Six Word Memoirs on Life Stories

marymc says,

When I told my mom I was preggers, she said, "You've never had a maternal bone in your body!" (nice)... Truth was, When that lil dot turned pink I felt a connection to something I had never felt before. The first time I saw him, it was as if I took my first breath as well. I never said, "I can't do this" til his teenage years when the drugs crept in. I may have said it, but it wasn't true. I still COULD do this and did. Maybe I never wasted time "mothering" inanimate dolls so I could put all my eggs in this one special basket.

accidentaltourist says,

I thought more people would have something to say about this phenomenon.

I don't ever remember being worried about being a parent, about doing it "wrong" or screwing my kids up. I had one brief moment of distress, when my firstborn was a mere 2 weeks old and he rolled off the bed onto the floor...yes, bad mommy. Middle of the night, I was visiting my mother, sleeping in my old twin bed. I had just finished nursing, laid him on his belly (back when belly sleeping was encouraged, nay, preferred), and laid down next to him to pat him for a burp...and fell asleep. Minutes later, I woke to his fretful squalling, and there he was, on his back on the floor, arms flailing, face red. I scooped him up gingerly and rushed to my mother's room, holding him at arm's length while he shrieked. "Mom, he fell off the bed! Is he hurt? Is he broken?" I cried. I was horrified at my own neglect. Mom took him in her arms, and as soon as she did, he settled into her and stopped fussing.

"He's not hurt," Mom said, "you just scared him by holding him out like that. See? He's fine." And of course he was....he had fallen no more than 15 inches and landed on thick, soft carpet.

But I will say, I've birthed and held many more babies, and I never dropped another one. :)

Wench says,

I was oddly not that worried about the early baby stuff. I had read a phenomenal book on getting him into a routine and felt confident about that. One of my biggest concerns, honestly, was that lack of sleep would turn me into an evil monster.

This might sound strange, but I never had any desire to be a mom... Until I did. And when I did, it felt so completely right that I never thought to really question it. I am a little apprehensive about teen years, but I mostly feel like right now, being a mom is where I'm meant to be and although sometimes it is exasperating, I don't really find myself thinking "I can't do this" so much as "If I don't get a nap soon, the world will have to accept the new version of me that lives in an asylum."

unknown116 says,

I can't wait to be a mother. Sometimes I'll have dreams that I'm pregnant and when I wake up I'm rubbing my stomach.
I've grown up wanting kids. I could go into more detail about all of this, but I'll just say that I agree with that statement. But in the end, it all depends on how the woman rises to the occasion. You can't plan parenthood...well nowadays you can, but even with planning, you can't really prepare. Ready or not, you have to want what ever you get.

maryjane31 says,

I was the second born of six siblings so when I became pregnant I was very comfortable with babies and being a parent. Remember I was like a second mother to my younger brothers and sisters for many years. Good training by a great mom helped a lot as well.

MO_Thoughts2 says,

I am one of the oldest girls in our extended family. I have 25 cousins and we were always together. So being the girl I was usually put in charge of watching the little ones and supervising the older ones at a very early age (like 7). There were always adults around but us kids were usually outside playing. That allowed me to have lots of mom time way before I became a mom.

I had my kids when I was 29 and 31. Then it wasn't unusual for me to have 4 or 5 kids with me at any given time.

canadafreeze says,

I never worried whether I'd be a good mother. I was surrounded by good mothers. There were 36 grandchildren on my mom's side, and I was the eldest - so babysitting was expected from me. But, when I got pregnant, I was scared. I was moving far away from family and, especially from my own mother, so I knew things would be different for me - there would be no aunties and cousins to help. Lots of letters and phone calls between here and there and here.
Reading treehugger and Wench's memoirs bring back the sleepless nights, the fear of leaving them for the first time, the magic of all the "firsts". I wish I'd done some things differently or "better", but I'm proud of the people they've become.

Redx3 says,

I was never afraid of little ones. I have a younger sister eleven years my junior and I spent a good portion of my teen years caring for her. When she got older, I babysat and was a nanny for other families. It is the moment I am in now that scares me to death. My mother was, is a horribly self absorbed individual. She was a "what not to do" manual. She was toxic, and seeped anger and violence all over our teenage years. I am trying to strike the balance with my two. Not too much over-indulge, not too much under-value--it is like baking without a recipe. Will they rise? I sure as hell hope so.

Wench says,

My greatest fears are similar to Red's. My husband's parents were divorced when he was three. My parents got married because my mom was pregnant with my sister - and it has been made abundantly clear to us by my mom over the years that that is the only reason they got married. She used to come into our room after a fight and lay her head on my bed, wailing and saying this is not supposed to be her life. My husband's step-dad entered the scene when my husband was eleven. They're friends now, but during his childhood they fought. My husband spent Christmas Eve one year in a holding cell with a black eye because apparently waiting a minute before hitting an adult who was beating you counts as assault.

We love each other. We wanted a baby. But we have no real examples of what it looks like, done properly. We're just praying that love will make the difference.