Recently, I developed a new, rather alarming reaction to seeing couples who appear to be in the same age range as Mr. X and I, one of whom is carrying the tell-tale ubiquitous baby tote while the other brings up the rear with the large stroller/carrier contraption:
Abject rage.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a bit of an overreaction. I mean really, rage? Aren’t there things that are really more rage-worthy than seeing some former frat boy carrying a car seat like its a bucket of water? Absolutely, but I see more than just some guy and a baby. I see where I am supposed to be and I am not. Enter rage.
Part of the problem is that we see so many of them on a typical trip to a restaurant or a market. We must live in the fertile crescent of the United States, because it’s like no aisle at Lowe’s is free from the strollerati. So, rather than seethe silently or begin avoiding just about every public place, I decided to get down to the bottom of why I felt so effing pissed off.
I should mention that it’s not hormonal. My hormonal rages are usually directed at thoroughly useless, baseless and stupid shit that is not even worthy mentioning here (“Bitch, did you not see that stop sign?!”). And, I haven’t been on the drugs long enough to elicit such a response.
No, it’s a complex rage made up of several different emotions. It’s anger that we have been treading water for four years waiting to move on to the next phase of our life and it’s to the point that we’re beginning to wonder if we are going to take that next step. It’s fear that we might not have a conventional life and our rhyme might just end at “then comes marriage”. Most of all, it’s being reminded again of what we have tried to achieve and failed to do, repeatedly. It’s feeling like we are being held back, asked to repeat a grade, over and over again while our same-age peers move on to the next appointed step. We’ve got the marriage, where’s the goddamn baby carriage?
And, damn it all to hell, it still freaking hurts.
So, yeah, when I see some girl who is my age with the husband and the infant carrier, I get pissed. Pissed that we are in the situation we are, pissed that I’m still upset about it, pissed that I don’t think I can share my feelings on the subject with Mr. X, and generally pissed that I’m letting a couple of strangers piss me off.
It’s a pisser.
image: I Like
a.k.a.mrs.x 
Right there with ya. The only thing that pisses me off more is when they’ve got TWO under 3. ‘Cause that’s really where I wanted to be.
I know how you feel. Including about not being able to explain to the husband. Mine wants kids too, and is sympathetic up to a point, but no way he can deal with the oceans of IF emotion. Hence blog…
I can’t remember what used to make me want to go ballistic more: the smug “green mom” promoting women’s empowerment through breast feeding (we’ve got a whole posse of those in town) or the gal in the obgyn’s lobby in a stained sweatshirt emblazoned with the Tazmanian Devil or something screaming at her crazed brood.
The rage is understandable, and yet it’s one of the least acceptable female emotions. Maybe we need some sort of online game where you can throw hypodermics at really, really smug photos of thankless or self-righteous parents and win bottles of wine…
I’ve been a lurker for a while now. Wanted to stop by to say “hi!’ out in the open. =)
I’m experiencing a very similar rage response at the moment, and was just about to begin an entry on this very topic.
I, too, live in a fertile crescent.
I’ll be hoping that the rage subsides for both of us.
i dont know if that rage ever goes away. i was in traffic today behind a minivan with the license plate “mom of 2” and i *seriously* contemplated rear-ending her. sigh.
sending you ((hugs)).
i’m so damn tired of all the fertiles around me. it seems like EVERY female on my husband’s staff and my old staff are pregnant. it also seems like everyone, especially couples that got married after us, are all pregnant as well (or working on #2).
i understand your rage. i feel it often myself.
I have nothing intelligent to say about this. Just … word. I’m right there with you.
Also, I love the word strollerati.
*nods head vigorously, feels same way*
Word, mah b*yatches. I’m hearin’ all y’all loud and clear. And I couldn’t say anything any better. A pox on all those oblivious minivans with the stick-figure decals that look like they’ve made enough kids to start their own pro sports team. Pox on them all, I say.
Amen. There are days when I think I’ve moved on… & then there are days when I just want to rant & rave about the unfairness of it all. 😦
“I see where I am supposed to be and I am not” that rings so true with me,.I am left behind while everyone else has advanced to the next grade. People who were in grades behind me have already past me in the last 10 years, even they now have 1x baby and 1 x brand name stroller. I hate that IF has done this to me but I feel so much rage, not so much at the idealic couples but at the unfair hand that I have been dealt
You took the words right out of my mouth- RAGE. You explained it so well. I just let myself feel it because given what all of us has been through, hell yes I am pissed. I wonder if I will ever stop feeling this way.
I’m there. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you avoid eating lunch while sitting at the window of a trendy pizza place that looks out onto an upscale family-friendly shopping street.
Unless the pizza is really, really good.
strollerati:: you freaking kill me. i’m gonna have to remember that one. well written post. i’m a pisser and a rager too…