Thinking about identity: Being a Mother

[pegkerr]

I grew up in a happy and healthy family. My parents were really terrific parents, with a strong marriage, and I feel lucky to come from a background that gave me such a good foundation. Oh, we had the usual troubles, and sibling spats, but we genuinely enjoyed each other, and I have many great memories of sitting around the table at dinner, arguing cheerfully or going off into gales of laughter. There was nothing about my family of origin that made me feel, yuck, I don't want to have kids myself. On the contrary, Rob and I discussed the possibility of kids before we married, and were pleased to learn we were on the same wavelength: we both wanted them.

We were married for six years before we started our family, waiting two years past the point I would have been happy starting, because of financial reasons. Once we went ahead, we had no trouble conceiving--although we nearly had a tragedy with our first pregnancy. I was mistakenly told I had miscarried the baby (I had been bleeding and cramping). When the tissue didn't pass as expected after twelve days, I went in for a D&C. My doctor (and I will always be everlastingly grateful to her for this) decided to do one more pregnancy test, just to be sure--and we learned, to our astonishment, that I was in fact still pregnant.

Delia's pregnancy was much rougher on me: I got very sick with a virus halfway through that flattened me, I got an internal infection, I had hives all over my body, and I walked with a cane for the last four and a half months because the pregnancy seemed to utterly unhinge the ligaments in my hips and I literally couldn't walk without extra support. But both deliveries were normal, with no complications.

I had seen my older sister birth and raise her kids years before I embarked upon motherhood myself, and I'm grateful for that, because it helped to have an idea of what to expect. It's true, however, that it's only an idea: actually experiencing parenthood for the first time is an amazing experience which you can only understand by going through it yourself.

Two things that struck me especially about conceiving a child and carrying it to term: the first was I had never really thought about the fact that in the most intimate possible relationship that a human being can have with another human being (where you are literally carrying the other inside your own body) it is very strange to not know that other being's gender. I realized how much of our thinking (the way we actually use the language with "he" "she" "his" and "her") starts from gender awareness as the foundation. But I did all my gestational thinking about this new person I would be responsible for without knowing that person's gender. So when I thought "when I'm a mother I will hold my baby and ____" and I was forced, by my ignorance of that basic fact, to expand my thinking. This had never occurred to me before becoming pregnant.

The other discovery was the realization that the locus of my immediate survival instinct had changed in a profound way, to a place outside of myself. Guys, you may not always realize it, but women in this culture usually have a sort of security awareness operating all the time: we are walking in the parking ramp, or on the street, or into the convenience store, and we're thinking about picking up a quart of milk, but we're also thinking, on a subconscious level where are the exits? Do I have my purse tightly against my body? If that guy walking towards me lunges toward me suddenly, which way do I dodge? About a week after bringing Fiona home, I realized that my internal security monitor was not focused on me, as it had been my entire life up until now, but on this tiny baby I had to cart around everywhere. I realized that I wasn't so concerned with saving my life in an emergency life as her life. And if I had to choose between the two, I would choose her. Making this discovery tapped me into my animal-instinctual brain, which I hadn't entirely realized was there. Becoming a mother suddenly made me hyper-aware of myself as an animal, with heretofore deeply buried but suddenly powerful instinctual urges, in a way I never had been before.

I think I have personally avoided taking "sides" in the so-called cultural mommy wars. I don't think of myself as invested in one path over another, i.e., in a hostile camp opposing women who have made different choices than I have, like kiramartin who stays home with her kids, or kijjohnson, who chose not to have children at all.

As important as I believe my job is as a mother to my girls, I am not satisfied with thinking of that as my be-all and end-all: that my purpose in life is raising my girls. I want to be an independent person with my own vocation, apart from shepherding them to adulthood.

I think, on the whole, that in a lot of ways I'm a pretty good mom. I want to be, which is half the battle right there. I read to them, engage them with a lot more in life than many American parents do. I talk to them with respect, I don't hit them, and I am trying to find ways to teach them what they need to know to make their own way in the world. As a feminist, I am trying to inculcate in them the sense that as women they can be powerful, that they deserve to be safe, that they should be taken seriously, that they can go anywhere and be anything they want to be.

What is more, I think that Rob and I make a good parenting team. One of the strengths of our marriage manifests itself in the way we trust each other to take over parenting when the other isn't there. He has always been deeply involved in their upbringing, a true co-parent, and the girls absolutely adore him.

God knows, however, I am not perfect. I have my own struggles with depression, which unfortunately too many times makes me too irritable and impatient with the girls. As I am hard on myself, I am afraid that sometimes I am too hard on them. I know that minnehaha B. has twitted me in the past about being slow at allowing them the freedom they need to become truly independent. I worry all the time about the scary things that they will have to face, things that never were an issue for me growing up. I was a pretty goody two-shoes kid. Will I keep my head and help them navigate the teenage years successfully if one of them really goes off the rails?

Rob and I always thought we would have just two, but when Delia was born, I surprised myself by realizing that I didn't want to stop there. Specifically, I longed for a son. It is still painful to me to realize that I will never experience that.

Comments

[aome.livejournal.com]

We swore up, down and sideways that we were NOT doing this paperchase thing again, that two was a great number, and if God chose to give us a third one, he'd have to do it the regular way. And now, despite tearing our hair out and being exhausted, we still have managed to sneak a sideways glance recently and go ... maybe someday? Maybe an older child once these two are school-age? But I suspect that's just the lack of sleep talking - it's hard to stop, I agree, no matter how determined you are beforehand, and I think that if we sensibly stop at two, I will feel some lingering sadness for whoever didn't join us. And regardless of the peace I've made with how we made our family, and recognition of the benefits and 'prices' of both adoption and birth, I still sometimes feel sad that we never got to do it the other way.

