Parents and children
Lately I've been thinking about parents and children.
One of my two closest friends just had her second baby, and I'm watching her take care of a three-year-old and a three-week-old simultaneously, and it's all very baffling and inspiring to watch. She is a mom, their mom, but she is still totally herself, the same person I've known since the age of 10. She still reads many books, likes celebrity gossip, is faithful to Gilmore Girls even when it has long ceased to deserve it, still likes peanut butter, still likes cheese, still speaks in the same evolving nickname- and abbreviation-riddled language with me that we have always spoken. How people change and stay the same after having kids is something that interests me. Obviously she has changed in ways internally that I cannot fathom, but in many ways, to me, she is exactly the same.
When you are fully grown, to what extent should you follow your parents' well-meaning advice? When it goes against what you want for yourself or what you think is right for yourself, is it possible to turn your back on their advice but not on them? Is it possible to go against their wishes for you and feel okay about doing that? I certainly feel okay going against my parents' political positions, I mean, I am not insane and firmly believe that they are wrong in supporting the ideals of the Republican Party and am not afraid to say it to their faces, loudly and proudly. (Of course, it's not so easy for me to denounce their religious beliefs. That's touchier and much closer to the heart. That runs deep with them, and I understand that, because it once ran deep with me. And still does, really, even if absent. Which might make no sense, but it's true.) But I adore them beyond measure and don't like doing things that I know worry them. I think that knowing someone who loves me is worried about me might be one of the worst feelings in the world.
Does that nagging ache of knowing your parents are worried about you ever go away? Do parents ever have a moment's peace from the day their children are born? How can you watch your children grow up and send them off to college when they could be blown away in their dorm room or in German class?
I think a lot about parents and children, about my friends and their babies, about my parents and my siblings and me. Do my parents wish they had grandchildren? Does it hurt their hearts that they don't and that God only knows if or when they ever will? Can any of us live with ourselves if we don't give them that gift, that part of life that they probably wish they were experiencing and would certainly be totally awesome at? Do they wonder why not one of us is married after 3-for-3 failed attempts, and do they wonder what is wrong with them that all of their friends' children have children and theirs don't? To think of them hurting over that is something that absolutely puts my heart in my throat. It makes me feel like projectile vomiting, really.
Anne Lamott has a lot to say about parents and children. She talks about how the reason that a teenaged boy becomes an awful beast toward his mother is that it's the only way he can distance himself from her so that it won't break his own heart when he has to grow up and leave her. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I guess part of why we separate ourselves from our parents, from their religious faiths or their political beliefs or how they would plan a wedding or clean a house or cook a meal or whatever else, is because we know that we have to leave them eventually, or that they will leave us eventually by getting old and sick and dying, and because that we think that being less connected to them and less intertwined with them will make it easier to lose them, for them to lose us.
It's thoughts like these that sometimes make me believe that I am in no way ready to be a parent and sometimes make me wonder how I could ever doubt wanting to have a child. Which is just one of the many contradictions in my life that make me feel mildly crazy.
And I wonder how other people think about parents and children.
One of my two closest friends just had her second baby, and I'm watching her take care of a three-year-old and a three-week-old simultaneously, and it's all very baffling and inspiring to watch. She is a mom, their mom, but she is still totally herself, the same person I've known since the age of 10. She still reads many books, likes celebrity gossip, is faithful to Gilmore Girls even when it has long ceased to deserve it, still likes peanut butter, still likes cheese, still speaks in the same evolving nickname- and abbreviation-riddled language with me that we have always spoken. How people change and stay the same after having kids is something that interests me. Obviously she has changed in ways internally that I cannot fathom, but in many ways, to me, she is exactly the same.
When you are fully grown, to what extent should you follow your parents' well-meaning advice? When it goes against what you want for yourself or what you think is right for yourself, is it possible to turn your back on their advice but not on them? Is it possible to go against their wishes for you and feel okay about doing that? I certainly feel okay going against my parents' political positions, I mean, I am not insane and firmly believe that they are wrong in supporting the ideals of the Republican Party and am not afraid to say it to their faces, loudly and proudly. (Of course, it's not so easy for me to denounce their religious beliefs. That's touchier and much closer to the heart. That runs deep with them, and I understand that, because it once ran deep with me. And still does, really, even if absent. Which might make no sense, but it's true.) But I adore them beyond measure and don't like doing things that I know worry them. I think that knowing someone who loves me is worried about me might be one of the worst feelings in the world.
Does that nagging ache of knowing your parents are worried about you ever go away? Do parents ever have a moment's peace from the day their children are born? How can you watch your children grow up and send them off to college when they could be blown away in their dorm room or in German class?
I think a lot about parents and children, about my friends and their babies, about my parents and my siblings and me. Do my parents wish they had grandchildren? Does it hurt their hearts that they don't and that God only knows if or when they ever will? Can any of us live with ourselves if we don't give them that gift, that part of life that they probably wish they were experiencing and would certainly be totally awesome at? Do they wonder why not one of us is married after 3-for-3 failed attempts, and do they wonder what is wrong with them that all of their friends' children have children and theirs don't? To think of them hurting over that is something that absolutely puts my heart in my throat. It makes me feel like projectile vomiting, really.
Anne Lamott has a lot to say about parents and children. She talks about how the reason that a teenaged boy becomes an awful beast toward his mother is that it's the only way he can distance himself from her so that it won't break his own heart when he has to grow up and leave her. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I guess part of why we separate ourselves from our parents, from their religious faiths or their political beliefs or how they would plan a wedding or clean a house or cook a meal or whatever else, is because we know that we have to leave them eventually, or that they will leave us eventually by getting old and sick and dying, and because that we think that being less connected to them and less intertwined with them will make it easier to lose them, for them to lose us.
It's thoughts like these that sometimes make me believe that I am in no way ready to be a parent and sometimes make me wonder how I could ever doubt wanting to have a child. Which is just one of the many contradictions in my life that make me feel mildly crazy.
And I wonder how other people think about parents and children.
posted by eliza @ 8:15 PM
4 Comments:
The thing about parents is that their overwhelming desire is to see that their kids are happy. It's that simple and that complex.
Wow Eliza, what a great, thought provoking entry. As both a parent and a child (do males ever truly grow up?? NO!!) I have sooo many thoughts and opinions on this one that it's just a jumble in my head. So I'm going to go sit and think about this, then maybe do my own entry in response. If & when I finish, I'll send a link along.
I actually had the "I feel pressure to produce a grandbaby" conversation with my mom, about 12 years ago before I was even married. She smiled and told me that as much as she and my dad would LOVE grandbabies, that I had to live *my* life and do what was right *for me*. Ironically, I was feeling pressure that my dad wouldn't live long enough to know my kids, and my *mother* ended up passing away before I got to that point.
She made me feel better, though, and it took a lot of the pressure off when she said that. Your parents clearly love you and your sibs - they will be happy whenever grandkids arrive, and will still love you just as much even if they never arrive at all. They just want YOU to be happy.
I totally know what you're saying there, though. TOTALLY.
I know how you feel...and I think so much of it stems from, for me at least, not wanting my parents to think that I am ungrateful for all that they have given me. Does that make sense?
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