This weekend O and I went to our first seminar about adoption. It was three hours of head nodding, chuckling, asking questions, meeting adorable babies and trying not to cry. We are excited but I am coming to find out that I may not be able to be as open about our process while we are going through it, as I thought I would. There are rules I didn't know about. I will clarify this later, when I have more deets. The gist of my post is though, that O and I are finally ready to do this. I am kinda freaking out, kinda excited, dreaming about chubby baby legs and also did I mention kinda freaked out? Getting so serious about becoming a mom has forced me to face some of my issues with myself and what motherhood means in my mind, and in reality.
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| Above: Tiny Overlord? I love it so much! Hilarious. Directly above: Fist bumps?! For real? I like remembering that when its my own family I can be as irreverent, goofy and fun loving as I want! |
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| Quirky, beautiful, high design for children! Yes please. No childish furniture? Still visually stimulating and not gender specific. Dying. |
Lets get therapisty: Growing up I always felt a lot of pressure to blend in. Like, you better become like everyone around you or you are being rude, and bitchy. My perception of motherhood was that its basically the end of a woman's individual life. She will be begging her husband to help her in the home, and have no more time for her job. She will accept this fate because its a woman's duty but she must stuff down any other feelings because they aren't right. As I grew older, I mostly remember baby showers, and visiting new moms at home. I remember over-air conditioned but somehow still musty church basements, lots of Publix white cakes and chilled gelatin salad. Fleshy, pale mothers gifting lots of pink, ruffly, squeaking, cartoon festooned items and I felt so much anxiety thinking that I would be that woman one day. Suffocating in a pile of pink. Soft chuckling around me at sexist jokes about daddy duty and how my life is over now...I...can't...breath!
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| Lets take a moment to remember motherhood is so different in other cultures. This is beautiful to me, I love it and I turn to it in my mind when I feel the silly pressures of my urban, overly tech driven life. |
It just isn't who I am. I am not a woman in that basement. For a long time I thought it truly meant that I would never have children but I am a grown up now, and I make my own choices about what works for me in all aspects of my life. Still, it is deeply ingrained in me that I am an ungrateful, elitist snob if I reject what others accept and put up boundaries for myself. So my solution is to replace those images in my mind that scare me, with images of what I aspire to as a mom. You know, focusing on what I wan't instead of running from what I don't want. Building up a foundation instead. This way when I panic I can remember that there is this other scene I can focus on. I know that once I actually have a child, my energy will shift toward the connection I make with that human, but right now I don't understand that aspect of it, and I am focusing on what I feel looking into motherhood from the outside.
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| I like this image because its playful and I wanna be dressed and have my hair did, at least once. |
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| You mean it can be simple without toys and bright "baby appropriate" colors? No digital music? No motor? Does this come in a grown up size? |
I would like to be the same imperfect me but with a baby. No expectations piled up upon my shoulders except to love a new child, to grow with them and evolve into a family as graciously and tenderly as possible. To accept myself and my quirks, to celebrate the unknown and to not judge ladies in basements, but to wave cheerfully to them as I pass by. Every time I add a photo to my album I reinforce the growth of who I want to be
but already am, and I shed that confused person who didn't know she could create her own reality a long time ago. Lordy that is melodramatic, but true also. Wait. Does that mean that every time I post an image of a perfect dressed, skinny woman with expensive accessories that I get to be her too? HAHAH! I am kidding. Sadly kidding.
I am so curious about your perceptions about being a parent, and did that change once it happened for you? Was it exactly like you thought? How did you make it your own experience?
Did you have pressure from family or community to conform to something you didn't feel comfortable with? How is actual motherhood, culturally, different from how it seemed when you were a kiddo?
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