My Clock Was Ticking, So I Set the Timer and Got Max
I did not have a child so that I could see myself and Philip reflected back at us every day. I did not have a child because I wanted to be around babies. Nor did I have a baby to fulfill some ideal of the perfect life as handed to me by someone else. I had a baby because my hormones started telling me that's what I needed to do. It amounted to a kind of ache in the uterous, a kind of irrational emotional magnetic pull towards all things babies. A thickening in the blood. Does that sound cold and unromantic? I don't care, it's the truth. And as far as I can tell that's why most people really want babies, but no one wants to say they just had a strong urge becuase that doesn't sound like the kind of thing modern intelligent adults and good prospective parents would do. It sounds too primal.
Before I am a parent, wife, daughter, sister, or friend, I am a primal being. I am an animal who still functions largely on instinct. The further away from instinct I travel, the messier my life becomes, the less the life I live makes any sense. I can give you all kinds of reasonable explanations for why I wear the clothes I do, why I eat hearty meals, why I persue the interests I do, but underneath it all I am operating on a whole lot of instinct that isn't romantic, or cool, or necessarily intelligent. But it ensures I will survive. It ensures that if I don't survive, my DNA will be preserved in my offspring. Even though perhaps my DNA isn't the most top quality anyway.
I am supposed to say how wonderful it is to be a parent. I am supposed to selectively forget all of the moments of terror being a parent brings. I am supposed to shrug off the enormous responsibility that bringing a whole seperate person into existence entails. I am supposed to be starry eyed and shine in the glory of fulfilling my ultimate roll as mother. And I constantly disappoint all of those around me. Constantly. I will tell you that being a parent has made me see all the worst in myself through a powerful magnifying lens. It has shamed me, made me more exhausted than I ever thought I could be and still get up tomorrow again. It has filled me with a new level of horror at the bad things out there, the bad things that now can happen not only to myself, but to this person I put on earth with me, and am responsible for. It has filled me with the gravest sense of what it means to create, in a few moments of sexual gratification, a person who will now have to face about a million trials, only one thousand of which I can actually prepare him for.
I have lived with my capacity to disappoint those around me my whole life. I just don't tow the line like I'm supposed to. I don't say things that make anyone comfortable. I'm sometimes surprised I have any friends at all. I'm a great one for saying the diplomatic thing when asked to soothe another human being. But if you ask me for my opinion, if you remove the social handcuffs for even a second, I am sure to tell you what I really think. And what I really think aobut everything is generally unsettling for almost everyone. I am really tired of parents everywhere not saying how tired they really are. Give me your raw experience, stop trying to make it sound like one big fuzzy love fest. Having children is an intense experience.
It's possible that it isn't particularly intense for other parents. I'm saying this to be politic. I can see it in most parents' eyes. I can see them go through the same moments with their children that I go through with mine, and ten minutes later they have erased the most feral moments from their memory. I was about to say I wish I had this capacity, but in reality I cannot say I wish to erase it. I am not ready to cop out of being who I am just to help other people be comfortable.
So should I not have had a child? Do you think that if I don't have starry mother eyes I should have not answered nature's imperative call? I am first an animal. I do most of what I do by instinct. I use my intellect to explain my instinct. I love my child fiercely. Unfortunately for him, he's a lot like me. He's not going to make very many people comfortable with themselves or with him. If I didn't love him so much it would be easier for me to not feel myself rip apart every time someone hurts his feelings, or belittles him with careless things they've said. If I loved him less I would not feel the dangers he faces every day so close to my skin, leaking into every dream, making me panic that I will never see him become a man. If I loved him less I would be able to shrug it off every time my five year old tells me he wants to kill himself.
But I do love him that much. Life is messy. Life is full of tough choices, tough situations. I made a human being and am charged with helping him grow into a person who can survive cut-throat competition, hardship, betrayal, work, love, death, and maybe someday new life. He's no little darling. Most children aren't. They are immature people. Not little angels. They are at least half as "innocent" as most adults want to believe they are. They won't make you younger. They won't become who you wanted to become but failed. They don't fix relationships. They don't mend broken hearts or fill empty holes in your spirit. And I think it's dreadfully selfish for parents to expect children to bring them joy, to heal them, to make them better people. Children are our offspring and the world we bring our kids into is no less rough than the world cheetahs bring up their cubs in.
So why have a child? Because we are animals and procreation is a primal part of keeping the human race going. It's that simple.
You are wondering now if there's anything I like about being a parent? You are wondering how I can be so dire, so negative about this joyful step in a couple's life?
What I love about being Max's mom:
1. I love snuggling in bed with him at night talking about whatever comes to his mind.
2. I love holding him and kissing him. More than that I love it when he comes to me with hugs
and kisses I haven't asked for, it's magic.
3. I love to hear his laugh. I love to make him laugh. I love the moments when we can be silly
together and forget all his and my troubles.
4. Max has his own way of looking at the world, I love that I am one of the first people to hear
his ideas about how the world works, how he figures it went wrong, and what he'll do to fix it
when he's in charge.
5. I love the spontaneous moments of family life that having Max has brought to us. The kind
that happen when we're all hanging out and suddenly we're all goofing off together and
having a good time. Being in a group is soothing to most humans. I like that Max has made
us into a group, even if it is a small one.
