Monday, January 31, 2011

Overheard Conversations: Becoming a Parent

A man said to his pregnant female co-worker: "You know, once you have kids your life is over."
She replied, "No, it's just beginning."

I'm not a parent, but in my mind there is a measure of truth in both statements. Becoming a parent is the end of one chapter in your life and the beginning of another. It's like a dramatic plot twist where your entire role changes as well as your outlook for the future. No longer is it just your future you are concerned with, but the future of your child. The end of one thing, the beginning of another. What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. For someone who has yet to have children you naied this one sweetie! You are exactly right, children add new and exciting chapters to your life - each one different yet each one is special. At times their young lives consume yours - all their happiness and their pain becomes something you cannot help but share. Even grown and out of your home they still live in a special place in your heart and their mates come to have a place there too! Each stage of their lives alters your reality but I cannot say there is anything I would have chosen over being a parent - the joys outweigh the pain. I, for one, would do it all over again without hesistation.

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  2. Oh man I had a whole comment typed up and then lost it. *grumbles* I agree with your take on things Heather that a stage of life is 'ending' and a new one is beginning. I just don't like the wording of what the first person said, that their life is "over." You've known me through several stages of my life: teenager, briefly single adult, married pre-kids, married post-kids, and you're soon to know me as a divorced single-parent. I don't know about your observations, but from my perspective I've learned new things about myself, continued to grow in some respects, taken on new characteristics perhaps, but I don't feel like I've ever totally lost the person I originally was. I still like what I like, I'm still personality wise very much like I was before. I have many of the same friends. I love to go out and do things. The only real difference is now I have to think beyond just myself. But does that really mean the same thing as me and my life being over? I don't feel like it does.

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