stickies, post its, and lists are my life. paper and post it glue are the raddest inventions. ask alien some time for the history of the two, he tells a mean 3M-post-it-note-screw-the-little-guy story. and now, with the invention of my smartphone, i have another memory-aid device to add to my repertoire. i have become adept at my sticky note dance; and Color Note on my smartphone never fails to work. so i hardly ever forget a thing now. and if i do i just blame it on alien since he probably didn't tell me about it in the first place.
but what i don't get the luxury of doing, is blaming it on the ole 'mommy brain'. this is what i have been hearing mommies say for years --- that having a baby means their brain stops working properly, specifically that they can't remember a thing once baby is out of the womb and into their arms. they go into the delivery room with a fully functional brain and come home with mush. the larger theory postulates that mommies have "a head full of feeding times, soccer schedules, and nursery rhymes, at the expense of creative or challenging ideas". (cited below)
but every person that has not pushed a baby out has a head full of something. the businessman is busy contemplating how to play grab ass with his secretary without her calling harassment. the grocery bagger is replaying that last COD move over and over in his head, if only i went left. the teacher is kicking around the idea of cutting class short so she can squeeze 21 minutes for lunch rather than the contracted 18 (which is a particularly short amount of time seeing as my lean cuisine four cheese cannelloni takes 6 freaking minutes to microwave in the first place).
so, since i haven't birthed babies, i never get to use the mommy brain excuse when one of my memory-aids fails and i forget something. i'm just stuck being stupid for forgetting.
but not mommies, "oh no, that's today?? oh well, that's the mommy brain. i can't remember a thing since i've had my bundle of joy!". like it conveniently escapes them the bazillion times they've forgotten this or that for the 20-30 years before becoming a mommy. i've heard this so many times and always said it was a cop-out for forgetfulness. tonight i did a google search and found out i am right! some superb author has painstakingly done the literature searches, compiled the study results, and written a book. mommy brain theory debunked. does a theory have to bunked first, before it can be debunked?
the book is titled The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter. and it's true, you mommy brain purveyors are full of shit. brain research suggests having a baby makes you smarter and more skilled at multitasking and not necessarily more prone to forgetfulness.
"Journalist Katherine Ellison draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to demonstrate that, contrary to long-established wisdom that having children dumbs you down, raising children may make moms smarter."
Here's a chapter by chapter summary:
The Mommy Brain details five principle ways in which motherhood can improve women's minds:
- Perception: A mother's sensory-rich life with her newborn actually remaps part of her brain—improving her ability to interpret new information.
- Efficiency: Pregnancy and early motherhood enrich the brain, improving memory and setting a mother up for a lifetime of multitasking.
- Resilience: Oxytocin, a powerful hormone abundant in mothers, so effectively combats stress, clearing the way for improved learning, that scientists are studying its, potential as an anti-depressant and even as a therapy for Alzheimer's.
- Motivation: The fierce biological urge to defend their children, bolstered by mind-altering hormones, helps mothers become more creative and competitive.
- Emotional Intelligence: Mothers get basic training in this important kind of smarts as they tone their brain's "empathy muscles" by instinctively imitating their babies' facial expressions.
The last chapters reveal how fathers, adoptive parents (THAT'S ME!:) and altruists share in many "Mommy Brain" benefits, and shows how motherhood in the 21st century has become a particularly brain-intensive job.
citation: http://themommybrain.com/index.html
So, mommies, love to break it to you, but you are just forgetting things like every other person. every other person that doesn't spend her paycheck on post it notes and smartphone apps, that is. it appears there's no magic mommy brain excuse. in fact, baby mommas, you should be touting your incredible improvements in brain power to remember, multitask, combat stress, be more creative, and basically read everyone else's face like a book.
don't even get me started on 'cravings'. i get crazy cravings all the time! you don't have to be pregnant to want some kind of weird food really really badly. i've sent alien out for red vines licorice and mint chocolate chip ice cream at the 24-hour walmart in the middle of the night, and i've never been pregnant. so there.
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