What Would It Be Like?

01.30.2011

I was thinking about a conversation I had with my 7^th grade teacher recently about how afraid I was to have a daughter because of the often contentious relationships that mother-daughters have. My mom and I weren’t constantly at each other’s throats while I was growing up but it certainly wasn’t harmonious. And when it wasn’t harmonious it was definitely thunderous.

Combining my conversation with my teacher and my memories, it became crystal clear that my personal experiences were shaping my predictions. I had a certain relationship with my mom and I’m assuming I’d have the same one with my own daughter. My teacher said that she had a pretty good relationship with her daughter and if I were to take a moment to think about it, I’d be able to name a couple of other girl friends I know that had a pretty solid relationship with their mother.

What this mentality of mine underscores is how narrow-minded I’m being. What I’ve done is automatically assume that I’m the same person as my mom and that my daughter would be the same person as I. Yes, I will (and already have) find myself mimicking my mother’s ways but I already react to situations as a whole quite differently than my mom. In fact, it’s always been like that; a source of contention between us. I’m sure my daughter would have aspects of my personality but she’ll also have aspects of Rob's. She’d be her own person and I need to trust that I will be my own person and make my own mistakes and have my own triumphs as a parent. Comparing myself to anyone, especially my own mom, doesn’t do me any good. I’d like to take the parts of my mom’s parenting I love and repeat those because, after all, she did raise me so she did something right. (happy, winky face.)

The Relationship Is Not Ours to Own

11.06.2010

Two sentiments: some people come in and out of your life but will make an impact and children are only given to us on loan.

On an errand, I passed by the junior college I attended and memories from that era popped into my mind leading me to think about a close girl friend I had. We played on the volleyball team together and at a time when my other teammates shunned me she accepted me. That time-period was a dark one in my personal history and the iron wall I built around me made the others uncomfortable. But this friend looked beyond the wall and helped me along my difficult road back to life.

In the grand scheme of things, we were friends for a very short time, about a year and half, ending mainly because I couldn’t maturely handle working two full-time jobs, my transfer to UCLA and keeping up with the schedule we established like staying up all night (which sometimes included driving to the beach and crashing a private beach club, midnight runs to Rite Aid and the like). I stopped returning her calls thinking I’d deal “tomorrow” until that “tomorrow” never came and she pulled away completely. Still to this day, I miss her.

These memories prompted me to think about the sentiment that kids are merely ours on loan. We raise them, sure, but we (shouldn’t) don’t raise them to live with us forever. We shouldn’t have kids to fill a void in our lives but should have kids as an addition to the life we already have. The truth of the matter is, though, they won’t be there every day, every moment for the rest of their or our lives. They will one day walk out of the front door to be on their own and will leave behind the memories of the years gone by, along with the anticipation of new memories to come.

We become friends with someone because for whatever reason, paths crossed, there was a click and the journey began. But sometimes a fork in the road brings that journey to an end. That friendship was given to us on loan. In fact, one could argue that any friendship or relationship is just a loan and to accept this loan is a big risk, for better or worse.

Would I reject my friend’s friendship were I given an opportunity to go back in time knowing the pain I will go through when the friendship dies? No. I am a richer and deeper person for having had her in my life.

Nothing is permanent. Is it fair to reject the idea of having a child because of fear of pain (emotional or physical)? There isn’t one thing in my life that I would alter, either good or bad, because those experiences (still) shape me. A temporary experience created continual change. How different is having a child?

This Thing We Call "Family"

04.05.2010

I spent more time thinking about my mom and grandmother. See, I don’t get to talk to my mom on Skype that often and even less with my grandmother. Plus I over think everything, so it’s just natural for me to obsess about something.

Right before we were going to say our good-byes I asked my sister to take a photo of my mom and grandmother on Skype. They were so cute together, cuddling up, mother and daughter, making faces and/or my grandmother not really knowing where to look cause Skype still weirds her out. I was looking at the photo of the two of them today and I thought, “If I continue the route I’m going, I will never experience that.” What I was referring to was the fact that my mom and her mom were able to cuddle up with each other and regardless of their ages, they were still, and will always be, mother and daughter. “Mother and daughter…”

My mother-in-law asked me a few months ago if I would like to have a daughter first or a son. I started to chuckle and then ended in a sigh and replied, “I don’t know. Mother-daughter relationships are so volatile so I don’t know if I want to go through that. But then I don’t think I could ever relate to a teenaged boy, so I don’t know if I want to go through that.” She, of course, laughed at the comical way I delivered my line with such dramatic “my life is hard” flair, but underneath the comedy, I was actually quite serious.

Babies are all cute and cuddly but then they become these [fill in the blank] for about ten years and then you just hope that they forgive your parenting style and want to talk to you for the rest of their lives. Some families never overcome the schisms that may happen, others do. Or, at least, for the most part they do.

Why are families so complicated? It seems like it should all work out so perfectly. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, have the perfect wedding and start a family. But what you’re not told about is all of the little cracks in the façade that entail people’s personalities, dreams or failed dreams, hopes or broken hopes, desires, plans and changes in plans, changes in moods, etc. On paper it all makes sense. In practicality, it doesn’t. I’m not saying this because I’m not happy being married; God no! I’m just talking about how the steps to becoming a family and starting a family, etc. seem like it should all be so easy but no one tells you about how truly difficult it is. I always thought adults had it all figured out and now that I’ve officially been an adult for almost 20 years now, I’m still waiting for the light to turn on. I’m still waiting for that “a-ha” moment where I can say, “Oh, yes, so NOW I’m an adult because I have it all figured out.” I sometimes see the light flickering…but it never stays on long enough for me to definitively know.