Should young people stop moaning and get on with it or should we be concerned.

As a young mum I would have been in quite a serious situation if I had not had a mother and baby group to go to twice a week. I had a supportive husband and family but that group was so important to me. I think people forget what it was like to be a first time mum let alone in these circumstances.

I'd like to ask people what this support looks like - where does it come from, who provides it, what does it set out to achieve, how can its success be measured? Is it warm and fuzzy or robust and challenging, is it a tool kit or protection?

There's no one size fits all answer. For some it'll be professional help. For others practical help with everyday tasks. For many, just being able to see and talk to their family members or friends. The introduction in December of support bubbles for households including babies under 12 months old has been a game changer for many. My DD has just had a health visitor call round for DGS6's 12 month check. That's the first visit since he was born, and I hope indicates that the service is up and running again.

Well I work in a voluntary capacity helping struggling families, for whatever reason and it comes without judgement. Support can be emotional or practical or a mixture of the two. Some families who have twins for example just need an extra pair of hands. Some people need more emotional support, some need a bit of help every week just getting on top of the housework or washing. Some need help at hospital appointments or need you to mind the children so they can attend appointment for themself. Some need help to go to toddler group as they have a child with a disability. Some need a mixture. Some need help planning their time better or being helped how to plan to cook or actually cook. Some people need help budgeting. It's a shame as a lot of these things were covered by sure start centres. We are trained in the freedom program too and can also 'signpost' (hate that word) to other agencies. Most Mums though are just isolated and lonely and lack in confidence and I think partly this is because people no longer live near their extended families. Seriously, if you have time on your hands to help volunteer to work with families or at the foodbank (ours do cookery classes for example and craft classes and quite a few of you seem very good at crafty stuff!) it is worth doing. It's much better than sitting on the sidelines judging others for not coping or not having resilience. Your local authority website should have a list of charities you can volunteer too and obviously it isn't limited to families.

I agree with those who are sympathetic towards her account and accept its validity ( both factually and emotionally in terms of how she felt). It’s not really on to compare experiences 50 years ago. But what’s really surprised me is that no one ( unless I missed it) has mentioned what she said about how the CBT had really helped her and she wanted other young mothers who felt like her to know it was available. She sounds like a lovely young woman, not a snowflake, and I wish her snd her lovely baby much happiness .

I think if we are talking about support from society for those struggling with very young children, (both pre and post covid);the most useful support I have seen is individual family support, but it has to be done well and that not easy.

Nell I hope I’ve given my DDs and DiL both practical and emotional support.
Both depend to a certain extent on proximity, but include cooking meals, doing laundry, giving baby bottles when staying overnight, taking baby out in pram to give the mother a chance to rest or just some time to herself. Obviously all those things have been variously affected by lockdown but I’m referring to what MrA & I did a few years ago.
By emotional support I mean being sensitive to the mother’s needs & wants - being there to listen but also being sensitive to the need of the mother to feel that she’s coping and able to rely on her own resources & encouraging self-confidence.

I'd like to ask people what this support looks like - where does it come from, who provides it, what does it set out to achieve, how can its success be measured? Is it warm and fuzzy or robust and challenging, is it a tool kit or protection?

Or is it just anyone else's problem but 'mine'?

We bandy this about all the time, I do, most people on here do, but what do we actually mean by it?

Is this a snowflake who should “ man up “ or should we be concerned about how the next generation is failing to cope?

Neither. Some people are less resilient than others, whatever their age, it’s not something they have control over. Many, like my DD, who gave birth early by C-section in April, have coped really well and been able to focus on the positives, such as having more quality time with her partner and baby, but lockdown mums have had it hard, no question. With challenges above what was the norm back in the day. No partner at the birth used to be quite usual, yes. But not having a single visitor while in hospital or even when at home again never was. Knowing there’s a ward full of Covid patients down the corridor wasn’t. Having no midwife or health visitor aftercare, or a baby clinic or mother and baby group to go to with any worries wasn’t either. Your mum not being allowed to hold your baby for months, when she lives a few miles away and is longing to. And of course for single mums, those trapped in bad relationships and those with poorly babies it will have been so much worse.

I think most new mums have coped admirably, but I’ve every sympathy for those who have struggled, as I have for anyone else badly affected by the pandemic, and hope they manage to get the support they need.

I think it's not as eezybee says for many of us..
I think the experience would fade into the background, like childbirth itself.
Childbirths, like deaths, are not things that "fade into the distance" for all of us.

It doesn’t help to say ‘it was different back then’, even where things which have upset her were the norm-no one with you on prenatal visits, husband away at sea for birth, nearest family 70 miles away.
This time has been difficult for all of us, some more than others and I hope she gets the support she and others feel they need.
Does it help though, to immediately associate stress over one issue with a future full of mental health issues? I’m with Sodapop and Blossoming on moving on.

It was a completely different experience being pregnant and giving birth forty or fifty years ago. Young people now have different expectations so it's not comparable.
This pandemic has been difficult for everyone and an unknown for medical staff, everyone tried to do what was best to keep mothers and babies safe. Retrospectively some decisions were probably not in their best interests but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I agree with Blossoming their concerns should be addressed but ultimately they have to move on from this strange period in all our lives.

Ultimately they may have to get on with it, but their concerns should be listened and addressed.

