Musings From a Reluctant Mother

May 6, 1999
Web posted at: 1:04 p.m. EDT (1704 GMT)

Being a mother comes about as naturally to me as being an astronaut. This fact alone made me highly qualified to write my latest book, The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life. Who wants to read anything written by a mother who is arrogant, who sails through effortlessly, who is blissed out putting a snowsuit on her flailing toddler, or whose eyes always shine brightly when she says, "I am a mother," in response to the question "What do you do?"

I became pregnant in the old-fashioned way. I never believed that I would really become pregnant because the thought of having an entire person grow inside your body is such a bizarre idea that only lunatics or religious fanatics would take for granted the fact that it might actually happen. And then there is the matter of getting the baby out, which is something no normal person wants to think about.

	glam-o-mama Celebs have moms, too good ol' mom Share your memories mom-orabilia ma-mentos of Mothers Days past blue plate poetry Move your mom with our muse mom-o-matic Marvy motherly moments the gee-whiz quiz Match those moms more on mom

I was thirty when I became pregnant for the first time. Before this pregnancy, I had not experienced one maternal twinge. When my friends would bring their infants in little carrying baskets to dinner parties, I felt sorry for them (the parents) because the whole thing seemed like so much trouble. "Oh, yes," I would chirp with false enthusiasm when asked if I would like to hold one of these tiny babies. But I was just being polite or trying to do the normal-appearing thing. I always sat down before allowing anyone to hand me a baby because I'm something of a klutz and I knew that if anyone was going to drop a baby it would be me.

To say that I was not maternal is an understatement of vast proportion. I enjoyed adult company, and my idea of a good time did not include hanging out with babies who were unable to dress themselves, use the toilet, or make interesting conversation. So it took me by surprise that the news that I was pregnant filled me with enormous pride and delight. When that pregnancy turned out to be a complicated and high-risk business, I discovered that I wanted this baby with a fierceness I had not known was possible.

That first pregnancy -- which luckily turned out fine -- was my first real lesson in vulnerability and surrender. It taught me all the basics of motherhood. I learned that we are not in control of what happens to our children, that this fact needn't stop us from feeling totally guilty and responsible, that matters of life and death turn on a dime, and that most of what we worry about doesn't happen (although bad things happen that we fail to anticipate). Whether your children enter the family through birth or adoption, these are the essential lessons of motherhood, and the universe taught them to me right up front.

To become a mother is to care so much that you lay yourself bare to a vulnerability beyond imagining. Anything can happen. In the face of adversity, you can aim for a kind of Zen detachment, but your kids are a part of you. They pull at you and they crack your heart wide open. Your kids will make you love them in a way you never thought possible. They will also confront you with the fact that you are definitely not the nice, calm, competent, clear-thinking, highly evolved person you fancied yourself to be before you became a mother.

To opt for kids is to opt for chaos, complexity, turbulence, and truth. I think that kids are the best teachers of life's most profound spiritual lesson; that life doesn't go the way we expect or plan, and nobody's perfect, not ourselves or our children. Or as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross put it, "I'm not okay, you're not okay, and that's okay." The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.

Harriet Lerner is a staff psychologist and psythotherapist at the Menninger Clinic. She is an author of a monthly column in "New Woman" magazine, as well as a lecturer, consultant and workshop leader.

Harriet Lerner's Website