Parenting. It’s one of those overwhelming lifestyle changes that you don’t fully comprehend until you’re actually immersed in it. Lots of people are parents, but every parenting experience varies by family. No one told you everything because what works or doesn’t work for them, won’t necessarily be the same for you.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that everyone makes a choice on whether or not to have a baby. Many did not choose to get when or, sometimes, if even to get pregnant. But once that baby starts to grow, the choice is then ours to either terminate or carry out to birth. But rarely do I hear anyone comment that they want to become parents, in the deeper sense of the word.
The pre-natal/pregnancy stage is where, I believe, parenting starts to take shape. A mother’s mood and attitude during pregnancy impacts the child in utero. This is when you plan for the childbirth event and how the baby’s room will look. You celebrate pregnancy and pray hard that mother and baby stay healthy. You spend countless hours researching car seats, strollers, cribs, diapers bags, bottle vs. breast, diapers and many other necessities. Many books are read to in preparation of child care and child development. How to hold, how to bathe, co-sleeping, swaddling, diet, what to expect at various stages of growth. But yet, there’s still more.
Once your baby is born/given to you (many people do adopt, after all) reality starts to sink in. All that drama leading up to the delivery room and the perfect paint colour on the nursery wall starts to pale in comparison to what lies ahead. There is a new little person in your arms that you are completely responsible for. They are fully dependant on their parents. For everything. They can’t even hold up their own heads. That’s a small indication of what lies ahead.
Parenting is probably one of the most ultimate gifts of sacrifice a person can make. It really requires you to not only love unconditionally, but to also do a deep self inspection. If you have any deep, buried emotional, mental and spiritual scabs that have not yet become scars, now is the time for healing. It’s not fair to your new person for its parents to project old negativity into their life. You sacrifice personal comforts, such as hot meals and uninterrupted tv watching, in order to put your child’s needs first. You begin to think of how your actions & reactions to everything look to your child, who is watching you in everything. The relationship you have with your spouse is your child’s first lesson in marriage. The relationship with the other parent (if unmarried) teaches your child how to respect adults. The way you treat your parents, the way you keep house, the way you drive, the way you shop, the way you go out, the way you make decisions, the way you pray—all of these are your child’s first lessons.
The flip side of this noble sacrifice is that parents (often mothers) tend to feel a loss of identity. The great debate of staying home versus working outside the home comes up. How do you remain true to yourself, yet give of yourself completely for your family? Despite the varying opinions society suggests and offers, the only ones qualified to make the best decision for your family are the parents.
Parenting. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.