ok, I’m actually procrastinating, as I’ve an essay on trait theory to write and I’m supposed my first draft done by the end of today.
I’ve always known I would want to have children some day. I’ve never gone through that baby-fever some women speak of, where it becomes an obsession and they stare wistfully into the prams and pushchairs around them. That might be because I’m not actually a big fan of infants (they get interesting when they can start to speak and you learn how they’re making sense of the world) and yet I’ve known that some day I’d like to be a mother. It’s hard to put into words but it’s about that guardianship of someone, passing on the baton of life, raising them to deal with the world and hopefully equip them with the skills and resources needed to thrive. It’s a big task but it does comes with love to sweeten the deal. As a non-parent I realise I can imagine all sorts of wonders and imagine the blissful happiness of holding a swaddled infant, safe in ignorance of the difficulties, the stresses and the periods of intense boredom that are nearer the truth, but it’s not about babies. A parent is a mentor and wanting to be that is something I’ve felt for as long as I could remember. That is why it is with regret that I look at my life and think: where are my children? How come I haven’t got any yet?
The Sous Chef and I have had several conversations about children. Even before we were a couple, we would spend evenings talking about life, pasts, hopes, futures. He knew how I felt about children and I knew how he felt, too. That is why, the day after we first kissed and I realised the attraction went both ways that he was ready to call the whole thing off. He told me “perhaps we should just stop this right now, before we get in too deep. We want different things”. He knew already that I wanted children someday and he was very sure he did not. He would have dreams in which I announced I was pregnant and he felt despair and wanted to run under a bus. Telling me this made his message plain: no children. Not with me.
Calling it all off might have been sensible but I had already fallen in love with him and knew I would not be able to walk away. Love is a terrible and beautiful affliction. Decisions that used to be easy become very hard. I spent a long time thinking about coming to terms with remaining childless. Would I become bitter when it all becomes too late? How would it affect our relationship in later years? What if I get that baby-fever? I do not have the right to insist he become a father for my sake. If I stay with him and never have a child, I must be sure I know that that was ultimately my decision. I cannot hold him responsible for my decision to stay. And still it was hard.
Over the course of the relationship, we talked of children occasionally. Whenever we visited friends of his (who have four terrific children) and his brother (who has two wonderful daughters) I’d bring up the subject (it helps when you have positive exemplars of children to broach the subject) and each time he confessed he could see there were rewards to parenthood but having children would happen ‘with great reluctance’ on his part. He feared it, even though he could also tell that people with children have an extra dimension to their lives and this dimension continues. Having children isn’t just having a baby, it’s a person who will one day be fifteen, twenty, fifty years old. Infancy is just the first stage.
Over time he spoke more acceptingly about children. He seemed to have started applying that ‘what if…’ to his own life. He started to speak less in absolutes and seemed to have warmed to the idea, but I knew our current situation was not conducive to having children. I had a degree to finish We still wanted to travel. There were obstacles that just had to be moved out of the way before having children becomes a possible prospect.
Since his saying he is no longer completely opposed to the idea of having children, I’ve felt that I’ve had to handle this delicately. It’s fragile and I feel I need to keep him at this point until my degree is finished and we’ve traveled together for a year, as planned. Only after all that can we even begin to think about bringing a child into our world.I am afraid that when we get back from our travels, he’ll have changed his mind. Asking him to be a father is something I don’t take lightly and he is free to change his mind at any time.
A few evenings ago, we’d had a fair amount of wine, and the subject of children came up again. This time I heard him say he most certainly wanted children and he hopes I really am up for that sort of challenge when we get back from our big trip.
cripes!
