Friday, November 05, 2010
Parenthood
I did a talk recently for a local Moms group called MOPS and it was a great experience. Although my daughter is barely two years old I was definitely an expert on my topic...reluctant parenthood! I never wanted to be a parent because I knew that came with the kids! I remember being in college and having a conversation with our dorm janitor who looks like a member of ZZ Top and him saying something about getting married and having kids and I said “Oh No! I want to do what I want when I want!” He said “Well that’s how you GET kids!” I laughed but knew that I was NOT interested.
Some of you wanted to be parents out of the gate. You may have been babysitting when you were big enough to sit up and have another baby in your lap. On the other hand, some of you didn’t want any kids either and now they are in high school and you still cannot figure out how it happened. What I can tell you is that every parent is in a constant learning process and we are all in it together. We all make LOTS of mistakes and I’m pretty sure I am NOT getting the “Parent of the Year” Award this year. Or next. Half the time I have no idea what I am doing and the other half I spend reading parenting books while my sweet child falls off of things or eats the dog’s food. And you probably are not getting that Parent of the Year Award either so don’t get all smug!
It wasn’t until my late thirties that I met a man I truly should not let get away. John was everything I wanted and needed in a mate. Except John wanted kids! YIKES! We were dating and he explained that if this got more serious and led to marriage he knew I didn’t want kids but would I consider them? I agreed to consider having one...and then said he could barter for a second. We got married and I felt at home in my life for the first time. Being loved by John let me be weak, let me be sweet. His love for me opened my heart and gave my life a peace I never experienced before. With such a happy marriage little did I know I would be the one who’s clock would start ticking and I would start chasing him around the house trying to get pregnant a bit earlier than our agreed upon one year mark!
As a control freak I started charting my temperatures and doing anything else to increase our odds of getting pregnant. I was ready and attacking family planning like a professional goal instead of the miracle it is. We got pregnant the second month trying and were thrilled. When we finally got to the 12 week check up and went in to hear the heartbeat we found out we had miscarried at 8 weeks. My body didn’t seem to know, my belly had started to pooch out, I didn’t have any signals anything was wrong. We were devastated.
Any of you who have experienced this kind of loss knows some of what I mean...but if you haven’t it can be an awkward topic and that is OK. I have always been an upbeat and positive girl, so the depression, the helpless crying even weeks afterwards really took me by surprise. I am grateful I was able to learn some things through this sad time. Most importantly, I learned that I did want to be a Mama...and that the best thing I did for all three of my babies-the first we lost, Portia and now our pending, is give them right back to God. Life is on loan to us in any form, our own or our spouse, friends, children. I heard the quote “Becoming a mother is deciding to forever have your heart walking around outside of your body.”
The fear of making it through the first trimester the next time we got pregnant was immediately replaced by the fear something would be wrong with our baby...or happen to her later. I realized that in becoming a parent not only can you develop this ferocious love for another human being, but you also have the deepest fear and vulnerability imaginable. I don’t know how parents can stay sane without a strong faith. That (and lots of chocolate!) kept me going through the next pregnancy and this one too.
We had Portia and I don’t have to tell most of you what holding your child, adopted, delivered or otherwise does to you. What it does to your soul...to your toes. Before becoming a Mama I was so bored and disgusted with parenting conversations. Didn’t these people have anything else to think or talk about? I laugh at myself, at my pre-mamahood selfishness on a regular basis now. I openly mock myself at how fascinated I have become with Portia’s most mundane daily details. I could bore anyone to death with my cloth diapering evangelism, my breast feeding fervor and my theories about attachment parenting and baby wearing. Portia adds more joy to every day of my life than I could have imagined.
Now with number two in the oven I have a whole new batch of worries, wonders and yes, reluctance. But I know it will all work out. Some days will be good, some will not be my favorite. The Big Joke on the old Me is that parenting is way more fun than not parenting. It’s more everything, isn’t it? This little life has opened my heart and mind in so many ways I could almost be embarrassed at how I started out looking parenthood. Almost. The truth is I’m grateful to have learned the hard lessons because they make every day sweeter, every piece of knowledge deeper and the love for my family larger than my love for myself.
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A random pick from more than 460 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette
Heather Curlee Novak -- Parenthood / More essays by Heather
David James -- More essays by David
Elizabeth Van Jacob -- More essays by Elizabeth
Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
Jonathan Nashel -- More essays by Jonathan
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, Ken Smith, Heather Curlee Novak, David James, and Elizabeth Van Jacob.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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Recent pieces
Useful to Be Useless -- Is it better to be useful or useless? I can’t decide, and that’s a problem. I have the age-old drive to “do something” with my life. I feel compelled to be practical, to pursue realistic goals, and to turn my skills toward earning money or helping people. Those goals allow me to justify my existence. But I also feel the strong tug of uselessness. I enjoy creating for no purpose and thinking for its own sake. I could be a happy lay-about. But always that other drive to please people, to fill my resume, to prove my worth, to show my team spirit – that residual sociability keeps me from wandering away entirely. By Joe Chaney.
