A life of our own choosing and parenting ... can they peacefully co-exist?

Ok …. here it goes. I am finding myself wanting to write more and more about the things that I think about A LOT and things that make me either deeply contemplative or deeply troubled. I could write blogs about gardening, and I suppose I will do that too, but the blog space seems to be a platform for deep dives into “stuff,” you know … the real stuff. The stuff that we all think but we’re afraid to post on social media. Truth be told, gardening has really been a pathway to deeper meaning and understanding about my life and the world in general, so it only makes sense to reflect on that here as opposed to just relaying the best and latest compost hack. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good hack, but I also want to dig in to hard topics, the ones that make us squirm a bit but also help us grow. The garden has helped lead me to so much growth, so it strikes me as rather banal to simply focus on the means to creating a garden. I find the more interesting discussion to revolve around “what are our gardens teaching us?”

I generally don’t love weeding because of the back breaking work of hunching over for hours, but I do love weeding for two reasons. 1) I love the satisfaction of seeing a space go from a mired mess of unidentifiable green things, to a crisp and tidy patchwork of an intentional flower schematic. 2) It’s when I let my mind wander and float in thought. Some of those thoughts are trivial and task oriented. “How many dahlia cuttings can I get by June?” “I need to get different socks, I hate these socks!” But then there are these other thoughts … like “I wonder if this plant can feel me pull the weed out of the ground next to it?” “I wonder if the plant is relieved because the weed is no longer hogging all the food from the soil?” “I wonder if I’ll ever love my body in my lifetime?” “I wonder why humans can’t live peacefully on this planet?” “ I wonder why money was created? Wouldn’t a barter economy be a better means to world peace?” And then … being a mother. I think about that A LOT. Why can’t women tell the truth about it? Why didn’t my mother tell me the truth? Would I have believed her anyway? If I’d been told the truth, would I have had my daughter? Married a man with two young children? Why isn’t there more written about this? Maybe I should? Could I really do that? Could I share a post about parenting that didn’t go on and on about how amazing it is and about how lucky I am? Could I? Would it make people mad? Would I get awful comments? Hmmmmm .. maybe yes. But maybe one thing I’ve learned from my garden is that time doesn’t wait and that courage and risk are always worth taking, even when it feels terrifying and the results aren’t what you expected. So here I am … about to take this moment to dig deep into reserves of courage and talk about motherhood. My version of it, my thoughts about it, my honesty about it and my deepest hope that someone who needs to read it, will find it and feel seen.

As a mother and step-mother, I feel compelled to start this by saying that I love my children. All three of them. I love them more deeply than I could have imagined and at times, the nature of the depth of my love for them feels frightening, you know the terror you get sometimes when you think of losing something you love that deeply? Like what would my life be. if they were not in it? It is a mindboggling level of connection, sometimes more than slightly co-dependent and perhaps even pathological, but it is something that most parents feel on a visceral level. It can be both liberating and suffocating to be honest … and women are not really allowed to be honest about any of it. And as I write this, I wonder too why I need to provide a disclaimer of my devotion to motherhood before I write about the reality of it? There is a VERY deeply imbedded feeling that many mothers have, including me. The feeling that “parenting has stolen my autonomy,” is intertwined with such shame that very few women actually talk about it aside from a passing eye roll to each other when their kids are driving them batshit.

There is little space permitted to discuss the weight of motherhood and that, by definition, it is oppressive. The burden of knowing that once you have a child, you are no longer the same person … ever. Women are thrust into intense caretaking that is unending, quite frankly, for the rest of our lives. Sure the demands ebb and flow, but we are never free of the weight, it just shifts on our body from year to year, but remains to be carried.

Of course we don’t want our kids to feel like they aren’t or weren’t wanted in the world. Of course we don’t want to make our children feel unloved. But when and where can we talk about it? Why can’t those feelings co-exist? These are the kinds of thoughts I have while I’m weeding, which is why I love and loath weeding. It’s hard, but it invites me to contemplate. As I do, I wonder … is it possible to loathe parenting and still love your child to the depths of your being? I say yes. I say yes and I say it is necessary to be able to talk about all of the competing feelings that are going on in our heads, but rarely uttered from our mouths.

There is the generally accepted responsibility that comes with parenting that is monumental but utterly undervalued. Our culture assumes you can swing it with a full time job, massive bills to pay each month and a house to keep clean and functioning so that the day to day needs of children can be met, (and that alone is no small feat). What about if you’re financially strapped? don’t have outside family support? happen to be a person of color or anyone that is not white and not male? Any of those factors, and many more, add on exponential stress to the parent load. It’s not easy for anyone, but it’s much harder for those without money and privilege.

