A co-worker brought his son into the office today. The boy is about four or so. I can hear the kid chattering away and I've seen him wandering about carrying his coloring books and clutching his crayons. The women in the offices surrounding the perimeter of the father's desk keep coming in and clucking like mother hens over this kid. They laugh and hover and supervise, and it's annoying as hell.
In years previously -- meaning when my own kiddo was small -- I developed a "resistance," if you will, against younger children because of the constant exposure I had to my own child. I still noticed other people's children but I had a higher degree of tolerance for them. As the kiddo has grown, this resistance has been fading away because it's simply not needed for my continued survival any longer.
In other words, I've gone back to just not liking kids all that much.
I can't describe how thrilled I am that my own kiddo is beyond that stage and that she's rapidly growing into her own. I love her independence. It's like the reward that I'm finally getting to taste of after many years of toil.
I still have a greater tolerance for kids than I did previous to having one of my own, but even when I was in that stage I didn't do the full press court like some of these women here are doing. Perhaps some of the younger ones have that biological urge to reproduce leading them along; perhaps some of the older ones are nostalgic for times they felt they mattered more than they do now. I experience twinges of both those things and think every mother does. On the whole, though, I think I wasn't ever really designed to be an earthmother, willing to welcome all the little children of the world to her bosom. I'm more likely to be the one standing at the door kicking them out of the nest and looking forward to the hours of peace and solitude that await me.
I've wondered sometimes if that means I am a bad mother. A distant mother. An uninterested one. Am I incapable of the deep love for helpless humanity that is supposed to make a woman a real woman? I've let those thoughts intrude and beat me down on occasion. There's nothing quite like a little self-flagellation, eh? But then I think about the times that I smothered the kiddo and took care of her every need, and the deep and overwhelming love that I have for her even as I ache to push her out into the world and see her flower. I think about the years I willingly gave her. Then I realize that I don't wish to give her too many more of them and I feel the need to reclaim the rest of the years that I have to me, for me and me alone.
I think then that maybe I'm not so different from a lot of mothers. I'm just a bit more honest with myself.
((Song: "Creatures Of Love" by Talking Heads. Lyrics here:
http://www.actionext.com/names_t/talking_heads_lyrics/creatures_of_love.html ))
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