Nick left an interesting comment under my post about kids – in fact, I’ll just reprint it here for anyone who hasn’t read it yet:
Ok Lisa, I could be making way too much out of this and that wouldn't be the first time for me. But, for the sake of debate and because I'm a father of four (4), I can't say that I completely agree with the concluding thoughts in this specific entry of your wonderful blog. Yeah, yeah, I know, they're your thoughts and comments and who am I to argue with them. But I did find it interesting how you managed to go from humorous remembrances about your baby-sitting experiences to what looks to be an implication that those of us who are parents must be so only because we now have a discarded desire to travel / see the world and who now function with a skewed view of our own children.
I think that's a bit of a broad stroke you've painted there or rather...a stroke that doesn't display the entire parental painting. There is more to this picture, perhaps.
First of all, let me say that my being a parent certainly doesn't qualify me as the expert here, but I do at least have the benefit of recalling what it was like and how it felt to when before I had kids to how it feels now after I've had kids...err...I should point out that I didn't HAVE them...my wife actually HAD them, I just HAVE them now...except for when I'm busy working or sleeping or watching TV or avoiding them whenever possible...hmm...maybe I know nothing here... Ahh well, Nevermind...
Ok, wait! So I can say this: Most parents I know still dream big and desire to go, do and see great things. They just now desire those things for more than themselves. The means and convenience to go and do is constrained by parenthood and this sometimes forces a "stay or suspension" of this wanderlust as you call it. I think for most parents, that desire is still very much alive...it's just put on a higher bookshelf for a time, father back from the front and harder to reach but still very much accessible. You may not want yours put away that far back and I understand that and can respect your honesty.
I would also like to comment about what you say is a parental skewed view toward our children. To me, the word skew implies...well, not implies, but really it says that we see our kids falsely or wrongly. It says that we see off-center in some way. I don't necessarily think so, not in the way you seem to be making a point about. Sure, I'll be the first to admit that most parents aren't always completely honest about our own children at all times and that we don't see them as other people see them and maybe that's simply what you meant there. But I think the more important point here is: I don't think it much matters whether your children are truly different when they're yours or not but what matters more is that YOU ARE THE ONE who's different when they're yours. I think that's the point. You feel different when they're yours.
I don't think one can ever for certain know how he / she will feel about being a parent until they're the parent of they're own child. Solely using your experiences and feelings from other parents' children and translating that as the final barometer of the feelings you'll definitely have toward your own children is sort of impossible. It'd be like trying to predict the amount of pride and satisfaction you'd have after composing your own work of art (music, literature etc) from the pride and satisfaction you feel for the art of some other artist. You can appreciate, understand - or not - another's work of art but you can't know it in the way you know your own piece. When it's yours and from you and part of you and created by you, it's just different.
I'm sure you're thinking...well Nick...this is all sort of a deadend, a trap, isn't it? And yeah, it is a trap I guess. If there's no way for you to truly know whether you're meant to have kids until you determine how you'd feel about your own kids, which would only happen if you actually HAVE your own kids then is the only choice to have the kids?? I DON'T KNOW. I guess you pray about it and go with where your gut leads you and be at peace with that. But, understand that it is quite possible to have no clue how you'd truly feel about your own kids until you have your own kids. It might just be very wonderful.
I do know this though. My kids love you. They think you're great. They say that your kind and sweet. You're very giving, gentle-spirited and patient. You're smart too. Sounds like a pretty good recipe for motherhood. Rick, on the other hand... LOL... kidding.
In the end, you know better than anyone how YOU feel. Sounds like you're making a wise decision by contemplating these things and I can respect that. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just giving you an alternate view.
Take care and keep up the great blogging. It's always a good read.
Now, the first thing I have to say is – Nick, you had the time to write a comment this long, and you STILL haven’t updated your own blog? :) (Nick is kind of like my writing kindred spirit – he’s the only person I know who can take one of my novel-length emails and reply in equal measure. This makes for some interesting discussions and lengthy word wars – it’s also nice to know that I’m not the only person on the planet who can write about a single subject for an extended amount of time.)
But moving on to the comments – the remark I made about traveling came from an article that happens to be sitting next to my computer, so it was something that sort of jumped out at me while I was writing. I probably honed in on the traveling stuff because I’ve always been a bit of a travel fanatic. For me, personally, traveling is one of the things I love most about life, and I’m probably never happier than when I’m out exploring the world. Not everyone is like that – certainly not every parent out there is suppressing a great desire to get out and travel. But Nick, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that for those parents who DO think about those things, “that desire is still very much alive.” And how difficult must it be to push that desire aside and save it for another day? Maybe not difficult at all for some people… but for others, it would perhaps represent a sort of defeat – a kind of resignation to the life they’re now obligated to live. Because you can’t put your kids on hold and run out to do something you’ve always dreamed or wished of doing. The kids come first – and if the dreams and wishes are eventually fulfilled, great. But if not, well, it just comes with the territory.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to travel with kids. My parents did it – we used to go on vacation every summer when Eric and I were kids. They’d rent an RV and pack everything up and drive across the country. (There’s a great picture somewhere of me when I was about two years old, up in the extra bunk over the driver’s seat of a rented RV, behind what looks like prison bars – my dad apparently fashioned some sort of metal bar restraining system, so I could play around in that bunk without falling out. But seriously – it looks like my parents put me in a cage. I wonder if I can find that picture…) And certainly the ability to easily drop everything and travel can’t be the only criteria one uses when deciding whether or not to have a kid. There are plenty of other things to worry about, as well.
But I have to stand by my idea that parents’ views of their kids is skewed – maybe that’s not a great word, but I think it conveys the right idea. Not in the sense that you see your kids “falsely or wrongly,” but like you said yourself – you see them in a different way than other people see them, because they’re YOURS. If you could somehow step outside your family and look in on them, your view would be different. Your kid might do the same annoying thing that someone else’s kid does, but it somehow seems different when your kid does it. (By the way, I’m just making generalizations… I’m not trying to imply that one of your kids does something annoying… but if I WAS implying that, it would have to be Abby. Abby is definitely the annoying one… just kidding. :))
And you’re definitely right about the “dead end trap” as you called it. There’s really absolutely NO way to know how you would react to having kids, or how your kids would react to BEING kids, or how anyone else would react to your kids reacting around them, without actually HAVING a kid. It could be wonderful, it could be horrible, it could be the best thing you’ve ever done, it could be the worst thing you’ve ever done. And sometimes that seems like an awfully big chance to take. You can’t return a kid to the counter of Macy’s once you have one. (You can’t, can you? I mean, I’ve never actually tried it, so I wouldn’t know for sure…) Of course, I suppose if you never take chances, life can be pretty boring…
Hopefully in all of this I haven’t made it sound like I hate kids or something. Because I love your kids, too, Nick. They’re great – they’re all really sweet, smart little kids, and I think you could have quite a talented singing group on your hands. In fact, I’d like to see your kids arranged on a stairway singing, “So Long, Farwell” from the Sound of Music. If you could organize that for me, it’d be great… :)
No comments:
Post a Comment