What a Difference a Decade Makes

This past Sunday, April Fool's Day, was my birthday. I am now thirty-one years old.

Excuse me while I go check my reflection in the mirror to see if I look any older.

Damn. Now excuse me again so that I can do a Google search for "anti-aging cream".

Just kidding. Sort of.

Anyway, I was cleaning out my closet recently when I came across a stack of old journals; I've been writing in journals since the fourth grade, and I've kept every one. I can't bring myself to throw them away, because reading them reminds me of what it was like to be ten, sixteen, twenty-two, etc.. (One thing I learned from reading my youthful, obsessive rants that were scrawled in Magic Marker is that I had a Type A personality even when I was in grade school, so I guess some things never change.)

One journal in particular held my interest. It was the one that I kept when I was a twenty-one-year-old college student. Here are a couple lines that stood out to me:

I'm not sure that I ever want to have children. I can't see myself as a mother. 

Granted, I was only twenty-one at the time, and I wasn't even done with college yet. I wasn't ready to put someone else's needs before my own. I viewed motherhood as a burden, such as the time that I was on a flight and a baby screamed (not cried, but SCREAMED) the entire time. It was worse than the times I used to ride home from ball games with my classmates back when I was in high school. Many of them liked country music and played it nonstop in their cars or trucks. At first I couldn't stand the twang of country music, until I finally succumbed to it and thought, Hmm. Banjos and fiddles actually ARE cool. Bring on the bluegrass! (On the other hand, maybe that's how it feels when people get brainwashed. Maybe I should do a Google search on that too.)

But I couldn't picture ever getting used to the constant sound of a baby crying, especially when I watched the flustered parents try in vain to quiet down their child. All I could think was (and I admit that I was kind of selfish to think this), Wow. I'm glad I'm not in their shoes.

But ever since I turned thirty last year, I can almost hear my biological clock ticking louder and louder. I know that there are many women who have children in their late thirties or even forties. I also know that it becomes more and more difficult to get pregnant as you get older, and deep down I don't want to wake up one day and realize that it's too late for me to have a child. I'd also like to live long enough to see my own child or children raise their own kids, because I'd like to hold my first grandchild in my arms before I die.

Now when I see women my age or younger pushing strollers or leading small children by the hand, I don't feel glad that I'm not them. I just feel...wistful. Now I know that I want to have a family of my own. It's not just because my biological clock is ticking. It's because I know that mothers do have a lot of burdens to carry, but having a child is a blessing, too. (I know that I sound like I just threw up a bunch of Hallmark cards, but I really am being sincere.)

I've been thinking about this more and more over the past year, and I've finally decided that if I'm not married by the time I turn forty, I'm going to try adoption or in vitro (I may even try earlier than that, once I finally finish grad school and find a good job.). I know that neither will guarantee that I will end up as a mother, and I know that being a single mother would be difficult. But that wistfulness I've been feeling just won't go away, and I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon. I think that I was afraid that being a mom would make it more difficult for me to do the things I wanted to do, like travel, write, and teach.

I was also afraid that I wouldn't even be any good at parenting, and I'm still afraid. I'm afraid I might end up with a kid who grows up to be a cast member on one of those reality dating shows, and then she might end up being the shrew who all the other cast members just HATE and cry fake tears over, or I might end up with a kid who grows up to have such a huge ego that he embarrasses Taylor Swift at an awards show.

But from what I've observed about parenting, it's an ongoing process; it seems like people learn how to raise kids as the kids grow up, because I don't think that anyone starts out automatically knowing what to do or how to be a parent.

Ideally, of course, I'd like to be married before I start having children, because I know that it is good for children to grow up with two parents. Single parents have their own struggles, because it's tough to raise a child alone. But being a single parent wouldn't necessarily mean that I would be a bad parent, because there are many excellent single parents out there as well as other "nontraditional" families that make it work. I know that I still have time before I have to make that final decision, and who knows, maybe I will find the right guy and get married. In the meantime, I need to focus on finishing graduate school and establishing myself in my career so that I will be able to support my family.

Either way, I feel like I've grown up a lot in the past ten years, and my attitude towards what I thought I wanted (and didn't want) has changed.

What about you? What are things that you thought you wanted/didn't want when you were younger, and how did your feelings change as you grew older? For those of you who have kids, how did you feel about becoming a parent before your kids were born?