Awhile back, I wrote about the evolution of a mother. Most of the time when I'm thinking about things to write, I have to let them live in my brain for weeks while I organize my thoughts enough to put my fingers to the keyboard. Lately, I've been thinking about some of the differences between moms and dads.
There are the obvious differences between moms and dads like gender, but it's the not so obvious differences that I've been ruminating about. In one of my last posts, I wrote about how having children changes you. I mean, REALLY changes who you are, what you do, what you think about, how you react to things and many times how you see the world around you. I think I understand now how my mom worried (and still does) so much about my safety and well being. And how I spent a lot of each of my pregnancies worried about the future and the baby. Like getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, worrying while baby is in utero is training for future worrying. Only when baby is in utero, you can control where they go, what they do, who they interact with, fat chance of that once adolescence hits.
Mostly what I've been thinking about is how when men become dads, it's like they have an add on to their lives. An added dimension of personality and experiences. A bonus to their lives that wasn't there before. While becoming a dad sometimes means changing diapers during football games, or fishing with your kids instead of alone, dad's lives don't change a whole lot in the first years of their child's life. Maybe that's because for the most part, moms are responsible for the very survival of their children from the time they are simply multiplying cells inside of us.
On the other hand, when women become moms, we are irrevocably changed. Our children are not add ons to our lives or bonuses, they often take over parts of us and our lives. In the beginning, they take over our sleep, our eating, our breasts (for some), and definitely our minds. Children literally take over our lives. We move other, now less important things out, to make room for the new most important thing called a child.
Like scrapbooking, do I do that anymore? or shopping for fun at target? or going out to dinner? Things had to leave my life to make room. Don't get me wrong, I am not moaning and complaining about this, just thoughtfully observing what has transpired in my life in the last 6 years. I have changed since I had children. I think differently, I speak more carefully, I watch different tv, I have some different friends, I sleep differently, I have different hobbies, I am different.
I occasionally think about the woman I was before kids. And surprisingly, I don't really miss her. Of course I miss going out to dinner or bumming around target. I have to admit, I don't really miss scrapbooking. I miss her uncluttered mind and her simple to do list that didn't include raising responsible, caring humans. I miss her mostly clean and quiet house. I miss her disposable income and petty cash. I miss these things, but I wonder what she did with all her time.
This is just one of the fundamental differences between moms and dads. It's not to say that dads aren't changed by parenthood. Of course they are. I'm just saying that my husband is still himself, only better, as a dad. And I think my SELF is much different than I was before I had kids.
There are other differences between moms and dads that I won't get in to here. And, I love my husband. He's one of the most phenomenal dads I know and love. I love him even more since he became the dad of our kids. Being a dad is one of his many natural talents. Still, he is the same as always. If there were a label on me, I would hope that it would still say, "Amy" but add the tag line "New and Improved."
