I never wanted to be a mother.
As a girl my imaginative play never included weddings, babies, or boyfriends. I used to line up my collection of dolls from around the world and stage my very own lilliputian Miss Universe Pageant. I even made paper sashes for all my dolls and made a microphone out of bits of cardboard and tin foil. I’d scavenge around the house looking for scraps of fabric and ric rac to hand sew Barbie clothes. I cut out photos from magazines and glued them to the walls of my shoebox Barbie house, drawing intricate frames around those images that were to be Barbie’s artwork. I spent hours dressing my Barbies, ignoring Ken who had been relegated to Skipper’s babysitter. When I was a bit older I spent my time inhaling books and writing. Short stories. Poems. Letters. I wrote over the top gloppy, cheesy rhyming poems that would make the most treacly romance novel sound like it came from the brain of Diablo Cody. I was forever agonizing over unique words that rhymed with love. I mean, dove, glove, and of could only go so far in my seventh grade repertoire.
I wasn’t much of a babysitter and I really didn’t know babies and young children. I didn’t grow up with the high jinks of cousins reveling around the kids’ table. I didn’t even have friends with young siblings. I suppose I simply didn’t have exposure to kids so I never grew up with the yearning to have my own.
After Mac Daddy and I were married a few years and had each finished graduate school, we decided quite cerebrally that we better get rolling if we wanted to have a family. Age 35 was looking us both square in the eye, but we kept turning our glance askance. We figured that Time was not on our side so we might as well get on with it. It’s not that we made the decision lightly but we made the decision more for practicality’s sake than anything else. And we agreed to not pursue Herculean efforts should things not go our way. I joke that not only was my biological clock not ticking, it wasn’t even plugged in.
And Luck graced us.
Twice.
Effortlessly.
Now that I have my sons, I cannot imagine my life any other way. I don’t know what else could be as rewarding and fill my whole being with as much wonder and love. Parenthood is no walk in the park. Scratch that, as there actually is quite a bit of walking in the park. What I mean is that being a mother is not always delightful. There are times I sunk to new lows and didn’t know how to climb out. I find myself losing my patience over a load of ridiculousness. I yell. I sulk. Sometimes I just suck. I don’t even consider myself a great mom but I do know that I try. And I know that I love my children fiercely. I want nothing more than to protect them and shower them with a love so great they will always carry with them the warmth of Home.
What I realize now is that I didn’t know what I was missing. I didn’t have the kind of family memories that I couldn’t wait to replicate. I didn’t have traditions I wanted to pass down. The pictures of my childhood are not what Norman Rockwell painted. I grew up cared for and loved, yet I never felt cared for and loved. I simply knew this because my head told me so while my heart kept mum. Now that I’m a mother, of course I realize and applaud and value the sacrifices my parents made for us. I don’t take that lightly, but as a child, I was not so enlightened. Something was missing from my home.
Joy.
Joy is what I want Bird and Deal to feel wrapped in like a cashmere cable knit blanket with the fringe snaggled off a bit so it’s comfortably worn and not decoratively fancy. When they are long gone and think of Home I want them to be warmed by the pure joy we share as a family. Oh, there are plenty of rough times and lots of bitching, but overall, we have a dang good time here. I didn’t know that this is what Family felt like. I didn’t realize how muted my life was until Bird and Deal colored my days (and my walls, my duvet cover, my kitchen table…). I am thankful beyond words that God, the Fates, Mother Earth gave me life’s greatest mulligan.
This is my chance. My second chance. And damn if motherhood isn’t the most thrilling journey.
I never wanted to be a mother but I always wanted to love.
I could read your posts all damn day long. They are so well written and always from the heart. I love that you are honest even if you know it might hurt. I still struggle with that myself. I commend you for being the best Mom that you can be. Life’s not easy but if you know you are loved–and know that you love well–it sure makes it all worth it.
Ilina, WOW! Your story warmed my heart and nearly brought me to tears. Since I knew you and Mac Daddy before you had Bird and Deal and know them only through your writing, I wasn’t familiar with the mother part of you…one of the many parts that make you you. I admire your candor and am inspired by how you embrace, value and feed this part of your life. Bird, Deal and Mac Daddy are extraordinarily fortunate to have you in their lives. You are making a difference for the better that will be remembered for a lifetime. Well done, my friend.
Thank you for writing this. I am in a similar boat as you — I was quite proud of the fact that I never changed a diaper until the first one I changed with PunditGirl when I was 41! There was quite a lot I missed, too, I’m just not brave enough to put it here. But I can’t thank you enough for writing this … not because I’m glad that’s what your life was, but because I know I’m not the only one. xxoo
You are most definitely not alone. My friends were shocked when we announced we were having our first baby because no one pegged me to have maternal instincts.
Ah yes, you are one of the people who knew me when…when I had more ambition than mothering nature. Thanks for your kind words, Trent.
Dude, you make me blush. Thanks for making me feel better about what I write.
Loved this. I can’t imagine you NOT a mother, but that is the only way I know you. I alway wanted to be a mother, but never thought I wouldn’t love it as much as I thought I would. I love my kids and they bring such fulfillment to my life, but the joy of motherhood just isn’t what I thought it would be. Weird right how life surprises us?
Very very well said, and beautifully put.
I feel the exact same way. I had my son at age 38, he is now 13 months. I still can’t believe how more fulfilled life is with him in it.
Thank you for the post!
While sisters in spirit, we are opposite on the Barbie front. I played out elaborate story lines of family and love and finding love and making beautiful families and recreating movie endings about falling in oopey goopey love using my Barbies and various Ken dolls (and one GI Joe doll that was always Barbie’s dad). What kooky ideas I had about it all. So it’s a damn good thing I found both. But you are so right. No amount of Barbie make believe could have prepared me for the challenges of parenting. Wow. It is officially the toughest job I’ve ever had. Worth it a thousand times over of course, but nothing pretty or perfect or happily ever after. One day at a time and, pretty please, I hope I don’t screw them up. Fingers crossed.
Ilina, Chris and I were just hanging out with a few working mothers who expressed vast amounts of misery at the role of motherhood – we left feeling entirely deflated about the potential privilege of motherhood. We left and talked about how inspiring you are on the subject! We so admire how you have seemingly gracefully balanced work and mothering all with a dash of joy and heaping of love! Thank you for being an inspiring woman, mother and writer! PS. I constantly drool at the sound of your meals. Love, Charlotte
I’m with Caroline regarding the Barbie shebang. I loved playing out family storylines. I always played House with girlfriends, and never did it occur to me that I would ever become anything other than a mother.
Recently, a routine doctor visit brought up some concerns, and some routine bloodwork showed a hormone imbalance that Western Medicine says cannot be reversed, and that I will likely never have my own child. I know adoption is an option, and we hope to consider that too, but my entire life, I’ve dreamt of having a child ~ and with this man!
So now I’m looking off the beaten path of the West, and into Eastern techniques and therapies to restore balance to my body… and mind, heart, and life. I hope one day to feel everything you write about your children. I imagine holding my own, and what they may look like at different ages, and how funny it is that I know I cannot adequately imagine what my life will be like with them, I know that if I am blessed to become a Mother, I will never remember what life was like without them.
I feel blessed to read your posts, and this one particularly, to know God gave the perfect person those two children ~ so that they will grow up feeling Love and Joy and Family in an amazing way ~ a way that only you and Mac Daddy can show them.
Cheers to the Mamas, Papas, and Children of the Earth. 🙂