Mommy Bloggers Take Note

Here is a woman who, in my opinion, has her head set on straight.

Ayelet Waldman first came to my attention yesterday when I was over at my mother's house reading a magazine and the title of the article read "I Love My Husband More Than My Children" and it caught my attention because for almost a year now I have had these thoughts about my partner and I thought that I was in the wrong because I was under the impression that when you had kids you were supposed to love them above all others: including the person you choose to be your life partner.

I've had feelings of guilt for god knows how long because I say often that I love my partner more than anyone else and then I've always felt obligated to say "well apart from the girls", but I can honestly say that when I make this declaration of love to my partner, the girls don't even enter into it and they feel more like an addendum and it's been distressing me.

Why are women more "in love" with their children than they are their men? I understand protecting and loving your child, but there is more and more of a trend where women are venerating their children and sticking them on pedestals while their men slink quietly in the background waiting for attention and I think that's wrong.

So I read what this woman had to say and granted, I didn't get to read all of it as I had to go, but what I did read made sense and it got me thinking about what I've been battling and it turns out that maybe my way of thinking isn't wrong at all.

We're all conditioned to seek out our mate. Whether you procreate or not is inconsequential, but right from the time that we are children we are conditioned to find and fall in love with the person we are going to spend the rest of our life with.

Parents get together and if they see a little boy and a little girl playing together, they start imagining them in 20 years time walking down the aisle and getting married. All parents do it, so don't be shaking your head all self righteously saying you haven't done it because that just makes you a liar. I've had it done to me as a child and as a teenager; and I've done it to my own children.

As children we pick up on the fact that one day we're going to fall in love and we're going to get married and buy a house and work jobs and have children and become grandparents so yes, it's a conditioning.

In my eyes, I don't own my children. They're not mine. They are three individuals that I gave birth to and it is my job to prepare them for when they go out on their own. Most people wouldn't agree with the job I've done, but tough shit. I've done the best I can and with my goal in mind, I'm raising strong people who probably won't get fucked over as much as I did, but it's still too early to tell.

This is what I want. It doesn't involve children. I love my children, but I want to be thought of more as a woman, than as a mommy.

We choose our life partners for a reason. They become the person we rely on. The person we trust and the person that we imagine ourselves growing old with. That person is your partner, your confidante, your rock and the person who grows with you.

Your children are eventually going to leave the nest, strike out into the world and find partners of their own to love and cherish. It's all part and parcel with the whole "love" conditioning that you place your child in when you first start pairing them off with little Simon or little Suzie from up the street over coffee in your backyard.

When a child grows older, do you really think they're going to love you more than they love their spouse or partner? Of course they're not.

I would prefer to think that I've taught my children to love and respect their partner and to strive for the best for themselves, rather than devote their blood, sweat and tears into raising a child that will ultimately leave them for someone else anyway, because that is the way life is meant to be.

I think children these days are mollycoddled too much and they're protected too much and it raises issues later on in their life where they're too weak to make decisions of their own because their mother has done everything for them and wrapped them in cotton wool, all at the expense of her own relationship and ultimate happiness.

When my children eventually leave home, I would prefer to go out and do activities with the love of my life and be secure in the knowledge that I properly prepared my children for life's ups and downs and know that if they have hard times or they're in trouble that they can come to me for assistance. I don't want to be doing what seems to be the trend lately, and that's sitting at home suffering the after effects of suddenly not having any children to raise because that's all I've been for the past twenty odd years.

I don't want to be defined by how I raised my children.

I think women like that end up becoming sad, bitter individuals and in all honesty, for every person who has a bad mother in law tale to tell, you will find that this woman was more in love with her children than she was with her mate.

Well done Ayelet Waldman, for having the guts to say what I couldn't say myself and some people may call me harsh, but this feels more real to me.

Posted By: Lint | 01:48 AM | Lint

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