It seems (and I could be wrong) that at the heart of what's troubling you right now is a clash between what you saw in your head and heart for much of your life, and how things Really Ended Up. That's challenging for anyone, and it can be tough to figure out if you can still make it happen some other way, or if you need to reform the dream. (This reminds me of an allegory I read once, about having a disabled child. You dream of going to France all your life, you pack and you plan and you study and you get on the plane, and when you land, you are told "Welcome to Holland". First you must deal with your grief and disbelief that you will not go to France after all, and then you must learn to see all the wonderful things that ARE in Holland, and appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it's not.

However, having said that, and recognizing that it's a reasonable allegory - I think it would be damn hard to ever forget that loss, so I think that your wibbles over job and motherhood and identity in general, in those areas that are different from the ideal you had in mind, I think it's a perfectly understandable struggle. (As for me - I suspect part of my "I want to be a mom" as the sole goal was partly because there was nothing else I could think of that I *really* wanted to do, and if I was a SAHM, I didn't have to keep trying to think of something else. And I DID definitely want to be a mom, but to want nothing more for that reason is, well, kind of sad, really. I think it's great you want more for yourself.)

And now that I've rambled a lot and said nothing useful, I'll wrap up by saying I *do* think you're a wonderful mother, from everything I've seen, and I can only hope to aspire to that. I know when people tell me such things, I only think "Yeah, well, they don't really see me day to day" so perhaps you'll feel the same about my praise. But I *do* admire you, the way you go the extra mile to teach and shepherd your daughters, and they sound like they've responded beautifully.

*stumbles off to bed*

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

You expressed that shift of "center" so beautifully here. That all the survival/security skills at our disposal suddenly become displaced onto someone else.

As important as I believe my job is as a mother to my girls, I am not satisfied with thinking of that as my be-all and end-all: that my purpose in life is raising my girls. I want to be an independent person with my own vocation, apart from shepherding them to adulthood.

THANK YOU for writing this. It's so hard to explain this, sometimes -- that yes, being a mother is marvelous, rewarding, etc. but that only being a mother is not necessarily an end goal for me -- there are many, many other things I want to do, independent of motherhood and in some ways equally as important to me.

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Such a lovely post. You are so a writer. :)

[amethistdolphin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing, I jst hope when one day I have my own children I can have something like that.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

That was a great post on how you change from single woman to mother.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

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.

I'm grateful for this.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Rereading this after I posted it, I suddenly remembered the phrase a professor of mine used which stuck in my mind: "An appropriate terror."

There are things which are good and worthwhile and doable and rewarding, which it is nevertheless reasonable to approach with fear. They /are/ frightening. Not bad, just frightening.

Of course, he was talking about trying to interpret Hegel, but I really feel that the concept still applies.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

i want to comment on this, but i am not sure what to say. i think i just want you to know that it really, really touched me, and it made me think hard, and it made me want kids [which i do anyway, but some things make it rush over me more strongly - this was one], and there were those bits that made me say 'yes, exactly - wait, i'm not the only one?'... just lots of things, i guess. plus that i really appreciate and admire the way you put yourself out there. i am amazed that you can be so vulnerable and open when there are however-many-hundred people reading this. it's gutsy, and i'm impressed.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

A couple of things occurred to me as I read this. First, J and I attribute whatever success we have had in parenting in large part to one factor: we think about what we're doing. We don't do it because our parents did it, or because our parents did the opposite, or because the books say to, or because society expects it, or because of What Will People Think. I suspect that you and Rob also think about your parenting.

I know that we have always given our kids a lot more freedom and independence than some parents are comfortable with, and we have also allowed them to stay dependent and close to home more than some parents are comfortable with. That is to say, the four of them are different, and we have tried very hard to raise them by meeting their needs rather than our own. I don't mean not taking care of ourselves, having our own interests and activities, etc. I mean letting the kids be who they are, not some vision that we might have of them. We have strongly subscribed to the idea that the only lasting gifts we can give our children are roots and wings. And no two of them have needed the same amount of either, nor at the same age.

Something I'm not sure I ever thought of in quite this way before: I always wanted to be a parent, but I never specifically wanted to be a mother. I'm not sure what that means, but it's so.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this, I really enjoyed reading it.

With the exception of the last sentence, the first paragraph could just as well have been written about me :) DH is not quite as keen on having kids as I am though, but I'm hoping that'll change.

From reading your LJ, I'd have to say that it sounds like you're succeeding in being a good mother. You're one of the people I'm going to use as a role model once I become a mother myself anyway.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I'm 44, and moving OUT of those years (kicking and screaming, I may add). I still feel there's another child I should have had, and I think that if the opportunity came up, I'd do it. It's not coming up, because of mostly physical reasons. But I still long for that unknown, unborn baby. It's coming up stronger for me now that my older son is planning on getting married.

[wildflower150.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing about some of the real life conflicts that mothers and mothers to be go through. As I am about to embark on motherhood next month I have found myself thinking of many of the same things you have brought up and thought I may have been alone with my thoughts since no one around me who is pregnant seemed to understand what I meant when I talked about the scary resposibilty of raising another human who is responsible, confident, caring etc.
Thanks again for all of your entries on real life.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

And then there are those of us who for various reasons didn't get to have that first child, and at the rate things are going, will never have physical children. And with my health issues, no adoption agency would give me one.

So, as much as you miss the son you never had, rejoice in your wonderful daughters, and in such a great and supportive father for them, such an outstanding lifemate for you.

The slightest turn of the dial, and it could have been very different.

When I weep for Arwen, it's because she makes her choice, and leaves behind everything she has ever known. And she has what she wanted, but for such a brief time... When I weep for me, it's for what might have been, had I chosen differently.