The thing with children is they don’t come with a health warning. However they are conceived, whether planned, as an afterthought or as a complete shock, they change your life – and not always for the better.
You may think that a strange thing to say, today of all days, here in the UK, as it’s Mothering Sunday but what I mean is that there are many children who arrive merely as the by-product of sexual activity and are not wanted. Those who stay with their birth mother can become loved, if they’re lucky, but others will always be a reminder of a mistake, a miserable experience or, worse, be ignored. These are the forgotten children who never experience love, affection or security.
To those of us who wanted and love our children unconditionally, this is incomprehensible. “How can those parents be so cruel?” we think. “How can a mother think more of her own needs than her child’s and introduce a potentially dangerous partner into the home? How can a mother herself do harm to her child?"
The sad fact is that not every woman is maternal and some, who never received nurturing themselves, have no idea how to nurture a child, even if they wanted to. And I’m not just talking about young women in shaky relationships. Some women who are part of what looks like a stable couple or in marriages need so much looking after themselves that they just don’t have the mental room for a child, or may have a partner who can’t cope with the competition.
The bottom line with having children is that the love has to be unconditional and the child has to come first. And that’s a huge shock to the system. And the guilt, if a woman doesn’t feel that way, is huge. But, like the chemistry between two adults, it’s either there or it isn’t and if it isn’t, it can’t be manufactured.
And spare a thought for those women who really don’t want children and have to endure the silent or sometimes vociferous condemnation by those who believe that ‘real women’ want to procreate and that there’s ‘something the matter’ with a woman who prefers to remain childless.
Then there’s the aching gap for those women who really want a child but, for various reasons, can’t have one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just swap everyone around, so that those who could give a child a wonderful home could take over the care of those who will never be loved by their birth parents? And let us also think of the mothers and fathers who experience the unthinkable – the death of a child, surely the worst pain in the world.
So, today let’s try and include everyone in the relationship with a child, not just us mums; the grandparents, other family, godparents, close friends and foster and adoptive parents should all be remembered and lauded. If you have been instrumental in helping a child’s development with a wonderful memory, a helping hand or a warm embrace, you deserve recognition. And if you don’t get it, keep doing what you’re doing; no-one’s in this for the praise.
