality time alone with their husbands — whether it's taking a vacation without the baby or just going out to dinner together once a week and leaving the kids with a sitter. "Women who focus on their children to the exclusion of everything else inevitably face an emptiness when their kids grow up and become more independent," Weil says.
If you do find yourself feeling a void as your bundle of joy becomes a toddler, "that's a good sign that it's time to look in the mirror and figure out what's going on with you," says Ann Pleshette Murphy, author of "The Seven Stages of Motherhood: Loving Your Life Without Losing Your Mind." "Invest in yourself. Though it may never be as satisfying as what we get from taking care of our kids, it's important to feel proud of something you do outside of child-rearing so that you don't think of yourself as 'only a mom.'"
"Me time" can include big things — like going back to work or starting your own business from home — or small, daily experiences that enrich your life, such as heading to the gym or joining your girlfriends for dinner and cocktails. It's only when you have a balanced life that you can be sure the inner call for a new addition to your family should be answered.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
That's just very funny...
Hot chicks with douchebags, redux. Of course ugly is in the eye of the beholder as is douchebaggery- to a lesser extent. Some douchebags are just universally douchebags.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Gee I guess guys DO sleep with ugly women after all.
The Science of One-Night Stands - Wellness - TIME.com
The Science of One-Night Stands - Wellness - TIME.com
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
Fuck all of you. I had TWO dreams about having kids in the past week. In the first one, my friend brought my son back from day care and I had forgotten that I had a kid. In the second one, the kid was about six months old, I didn't know his name, and was about to change his diaper for the first time (others had done it before).
Don't make me have babies.
Won't somebody think of the children?
Don't make me have babies.
Won't somebody think of the children?
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
:babyshower:
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
nooooooooooooo 
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
accdg to something I found on the internets
New Life
In waking life, babies are exactly that - brand, new life. Each of us comes into this world fresh and new with an entire future of endless possibilities ahead. As we grow, we become weighed down with commitments, emotional upheaval, and patterns that we believe limit our choices and our lives. Dreaming of a baby can symbolize a fresh start, or release from limitations. Dreaming of a baby can also symbolize a desire for the same.
Creativity
If you think of the amazing way in which babies are created and it is easy to see how babies are the ultimate symbol of creativity. Babies, in dreams, can also be symbolic of this creativity. Pregnancy dreams are another symbol of creativity but they are more indicative of the creative potential whereas a dream baby may indicate creativity that is fully developed.
Forgetting one has a baby may be symbolic of forgetting some aspect of one's self - a part that may be a powerful link to one's creativity and a source of inspiration. The forgotten part of one's self may also be a part of one's self that is innocent and pure. Forgetting one has a baby may also be symbolic of feelings of guilt or of feeling that one is not being responsible. Look at your life and see if there really is something you are not taking care of or if these feelings of guilt are false. Many times we try to take on the responsibilities of others - responsibilities that are not really our own.
New Life
In waking life, babies are exactly that - brand, new life. Each of us comes into this world fresh and new with an entire future of endless possibilities ahead. As we grow, we become weighed down with commitments, emotional upheaval, and patterns that we believe limit our choices and our lives. Dreaming of a baby can symbolize a fresh start, or release from limitations. Dreaming of a baby can also symbolize a desire for the same.
Creativity
If you think of the amazing way in which babies are created and it is easy to see how babies are the ultimate symbol of creativity. Babies, in dreams, can also be symbolic of this creativity. Pregnancy dreams are another symbol of creativity but they are more indicative of the creative potential whereas a dream baby may indicate creativity that is fully developed.
Forgetting one has a baby may be symbolic of forgetting some aspect of one's self - a part that may be a powerful link to one's creativity and a source of inspiration. The forgotten part of one's self may also be a part of one's self that is innocent and pure. Forgetting one has a baby may also be symbolic of feelings of guilt or of feeling that one is not being responsible. Look at your life and see if there really is something you are not taking care of or if these feelings of guilt are false. Many times we try to take on the responsibilities of others - responsibilities that are not really our own.
kafrun
Blue Crack Addict
I've had pregnancy dreams too. Haven't gotten pregnant yet It's like dreaming of death. It's not symbolic of death itself, but generally new beginnings.
It's like dreaming of death. It's not symbolic of death itself, but generally new beginnings.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
AnnRKeyintheUSA
War Child
They sure don't want to adopt, either, the practice has been rejected in Japanese culture for centuries, because they place emphasis on their bloodlines and ancestors. They do not want a child of strangers (and to be honest, this is how I feel too, though I'm sad for the Japanese orphans)
AnnRKeyintheUSA
War Child
Fuck all of you. I had TWO dreams about having kids in the past week. In the first one, my friend brought my son back from day care and I had forgotten that I had a kid. In the second one, the kid was about six months old, I didn't know his name, and was about to change his diaper for the first time (others had done it before).
Don't make me have babies.
Martha I am calling the welfare on you!
OP
OP
AliEnvy
Refugee
yolland
Forum Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
- Messages
- 7,471
It really is amazing how routinely and completely this aspect of it gets overlooked, especially in the US. And it speaks volumes about how far we haven't come in achieving married relationships where childrearing decisions are truly based on mutual compromise negotiated in light of shared priorities, rather than on reflexive assumptions of 'Women aren't supposed to do this' and 'Men aren't supposed to do that.'
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
This solicited over 3,000 comments-and I find the comments to be a very interesting microcosm and dynamic..how people judge a woman for saying something like that. I haven't read all the comments but there were numerous "narcissist" comments on the first couple of pages. The rescue something comment does seem odd, so there are plenty of comments about that too.
Jillian Michaels: I Won't Ruin My Body With Pregnancy
'Biggest Loser' trainer Jillian Michaels has a hard little body and she plans to keep it that way. Michaels, 36, tells Women's Health she is unwilling to become pregnant because of the way it would change her body.
"I'm going to adopt. I can't handle doing that to my body," she told the magazine. "Also, when you rescue something, it's like rescuing a part of yourself."
Michaels, who is now 5'2" and 120 pounds of muscle, was overweight as a teen. She said she once weighed 175 pounds but lost the extra weight with martial arts, which she has practiced for 20 years. She is currently embroiled in a lawsuit over the efficacy of her diet pills.
Jillian Michaels: I Won't Ruin My Body With Pregnancy
'Biggest Loser' trainer Jillian Michaels has a hard little body and she plans to keep it that way. Michaels, 36, tells Women's Health she is unwilling to become pregnant because of the way it would change her body.
"I'm going to adopt. I can't handle doing that to my body," she told the magazine. "Also, when you rescue something, it's like rescuing a part of yourself."
Michaels, who is now 5'2" and 120 pounds of muscle, was overweight as a teen. She said she once weighed 175 pounds but lost the extra weight with martial arts, which she has practiced for 20 years. She is currently embroiled in a lawsuit over the efficacy of her diet pills.
