Bad Mother

The other day I happened to look at my hands, and noticed they looked like my mother's hands looked when I was a child.

I did some rough calculations in my head (nothing good ever comes of such things), and worked out that I'm the same age my mother was when I was about three years old. Those same calculations lead me to realise that my mother is almost the same age my grandmother was at the same time.

I had a strange feeling of nostalgia for what it was like with my mother and my grandmother when I was a small child and then, for some reason I can't quite explain, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by an impression that I was being a really bad mother. Here I was, denying any future children I might have the chance to know their mother while she was still in her early thirties, or to know their grandmother while she was still in her early fifties. This was something that had been a great benefit and pleasure to me, and my children would never know it.

Previously, I had only felt like I was being a bad daughter because I wasn't giving my mother grandchildren during her prime. Now I'm also feeling like a bad mother because I'm not giving my children their grandmother in her prime.

And the crazy thing about it all is: I don't want kids. I never have. I find the entire concept of pregnancy disturbing, the idea of being responsible for ensuring a baby survives childhood alarming and the thought of having to keep the thing for the next few decades daunting. Added to that, I have yet to find a candidate for the reasonably important role of "father of my children". Yet, even though children have never been on my list of things to do, I'm suddenly feeling like I've made a horrible miscalculation by not having them sooner.

At the back of my mind I've always thought that if I was ever going to have children, I'd prefer have a decent handful of them (like my grandmother) rather than just one or two. Yet I also know that having a large brood of children is a young woman's game. My grandmother had most of her kids in her twenties, and was in her thirties and forties when she had to deal with any teenagers - still young enough to chase them up a tree, if necessary.

Teenagers. Ugh. You know, babies eventually grow up to become teenagers. Babies are buckets of drool, poop and other icky, slimy substances. Teenagers are teenagers. You start with something unpleasant, and if you wait long enough, it will turn into something unpleasant. I really can't see the attraction there.

So, on one hand, when I think about it I find myself thinking: "Oh, no! I'm leaving it far too late to have children and there will be many negative things resulting from such poor timing"

And, on the other hand, when I think about it I find myself thinking: "But I don't want any of that."

Ah, the complexities of modern life...