If I had a million dollars

[constance]

For the most part, my mother's been very good about not nagging my brother and me about the late-blooming breeding thing we've got going on; she's kept her longings to be a grandmother on the down-low, and only occasionally becomes wistful at her friends and relations whose children start having children before their late thirties. Which is big of her, no really, when you consider her passionate devotion to the one grandchild we have managed to produce, between the two of us (wow, that sure did come out wrong, but you know what I mean), and when you consider that in her opinion being a grandmother is the absolute best thing about her life.

Except that just recently, she's started being sad, apparently for my sake more than hers, that I've never had children at all. Take this night not too long ago, for example, sunset at a local seafood restaurant which backs up onto a lake, where they have meal to feed the ducks which hang around the back porch. We were out there, and I was helping a couple of kids open packs of saltines to drop onto gosling heads, talking about the things that kids like to talk about, cloud types and duck species and how you can tell a Canadian goose from a regular old white one; and their mother called them and they went inside to dinner, and when I turned back to my mother, she was crying, she was so sorry I hadn't reproduced.

That night was at the back of my mind today at lunch, when we were talking about my niece, who's just started walking, and she mentioned that my SIL -- who invited 40 adults and 20 children aged infant to preadolescent to her daughter's first birthday party and who therefore has only herself to blame for the subsequent scene of mass hysteria -- commented at the party that after that day she was pretty sure there'd only be Gracie. A miserable state of affairs for my poor mother, who probably has only a decade or so of concentrated cuteness and adoration to look forward to before indifference starts to rear its ugly head. In Gracie, not in my mother.

Now, most days I'm not sure I'd want children even if I had more chances to bear them, but I did honestly feel badly for Mom, so before I could really weigh the words and their possible effect on her, I'd said, "Well, if my ship ever comes in, I promise to adopt a baby, okay?" and she was so happy about this that I was forced to remind her that the whole offer was contingent on the (unlikely) docking of said ship. To which she said, "I'll start buying extra lottery tickets! When we go to the casino, I'll gamble in your name!"

And so I feel I have committed myself, people of livejournal, and I can't decide now whether I want that ship to come in or not.

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

The whole marriage and children issue was a huge burden to me in my mid-to-late thirties. I'd always viewed myself as someone who'd have a family, but when I look at the way I was raised (all the adults I grew up with were celibate from the time I was 13), it's really not surprising that I had so little idea how to go about making it happen.

In many ways, moving to New York City has been my consolation prize for staying single. I might as well enjoy the advantages of this impractical lifestyle, rather than try to emulate a family home without a family. But in my own way I'm extremely settled, and I get the sense that you are, too.

You've set up a life for yourself and a home and you aren't really investing any effort that I am aware of in attempts to rock the boat. And it sounds like your mom actually does get that. She doesn't sound like she's guilt tripping you, but rather that she has a genuine sadness that one of her goals for you -- a goal set with all her best intentions -- hasn't come true. I perceive a lot of mutual respect in your relationship, and it's nice to see how much both of you consider and value the other's feelings.

But I also think a lot of things would have to happen before you'd be called on to fulfill your commitment. And I think if they do all happen, you'll know what to do when the time comes. (For starters, I'm sure you won't be inviting 30 guests to any potential birthday parties.) I trust your judgment, and I think your mom does, too.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

No, honestly, I like my life very much and feel little wistfulness about my less-traveled path. My mother does get that, really -- you're right, she respects me as I do her, and guilt-tripping is mostly not her style -- but I think that since I get along with kids pretty well in general, she feels that I'm sort of wasted on the single life, maybe?

And ha! yeah, there's something to be said for not only having babysat/nannied my way through school: if I ever do become a mother, I won't make some of the rookie mistakes my SIL is making. Not that I won't make other ones. Just: there are some things that you learn by experience, such as babies aren't necessarily comfortable in huge crowds, and gosh, white is maybe not such a good color choice for bedding.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

white is maybe not such a good color choice for bedding.

But it is bleachable! Sometimes more practical in the long run.

I nannied for a couple of years in Italy, and I really enjoyed it, but I was also very aware that if financial responsibility -- and long term at that -- were added to my other responsibilities toward the children, I'd be a whole lot more stressed out than I got just from running after them attempting to keep them on schedule and occasionally teach them something.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Alas, white with pink trim and monogramming is not bleachable! But yes, white is sometimes more practical -- I had that in mind when I bought my bath towels, for example.

And you are so right about financial responsibility! Also, one thing always in the back of my mind is that like it or not, fair or not, parents are often held responsible for their children's mistakes and neuroses and such. I always think of Eve in Northern Exposure when I picture myself as having children, cataloguing the myriad ways in which her new baby Could Go Horribly Wrong. Parenthood is infinitely tougher than nannying or babysitting. I admire anyone not crippled by anxiety at the mere thought of tackling it.