2011 - Talk Birth

Imaginary Future Children (2011-12-29 08:25)
My brother graduated from college earlier this year and recently got his ultimate dream job in a nearby state.
This is the realization of a plan and vision he’s held for himself since he was a very small child. It is pretty
exciting for the whole family! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to my husband about it and we
were reminiscing about when we were young and launching our lives. Thinking about him, I was feeling a
little wistful and a little tied down, thinking about how we’re never planning to move anywhere else and so
forth and musing about whether we’ve made a mistake by settling so permanently in one home and location,
are we missing out on ”adventure,” etc. I also said, ”remember what it was like to make decisions without
having to think about our kids?” After a pause, we realized that we did not remember and that was because,
while our children at one point didn’t physically exist, making decisions about our lives as adults has still
always included them. And, then I was struck with a wave of memories of how the choices we made as a
very young couple were based on the then-hypothetical nature of our future children and what we wanted
for them. When I was finishing my BA in psychology, one of the top issues on my mind was where to go to
graduate school. I felt a pull towards PhD programs in psychology and I felt like that is what many people
were expecting of me, but I also knew in my heart that there was no way I could manage a practice as a
psychologist while also having children. I didn’t want to spend that much time in school and then feel torn
being pursuing my career and taking care of my children. So, I decided to work on my MSW, theorizing that
the more flexible nature of the work and the less expensive nature of the degree would be more compatible
with family life. (I was 18 while making this decision.)
Then, when I was getting ready to graduate from graduate school and Mark was finishing his bachelor’s
degree we had a conversation about how it was ”now or never” in terms of what we were going to do—I told
him that now was the time when we had the MOST freedom and flexibility with our choices and if we felt like
we wanted to live in a different part of the country, etc., NOW was the time to do it, before we had a family
to uproot. We talked at length and looked for jobs and apartments in a variety of different states. Finally,
we concluded that we wanted our children to be raised near their grandparents and not in a different state
where they would see them once or twice a year. (I was now 21 and would not actually have any children
for three more years.)
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No way could I keep these people apart!
We realized that many towns and places are much the same as any other and why not settle where we
were certain the grandparents would remain. I also knew that I wanted to be close to my own mom so she
could help me with my babies! So, we bought land one mile from where my parents live before I even got
pregnant with our first baby. Post-graduate school I was offered a full-time job at an organization that I
adored the year before I planned to get pregnant and I turned it down, knowing that I wouldn’t want to be
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