The Ambivalent Parent

I was never sure about having children. I always imagined getting to a point when I would “know,” as they say. But we never arrived at that perfect moment. I always thought, we need to make more money, we need a bigger house, we need established careers, the list goes on. All these things that needed to be neatly in place never quite were. I’ve also enjoyed our freedom…traveling, eating out, doing what we want to do when we want to do it. At the same time, our window of opportunity has been shrinking exponentially…

I feel like most people don’t give much thought to becoming a parent —they just have children and work out the details later. I always resented this. How can you have children if you can’t afford to take care of them? If you don’t have time to give them the attention they need? In our society, becoming a parent is a given, it’s expected even. I resent this attitude, and the strange looks I have received when answering no to that dreaded question, “Do you have children?” Once, while getting my hair cut, a couple of women took this even further and asked me what I did with all my free time. Did I manage to keep myself busy, even without children? I resent the attitude that not having children somehow means you can’t or don’t have a busy, productive, meaningful life.

Every day I’m confronted by reasons not to have children. For example, we live in a world where a female Ivy league graduate student could be murdered inside the “safety” of her own research lab (and in a cruel twist of fate, just days before her wedding). This story stuck with me. When this happened, I thought, really, who wants to bring a child into a world like this? Having a child means you have so much to lose, so much at risk. It makes me uneasy. Could I actually let my heart be that vulnerable? Do I have the courage to spend years raising and protecting a child and then release her into a world that could eat her alive, even in the places she is supposed to be the safest? Do other people even think about this?

I was 23 when my nephew Chris was born. Somewhere between baby and young man, during trips to the children’s museum and swimming lessons and Fourth of July fireworks, I had a glimpse of something I wanted. Something that was worth the risks and vulnerabilities. I watched my husband run up and down the drive way, holding on to the seat of Chris’s bike, until Chris could finally pedal away on his own. I remembered my dad doing the same for my sisters and me. I had the distinct feeling that—for us, at that moment—this was one of the most important things we had ever done.

I almost lost my mother when I was 29. Suddenly I was afraid of everything. Bears. Cancer. Heights. Bridges. You name it. For years I felt vulnerable, struggling to accept that we have no control over anything. But there was something about caring for a parent and seeing my parents’ commitment to each other that taught me something profound and unexplainable about marriage and family. I don’t want it all to stop here. I want more. I want to pass it on.

And so, we left our destiny to nature, God, the Universe, whatever name you’d like to put on it, and at the end of August, we are expecting a child. It still seems weird to say. And a little abstract (other than the fact that I’ve felt like puking my guts out every day for the past three months). And the decision to get here very winding and indirect. And scary. And someday, just like our parents, we will have to quit running along behind this little one, and just let go...