The Parenting Club

First of all, I promised pictures, so this is what I look like now at 16 weeks (four months). Now, moving onto the post.

There are many groups that I have not fit into during my life. I was never part of the cool crowd, yet I never embraced the "nerdier" groups that existed as voluntary pariahs within a sea of peer pressure. And, up until recently, I never really had the desire to join the club of parenthood. Even now, I enter motherhood reluctantly and wonder about how it will affect me, my marriage, our careers, and our friendships. At this stage, I feel like I will enjoy being a mother - probably a lot more than I can conceive of now - but I doubt that I'll have that all-encompassing aching devotion to it that will make me want to spend every moment of every day with my children. I haven't been that way with my husband (although he is great and I enjoy our marriage), so why should I be that way with my kids?

Brian and I have already discussed how we want to be as parents. (As if anyone can truly construct their parenting identities sans children.) We want to be the kind of people who bring their children into their world, not shape their entire world around their children. We both plan to continue our careers while enjoying parenting, too. And yet I've spoken to several career-driven women recently whose perspectives changed when they joined the motherhood club and I wonder, will I find myself in that same boat a year down the line? As horrible as this may seem to some of you, this is a frightening thought to me. My identity has involved my education, my teaching career, my independent nature, and my neutrality towards kids (in all honesty, I'm not a big fan) for as long as I can remember. Can one moment in time - the birth of my children - really undermine this identity that I've constructed, embraced and even promoted for the past fifteen years? That's a scary thought. But I think what is even more frightening to me is the thought that I might want it to change.

Some people may say that is what it means to be a parent, but I refuse to believe that raising a family has to cost a person - any person - their individuality, their hopes or their goals. And, at least at this stage, I can't fully understand how someone could change her position on life so dramatically in such a short span of time. Perhaps it's because I grew up in conservative churches where being married and having kids was the litmus test of happiness and success, but I'm afraid to become that person. I was always so certain that I wouldn't, but now I'm not so confident. I guess all I can do is hold my breath and see what happens. I suppose that's really all any of us can do when faced with true life change. So, I'm taking a deep breath... let's see what happens in four months!