i felt a ball of hair in my throat reading this and i loved every bit of it. just like how camp counselors psych you up to jump off a ledge or something, i think the real answer is: there will never be a definitive time to be ready. the closest you can be ready is knowing that there is a safe ledge you can jump off from into a whole new world. i’m doing my rotations in obgyn and everyone keeps hammering down the fact that women who are older than thirty five are classified as ‘advanced maternal age’. “complications”. “risks”. to me, there will always be a risk regardless of how much you pad your fall. it might not be my place to say, but i believe ‘maternal instincts’ are more nurture than nature — it takes practice — so there is no need to chastise oneself in perceiving you lack it. yes, motherhood isn’t a job you clock into or an item on the political agenda. it’s another shape love can take. everyone is born a child , no one is born a mother, you become one. regardless of whether you take the leap or not, nothing is indicative of your identity, semi-formed or not.
i forget who said it: a child lives once, a mother lives twice.
my recent piece considers the flip-side of this (and i would love it if you had time to check it out, it might comfort you or let you in on something different).
thank you so much! i know rationally that you are 100% right but the doubt is so paralysing - i had just sort of accepted that i am not very good at anything practical and so it isn't worth trying, even if it is something that needs practice. i love your work so will definitely check it out!
Florence & the Machine’s King too: ‘We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children / About the world ending and the scale of my ambition / And how much is art really worth?’
the brat "baby?" made me emotional in a teary-eyed way, which then made me deeply embarrassed alone in my unmade bed.
anyway, I feel the same as this article. I (knock on wood) am just bobbing like a buoy in stillish waters after a childhood and adolescence that was marked by so much screaming and crying and never being well or stable. but now I'm in college, and a girl I went to kindergarten with is getting married this summer. it feels so typical that I - or any of us - can't have a minute to pause and fix my posture before becoming a Real Adult and potentially (if it happens, FAR in the future) a wife or mom. insert something cruel and unusual about the passage of time. insert an old picture of my mom I saw that made me cry because everyone says I look more like my dad but in that digicam photo she looks just like me. life is crazyyyyyy stream the girl, so confusing version with lorde
This was an absolute pleasure to read 💕 I’ve been going through these same contemplations — feels good knowing I’m not alone it that. Also the ending was immaculate 💗
i'm glad so many other people feel the way i do about children, though i have the opposite problem that you do-- babies seem chill and easy, or at the very least less intimidating, but it's the child part of their lives (after the age of seven or so) that scares the shit out of me. that's when they have memories and personalities and when you can really do all the irreparable harm that you remember from your own childhood.
i think to me it's also intertwined with the religious beliefs i grew up with and the way motherhood was never presented as a choice but an inevitability, same as with marriage to a man. my rebellion against almost everything i was taught as a child, beginning with the realization of my queerness and the consequential fall out of my religious identity has shaken my ideas about motherhood for a while, and even now at twenty one i see it as a relic of that old life that i thought i'd have. anyways, loved the way you articulated it!
It's both scary and fascinating that we share the same notion about babies. When I think about it, I wouldn't want to have one either. I'm terrified to imagine what kind of things I might unintentionally do to the baby, mostly the bad ones. I already ruined my life, I can't do that to another human being as I feel like babies are too precious for this cruel world. Plus I don't even think I'm emotionally and mentally ready for having one. It's like expecting a fruitful basket from a rotten tree (which is me). I don't think I'm capable of giving love to someone when I can't even do the same thing for myself. I'll always see the baby as a part of my pain; an extension of my misery.
i felt a ball of hair in my throat reading this and i loved every bit of it. just like how camp counselors psych you up to jump off a ledge or something, i think the real answer is: there will never be a definitive time to be ready. the closest you can be ready is knowing that there is a safe ledge you can jump off from into a whole new world. i’m doing my rotations in obgyn and everyone keeps hammering down the fact that women who are older than thirty five are classified as ‘advanced maternal age’. “complications”. “risks”. to me, there will always be a risk regardless of how much you pad your fall. it might not be my place to say, but i believe ‘maternal instincts’ are more nurture than nature — it takes practice — so there is no need to chastise oneself in perceiving you lack it. yes, motherhood isn’t a job you clock into or an item on the political agenda. it’s another shape love can take. everyone is born a child , no one is born a mother, you become one. regardless of whether you take the leap or not, nothing is indicative of your identity, semi-formed or not.
i forget who said it: a child lives once, a mother lives twice.
my recent piece considers the flip-side of this (and i would love it if you had time to check it out, it might comfort you or let you in on something different).
thank you so much! i know rationally that you are 100% right but the doubt is so paralysing - i had just sort of accepted that i am not very good at anything practical and so it isn't worth trying, even if it is something that needs practice. i love your work so will definitely check it out!
Florence & the Machine’s King too: ‘We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children / About the world ending and the scale of my ambition / And how much is art really worth?’
yesssss i completely forgot about this one!
the brat "baby?" made me emotional in a teary-eyed way, which then made me deeply embarrassed alone in my unmade bed.
anyway, I feel the same as this article. I (knock on wood) am just bobbing like a buoy in stillish waters after a childhood and adolescence that was marked by so much screaming and crying and never being well or stable. but now I'm in college, and a girl I went to kindergarten with is getting married this summer. it feels so typical that I - or any of us - can't have a minute to pause and fix my posture before becoming a Real Adult and potentially (if it happens, FAR in the future) a wife or mom. insert something cruel and unusual about the passage of time. insert an old picture of my mom I saw that made me cry because everyone says I look more like my dad but in that digicam photo she looks just like me. life is crazyyyyyy stream the girl, so confusing version with lorde
This was an absolute pleasure to read 💕 I’ve been going through these same contemplations — feels good knowing I’m not alone it that. Also the ending was immaculate 💗
thank you so much ❤️
this is on my mind constantly as well. thank you for writing this ❤️
You'll be OK. If you do it you will be OK. Xx
i'm glad so many other people feel the way i do about children, though i have the opposite problem that you do-- babies seem chill and easy, or at the very least less intimidating, but it's the child part of their lives (after the age of seven or so) that scares the shit out of me. that's when they have memories and personalities and when you can really do all the irreparable harm that you remember from your own childhood.
i think to me it's also intertwined with the religious beliefs i grew up with and the way motherhood was never presented as a choice but an inevitability, same as with marriage to a man. my rebellion against almost everything i was taught as a child, beginning with the realization of my queerness and the consequential fall out of my religious identity has shaken my ideas about motherhood for a while, and even now at twenty one i see it as a relic of that old life that i thought i'd have. anyways, loved the way you articulated it!
It's both scary and fascinating that we share the same notion about babies. When I think about it, I wouldn't want to have one either. I'm terrified to imagine what kind of things I might unintentionally do to the baby, mostly the bad ones. I already ruined my life, I can't do that to another human being as I feel like babies are too precious for this cruel world. Plus I don't even think I'm emotionally and mentally ready for having one. It's like expecting a fruitful basket from a rotten tree (which is me). I don't think I'm capable of giving love to someone when I can't even do the same thing for myself. I'll always see the baby as a part of my pain; an extension of my misery.