My best friend asked me that question late last night (like 9:30), when I was well into the sangria and probably not at my most objective.
My children haven’t slept in six months; I’m not the person to ask. That was my first thought. Then my mind scrambled to come up with multiple convincing arguments, or…one, because I do want her to have children, I think she’d be a great Mom.
But kids don’t really lend themselves to pros and cons lists. Neither, for that matter, does parenting. If you try to tally it up, Mommyhood seems like a pretty thankless job. You bust ass, you wipe ass, you kiss ass. You get your ass handed back to you.
See, I’m not good at this; this is why I’m not in sales. Or why I haven’t sold my book- I can’t sell anything, not even things I love. And I do love being a Mom, it’s just difficult to describe.
Everyone talks about the love, and yeah, that is the big thing. But “the love” is vague. How do you explain the difference between the love you feel for your children and the love you feel for anyone else? You can’t.
I’m not sure what I said to my friend, I think I just mentioned little things that sprang to mind, the first of which, that kids are hilarious. Kids are fucking hysterical. Kids say crazy, crazy shit (and apparently, kids make you swear a lot…) Like when I asked Mumu, “Don’t you think Lulu is singing beautifully?” and she replied, “No, she sounds like a mermaid tootling.” Christ, this kid should write for Rolling Stone!
And kids make you get over yourself. No one’s looking at you, they’re looking at your adorable children. It doesn’t matter if you look like crap. Get used to looking like crap.
Yeah, I am totally not selling this. I was better at descriptions of parental love and bonding when I was lactating/teeming with gushy hormones. Back then, I actually made someone cry when describing what Motherhood meant to me. I should really have written it down, yo.
I’ve forgotten most of what I said, most of everything from the breastfeeding days, but I remember telling this person (the one who cried) that one of the greatest things about my two tiny little people was the purity of their motives, of their love. All they wanted was us. To spend time with us. To be loved, entertained, fed, by us- their parents. They lit up when we walked in a room. They fell over laughing when we stuck out our tongues. They didn’t care what we owned, how we looked, or even what we said. We were the coolest, smarted, most hilarious people they knew, and they fell over themselves to get to us.
It’s great to be needed, to be loved. To have people who make you laugh, that surprise you constantly, that push you to your limits, that break you down and pick you up, all on a daily basis.
So that’s my pros list, which you won’t be reading in Hallmarks anytime soon. But my best friend reads this blog, and I’m hoping you clever Mommies out there can do a better job than me.
What do you like about parenthood? We need some more pros.
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America was, and is, astonishingly beautiful. I loved sharing it with my British husband of only one year; we learned so much about the nation and ourselves.