6. I love to watch him shine. He's one hell of a kid.
I love being a family. There is joy in it, but it isn't quantifiable. Go ahead, have babies. Have as many as you wish. Just don't look for any stars in my eyes. I don't have any. Motherhood is way harder than any other job I will ever have in my life, and while I don't find it's filled with soft sweetness, I am happy I had my boy. Having Max has satisfied my need to parent. Having Max has allowed me to complete the circle of life that almost all people have the desire to complete. I know things about life I never would have known without him. Have your babies, you'll grow, you'll learn, you'll love, you'll anguish, you'll laugh, and you'll turn off the clock.
Before I am a parent, wife, daughter, sister, or friend, I am a primal being. I am an animal who still functions largely on instinct. The further away from instinct I travel, the messier my life becomes, the less the life I live makes any sense. I can give you all kinds of reasonable explanations for why I wear the clothes I do, why I eat hearty meals, why I persue the interests I do, but underneath it all I am operating on a whole lot of instinct that isn't romantic, or cool, or necessarily intelligent. But it ensures I will survive. It ensures that if I don't survive, my DNA will be preserved in my offspring. Even though perhaps my DNA isn't the most top quality anyway.
I am supposed to say how wonderful it is to be a parent. I am supposed to selectively forget all of the moments of terror being a parent brings. I am supposed to shrug off the enormous responsibility that bringing a whole seperate person into existence entails. I am supposed to be starry eyed and shine in the glory of fulfilling my ultimate roll as mother. And I constantly disappoint all of those around me. Constantly. I will tell you that being a parent has made me see all the worst in myself through a powerful magnifying lens. It has shamed me, made me more exhausted than I ever thought I could be and still get up tomorrow again. It has filled me with a new level of horror at the bad things out there, the bad things that now can happen not only to myself, but to this person I put on earth with me, and am responsible for. It has filled me with the gravest sense of what it means to create, in a few moments of sexual gratification, a person who will now have to face about a million trials, only one thousand of which I can actually prepare him for.
I have lived with my capacity to disappoint those around me my whole life. I just don't tow the line like I'm supposed to. I don't say things that make anyone comfortable. I'm sometimes surprised I have any friends at all. I'm a great one for saying the diplomatic thing when asked to soothe another human being. But if you ask me for my opinion, if you remove the social handcuffs for even a second, I am sure to tell you what I really think. And what I really think aobut everything is generally unsettling for almost everyone. I am really tired of parents everywhere not saying how tired they really are. Give me your raw experience, stop trying to make it sound like one big fuzzy love fest. Having children is an intense experience.
It's possible that it isn't particularly intense for other parents. I'm saying this to be politic. I can see it in most parents' eyes. I can see them go through the same moments with their children that I go through with mine, and ten minutes later they have erased the most feral moments from their memory. I was about to say I wish I had this capacity, but in reality I cannot say I wish to erase it. I am not ready to cop out of being who I am just to help other people be comfortable.
So should I not have had a child? Do you think that if I don't have starry mother eyes I should have not answered nature's imperative call? I am first an animal. I do most of what I do by instinct. I use my intellect to explain my instinct. I love my child fiercely. Unfortunately for him, he's a lot like me. He's not going to make very many people comfortable with themselves or with him. If I didn't love him so much it would be easier for me to not feel myself rip apart every time someone hurts his feelings, or belittles him with careless things they've said. If I loved him less I would not feel the dangers he faces every day so close to my skin, leaking into every dream, making me panic that I will never see him become a man. If I loved him less I would be able to shrug it off every time my five year old tells me he wants to kill himself.
But I do love him that much. Life is messy. Life is full of tough choices, tough situations. I made a human being and am charged with helping him grow into a person who can survive cut-throat competition, hardship, betrayal, work, love, death, and maybe someday new life. He's no little darling. Most children aren't. They are immature people. Not little angels. They are at least half as "innocent" as most adults want to believe they are. They won't make you younger. They won't become who you wanted to become but failed. They don't fix relationships. They don't mend broken hearts or fill empty holes in your spirit. And I think it's dreadfully selfish for parents to expect children to bring them joy, to heal them, to make them better people. Children are our offspring and the world we bring our kids into is no less rough than the world cheetahs bring up their cubs in.
So why have a child? Because we are animals and procreation is a primal part of keeping the human race going. It's that simple.
You are wondering now if there's anything I like about being a parent? You are wondering how I can be so dire, so negative about this joyful step in a couple's life?
What I love about being Max's mom:
1. I love snuggling in bed with him at night talking about whatever comes to his mind.
2. I love holding him and kissing him. More than that I love it when he comes to me with hugs
and kisses I haven't asked for, it's magic.
3. I love to hear his laugh. I love to make him laugh. I love the moments when we can be silly
together and forget all his and my troubles.
4. Max has his own way of looking at the world, I love that I am one of the first people to hear
his ideas about how the world works, how he figures it went wrong, and what he'll do to fix it
when he's in charge.
5. I love the spontaneous moments of family life that having Max has brought to us. The kind
that happen when we're all hanging out and suddenly we're all goofing off together and
having a good time. Being in a group is soothing to most humans. I like that Max has made
us into a group, even if it is a small one.
6. I love to watch him shine. He's one hell of a kid.
I love being a family. There is joy in it, but it isn't quantifiable. Go ahead, have babies. Have as many as you wish. Just don't look for any stars in my eyes. I don't have any. Motherhood is way harder than any other job I will ever have in my life, and while I don't find it's filled with soft sweetness, I am happy I had my boy. Having Max has satisfied my need to parent. Having Max has allowed me to complete the circle of life that almost all people have the desire to complete. I know things about life I never would have known without him. Have your babies, you'll grow, you'll learn, you'll love, you'll anguish, you'll laugh, and you'll turn off the clock.