Timing Plays Critical Role In Parenting
His face has that fresh-squeezed look of the newly born: scrunched perfection. A wonder, 14 hours old. His parents, who have lived long enough to grow world wise, world weary, look at him in that astonished, rapturous way one might regard God. Life, Act One, Scene One.
My mother goes to the neurologist. The third neurologist in two months. We are hoping for the good news. We settle, because we have to, for less. He tells her that she has had a major stroke, is likely to have another. My sister and I look sideways at the news. My mother buys an ivy plant and some candles. She plans her summer garden. Life. Act Four, Scene One.
I, somewhere between acts, wrestle with my own plantings. In this great-place-to-raise-kids kind of town, I am childless. By choice, perhaps, or biology. Or by default. When asked about our childless state, we reply sincerely, that the jury is still out. But at 43, I know we are heading closer to a mistrial.
And just as I know that the baby I am holding is someone else’s, I know too that whoever it is that takes me to my appointment with destiny, it probably won’t be my kids.
Most of the time this doesn’t faze me much. It’s just when I see that look of bliss on my otherwise pragmatic friend’s face or when my mother, looking at the pictures of her brain, falls back into my embrace, that I wonder.
What will I miss?
Depending on the time of life and the amount of sleep deprivation, friends with children answer this question in different ways. Some, no matter how tired and despite the fact that they have teenagers, say parenting is unequivocally the most fulfilling experience of their lives.
Others express regret that they didn’t wait longer, or decide sooner, or have more or fewer children. One old college friend says, after the fact, that he cannot help but love his children. But in the space between what is and what might have been he often longs for a life less encumbered, a life more clearly his own; a life without children.
Women friends are more reluctant to admit this ambivalence, as if their uncertainties make them less rather than more human. In this arena, the stakes are higher for women, as well as the expectations. “Just wait,” a male friend knowingly assures me. “That old biological clock will kick in. It always does.”
Well, I think, not always. And sometimes, even if it does, it chimes too late, or in a body or a life that cannot sustain another.
But timing is certainly critical. And while many say that if people wait until just the right moment to have children, they never will, it seems parenthood does, or should, hinge on something more than just biological predestination. Something more than doing what’s expected or chasing immortality. And happily, especially for children, it’s usually about a lot more, starting with love.
But what about those who by choice or fate or bad timing never hold a child of their own? Are they in some way diminished, defective or, worse, hopelessly self-absorbed?
The popular, easy answer seems to be yes. The more difficult answer, in keeping with most of life’s gray questions, is more complicated and more personal than that. And it’s often about clocks, though not the obvious biological kinds.
The timepieces of some of our lives run anywhere between two hours and two decades behind the pack. Some of us are just getting started when others are winding down. Some of us are born with an inner compass, while others search long and far afield to find it. Our best lives are often late blooming. The hour of the day, and the body of the gardener excludes some plantings.
Ultimately, there is only so much time to bring into the world what we know we must, be it a book or a baby. And there are a million ways to bring life into the world. And peace and joy and hope. One of those ways is parenting.
What will I miss? Worlds. What will I gain? Worlds. Different domains. Bridged, in part, by love and work and the privilege of knowing a perfect wonder, 14 hours old.
xxxx
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Kathleen Corkery Spencer The Spokesman-Review