It's funny how life turns out, the odds of fate in the face of doubt

I have never been a conventional parent, and I'd like to think I'm a fairly honest one.  Somewhere in our human existence, we (and I mean the royal we) decided that pregnancy and childbirth and parenthood - particularly for women - is joyful and wonderful and romantic.  In some ways it is and I find that my experience of parenthood on the whole has been positive and of course I simply adore my child like no one else in the world.  There are moments I will remember for the rest of my life and hopefully beyond as perfect, like when she first saw the City and County building lit up for Christmas when she was about 2 and a half and dubbed it "the charming castle," or when she woke up from surgery a few months ago and asked in drugged haze for me to hold her and give her her nee-nee.  But there are drawbacks, too, like being powerless to relieve pain or prevent bad decisions, or when you feel like a slave for months or even years until they gain some independence, and resent having to wait on them hand and foot for months more twelve years later after a difficult surgery.  And I am sick of the implication that admitting to these feelings makes one a bad parent.  I don't even think we should express guilt about them.  Mothers are supposed to grin and bear it and never admit that sometimes being a parent isn't fun, and no one likes to forced to sacrifice one's self interests to another, no matter how much you love them or whether they emerged into the world from your body.  To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.  There have been many, many moments in the last thirteen years that I questioned my choice to have a child at all, and many more moments in which I did not like being a parent, did not want to be a parent, and found the constant call of "mommy" irritating.  Sometimes I beg her to call me anything but Mom - I say, "how about George; call me George.  But if you say 'mom' one more time I might do something rash."  That was yesterday.  Some things never change.

What made me think of this was when I sat at my daughter's orchestra concert this evening, listening to cranky babies, and suffering other people's unruly toddlers - including one such urchin who repeatedly kneed me in the back and fell upon me without so much as one correction from either parent - and observing the postures of early teenage awkwardness in its various forms of rebellion and acne.  Quite funny, that last part.  I realized that as parents we are supposed to get all warm and fuzzy as we feign enthusiasm for such events as recitals and plays and various forms of artistic expressions of our children.  Of course I get excited to see my daughter playing Bach, but the others, well, I could do without them.  These things are always excruciating and long, and listening to a choir that can't sing absolutely slaughter the world's worst version of "My Heart Will Go On" from the Titanic movie, or a badly tuned concert band for nearly an hour before the orchestra is about all I can stand.  It occurred to me that I have endured many such events - I would never not attend something my daughter was involved in simply because I am ever her cheerleader - but I simply cannot wait until the burden of attendance has passed and I am free to never have to do this again.  There; I said it.  

My sister keeps hinting to me that I might change my mind about having another child, a wink and a nudge when I'm doting on Natalie, but no; not a chance.  I'd just as soon voluntarily remove one of my limbs, and that doesn't make me a bad person.  What I realized at said concert tonight was that I'll be glad when I no longer have to pretend that this element of parenthood is fun; when I no longer have to contend with the soccer moms who think that (a) I'm much younger than I am because I don't look like they do and translate this into me being a trashy teen mom rather than simply older than I look; (b) I'm somehow less because I don't wear a wedding ring, which also translates into some kind of moral shortcoming; and (c) I grade papers or edit my Chuck Palahniuk paper whilst their children are slaughtering movie tunes and pounding cymbals against the tempo.  Some woman wearing high-waisted jeans and an eighties hair style with curled-under bangs clucked her tongue in my general direction a couple of times because I was editing my reading for tomorrow while her precious angel was doing something she called singing.  Oi.

Don't get me wrong; I love children in the general sense and I am completely in love with my own, and those who are immediately in my life - my niece, my friends' little ones - but I look forward to the day when these are the only ones with whom I have to deal, and on my own terms.