Evolution

I've been thinking today, thinking about what I'm going to write.

I read an article about the brain development of 20 somethings.

I thought about the origins of my motherhood.

I considered my love/hate relationship with labels when applied to people. (I did realize I'm okay when labels are applied to things. I would prefer to not, you know, drink poison or something.)

I have grappled with self-identity.

And what have I come away with? Motherhood, like life itself, is a beautiful evolution.

A long time ago, but really not that long ago at all, when E. was a baby, I did something kind of foolish. I honestly don't remember what it was, but my husband called me out on it. My response: "My brain is still developing - you can't expect me to always make good decisions!" My brain, like my motherhood, has been evolving. And it's that biological evolution that has fueled, in part, the changes in how I mother my children.

I've always been upfront with the many disadvantages of having kids young. There is just so much risk to everything in your life - your finances, your relationships, your sanity (though, I suppose that's up for grabs no matter when you have kids), but there are advantages, too. One of the absolute coolest things about spending your early twenties amongst the wee ones is seeing how much you change, how quickly and how drastically. I am not the person I was seven years ago, when I was pregnant with E. And, of course, most people change a lot in seven years, especially moving from 19 to twenty-six, but that change only grows exponentially when you throw children into the mix.


I moved from a neanderthal living in a cave, in terms of self-awareness and understanding, to something resembling an evolved human being. I might still be living in the Dark Ages, fighting to reach my Renaissance, but I'm moving forward and I'm starting to like what I see in myself.

I thought this was interesting (it's from that article I mentioned above) -

[Geid] and his colleagues plan to compare the brain development of girls who become pregnant in their teens to girls who do not. “Teen pregnancy changes all your priorities and what you do with your time—how do those experiences change the brain?” Arnett agrees that such neuroimaging studies would be useful. “Even in industrialized countries, a lot of people still get married pretty early. You could do brain studies comparing people who experience their twenties differently and contrast how their brains develop.”

To give some context, right before the quote above, the article's author poses this question: "Should parents encourage their 20-year-olds to shirk adult responsibilities lest they hamper an advantageous period of self-discovery and wild experimentation?"

I bring up these quotes because while they don't directly contrast my feelings that having children compounds the evolution a person takes on between the beginning of young adulthood and the end, it seems to challenge it. Basically, the article implies that because a person who chooses to take on "adult responsibilities" (i.e. family of her own, real job, etc.) they are unable to participate in a period of "self-discovery" and "wild experimentation."

You find out what you're made of when you are confronted with a challenge, particularly one that involves taking another person's life into your hands. While maybe it doesn't feel that way all the time, because, in the 21st century world, the stakes can be much lower, becoming a parent means you make sure your little person doesn't accidentally off themselves or get eaten by a wild animal in your backyard (genuine concern here in Maine). With that and any myriad of potential cultural issues to concern yourself with, parenting is precisely what the article suggests twenty-somethings need to help their brains expand! (You tell me spending five nights in a row trying to both calm a colicky baby and then figure out whenever you're going to have sex with your husband again isn't wild experimentation!)

Having my kids, being married to my husband, going to my awesome job - those have forced me to change, molded my brain and my body in ways that nothing else could have. And the more I interact with these forces of will and love the more I love the person I am becoming. Yes, sometimes I sit back and I wonder about what my life would look like if I had made different choices, and I still see a good life, a happy life, but it's not this life. I can also see humans evolving to the point where they have mutant powers and can bend time with their psychic powers (#nerd), but I'm not going to lament over the fact that it hasn't happened (yet), as totally awesome as that would be.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a primordial tail to ditch and some prefrontal cortext to develop.*

*Totally just throwing those words out there. I'm not sure if I even know what they mean.  

Things I Learned in Kindergarten

The months before Kindergarten were a struggle for me and my daughter. It's easy to be deceived by her similar appearance to me and penchant for big words and dramatics. It's easy for me to be tricked into thinking, She's just like me. Oh, but she is not. She is so, so different. And it was in the forgetting of that which caused a great deal of strife in that nerve-wracking and tumultuous time before school started.

Before Kindergarten, I would constantly ask myself (or even aloud), "Why is she doing that?" And the behavior I just couldn't make sense of would frequently be framed in a negative light, no matter how I tried to be positive.

Things are different now, after a few months of school, watching her in her classroom as I volunteer, seeing other children, talking to other parents, newbs like me and old parenting veterans, and speaking with her teacher, someone young, enthusiastic, and with a fresh eye on my kiddo that I don't easily have access to. 

That stubbornness? Independence. She doesn't need anyone's help, not mine, not yours, not that random kid who thinks he knows it all. That callousness? Well, it's not that she doesn't care, because to see her with her classmates, she does. She helps those in need with gentle reminders and doesn't tattle. But she's not beholden to anyone. She's not here to please and she wants to be happy. She hasn't yet, and I hope she never will, fallen into that horrible female trap of needing to please. She'll be nice, she's going to help the needy, but she'll be damned if she's going to change her life to make you  feel better.

We're different, my little girl and I, but we're different in a way to puzzle pieces are. They're differing shapes allow those pieces to snap together to form a connection and a fuller picture. I will help her find her balance, and she'll help me find mine. Raising a child, raising a daughter, is a long journey for any mother, but the more willing I become to see all her differences for the beautiful things that they are, the ever so slightly easier this all becomes.

Because, in the end, opposites attract.