I asked my doctor for my tubes to be tied when I was 25 years old. I didn’t want children. I was sure of that. She told me no I was to young and to come back when I was 28 years old when I had grown up some more. At the time I was pissed it was my body I should be able to do as I pleased but she said I was young and would change my mind go on the pill instead. I’m not sure I would have changed my mind but me being me back then never sought out someone who would do as I asked- thankfully.
How is it then we came to have children? After a ‘loss’ my husband revealed he would like to have children and so we were in tears he and I except our reasons very different. I loved him and so its to him I have to thank for the life I have for the person I now am and unusually that statement that I have him to be thank for my children is not dripping with sarcasm.
The result? I’m not a natural mum I really struggle with it but I am a good one {I think; most days}. I work really hard at it and sometimes I go over board because I’m trying to compensate for that feeling that doesn’t come naturally but having said that I think I’m pretty awesome at faking it til I make it. I see being a mum as serious business and so I can be hard but I do believe fair. I’m not naturally affectionate and sometimes I miss the point but I’m doing my best each and everyday. I am doing my best to make my children the best they can be with the knowledge and experience I have which for the first son can be hard. With the help of others we are getting there.
I love my children more than I love myself and without them I wouldn’t be who I am now and where I am today. Sure the person I could have been may have travelled the world own an amazing collection of shoes but would I be this ‘well rounded and happy’ person who I am today I don’t think so. I think that every day I am cleaning pee off the toilet wall how truly gifted I am to be experiencing this life of mine and yes sarcasm is drenching in that last statement. Mother hood, parent hood wife hood is not some romantic notion of easiness. It is far from some days you barely make it out alive. But everything and anything in life that is important worthwhile is ever easy.
However I have evolved with each child Im different to the person I was when I was single different to when I had B1, B2 and B3. When I first became a mum I was right in everything just as me and I would have told you that letting the TV baby sit your kids is wrong. That letting them snack on tiny teddies good lord someone call child protection services..your kids singlet not bright white..gasp how could you do that to your child. I would have told you as you stood there desperately tired and three kids at your feet. Instead of saying hey can I take those cherubs for you for a while. I was that parent. I was that type of mother the ones you have a name for. However three kids in two bouts of exhaustion later and many mistakes made I am now I am that parent who will stop and ask if you need a hand when your kids is throwing an all mighty tantrum in woolies rather than mutter under my breath your really need to show them some discipline.
And whilst I do have trouble remembering who Debbie was exactly I do remember at times she was arrogant, ignorant and devoid of black and white. She was staunch on her opinion and swayed little. She was popular but perhaps for the wrong reasons. I still hold opinions on certain things but they now come with experience not with what I read in a book or from someone else ignorance. Mistakes I didn’t own them was embarrassed by them. Lessons I should have learnt were others mistakes and I was wearing their consequences. I was selfish and rude.
I didn’t really like myself and had no clue what I stood for.
Do I like myself now. I am a work in progress but then who isn’t it? I am now however one of these people who sees a lesson in everything I wasnt always but mother hood taught me that. It taught me reflection, patience, mother guilt and how to let go. It taught me what is important. How to love and listen properly. It taught me all sorts of ‘stuff’ that Debbie pre children would have thumped her nose at; touching someone else poo being one of them. Being a mum as well as Debbie is now a part of me.
So it’s that reflection that I have learnt that I understand now how that doctor didn’t mean age as numerical position life she meant as a person. Being a mother altered me as a person I could go to the extreme and say that at times it was the swift kick I needed on becoming me.
xDeb
