In a Musing Mood about Mommyhood

Ok so I’m a little late for Mother’s Day.  But it was Mother’s Day that started me thinking about being a mother. I also just picked up my college age daughter from Logan Airport tonight and I am musing even more about being a mother.

 I remember when I didn’t want to have children. I had decided, in my late teens, that I wanted to be a corporate executive and live in a high rise in New York City or someplace equivalent. My parents had gone through a bitter divorce and I wanted nothing to do with marriage. “Ok,” I reasoned to myself, “maybe someday I’ll have a child but I’ll have it on my own and raise it on my own.” 

I didn’t consider myself to be a person who enjoyed being with children. In fact, I only babysat for the money. I didn’t really LIKE it. So when I got the opportunity to go be a nanny for a well known Boston media figure I jumped, not because I wanted to be with children, or because I knew the family was well connected, but because I simply wanted to be someplace I had never been before. 

What I didn’t count on was how that squirmy little three-month-old bundle would change me inside in terms of my priorities and my life goals. I found myself actually looking forward to the challenge of focusing on another human being that was so darn cute and adorable. Eventually that adorable challenge was one that I had to run after, teach and discipline. At times I felt frustrated. But at the end of the day I felt like my life had so much more meaning than it had before I met him. 

This experience gave me the confidence to believe that I wanted to be a parent and that I could be a good parent. When the time finally came I felt very possessive of my child because I wanted every minute of time I could have with her. I had seen the first little one grow up so fast. I knew it wouldn’t last very long.

And now she is here, my 21-year-old first baby girl. She has been such a joy to myself and her siblings. In fact, they are so excited that she is back that I have to busy myself  because the noise is so loud that it is like a birthday party. 

So I am a little late. But not late being a mother. I’m late with my career. And that’s ok.