In my experience, if you ask any newly minted parent, or the parent to any toddler, how their child is? You are rewarded with an AVALANCHE of photos and videos and little tit bits and stories about how they did this and did that. As a person whose friends have all had kids before I have, it amused me many a time, I admit I even rolled my eyes a little bit, or sometimes I’d just do it to get the latest pictures. Then my brother had a daughter, the spitting image of him and therefore me and boy was I not ready! I became one of them, the parents that send tons of pictures and videos, and when someone asks how she is, I’m always very ready to show them what she did recently and what new videos I have. Now imagine if I actually have one of my own.
Motherhood, as I conceive it to be in my mind is very complicated, its one of those emotions you can only ever truly understand once you experience it. This too I glean from the experiences of the mothers around me. The deep and innate sense of protectiveness you feel and the very concept that you would LITERALLY move mountains to relieve your child of pain. Mothers, if asked who they would save between their child and their spouse, would hands down, almost always choose their child. Conversely, fathers tend to choose their spouses in a life-or-death situation. Its all very awkwardly weird if you ask me, but apparently, it is what it is. No one can explain it, perhaps it’s the pain of giving birth? The process of having a whole human being suckle on your breast, drawing life from you for a considerable number of years, which I imagine would probably render you inconceivably attached to that human being.
I understand there are individuals who do not wish to be mothers, at all, and I respect their choice, at least they are very clear about what it is that they want. Just imagine the horror of having kids and then realizing after 2 or 3 years that you hate it, and you should have never had any. There is no rewind button, you can’t exactly undo such a huge act, and that is why the decision should probably consider way more than the broodiness triggered by adorable internet babies and video clips designed to make you swoon at cooing babies as they bat their tiny little eyelids at you. Have I told you about my niece yet? Hahahah. You see when we were growing up, my mother saw it fit, probably easier to just shave our hair off, including mine, even though most girls got plaited. It most likely eased up on the morning administration and gave her one less thing to yell about. So, because my older brother and I looked alike, you would be forgiven to think we were twins. We once walked down the road in our matching uniforms, with our bald heads bobbing up and down, and you could hear the men behind us arguing, “Iwe ma twins iwe!” and the other one vehemently denying, “No, havasi kani!!” Our similarities caused many a chuckle and that is why my niece looks like her father and therefore like me, yey genes.
What has always always has me pondering is the fact that you can have 3 individuals, grow up in the exact same household. Same conditions, same parenting, same system of discipline and rewards and yet they develop three completely polarized characters and approaches to life. How? Are we not supposed to be products of what we are subjected to? Do we not attribute certain behaviours and character traits to childhood traumas and experiences? Then why are my siblings and I completely different in our existence and attitudes?
We have my elder brother, quiet and steadfast, he will tell you to either change the situation or suck it up and stop complaining if you do not have the courage to change it. Then there is me, who could talk your ears off and then some, LOVES to complain and needs regular vent sessions, my younger brother who has the most entrepreneurial spirit I have EVER seen, even if 10 of his projects have failed, he will start another one, and he will have hope! I’m always in awe because I can’t, I just can’t, he will probably be very rich one day, and yet here we are, all grew up under one roof, yet as different as scorched earth and green grass. It all makes you want to call bullcrap on every psychology theory, because the same boiling water hardens the egg and softens the potato as they say.
The concepts and facets of family are many and intertwined, they plague my mind endlessly, sometimes I ask myself what it feels like to be me. Yes, I’m that weird, I’ve accepted it at this point. In the end I realise that, we LOVE to say, “do what makes you happy!” Yet, there is a delicate balance between societal expectation and what makes us happy, and that is the fine line we walk every day, zig zagging a little bit or a lot on either side, until we make up who we are and we find that sweet spot. And smack bang, in the middle of it all, are the people we call family. We are inextricably linked, everything they do, makes us everything we are, and frankly? I wouldn't have it any other way, excessive picture displays and all .
Good read as always ❤️