Good Eaters -- Reflections on the topic of food, brought about, no doubt, by this time of harvest and Thanksgiving, led to my reading Thomas Keneally’s recent book, “Three Famines.” In it, he gives a general overview of the physical and mental processes of starvation – pretty horrifying and unimaginable from where we sit – then writes specifically about the three hunger-events. Ireland in the 1840’s, Bengal in the 1940’s and Ethiopia in the 1980’s are the “three famines” of the title. Although seemingly unrelated as to world-area and time period, there is a striking commonality and it’s not the traditional “act-of-God” explanation. “Acts of God:” droughts, floods, etc. often begin the privations, but the human hand exacerbates the problems into a cataclysm. By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
The Excellence of the Long Distance Runner -- Consider cross country, the sport of choice for our family’s young athlete. That’s a 5000 meter feat of speed and endurance. At practice each day the teams run even farther, so on Saturdays they’re ready to race each other hard for 20 or 25 minutes. Near the end of the course they speed up because that’s the kind of people they have become, and they don’t stop until they have travelled the length of 54 football fields. By Ken Smith.
Bacon Before Husband -- Do you have a daily list? I don’t mean tasks for work or chores for home, I mean a Happy List. I have a Happy List running through my head most of the time. This list tends to be fickle and definitely changes with my mood. It is rare that something gets crossed off of it but I get immense satisfaction from my list just the same. My list makes friends laugh and strangers think I am...stranger. By Heather Curlee Novak.
“A feminist walks into a fraternal lodge …” -- Today’s story begins like a joke: What happens when a feminist walks into a fraternal lodge? The answer isn’t very funny, and it isn’t really about me -- it’s about who runs for office, and who doesn’t. But, yes, in this scenario I am the feminist cheerfully walking into the fraternal lodge, of the kind gently lampooned in The Flintstones as the Royal Order of the Water Buffaloes. By April Lidinsky.
South Bend Spring -- Would I ever think I’d find myself parting from one group of young adults yesterday, and then actually tearing downtown to join another? My knee-jerk reaction would normally be to slip into my hidey-hole on the third floor of Wiekamp Hall on the IU campus, or to run home—only three blocks—to read in solitude and eat Raman noodles. The first group—my first-ever class of college freshman English students—seem bemused at my political positions and ready to describe me as “professor,” but as a hopeless product of another day and time. By David James.
Call Me Bartman -- It’s that time of year when we wait in expectation of another World Series victory by the New York Yankees or the Philadelphia Phillies, while recalling (or trying to forget) another lost season in the sad history of the Chicago Cubs. Anyway, that’s the way Cubs fans talk about it. I don’t see it that way. In my view, the Cubs are the greatest team in the history of sports, and I wouldn’t change a thing about them. By Joe Chaney.
Autumn -- Have you noticed too? Can you feel it? Are you as excited as I am? After the wait of nine months for its rebirth, autumn is back. The real weather for football is here. The heat has abated, there’s a nip in the air, spiders are extruding blankets of webbing, and if you look up into the trees, here and there you see a bit of fall color beginning. Like so many of you, autumn is my favorite season. Time to clean up the detritus of summer – those only semi-successful tomato plants, for example – and to move on to the planting of crocus, bluebells, tulips and daffodils: the dreams of spring. By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
Casting the Bronze Bust of Dr. Lester Wolfson -- There on the floor was the hand-made barrel-shaped white plaster matrix into which the molten metal would be poured. Near it stood a small furnace with a hole at the top the size of your fist. A stream of yellow flames roared from this hole and had been roaring for a long time. The metal inside was now over 1000 degrees. The sculptor’s wife cautioned us, If anything goes wrong, don’t rush up to help, back away—if it touches you, the bronze will burn right through your body. By Ken Smith.
Complaint Department -- I have struggled to maintain the peace and raise my girls well, but the stress of my days often means by the end of each one I am not the sweetest woman to be around. I often hurl the myriad challenges of my day at my husband as soon as he walks through the door. Sometimes dinner isn't made and the house looks like a toy bomb went off and I feel guilty about it. When I try to explain how the day went down I think it is a lot more like complaining than anything helpful. By Heather Curlee Novak.
Mad Men’s Maddening Style -- Oh, the elegant style of the early 60s. For men: the narrowly tailored suits and knife-thin ties; for women, the pencil skirts with wide cinching belts, the clinging cashmere sweaters punctuated by pearls. Take a look around and it’s clear that this season we are mad about Mad Men – and not just the TV show. Suddenly, in the “ya-gotta-have it” world of merchandizing, the winking vintage sex appeal of the early ’60 is being cranked up to sell upscale mall clothing, batwing eyeliner, and even retro telephone handsets so you can have Bluetooth technology but still look like you’re answering the phone for Don Draper in a red-lipsticked whisper. What the heck is going on? I’m a sucker, myself, for vintage fashion, but I wonder why now – in this political moment – we are hungry for the style of those very conservative “men will be men” and “women will be objects” times. By April Lidinsky.
Mandala -- I remember that year as the spring when my dad roared down the driveway at our home near Emory University in Atlanta in a new Austin Healey, a roadster, the proper name for a British rag-top sports car. This one was red with all the trimmings and served as waterproof glue for the closest period of bonding between a father and son. I say “waterproof” because the top on that car was a tight fit from the start, and had maybe fifty snaps to secure it around the cockpit; and of course after a couple times getting wet it shrunk, so there it stayed, behind the back seat squab—British for the seat’s backrest—for seven years, molding in peace. When it rained we got wet, so we cultivated raincoats and laughing. I didn’t mind a bit. By David James.
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