A couple of weekends ago, Josh, Matthew and I survived the trip out of the city to the suburbs to visit a Babies R Us. Would you believe we never once stepped foot into a Babies R Us - ever? Not at all during the pregnancy, not after Matthew was born until he was 8 months old. I got it into my mind that there were some baby items we DESPERATELY NEEDED. Next time, I’m just going to buy the stuff online.

Babies R Us’ slant is definitely toward babies/kidstuff, to be sure, but it was just… over the top. It signified to me why motherhood (I say that very specifically) seems like one big festering competition, and what I hate about motherhood. There’s this sort of undercurrent about motherhood that if you don’t buy brand new, very expensive… stuff… for your babies, you are a bad mother. Babies R Us personifies the commercialization of motherhood that has me itchy. My son does not need a $400 crib with a matching bumper and sheets and ruffle. My son does not need an exersaucer that has 400 toys attached to it and is so busy I got tired just looking at it. My son does not need expensive clothes he’s going to outgrow in a New York second. My son does not need half of the things in this store, and yet here they were, in my face, taunting me.

Buy me. Buy me. You know you should. Doesn’t Matthew deserve the best? If you really loved him, you would buy him that $3-4-500 stroller. If you really loved him, you would buy it all for him.

I am totally projecting, I know. But it’s the little things - the pressure from commercialization, the pressure from work (at home and not), the pressure from the stupid internet, the pressure everywhere - that drive people batshit crazy. And it seems targeted only toward mothers. Where are the fathers in all of this? Babies R Us had a mother’s room for nursing moms, presumably - but where was the father’s room?

So never again. I will do my shopping online, and I will try not to grow new neuroses. The ones I have work just fine.