Becoming a parent.
Or Not.
Traduction française à venir.
Nothing can prepare us for the life-changing event that is becoming a parent.
The overwhelming love, the overwhelming fear, the overwhelming exhaustion.
The feeling that we are constantly being tested: by our child, our partner, our parents, random people on the subway.
Everyone has a point of view on how we are parenting…
…and how we should be parenting.
The control we thought we had over our life gets swept away and sometimes our sense of identity along with it. In its place we wake up to a new and unfamiliar self:
A self that no longer knows what “well-rested” feels like nor has the time to exercise.
A self that has come to see the city as a life-threatening parcourse of danger and hasn’t read a book in months.
A self that must prioritize another self’s needs — needs that are often untimely and almost always loudly expressed.
We are confronted by memories of our own childhood which can take on new significance now that we are ourselves parents and shatter the narrative of who we thought we were.
Relationships we thought were stable can begin to show strain.
It is no wonder that countless parenting books have been written, each promising its own magic formula.
Richard Rohr, the Franciscan mystic, writes that profound transformation can only occur through “great love or great suffering.” The good news is that having children provides an opportunity for both!
Becoming a parent puts us face to face with our legacy: the values and habits we inherited from our own upbringing, and those we wish to transmit to our children. It is both a continuation and a new beginning, a chance to revive our sense of wonder, even as our routine gets upended.
But mostly, becoming a parent is the start of a deep and powerful relationship where the learning flows both ways.
There is no book on parenting as good as the one you will write with your children.
Should you choose to have them.
There are many who are unable to have children. And, given the stresses of parenthood, and the increasingly anxiety-provoking state of the world, it comes as no wonder that many are actively choosing not to.
This is not an easy choice to make as it means consciously forgoing a life experience that, particularly for women, comes with an expiration date. In Western society, where almost everything has a return policy, we are not accustomed to our choices being final.
Furthermore, for many, this deeply personal dilemma is subject to commentary from friends and family, not all of it supportive.
While some are sure of their choice, others are not, caught in a distressing spiral that amplifies as the years go by: should I? shouldn’t I?
How to choose when there is no wrong answer?
Even those who are clear about their choice can experience moments of sadness, grief even, for the road not taken. And yet again, friends and family can struggle to understand, saying, “but you chose not to have children!” believing choice to be devoid of doubt, immune to regret.
Navigating parenthood – including the inability to, or the choice not to, become parents – demands delicacy and tolerance for paradox as something that, just like a child, can only be held with great care, never resolved.