If I had a million dollars
Dec. 11th, 2007 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceFor 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 06:36 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 07:00 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-12-14 07:07 pm (UTC)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.