I was talking to an, as of yet, child-free friend the other day, when the question came up, "When did you know you wanted to have kids?" A pretty personal question.
Most people have a rough estimate of the time period such as, "Oh, around our second year of being married", but not me. It was October 28, 2000. I was 27 and H and I had been married for three years. It was a beautiful October Sunday and we had spent the day doing various harvest-y things that child-free people can do like go for long quiet walks enjoying the fall foliage and having a leisurely outdoor lunch. It’s strange really. I always thought that the desire to have a baby would just hit me like a lightning bolt one day, that I would become a woman possessed with baby lust, walking into the Baby Gap to check out the latest in pint sized bomber jackets. It hadn’t happened yet, and I was even beginning to wonder if I would ever want children. I had been around babies my entire life, coming from an extremely fertile Irish Catholic family. Babies are cute and all, but before that Sunday I could take them or leave them. I thought that someday, probably around my thirtieth birthday, I would feel that lightning bolt come searing through me. It didn't happen that way. It was more like having a craving for Chinese food, "You know what I could go for right now? A baby."
The bigger question though, is why? What drove me, on that particular day, to decide I was ready to be a mother? Well, eleven years, and three kids later, I still don't know. When you think about it, parenthood, on paper, has very little to recommend it. When you choose to become a parent, you are selecting to give up most of your free time, sleep and disposable income. You are choosing to create for yourself a gaping whole of need that, hopefully, will be filled in eighteen years, but more likely never.
H and I went to see The Change Up, a "body-switch" movie about two male friends, one married with three kids and one single. During the film, there is a "happy montage", where we see footage of each man enjoying the perks of the life he does not lead after he has gotten the hang of things in his new situation. We see the single guy in his married pal's body killing it, changing diapers and successfully bathing and bottle feeding twins, and slinging healthy items into his cart at the grocery with swift accuracy. We then see the married guy in his unattached buddy's body cheering at a baseball game on a beautiful day, drinking a beer, rollerblading through the city and reading at a cafe. If a good diaper change and not forgetting to buy milk are the high points of Door #1, um, I'll take Door #2 please. Who would choose to do this?
On its surface, it seems incredible that any of us willingly become parents (some of us have been surprised, if the results of not using a condom can be called a "surprise"). OK, maybe the first time you can blame on those Johnson & Johnson commercials. They are pretty persuasive. But times two, three, and what-the-hell-were-you-thinking four - what can explain it? Really, try without sounding like a Celine Dion song. Can't be done. To have someone to love unconditionally, for H and I to expand our love for each other (and stretch it to its breaking point). Makes you kind of nauseous, no?
I choose to think of this indescribability as a trait all too-good things share, like God, and why good bagels can only be made in New York. They are just because they are. I wanted to have a baby because I wanted to have a baby. I can never explain why, I just know I'm so glad I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment