My Week As a Single Mom
There was a time back when I was much younger that I terribly wanted to be a mother. When you're in your late teens and early twenties it's something of an expectation that marriage and babies are inevitable. Required, almost. And I wanted to be a wife and mother. Badly.
Fast forward several years and being a mother is not even ON my priority list. Being single as long as I have and enjoying the peaceful existence of having all the "me" time in the world has vastly and dramatically de-romanticized the notion of having children and being a mother. Add that to the fact that I don't even really like most of the children I come into contact with and children and motherhood aren't even on my radar.
And so it was that I approached this past week with no small amount of trepidation. I adore both of my nieces, don't get me wrong. But the prospect of being responsible for a little girl for nearly an entire week, giving up my space and my "me" time was daunting. Being conscious of making certain another little soul's needs are met intimidated me. There's the whole feeding her, making sure she has a bath, does her inhaler, brushes her teeth and takes her daily dose of cough syrup "thing" that gave me concern. Ask the DP and she'll tell you what a lax "mom" I am. She's had to learn to be very vocal with her needs. Pushing her empty water canister across the kitchen floor, dancing and pawing at the container her food is stored in when she's hungry, scratching noisily on the front door to go out--these are things she learned out of necessity because I am too scatterbrained to remember to keep the water canister filled, to pour out fresh puppy chow each day and pay attention when she hasn't been out in a while.
However, I surprised myself this week. Emmy and I got along wonderfully. I remembered her inhaler each day, she let me know when she was hungry and what she wanted to eat, we played games, watched movies and I tucked her in with a kiss each night. She got up easily each of the three mornings I had to get her up early to drop her off with Sis2 so that I could go to work. It was the most amazing thing in the world. It helps, of course, that she's such an awesome kid. She's so sweet, respectful and loving. And while I'm pretty sure she got bored a couple of times, she was sweet in not really letting me know. And I felt perfectly content having her there, being with her and telling her each day what a joy she is.
Don't get me wrong--I still don't want children of my own. But this week taught me this, if nothing else--I could totally do it if I wanted to.
Fast forward several years and being a mother is not even ON my priority list. Being single as long as I have and enjoying the peaceful existence of having all the "me" time in the world has vastly and dramatically de-romanticized the notion of having children and being a mother. Add that to the fact that I don't even really like most of the children I come into contact with and children and motherhood aren't even on my radar.
And so it was that I approached this past week with no small amount of trepidation. I adore both of my nieces, don't get me wrong. But the prospect of being responsible for a little girl for nearly an entire week, giving up my space and my "me" time was daunting. Being conscious of making certain another little soul's needs are met intimidated me. There's the whole feeding her, making sure she has a bath, does her inhaler, brushes her teeth and takes her daily dose of cough syrup "thing" that gave me concern. Ask the DP and she'll tell you what a lax "mom" I am. She's had to learn to be very vocal with her needs. Pushing her empty water canister across the kitchen floor, dancing and pawing at the container her food is stored in when she's hungry, scratching noisily on the front door to go out--these are things she learned out of necessity because I am too scatterbrained to remember to keep the water canister filled, to pour out fresh puppy chow each day and pay attention when she hasn't been out in a while.
However, I surprised myself this week. Emmy and I got along wonderfully. I remembered her inhaler each day, she let me know when she was hungry and what she wanted to eat, we played games, watched movies and I tucked her in with a kiss each night. She got up easily each of the three mornings I had to get her up early to drop her off with Sis2 so that I could go to work. It was the most amazing thing in the world. It helps, of course, that she's such an awesome kid. She's so sweet, respectful and loving. And while I'm pretty sure she got bored a couple of times, she was sweet in not really letting me know. And I felt perfectly content having her there, being with her and telling her each day what a joy she is.
Don't get me wrong--I still don't want children of my own. But this week taught me this, if nothing else--I could totally do it if I wanted to.
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