thoughts from the fence
A lot of my friends don't want kids, but I've wanted them since I was a kid, which is maybe weird. I remember scrolling through adoption websites, wishing I could take the listed kids home and give them a family – never mind that I was ten years old and younger than some of them. Girl, what?
For a very long time I worried I was not good with kids. I was the youngest in my family and I didn't have much exposure to many kids younger than me. I treated my few younger cousins as peers rather than people to look after... and I guess that's fairly normal given that our age difference was small, but someone with more of a caring instinct probably would have looked after a kid even a year younger than them. Anyway I started doing volunteer tutoring in college, then teaching part time, and found that I had nothing to worry about.
Still, as I've gotten older, my feelings about having kids have predictably become more complicated. It's easy to imagine all the best parts of raising a child when you know nothing else about the world, but there are so many other things to think about now. Can I financially support this kid, doing what I do for work? Can I give them a good life?
And I know now that I can handle a kid in a classroom for a few hours, but I'm not so naïve as to think that's proof enough. The primary caregiver has so much more responsibility, runs into so many more challenges. Can I be the kind of person my child looks up to? If their core beliefs and behavior are modeled after what they see in me, what kind of person will they be? Can I equip my child with the things they need to succeed in the world and the instinct to seek out happiness and fulfillment on their own? Can I raise someone who is a good person? I am not always patient or kind. Will I hurt my child in ways they cannot ever understand or recover from?
And, most often: Am I the type of person who can put major parts of herself aside in the pursuit of raising a child? Motherhood seems far more intensive than fatherhood by default. Fathers can be involved parents, but that's often a choice they make (and are lauded for). Mothers don't have quite so much freedom under society's scrutiny. Even handing your baby off to a nanny for a few hours to yourself can be reason for judgment.
Maybe I'm basing this on my own parents, but great as it's been for me that my mom is so devoted to her children, I noticed she didn't have the social life and liberty to pursue other enjoyments in her downtime that my dad did while we were growing up. She's picking up new hobbies now that we're grown, but sometimes tells me she wishes she had more friends. This makes me sad, and also scares me. Will I ever be ready to give up the things I've spent my whole life loving to put all my love and energy into something new?
Alternatively, would it be a mistake to close the door on something so fulfilling in an attempt to preserve the joy of just being able to do as I like?
I keep thinking that I'm too young to be thinking about all this, especially since I'm not even partnered up. But my parents had their first kid when they were a year younger than I am now, which is crazy to me. They had their second on the way when they were my age. Even back then, they were "early", but the fact is that people my age are getting started with parenting. I can't help but feel the time ticking as I hem and haw over this, and worry that once I've made up my mind, it'll be too late. At this age, I don't know if I'm still allowed to be unsure.
All this worrying is probably indicative of an unrealistic desire to get parenting exactly "right", even though I'm well aware it's impossible to be a perfect parent or raise a perfect child. I don't want to raise a perfect child, nor do I have any particular expectations for how my hypothetical spawn should turn out to be.
But I've seen regretful parents, parents who only wanted babies and not the free-thinking beings they'd grow into, parents who didn't think their decisions through, parents who'd been clearly ill-equipped to even handle their own issues let alone a child's – and I think, god, I'd hate it if my future kid had someone like that raising them. I want to do right by them. They deserve a good mom, and if I can't be that, I shouldn't have them.
But if I can be that – how do I know?