Humility and Joy

I am back at my maiden home for a couple of days, and I find myself constantly hovering around my parents, especially my mother. I don’t want anything from her, I just want her in the same room – even if it is just us sitting and doing our own thing. I just want to see her.

Ever since I got married, I find myself constantly reaching out to my mother every time I am overwhelmed in an alien situation or unable to handle my own feelings. This time when I came home, I found my mother telling me how once your parents die, there is no one truly yours left on this earth – your siblings have their own families and so do your adult children; you have your husband, but no one you could rely on like your mother.

This conversation flipped another script in my head – Am I ready to be what my mother is to me? If you raise a child fairly well in this world, chances are, they will need you for the rest of your life.

So I ask myself - Am I ready to be a mom? Well, I don’t know the answer yet. I turn 27 in a month. While I am not particularly concerned about my biological clock, I am still unsure of what motherhood might look like for me and when the right time is. Logic says – I should wait till I am done with my PhD. My body needs more time to get healthier in order to carry a baby. And my mental health for sure needs more time to adjust to my present living situation.

But more than any of this – I wonder if I am ready to take up the challenge - to be at someone’s constant beck and call, to be someone’s entire world as they grow, their supporter as they grow up and confidante as they grow old. Am I ready to hear someone call me their mom for the rest of my life? I sure am concerned about what I might be giving up to have this experience – my freedom, my time, my energy.

More than the sacrifices one might need to make, I am more curious to know if I have the bandwidth to be responsible for another human life. The only remotely close experience I have ever had to being responsible for someone else is taking care of my sibling, but this is so much different from that. What if I mess them up? I know I will mess them up in my own unique ways. I might not make the same mistakes my parents did. But I know I will make my own. And I know my children will grow up to tell me what I could have done better, just the way I do with my parents now. I am not afraid of making mistakes! I already have a lot of identities I have to do justice to – but this one – oof, it’s a biggie! And I am not sure if I am ready for it.

They say – one must not have kids for selfish or societal reasons – for security in old age, because one must have them, or because we were getting too old – so if not now, then when? I truly hope that when I have kids, I bring them into this world solely because I want to give them a life they are meant to live, not the one I design for them. They make their own choices, make mistakes and know that their parents would have their back no matter what; that they be respectful of others and themselves, that they set boundaries even with us as parents, that they experience love, the full spectrum of it and that when they are stuck, we (their parents) are the first people they jump to call.

Is this a utopian wish? Time will tell…I know I don’t have to make a choice just yet. But I hope that when I do, I am ready for it!