Thought Goddess

Not once have I ever second guessed my desire to be a mother. Today I was sitting at work and suddenly the thought stuck me that I might not want to have children. My first reaction was to shutter in horror. "Where on earth did that come from?" I thought, "Of course I do!" I knew better however than to dismiss this altogether foreign thought. Not want children? Me? Who was this thought goddess inhabiting me? What awful things was she making me think? And from where had this thought derived?

So I analyzed. (Stuffing envelopes all day allows one time for thought analysis . . . my job will be very interesting if this thought goddess decides to take residence of any sort in my brain.) These are what I found were some of her musings about children and why I might not want to have them. She made me seriously stop and think.

-Would you really want to screw up a life, not to mention
multiplelives?

-Do you really want to repeat the mistakes that your mother made
raisingyou? The ones that because "you are so much like your mother" you are
bound to make?

–You've recently found what it means to rest. And you've come to enjoy
it. As a mother, there is no rest. Do you want to relinquish
that?

-Will the joys really outweigh the sorrows? You've watched your
mother. Reality is tough. Maybe it's not worth it after all. Aren't you
content now? Why risk it?

-Do you really want to subject small lives to the maternal
grand-parenting they would inherit? Do you want your mother repeating the
mistakes she made with you again?

This goddess ran wild for a time. But slowly I began to rein her in. Maybe it was too late. For the first time in my life I've considered not having children. It feels . . . wrong. Until today that thought had never crossed my mind.