A Lack of Maternal Instincts
Motherhood was never my dream.
I often felt I was lacking some innate female trait that is expected of women.
I was never the girl ooo-ing and ahh-ing over babies. I was the one taking a step back for someone else to hold them, as if being so considerate, “No really, you go ahead and hold her,” when I was just saving myself from having to string together the sweet nothings that naturally spill out of a normal person's mouth when holding a baby.
Babies seemed unrelatable to me, almost alien-like. I can’t speak their language, I didn’t know what to do with them and there was no draw to try, so why should this be natural to me?
Yet growing up the oldest of four kids I’d somehow always found myself babysitting, working in church nurseries, and nannying to make ends meet while pursuing the penniless career of being a New York yoga instructor. It seemed that since I was a woman there was always someone assuming I wanted to be around babies. (Cause doesn’t every woman?) So I assumed every other female but me did. I had no maternal instinct. Even as a kid I skipped the baby doll phase to play with barbie dolls who were preoccupied with doing their hair, were Olympic athletes, or in a rock band.
So many girls I knew, even my younger sisters, had this innate knack for handling little ones, while I'd be keeping my distance, waiting for a clear look of approval from the tiny human before attempting to approach. I felt misplaced around children. I wondered, “how is this ever going to work?” How could I be a mom if I don’t even feel a desire to hold a baby?
As I write this I’m nine days away from my due date. And still, I can’t fathom that I have a baby inside me. Is this real life? Right now I can’t even wrap my head around it. But here we are.
It’s a strange thing to know you want a family and of course, you want to have children someday but feel no desire to be motherly. You want the loving home and white picket fence - at some point. Just not at the average going rate. But becoming a mother to someone, a baby no less, there was not a pressing desire.
Even now pregnant, I don't think I’d ever feel ready. Mostly because I’ve had a harder time imagining being at the beck and call of another being.
Yes, it sounds selfish and I admit it is.
Beyond babies and children feeling foreign to handle, it’s entirely selfish. Because let’s face it, when you’ve been single, navigating life on your own, well into your thirties you don’t care to be at the beck and call of anyone in constant need of you if you don’t have to.
Even with all the moving and kicking inside of me, the tiniest drumbeat of a kick that first brought me to tears, I sometimes forget there is a human being in me - an actual baby. It feels like I’m just waiting for this belly to be released of this additional weight. But I suspect that the miraculous magnitude of it all makes it nearly impossible to wrap my head around what is about to happen.
Many may assume that anyone who doesn’t get married until their 35 would be ready to have children right away. But at 35, freshly married, even then I had no desire to have kids and probably tried to bury any that would surface. Because when you’ve spent that much time single, mingling, dating, moving, transitioning, you mostly feel ready to just feel content being with someone for a little while. (Emphasis on some “one”.)
Being single longer than the norm you feel a great many steps behind the traditional track. You feel on a different track entirely. Because you are. What is normal to everyone else is foreign to you. And what is normal to you is foreign to everyone else.
I wasn't ready to welcome someone who would need my constant help, attention, and instant access to my body, and waking up to someone else's needs before I'm able to get my workout in. The thought of all that was far from being desirable.
It may even be the reason why no matter what age you are as a single woman it can sometimes be hard to connect with other women who do have children. It feels like you’re both living in different worlds because in reality, you are. When you’re pushing thirty single you get the sense that some view you as selfish, self-consumed, and one-track-minded. Some just tell you point-blank.
You may never hear it directly, but you can certainly feel it. “Must be nice.” “Gee I can’t remember the last time I had no one but myself to think about.” “You’re so lucky you can work out when you want ‘cause you don’t have kids.” It’s indirectly direct, which can often be our way as women.
The longer you are single or without children the more you hear this. And the longer you’re single the more you feel you have to fend for yourself, fight for the same adequate benefits as your male co-workers, and struggle to access some kind of relational depth in a social world that grows increasingly invasive yet progressively superficial. Add the trait of an introvert to the mix and it’s a hot mess. Often those of us viewed as entirely self-consumed are simply still trying to figure life out.
After years of singleness, it’s not natural to take time to think much about being needed. Or that’s just me - I never know.
Something about motherhood never sounded appealing. I wanted it someday, yes. Just not today. The word itself carried a negative connotation. Motherhood sounded like the end of something - of so many things: the end of my morning routine, the end of my spending budget, the end of my frivolous meal preparation, the end of uninterrupted nights, frankly, the end of who I want to be. (Granted, being a mom likely sounds a lot more exciting than my weekly routines in singleness. Who am I kidding?)
Motherhood sounded like the end of me.
I’m quite a selfish individual. I am fully aware of this.
The idea of being pregnant appealed just the same; The end of control, control over my body, my thoughts, who had access to it, invaded it, or upset it at any moment. The whole package deal seemed like the termination of some kind of sanity I thought I somehow had a handle on.
When I had yet to find someone I want to share my paycheck or saliva with, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around being responsible for anyone else. But it’s funny how unexpected life circumstances can change what we want. It's funny how we think we always know what we want.
After getting married and beginning the whole discussion on when to start trying, that resistance certainly didn’t just go out the window. Since my twenties, I had told myself I’d want two years of marriage before even thinking about a baby. So by the time I was engaged and 35 I had to be open to a timeline I hadn’t necessarily planned for or hoped for.
Some might think that waiting until you’re 37 to get pregnant isn’t the greatest idea. But hey, if Megan Markle could do it why can’t I? The suggestion that getting pregnant “at your age” was any more complicated to me than any other age was beyond me. That is until people start asking, “So how do you feel about having a baby at an advanced maternal age?” or categorizing my pregnancy as geriatric. (But we’ll save that for another day.)
Ready or not, here I am pregnant. Timing is never convenient. And just because my belly has grown doesn’t mean any innate instinct has. But some things have.
It’s interesting how the entire process of pregnancy prepares you to let go of all that control I’ve been petrified to give up. Just as all the relaxin and progesterone are loosening your muscle, it loosens your inhibitions to ease up your grip on the reins, and you start to wonder why you were holding onto them so tightly, to begin with.