Is it weird that I think so much about parenting while not being a parent?
So much of the media out there about parenting by non-parents is about longing, and loss, and infertility. I SO respect that journey. But it’s not where I am… to be honest, my JOB (literally), is thinking about parenting. I spend all day every day talking to parents, thinking about parents, coaching parents, researching parents. I do this gladly, joyfully, and with a good measure of trepidation.
It strikes me this week that while I agree that I absolutely do not love, care for, worry about, and obsess over my client’s the same way that their parents do, I don’t know that they realize how much I DO think about them. (I don’t know if this would be a relief or a concern to them, haha.) Sharon and I started this thing (okay, I started it and forced Sharon to do it) where we say what “the thing of the day” was. It’s our moment of positivity and reality, our moment to reconnect with one another, our moment to share the joy of our day. Its hard to explain in a way, because it’s not the same as, “what was the best thing that happened in your day” or sharing the “highlight” of our days with one another.
It’s more like… what was the thing that made you feel real today? When did you remember who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing?
It’s been wonderful <3. And it’s been us. I love having those moments with her and no one else.
Anyway, it reminds me again of this thing I wrestle with and see others wrestle with on daily basis. The idea emphasized over. and over. and over. again that “parenthood”, and especially “motherhood” is biological. It is the absolute worship and glorification of your conception story, your birth story, your breastfeeding story, your attachment story, and so on and so forth.
It is, in a way (I think), reactionary to years and years of female oppression… the need to assert that hey, being a woman, being a mom, is amazing and powerful and EXHAUSTING goddammit, and look at all the work we did to get here. Because it’s fucking unfair that moms in developing countries still have babies that succumb to baby bottle disease and people who WANT to have babies can’t always have babies and we have maternal and child deaths due to unnecessary medical intervention and did I mention that after doing this superhuman feat that is childbirth and attachment and never sleeping and raising an infant you aretify ALSO still expected work ALL THE DAMN TIME and do ALL OF THE THINGS.
All of that is true, and it’s really lame. Yet I just can’t buy into this narrative I see everywhere, about the glorified “natural” parenthood experience, and the flipside, that those of us who don’t have it desperately want it. I listen to this podcast about parenthood, and there are specific episodes about being “child free”. What??!! Why? Why does this have to be a thing??
All of this to say that I am surprised over and over again by the intensity of my love for the children in my life. And I am surprised over and over again by my lack of “biological desire” for pregnancy, birth, and idealized family. I am surprised by the “need” I feel to justify it, and by the bizarre expectation that I should be expressing loss or grief when I just don’t feel it. I am surprised by this “new wave” reactive social media movement by moms against perceived (or real? I don’t experience it but clearly I’m not in that community) oppression or criticism of biological motherhood and all it entails. I feel sad and tired and confused about being in a world where so many moms feel the need to make explicit posts/statements on social media about just doing what moms do.
I want to tell the world that I love who we are as a family. I love our life. When we become parents it will be perfect. Our journey is not a second choice. It is not a “miracle” or a loss. We do not idolize biological “parenthood”, nor do we miss it. We did not choose our journey to parenthood as a “second” option. We chose it in the same way ever other couple chooses parenthood.
When I really think of it, I have always felt this way. In some weird way, being gay merely “freed” me to feel the way I really feel.
Some Supervision Required. 