Apparently motherhood is selfish.
I was recently in the South y’all where I left behind my indefatigable Guinea baboons (aka my kids) and took a train up North for two days in celebration of love and marriage. I admit, plainly, that I was in no rush to get back home to them. I know that despite the fervor and heartache in which I love my kids, they are animals at the core – and not the tamed, domesticated primates if you will. They are at the age where no holds are barred and KO by bum bite is fair game. So needless to say, I loved every frivolously absorbed minute of my sole existence where every decision I made was for me, myself and I and where my planning extended little beyond 5 minutes into the future. The only deviation from such self-propagating thoughts was consideration for my next nap and ways in which to maximize uninterrupted nightly sleep.
When I first experienced la liberté d'être, I didn’t quite revel in it as I do now. The first time I travelled alone without my husband and a child my first-born was 15 months old. I was still reeling from both a lost identity and the gaining of several new ones that I wasn’t emotionally adept to define with my best interests in mind. My husband and I went through a really difficult and long period of figuring out our new “us” in a fog of sleep deprivation and accidental, incidental, all too consequential outside family influence. It’s terrifying how throwing a baby in the mix can awaken the otherwise latent force behind bloodlines. Add to it the fact that I am marathons away from being the breadwinner of our little nucleus let alone an equal financial contributor. I felt more powerless and alone as I assumed the role of homemaker in all of its inconspicuous, menial, necessities. And then the cherry on top: when my son was born, I didn’t have that clichéd heart warming, soul bursting, exaltation that one expects to feel after such a miraculous occurrence and gift from the divine. I didn’t even quite feel like he was my child until after his first birthday. Up until that point, I felt as if I were just a babysitter taking care of one of my brother’s children. My son was mine. But he wasn’t mine. Motherhood was an out of body experience as I mourned the loss of my Self, redefined it and then used every ounce of energy I had to become emboldened by it. That journey flowed into the next year until one day I was A Mom. The Mom. His Mom. Mama.
Fast forward nearly three years since my first-born ripped my chest in two and perched his fantastically beautiful body, mind and soul onto my heart. I find myself in Paul-de-Vence, a small village in Cote d’Azur with my husband and baby number two in the womb – a babymoon as such. Instantaneously we found ourselves wading in a pool of fine wine and zero responsibility. Each morning we woke to the sound of room service knocking at our door, a call for breakfast enough to feed a family of five. It was the only interruption permissible to our deafeningly silent slumber. And each morning, it was the same: One of us scrambled through the blacked out room for a robe and our bearings and welcomed an all too chipper Frenchman; a waft of filter coffee inundated the room as he pushed the overflowing trolley through the door. The days seamlessly turned into night, overwhelming pockets of my being with joy like the first lick of gelato on a blistering summer day.
I left that vacation feeling as if I actually had a vacation - “a time of respite from something : intermission.” (ref. Merriam-Webster) As I put motherhood on the backburner, I realized how easily I adjusted to singlehood. Time. I had infinite time. It was my time. Thoughts. I had overflowing creative imaginings and idle pondering. They were my thoughts. Emotions. I weaved through the day as a singular emotional being allowing the mellifluous energy of my surroundings to stick to the emotions of my soul. They were my emotions. Eat, sleep, read, write, play – all on my own terms.
Recently I was trying to explain this sense of freedom to two friends and the ease in which it is to fall into a selfish state of being when given the opportunity. That is, the ease in which to make infinite daily decisions based solely on my own desires and needs. Before I could finish this thought, the one friend who definitively exclaims that she does not care to start a family let alone get married, inserted the notion that motherhood is a selfish role. I was stunned. For the second time now I have been offered this unsolicited opinion and both times from women who choose not to have children. They believe their life choices as a single person can better serve a broader population and as a mother, I care about my child’s welfare more than and at times at the expense of another’s. I am seen as selfish for choosing a private school over public and contributing to the discrimination in education. By opting for parenthood, I presumably did so because I wanted to produce a mini-me and spread my offspring: vain. It is unfair that I get maternity leave when women without children also work incredibly hard and don’t have the same opportunity for “time off.” Oh this one really makes my blood boil as much as when I overheard a colleague saying in a time of work overload that she needed to get pregnant so that she could have a year off. If that is your viewpoint then let me just say Waheguru have mercy on you and your tragically uninformed perceptions.
This notion that motherhood is a selfish choice clearly makes me fiery with emotion, but both times I was offered the opinion I bit my tongue. I wanted to understand why another, presumably many others then, could casually make such a statement that felt so infuriatingly wrong. In the throes of raising two small kids, I’m doing nothing but sacrificing all parts of me - my emotional space, my creative space, my career, my health, my social life, my romantic life just to nurture my children’s unencumbered will. Motherhood is a spellbinding, cryptic, lonely, funny, funny world caught in between the remnants of the “I” that I have only known to the “I” that is forever being redefined.Time is no longer mine as decisions are tethered to another’s well being not because I want to “spread my genes” but because it is my duty to be present and intentional to what will be citizens of the world, for the world. I am raising the next generation and the commitment and sacrifice it comes with is no different from any other parent, or that is the hope. So this certainly isn’t a call for sympathy. Please. I’m a grown woman.
As I deliberated both sides rather irritated, I came to my own conclusions. 1. If you are not a mother, you will never ever (ever!) understand motherhood because it is not something that can be imagined. It is literally beyond your wildest imagination. And if you don’t know both sides, then by default your opinion diminishes in value. 2. Everyone is selfish in some way and in some aspect of their life be it loyalty toward her own family, an opportunistic outlook on career or hey, using plastic straws because it is the cheaper and easier option regardless of the environmental havoc it wreaks. 3. We all struggle in some way because as a matter of fact, no one person can have it all. My small hurdles as a direct result of my children are of no greater importance or matter than someone else’s life decisions and challenges that are in their forefront 4. Time is truly a luxury. Period. I’d venture to say that most of us do not monopolize adequately on this luxury let alone give back to a community, persons in need, or a cause for hope as a point of daily practice.
The real consideration is in our actions and my hope is that we each spend some of that sweet, delectable delicacy that is time devoted to the betterment of our world and community be it with or without offspring.
