The Next 10 Years

[aetrix9]

For women out there: Never EVER read Peggy Ortenstein's Flux. Just don't

Comments

From a father and husband.

[therogon]

To watch a woman, or any person actually, with an individual identity tie themselves into a relationship where inevitably the lines between people become blurred is difficult. The free being who you are suddenly becomes tied down to someone else's wants and needs, inevitably resulting in the love/hate cycle that many close relationships face. People weren't meant to be so close and dependent of each other and yet, they do all the time. It is the central mystery of my human experience. Pregnacy and motherhood is another level of that altogether. It is consummate, binding, and many times too close, possibly lethal to a woman's sense of self. But because in any other relationship there lies the possibility of freedom, the most painful thing I have seen is a woman who realises there is no turning away from the needs of a child. It adds new meaning to "responsibility." The woman, meaning my wife, had always planned on having children. Planning is short of preparation for an experience so personal as childbearing, and I think no matter how badly a woman could want that, there is so many opportunities for things to go bad during such an emotionally fragile time. It is easy to lose yourself in the process, which is (I assume) why some woman who are wonderful mothers end up dried out and empty when the children have left. But it doesn't take a person who sacrifices all vestiges of self to be an exceptional mother, it only takes an exceptional person, and if there is also unwavering support behind that person (her as an individual, not as a mother), then it is much easier for her to have herself and also be the mother she wants to be. It is possible. It takes a lot of hard work, and you have to be committed to the idea of life as an experience. Most parents will not get what they wanted or expected. We definitely have mixed feelings. But we also have a joy that we want others to experience, too, if they want to.
If you believe that you are ready to violate the comfort of your lives and accomodate the unwavering dependance of another person for the rest of your lives, I believe you will make great parents. It must be what both of you want, and you must both be ready for your relationship to be at its breaking point at times. My best advice is if you have each seen the other's worst and still held tight no worse for the wear, and if you have done everything you wanted to do in life that you can't put off or live without regrets about, then it is as good a time to have a kid as it is ever going to be. There is no ready. Nothing you have ever done in life could ever prepare you.
Hope that helps.