In Answer to I Wonder…

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PL wrote a post some time back asking mothers for feedback on a few questions.  I thought my answers were too long to leave in her comment box, so here they are:

1. It is my theory that mothers are given 9 months to care for the baby inside their womb as a period of adjustment.  Personally, I have never had much of an instinct for being a mother.  There was a time when I went about telling everyone how I didn’t want to have kids – ever.  Yet, look at me now – I wouldn’t trade Gavin for the world. 

I have to attribute much of my change of heart to the pregnancy hormones though.  I feel they made me more nurturing as a person.  Without them, who knows what I would be like today.  Then again, to feel a life growing inside your belly – how can one not feel attached to the little being inside?

I have also read that for some mothers, gazing upon their babies for the first time is like love at first sight, while for others, it is more like love at second sight (or third, fourth or however many times it took before they fell in love).  Personally, I can’t imagine not loving my son.  The intense and ferocious emotions I feel whenever I gaze upon him makes my heart swell until I feel it could burst.

Look at this face and tell me how you could not fall in love?

It leads me to question – does one really develop an instinct?  Isn’t an instinct something inate that already exists within us, even if it is buried so deep that we were not aware of it?

2. I am and still am all for women’s liberation.  I don’t see the role of being a mother as something that goes against women’s liberation.  Women’s liberation, to me, is about the right to choose.  The right to choose to work and the right to choose to want to stay home with my baby.  It is about making the choice to stay home with my child because I choose to and not because society dictates it. 

I think the feminists have blurred the issues surrounding women’s liberation so much that they have made it seem almost criminal that a women would willingly give up her career in preference of her children.  Yet, I wonder how there could ever be a contest between my child who brings me so much joy against a employer who demands so much from me and leaves me unfulfilled? 

I won’t deny that there are times when I miss the career I could have had, but when you put it side by side against my child, it is like comparing a cheesecake to ice cream.  Although I enjoy my cheesecake, I would take my ice cream over cheesecake any day.  And because I believe that I need to go on a diet, I can only afford to have ice cream and not both.

Having said this, I’m still all for the concept of stay home Dads.  I guess at the end of the day, my belief is that the person taking care of the children should be someone who can provide the love and guidance that they need.  Even a caring baby-sitter could do a good job as long as the child gets adequate, loving attention from his parents.

3. Why are we still thoughtful of our menfolk (even though some of us wear the pants at home) and willingly surrender the role of bread-winner to them, never mind that we lose our luxurious dual-income status?

Even though having a dual-income does offer a more luxurious lifestyle, I feel that the money is not as important as the time I have with my son.  While I understand that some families need the income of both parents in order to make ends meet, for me it is the wrong choice to take if we can manage on a single income.  We all know the story of the neglected rich child whose parents are too busy to spend time with them.

At the end of the day, I graduated with a degree in Dental Science and I am not using it.  I know my father, too, feels it a waste and keeps urging me to return to work once my children are older and in school.  I sometimes wonder if it is because of the degree I have.  Perhaps he would not be so encouraging for me to go back to work if I didn’t have a degree?  Who knows…

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