I felt the stress of the parent load deeply when I became a parent. But I try not to forget the advantages I had. I was 32 years old. I was an attorney with a stable job, I was married to a good man with a stable job. We had a big house, two cars, supportive family and friends and childcare that was trustworthy. While expensive, it was affordable given our incomes. I had many many advantages and it was still SO HARD. Then it got harder. My ex-husband got a brain tumor when our daughter was 5 months old. He survived, but I became a caretaker to an adult and an infant at the same time. For obvious reasons, my personal experience of motherhood is inextricably linked to that trauma. But even without the added stress of my ex-husbands illness, motherhood had me feeling equal parts joy and dread at the permanence of my newfound “joy and privilege.” The first marriage eventually ended, the parenting however, only got more intense when I became a step mother to two more young children. That was an entirely new role and it compounded both the joy and the burden.

Life was busy, and there were endless tasks and responsibilities to meet the needs of 3 children. This isn’t news to anyone with children. It is an endless loop of tasks, deadlines, chores, appointments, drop offs, pick ups, cleaning, cooking … day after day, year after year. The ability to focus on “self” becomes a thing of the past, or a rare occurrence of a few hours of “treating yourself” once or twice a year. For most of us, the “treat” is never long enough or frequent enough. A fleeting taste of a life left behind. Would you go back? not likely, but there is a certain resentment that kicks in at the return to the kids and the realization that you are only allowed to sneak in moments of rest and reflection, the rest is spent on someone or something else.

One day … usually as the 40’s approach and you catch your breath from the survival years of the baby and toddler stages, you begin to wonder about YOUR life. Remember that thing you started in your 20’s? That aspirational life you dreamed about BEFORE becoming a parent? You find yourself wondering what life might look like if you try to honor it again. You dare to fantasize about what YOU need, instead of what your child needs. You catch yourself feeling guilty about it and you might even snap yourself out of the passing thoughts, but if there is any hint or yearning left about your autonomy, you begin to explore it. That’s what Tom and I did. We opened the door to wonder after coming out of the wreckage of divorces and the logistics of beginning a new life and family unit. But we went even further. We stopped just thinking about it; we did something about it. We knew that we needed to try to find a better way for ourselves even if it was unexpected, unconventional and unappreciated by our families and our children. We knew that not trying because of the kids, could lead to us to resenting them for keeping us from a life that they weren’t consciously demanding we avoid. Or were they? Or would they?

Farming intervened and what has happened is that we find ourselves in the unenviable position we thought we might avoid. You see … there’s a price to pay for choosing to put yourself back on your “to do” list after becoming a parent ... We are loving our career choice, our choice to work together, our choice to start a business, our choice to expand it, our choice to “go all in,” and our kids? Well, let’s just say that this year they have been less than enthused with our devotion to our new life because it’s pulled us away from theirs. Understandable? Yes. Irritating? Also yes. Fair? Not exactly when one considers the amount of energy and devotion that we have already given them. This is the challenge of parenting isn’t it? A thankless job for the most part. One that your government, your family, your friends and most other people will encourage you to do, not tell you the truth about, and then wonder why you appear to feel oppressed by it.

Humans are not bottomless pits of giving. There are limits to what we can do. We can not give all of ourselves to everything all of the time and then give ourselves some “self care.” It’s almost laughable. Something has to give and dare I say that it might have to be the kids. What do I mean? No, kids shouldn’t be neglected. That is not what I’m talking about here. What I am suggesting is that in order for our own lives to be fulfilled, the children in our lives might need to be … less fulfilled. This is an easier lift when kids are heading into adolescence and young adulthood, like ours are. With littles? Most parents are simply stuck. For ahwile at least.

I think our generation has been executing an over correction to the 1970’s and 1980’s parenting of our own childhoods, when “go outside and play” was the mantra of our parents. I don’t remember my parents ever feeling compelled to get on the floor and play with me or spend endless hours of barbie pretend time. The parents of our generation could never speak it, but quietly they saved something for themselves by not giving EVERYTHING to their children. Did we like it? Not exactly. I suspect we would have liked it more had our parents been a bit more engaged. At least I would have. I think generations since then have tried to parent differently but whether it has been better for the kids … the jury is still out on that one.

As a result of over correction, I think what we are starting to see is a generation of entitlement that hasn’t existed to this extent before. When you raise a child and you make everything about them, what are we teaching them? In the moment, they are happy campers. Who wouldnt be? By definintion, humans enjoy attention and connection. I can’t think of a child that wouldn’t relish being the center of the universe. But what about resilience? self sufficiency? disappointment? selflessness? empathy? Have we really done a better job of preparing our kids for adulthood by making our worlds revolve around them? Have we set a good example by forfeiting our own wants and needs for theirs indefinitely? Could it be that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction? Could it also be that the burden of parenting is felt more now because of the intense pressure we have put on ourselves to give our kids a stress free life at the expense of our own? Has it helped or hurt them? And what about us? Are WE more fulfilled in our own lives? I’m not so sure and I think it’s worth examining, with excruciating honesty. Maybe then there can be more room and acceptance (and less shame) for those of us that have tried to forge a different path and take our autonomy back a bit. It does not mean that we don’t love our children as much. What is does mean … is that we love ourselves too. And there should be more room for both, don’t you think?