Janeainsworth
That’s lovely to hear

Hithere strangers don't owe her empathy, but they can choose to give it or not. If I require empathy I go to my support network with my issue, if I require opinion I go public. No one gets to cherry pick other people's thoughts on a subject if they put their issue into the court of public opinion. So it depends what she wanted really, opinion or approval.

It's not an ideal situation, I feel sympathy for her and would want a better experience for all in her situation. But...I think people would cope better with life's inevitable difficulties if they grew a thicker skin, they can have a moan when things are difficult. But their MH is their responsibility as soon as they become adults, working on it increases resilience and puts the locus of control back on the individual rather than on a 'cruel world' that can't be mastered.

Sara a loving supportive partner and a lovely baby are certainly positives in my opinion

The joy that DGD3 has brought not just to her parents and grandparents but to our wider family too has certainly outweighed the negative effects of the pandemic for us all.

Spot on Annsixty.

Janejudge
You are right of course, having a baby can be a very isolating experience, with my first I knew nothing at all, I didn’t just think I was incompetent, I was incompetent. I was on my own, and I had a little practical help, and certainly no emotional help.

I never like to think about young women struggling with babies, but I do think at the moment, we have to accept that we are all affected in some ways, and we have to look at the positives, a loving supportive partner and a lovely baby are certainly positives in my opinion.

Yes, the experience described in the news piece is very valid

She is one case and does NOT represent a whole "young people generation"

Instead of getting empathy, she gets judged

Plenty of threads on this board could also use the same approach as described in the title.
How many threads about not being able to see the grandkids and made the op sad?
How many threads of living alone and not having human contact while in lockdown?

It’s hard to separate out the effects of lockdown from the effects of giving birth and post-natal depression.
My DGD3 was 5 weeks old when the first lockdown started. It affected us all, but obviously DD and DGD the most. We supported them as much as we could, in keeping with what was allowed at the time.
Not a snowflake thing at all.

Calendargirl echoes my experiences. One thing everyone should know - you cannot plan a baby's birth!! My DD2 EDA was 21st December, my mother though I was unreasonable letting it be near Xmas, she was desperate to come to 'help'. She complained she couldn't book her train ticket if I couldn't tell her the date!!! (she had 3 of us, she should have known)
Finally she informed me she was coming 12th December, I'd had hospital appointment that day and was told I was nowhere near. We picked mum up from the station, had a meal and settled for the night. Shortly after, my waters broke, we informed mum that she would have to look after DD1 and went to the hospital (which was about 10 miles away). She was born at 5 am (without DH being present. She's never been particularly happy with a near Xmas birthday, but she's forgiven me!

I am doing the college run for my daughter at the moment and as it is the same time every day I seem to be seeing the same people at the same times out and about. I think partly this is because she lives in a town and I live rural, so I am just noticing more people. I keep seeing new Mums with babies in prams and I was thinking how difficult it must be for them at the moment. I found having a baby quite isolating, especially my first two. I felt like everyone else knew what they were doing and I was useless. I also had ALOT of support of my health visitor during the first few months of my daughters life because she wouldn't feed and didn't grow (she was later diagnosed with a disability) I thought I would have have coped better if I had have been older, an older Mum would cope better than me. Luckily though support systems were open, I could go to the clinic and just chat to a HV and my next door neighbour would sometimes take the pram out for me. I had a few nights out (shock horror) I still felt sad and lonely and isolated, I still felt like I struggled. Was I snowflake? Or am I just being honest? I have supported alot of new Mums through our local authority and most of them just need to know how they feel is normal, not all women cope as well as others but sometimes some new Mums are actually coping really well, they just don't have any belief in themselves, they may be dealing with a baby that wont sleep, a relationship break up, financial difficulties, health worries, health worries of a parent, the list goes on. Life is complex, people are allowed to feel how they feel and I have alot of sympathy for new Mums atm, I imagine it is really hard.

'Man-up' is rather a silly phrase to use about pregnancy and giving birth, isn't it, and 'getting on with it': there is no choice.

I wouldn't call this specific case evidence of the snowflake generation, but equally, after giving birth to such a lovely baby and having a supportive partner, I think the experience would fade into the background, like childbirth itself. Nothing else could have been done about it.

I’m not in her shoes so can’t feel how she feels. This lockdown has affected everyone in so many ways and we all have to learn how to deal with it. Some will cope better than others. I’m of the generation where we just had to suck it up and get on with things. I still struggle with things on my own. I wish I was able to share my problems and get help but I hold back as I don’t want to burden others when I know they have their own troubles.
This generation have been raised differently to speak out when something affects them. Maybe this is better. I don’t know.
Not clear though why she has to share her troubles with the media when she does have a supportive partner, and a healthy baby at the end.

I agree that it would be insensitive to tell any young woman to ‘just get on with it’
But this pandemic has affected almost all of us, people have lost family members, lost jobs, children have been very badly affected by missing school, older people have been isolated, some people losing a precious year, when there aren’t so many left.

So I think we all have to try and get things into perspective, and accept that nothing much has been what we would have chosen, but at least we’re still here, and things are getting better.

NotSpaghetti I'm with you on this one. There has been a great deal of criticism from both midwives and support organisations like the ARM of the way maternity services have been provided during the pandemic. Its no good saying "we did it this way and we were alright...." When we know better, we do better and women have been badly let down by unnecessarily restrictive practice. I hope things are better when and if my next, much longed for grandchild arrives.