I didn't think I wanted children. I ended up with five.
Navigating the ways becoming a mother changed my mind and my life

For an audio version of this essay, please click here:
In case you missed it, this month I’m focusing on the topic of belonging: what does it mean to feel like you’re part of something bigger than you? To be a member of a community or group and to be celebrated for who you are without feeling the need to conform or fit in? Each essay in April will feature a story that ties in with this theme of belonging and inclusion. I hope you enjoy them!
Growing up, I decided I didn’t want to have my own children someday.
Scratch that: I didn’t think I wanted to have my own children. That is, until I did.
My reason was always the same: I didn’t like kids. They were messy, unpredictable, and cried all the time. I couldn’t reason with a child. Babies were even more difficult to decipher, because they were pink and wrinkly and squirmed or wailed, constantly soiling their diapers. No, thanks.
As the older of two kids, I was seldom exposed to babies or toddlers. My family of origin is small, and my parents didn’t have siblings (either at all, in my mom’s case, or they were quite a bit older, in my dad’s case) with infants. The two largest families I knew were the Harrises across the street (five kids, Catholic like we were) and the Nelsons, who also had five kids.
Though life brimmed with activity that included church family camp-outs, youth group retreats, school trips, birthday sleepovers, and neighborhood kickball, I can’t recall ever seeing a woman holding a baby. Or nursing. Or changing a diaper. Maybe I did but it never registered, because I was too enthralled with my kid life. Maybe it’s because it was the 1980s, and women were more private about the early months of infancy then.
I’m pretty sure I would have remembered at least overhearing a conversation between my mom and one of her friends about the travails of breastfeeding or chronic sleep deprivation. But I didn’t.
I didn’t hold babies, didn’t watch them sleep, didn’t ask questions about their feeding habits. I wasn’t curious about children. At all. Faded memories tell me that I watched infants from a distance, never close up. Whenever I’d hear one cry (or scream) at the grocery or at church, I winced. And cringed. That awful, blood-curdling wail was enough to make me want to run in the opposite direction.
Because babies couldn’t use words to express their needs or thoughts, I couldn’t relate to them. Even as an elementary-aged child, I needed intellectual interactions with others—at least using verbal language.
By the time I entered adulthood, I had only babysat once as a teenager—and it ended poorly. (The toddler I was watching had a poopy diaper and I never changed it.) Though I told myself, Someday when I have kids… I didn’t really believe I would make a good mom.
But later in life, I would go on to bear and raise five children. In retrospect, my dis-ease around little ones was directly related to my fear that I would screw up any kids I might have. I didn’t want shame to be the overarching message I’d inadvertently pass down from my childhood to theirs. This fear was overruled, however, by my primal longing to procreate and to hand down to my progeny whatever measly legacy I might leave behind.
The first time I held Felicity, our first child, my shoulders relaxed and heart rate steadied itself, but my mind spun on the proverbial hamster wheel. What if I can’t do this? What if I don’t know what she needs? What if I can’t be what she needs? My childhood fears returned in the form of postpartum depression. Instantly, I felt overwhelmed and inept at caring for this little human life. My reflexive response after Ben arrived home from work every day was, “I can’t do this” or “I’ll never be a good mom.”
All my life I’d felt inferior to others. The categories of people all around me were incessant reminders that some people were “good” and others “bad,” and I was among the latter group.
It’s not that my parents overtly declared the goodness or badness of people. It was in the delivery of the messages I received as a small child:
“You shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Little ladies don’t interrupt and blurt their opinions.”
“If you keep bossing everyone around, you’ll never keep any friends.”
Categories. Boxes. Stereotypes. By the time I was in high school, the world was a terrifying place, and I approached each day with reticence. Nearly everyone I met at my large school intimidated me. The disparity among them challenged my upbringing. In fact, the first day of my freshman year, I discovered my locker was adjacent to a self-described Satanist who brought a Satanic bible to school (I saw it once, on top of his textbooks), dressed in all black every day, and wore a pentagram necklace. (All true.)
Different races, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and cultures pelted me from every direction back then, which expanded my worldview and opened my heart to other ways of being and thinking and living. And I wondered, hoped, that maybe I might find my unique fingerprint in this world, too.
So bearing children was a huge leap of courage, one I’ve never regretted. As time progressed, I slowly became acclimated to motherhood. With each child, I revisited the wounds of my past, yet as I faced each one, the healing balm of love between me and my newborn forged something deeper than my insecurities.
Felicity took her first steps on her eighteen-month birthday. She was delayed in gross motor development and had been rigorously practicing cruising along our coffee table for months during physical therapy sessions. Initially, when she was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, I blamed myself. My reflex was to chastise whatever I’d done wrong as a parent, whatever I did to cause this. I assumed I had to be responsible for this.
Though I knew these thoughts to be irrational and untrue, I harbored them for a time, even as I smiled and followed every piece of advice from the medical experts on how to help Felicity meet her major milestones. This wasn’t the life I wanted, but it was the life I had.
As the moments melted into years, Felicity grew into a perceptive and sensitive child. I saw myself reflected in the way she noticed small things, like selecting one specific daisy in a flower patch that slightly differed from the rest. She noticed people’s feelings, too, and often furrowed her brow when she sensed someone was upset. Sometimes, she would cry before they did.
All I could think then was, “I can’t mess up this precious child.”
Motherhood has taught me that children fall, then they rise again. They skin their knees. They feel the sting of an insect bite and heartbreak. The bruise of betrayal, too. It is not my job to protect them from life’s certain fluctuations between disappointment and celebration. Instead, it is my purpose to guide them through the brutality and beauty, so that they can discover what resilience meant to them—just as I am learning about myself.
Your financial contribution helps supplement our family’s expenses and offset the costs of ongoing medical care for our daughter Sarah that requires 20 hours of unpaid caregiving on my part. I want you to know how much your support means and how it helps our family.
Hey, I’m so glad you took the time to read my essay today. Would you mind taking a moment to click on the heart, leave a comment, or share this piece with someone else? I also have a few other, related posts you might want to check out:
Shared this a few places already, but cannot resist sharing it here, Jeannie. Thanks for the article an for being a good parent, we need that more than ever...
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8
"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and snuggle together." Karl - age 5
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6
"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7
"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that." Emily - age 8
"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen,". Bobby - age 7
"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend whom you hate." Nikka - age 6
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, and he then wears it every day." Noelle - age 7
"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6
"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine - age 5
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7
"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4
"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8
And the final one:
Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said:
"Nothing, I just helped him cry."
Share link: https://substack.com/@tritorch/note/c-110313722
I thought I wanted children. I ended up having none.
you know this, I could counter this article with the polar opposite.
How I taught high school and had over 100 kids a year, and loved the fact that I could give them back at the end of the day.
How my first husband wasn't "fatherly" and I knew I would end up resenting him, single-parenting, and divorcing (which happened anyway).
How I married a man with two kids, and never had the chance to be the "stepmom" because parent alienation and child estrangement is a thing no one really talks about.
How I tried to adopt a teenager in my 40s and was brutalized by a broken system that tried to ruin my reputation in the eyes of the court and cost me legal and therapy fees.
And ultimately how I surrendered, and I grieve.
and in grief. I love.