I feel like expounding on something really deep and interesting. Unfortunately, I always suffer a seriously foggy brain, which I call post-partum dementia, after a child is born. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. Yeah, I'll blame most of it on that. Some number of years ago, it occurred to me that what a mother goes through in the months after she has a child would be considered a form of torture if taken out of context: a total lack of REM sleep, a roller coaster of chemical changes, the breaking of your own will, etc.
Sometime during this blissful experience we all say, "I'm never doing this again! One kid (or insert number) is enough." But then we are redeemed by the grace of post-partum amnesia. We forget some of the pain of pregnancy, some of the anguish of labor (or surgery), and some of the weariness of those first six months or so. It's easy enough to do; parenthood takes over your days and the past gets a little blurry. Besides, it isn't all pain, anguish and weariness- some is, but the rest of it is absolutely heaven. There are plenty of good reasons to give your first child some siblings if you can. After you've been through it a few times it begins to stick with you a bit better- the hard stuff and the incredible joy.
Worth it? Oh yeah!... as far as I can remember.
4 comments:
The last line of this post makes it for me. Great!
I am glad we added you to the mix we already had. Hang in there- you are doing great.
Have you ever read Praise of Folly by Erasmus? He talks about that exactly and it always makes me laugh. Here's an excerpt:
In fine, that wise man
whoever he be, if he intends to have children, must have recourse to me (Folly)...
Or what woman is there would ever
go to it (wedlock) did she seriously consider either the peril of child-bearing or
the trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to
wedlock, you owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what
you owe to me I have already told you. Again, she that has but once
tried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it
were not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself,
notwithstanding whatever Lucretius has said, would not deny but that
all her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help of my deity.
That's great! No I haven't read that before. Plenty of truth in there.
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