Staying in the question...

My last blog entry inspired quite an unprecedented response from a significant portion of what I ascertain to be the vast sea of my readership. The level of commentary was interesting for two reasons. One, it made me personally happy to gain concrete proof that people actually read my blog. Two, and more importantly, it caused me to deeply consider the importance of a practice that has long been difficult for me—the practice of staying in the question.

The question here is, of course: “Do I want to have children?” The answer is, of course: “I do not THINK so.” But, as I cannot answer it definitively, I have to say that the answer truly is this: “I do not know.”

It is hard for me to say that I do not know the answer to a question that seems so pivotal and crucial to my life’s purpose, my life’s direction, and my life in general. It is my assumption that most of us ask questions and then immediately seek answers. At least, I know I do. So when the answer is not immediately tangible, it causes a certain amount of frustration. It also imparts a sense of failure. As in: how can I still not know the answer to this question--this question that seems so very important and so frequently asked? How is it possible that after many years of asking this question, I feel no closer to knowing how I could or would EVER answer it? How is that POSSIBLE?

And yet it is.

So maybe what I really have to do is just accept that this is a time to just stay in the question.

My feelings surrounding procreation, my own procreation that is, range from ambivalence to trepidation to indifference to antipathy. It used to be that I would tend towards aversion on the topic, and then, in recent years, it seems like I am confronting the topic with tremendous frequency. I know that the situation is, in part, simply due to the time and place I have arrived on the trajectory of my life. But I also wonder if there is something more going on.

For the sake of looking at this issue from all sides: might it also be possible that as I proclaim over and over what I do not want, I am really revealing that the very thing I am overtly rejecting is actually what I do want? It could be that my subconscious knows something--as it so often does--before my conscious mind has processed and understood it. I mean, why else would I be talking about this issue of having children so much?

Again, I do not know.

What I do know is that if, in a few years, I am suddenly saying that all I want is to have children then I will just accept that I have done a 180. To that end, I am not fearful of smug, “I told you so” types of comments. Nor am I worried about people who might say: “But you always said that was what you DIDN”T want.” I can change my mind.

I mean, hello--I am a woman, after all.

But the real point is that I do not know if I will EVER feel one way or another about the topic. There are certainly valid and sound arguments to be made on both sides. So I am trying very hard, as I stay in this question, to not be waiting for that moment of epiphany. To not be constantly anticipating that “aha!” moment.

Because frankly it might never happen.

That reality is perhaps what scares me most. Like many things in life, maybe this situation is truly is a case of having to leap before you know for sure that the net will appear.

I am not ready to make that leap.

My mother fears she has turned me off of being a mother myself because of trite little comments she has made along the way. You know, minor little side musings such as: “You know, I NEVER wanted to be a mother” and “Being pregnant was like having a parasite—for all nine months.” Or my personal favorite: “You know, I am not exactly jumping all over you to have children, because MY life would change quite a bit too.”

She is no fool, my mom.

The thing is though, ironically, that it is these conversations that make me think I want to have a child. These conversations reveal how close a bond we have, my mother and me. Utter honesty is possible and it is refreshing. It is in moments like these that I think: “Gosh, I love my mom so much. Wouldn’t it be nice, in 30 years to have a young person, my own daughter, loving me that much.”

But again, there are no guarantees there. I mean who is to say how any child of mine would turn out. And we could go into the nature versus nurture thing here but let’s just not do that. The bottom line is that some of the whole business is simply not in the control of the parent. There would be no guarantee, no matter what I did, that my 30 something year old daughter would be my best friend. Pretty as it is to think so.

And, back to my relationship with my mother--the strange thing is that I sometimes have no idea why she loves me so much. I am not one who suffers from a poor sense of self (well most of the time, anyway), so that is not what I mean. I know I am loveable--in fact sometimes I overestimate my lovability by a wide margin. But I wonder about how she loves me so much because, as a child, I know I put her through heck. I mean have you met a teenage girl? Wow. Who would wish such a monster on their worst enemy?

Without delving fully into the trunk of awkwardness labeled: “Maggie’s Teen Years,” there is one particular issue I think about now quite a bit. I remember as I waged the war of adolescence, for which I was so ineptly prepared, how often I truly felt angry with her at times when I felt she should have chosen me over my father. I could not believe that she would side with him when I perceived him as being unfair or irrational.

Now, I think about my relationship with my husband and I appreciate that they, my mom and dad, were the team. I was merely the extra on the field--to be dealt with as they saw fit.

A friend of mine once told me that he was impressed with a comment made during an argument he overheard between a parent and her teenage son. The parent looked at the child and said, “I chose your father. I married him because I loved him. I did not choose you, I love you because I have you.”

That sounds harsh, but isn’t it true?

It makes sense now when I think about my mom “siding” with my dad. They chose each other and then they battled years with my siblings and me where we likely, though inadvertently, did quite a bit of damage in terms of eroding the bond they had. Not that any of us were bad kids, but that just seems to be the nature of the game as I see it right now.

And here is the thing: I love my husband. I adore him. If we were to have children so much would change. As I consider the question of procreation, I simply do not know why I would add a component to a life that feels pretty darn complete, especially if that component could drive a wedge between the person I chose as my partner and my teammate. And we have a very strong bond.

But then I wonder if any bond is strong enough to withstand the wear and tear that a child could potentially impart?

I think every bond is. And every bond is not.

There is a question to stay in, if I ever posed one.