Path Unforeseen: Part 2
Having children means you are a walking contradiction of experiences. You can feel enough and never enough. You love them so much that you feel like you’ll burst but also find yourself wondering if there’s a return policy. You feel like you know exactly what they need only to question every decision you make. So it only makes sense that I’m now a parent. I spent the first 30 years of my life insisting that kids were not my future but here I am preparing to welcome a third. How did I get here?
I’ve shared in a previous blog, that early on my dreams never included marriage and a family. It included a career and independence. That belief held true through relationships and seeing friends get married and have kids. Friends would ask me how I could bet so sure. My response often was that not everyone was meant to be a parent. I wasn’t sure I could be a good parent. I didn’t know if the examples I grew up with gave me what I needed to be a good parent. But of course this was all part of my defense mechanism. Beat them to the punch and just be self deprecating. Deep down, I didn’t want kids for the same reason I didn’t want to get married. There was this deep seeded fear. By making this commitment, it made me vulnerable in needing somebody. I had built my life to only need myself. I expected very little of others and relied on what I could do for myself. I grew up believing that vulnerability was a huge weakness. It’s fascinating to be able to look back and see how wrong we could be.
As much as I admired how much strength my mother showed in her ability to survive in a world that wasn’t built for her to succeed, there was also a lot that I witnessed that made me cynical of life. Firstly, she struggled in relationships. Mainly that she often picked the wrong men. It always took time before their true face showed. These men proved to be abusive, lazy, disrespectful, and unreliable. All I knew was that, it would never be me in that type of relationship. So in my relationship with my husband, I kept waiting for his true face to show. Because it always did as I had learned from my mother and my previous relationships. It was almost as if I willed this reality for myself. So I had this fear in me that I didn’t have the tools to be in a healthy and successful relationship. My husband proved me wrong. He was reliable, he was consistent and accepted me for all I was, the good, the bad and the ugly. And sometimes, the ugly had a twinge of crazy.
This fear bled into my feelings on children. I never believed my mom was a bad mother but she raised us being from a different culture. In Vietnamese culture, there are clear relationship lines. A parent does the care giving. A child serves the parent. Never is there this notion of a friendship. Or that’s how I had always perceived it. We were always cared for. But I don’t remember my mom playing with us. Maybe it’s because she was tired from working multiple jobs and doing the best she could. It’s what I’d like to believe. But she also wasn’t a good communicator. Which meant she never talked to me about relationships. About what value I brought to this world. Or about who I was or wasn’t allowed to be. In fact, because of her Vietnamese upbringing, we clashed often and hard during my adolescence. Girls
shouldn’t play sports, girls shouldn’t be out, girls had responsibilities at home. Eventually, she trusted me to create my own path. I never faulted my mother because I understood this was how she grew up. But if she was a victim of the way she was raised, wouldn’t my children be victim to the same? Failure as a parent just wasn’t something I was willing to risk so it’s safest to just not. Back to the notion of ‘not all people should be a parent.’
So what changed? First it was the birth of my nephew. Through him, I started to find a fondness for kids. I could now see how sweet, funny, mischievous and smart they could be. But it was the innocence that really gripped me. The pure innocence in they way they exist for themselves and the way they love so freely that is honest and true. I found myself using my nephew and nieces as the new reason why I didn’t need to have my own. I had the best set up. I could play and spend time with them but I also got to return to my normal life and do I as I pleased.
After my wedding, for some reason life just got busier. We bought a condo and then we bought a car and I wasn’t able to visit my nephew and niece as well as much. I then was met with issues that created a strain in my relationship with my brother so I was missing the littles. The time away just left me feeling empty. It was in this period that made me realize, there was this need inside me and I had been using my nephew and niece as a proxy.
And so, while on vacation over dinner I told my husband I was ready for kids. He had just lost his dad and told me he had felt ready and didn’t want to broach the subject with me because he knew this might only push me further away from the idea. The relief I saw on his face still breaks my heart today. The incredible amount of patience and belief that this man held onto leaves me at a loss of words.
I don’t think I’m alone in realizing the reality that the parent I envisioned myself to be was not the parent I actually became. I always thought I’d maintain a normal life that isn’t centered around my children. But I became exactly that and every cliche I had once rolled my eyes at! Who was I? I was happy. I was fulfilled. I was filled with new purpose. I had a new outlook on life and what my priorities were. Do I feel good about all the decisions I make? Of course not. Do I wish that I had more patience at times, knew more of what to provide for my kids, or felt less guilty about leaving them to a nanny while I worked? Absolutely. But luckily, our nanny is amazing and I’m surrounded by the most incredible family and friends that help to give me levity in these moments.
My kids have given me more than I could have ever imagined. I get to see a world through their eyes that I used to be cynical about. I get to experience the joys in their day that I would have otherwise overlooked. I get to live in a world that is just more colorful because I get to live it with them.