I was born in 71, in a liberal academic family, in a liberal academic town. I grew up with the idea that of course one could be a mother and also achieve things in the wider world. I absorbed this premise absolutely. I didn't know much about feminism till I got to college, but when I found out more, it reaffirmed this idea, and I was vaguely surprised - bemused, maybe - that anyone had thought it needed affirming. I understood it to be true the way I understood that seasons changed and that hurting people on purpose was wrong.
I've been lucky, and a child of my times: no one I've ever taken seriously has ever suggested any different to me. I've never had to argue this point, never had to deal with anyone questioning it. I know, in a vague kind of way, that not everyone sees it as settled, but that doesn't have any bearing on /me/.
And I've wanted children since I was about 11. Fiercely, consistently, nonstop, for just about 23 years. It's completely incredible to me, sometimes, that I'm turning 34 and there are no children in sight. And then I look around at my life and give thanks that there aren't. But I still expect to have children. I've always expected to have children, in addition to whatever else I want to do with my life.
So it came as a kind of a nasty lurching sensation in my middle a few years ago when I suddenly got an inkling of what being a mother would involve. Suddenly, *I* started to wonder how on earth I was going to be a mother and persue other ambitions at the same time. A small chink in the world opened up in front of me and gave me a glimpse into a period of years and years in which every single facet of my life would change and fall into orbit around that single overwhelming responsibility, that relationship.
I can't project. I can't imagine. My own childhood is not a good model for anything. I don't know what it will be like. I'm *scared*. I never dreamed I'd be scared to have children.
And so reading the things you write as you work through this in real-time is a small, slow-motion revelation for me. Piece by piece the picture comes together. I'm not all that much like you. My situations are different. My relationships are different. My experiences will be different. And yet, because you're real, and you're articulate, and you're aware, everything you describe - the struggles and the bits that come sweetly - help me put together for the first time a plausible picture of motherhood which is life-shattering and yet not destructive.
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Date: 2005-07-10 03:12 am (UTC)I've been lucky, and a child of my times: no one I've ever taken seriously has ever suggested any different to me. I've never had to argue this point, never had to deal with anyone questioning it. I know, in a vague kind of way, that not everyone sees it as settled, but that doesn't have any bearing on /me/.
And I've wanted children since I was about 11. Fiercely, consistently, nonstop, for just about 23 years. It's completely incredible to me, sometimes, that I'm turning 34 and there are no children in sight. And then I look around at my life and give thanks that there aren't. But I still expect to have children. I've always expected to have children, in addition to whatever else I want to do with my life.
So it came as a kind of a nasty lurching sensation in my middle a few years ago when I suddenly got an inkling of what being a mother would involve. Suddenly, *I* started to wonder how on earth I was going to be a mother and persue other ambitions at the same time. A small chink in the world opened up in front of me and gave me a glimpse into a period of years and years in which every single facet of my life would change and fall into orbit around that single overwhelming responsibility, that relationship.
I can't project. I can't imagine. My own childhood is not a good model for anything. I don't know what it will be like. I'm *scared*. I never dreamed I'd be scared to have children.
And so reading the things you write as you work through this in real-time is a small, slow-motion revelation for me. Piece by piece the picture comes together. I'm not all that much like you. My situations are different. My relationships are different. My experiences will be different. And yet, because you're real, and you're articulate, and you're aware, everything you describe - the struggles and the bits that come sweetly - help me put together for the first time a plausible picture of motherhood which is life-shattering and yet not destructive.
I'm grateful for this.