I spent a good chunk of my teenage years telling my mother I would never get married. I’d never have children. I’d adopt a ranch of dogs instead and love all of them. That was the dream.
Frankly, what were the benefits of having a spouse and bearing children and having to take care of both 24/7? In my head, it was all cons. Personally, if I were to have kids, I would also like to have been married and settled first. But that’s where the problem begins:
Who has time to go looking for a life partner? When am I going to get the time to get to know someone when I don’t even know myself completely? Who has the money to invest in dates and rings and weddings? Who has time to figure out whether or not we have joint bank accounts? Who has the money to pay for hospital bills when the kids start rolling around? Have you seen college tuition? Who can pay that multiplied by the number of progeny? What if you accidentally emotionally scar ‘em for life? What if they turn into bullies instead of upstanding human beings? What if you accidentally give them too little lunch money? What if you loose one of ‘em in a mall and they don’t remember that you told them to ask a security guard to announce on the loud speaker that “Mrs. So-and-so your child was found wearing the mannequin arms as a necklace in Bloomingdales?”
It’s A LOT to think about.
That’s why we should give our parents props. Especially our mothers. My Nanay works a full time job and is raising five rowdy idiots to be good human beings. (Hopefully…) In middle school, I used to get annoyed that my father would send us to the laundromat with Nanay. But when I think about it now, my mother is working 24/7. She has her day job and her forever job. And yet, she hasn’t quit. She’s a badass.
Looking back on it, the reason why I hated the idea of being a mother and raising children was because its a scary and challenging prospect. Mothers, like teachers, can mold the future, simply by raising their children a certain way. That is one hell of a super power. More so mothers and parents who are single parents, having to carry the weight of everything solo. Right now, I don’t know what is in store for the rest of my life. Maybe I will have kids or maybe I’ll have a nice life with my dogs and grow old alone. Who knows. But one thing is for sure, whoever I will be, it should be amazing. I owe that much to my parents and most especially my mother.
Hi, Nay! Happy Momther’s day!
