IF I COULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN

Although I stand by the notion that "everything is as it should be," if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know now, there are certainly changes I would make. But at what point in my life would I initiate the changes? When I think of regrets, and things I'd do differently, I automatically think of errors I made raising my kids. But it goes back even further. Would I have even chosen parenthood for my life, knowing what I know now?

I think of who I was as a teen. In fact, I did NOT know who I was, at that point in my life. So perhaps I would start there. Naturally, I would've been a more dedicated student. When I was a teen, I felt so eager to become an adult. Throughout my childhood, I felt like an adult trapped in a child's body. Perhaps that is the curse of the first-born child. Perhaps being the oldest, I was pressured, at some level, to always be the grown up. And it was a comfortable aspiration. I couldn't wait to grow up because I wanted so badly to be a mom and to be a schoolteacher. So, as quickly as I could, I pursued motherhood. I felt like I had to prove - to the world and to myself - that I could do it...that I knew how. Loving a baby was easy. In fact, mothering seemed familiar, comfortable, and natural. It seemed like the real me. But I didn't understand parenthood. I didn't know, initially, that just because that child came forth through me didn't mean that it belonged to me like just another possession. I didn't realize that kids come into this world with a personality all their own. So, one child after another, I plunged into eternal motherhood, thinking that I would shape and form my children to be who I wanted them to be. I didn't realize that children come into this world already who they really are and it is up to the parent to help them - or hinder them - on their path.

So my first regret - falling short as a parent (putting it mildly) - comes from not realizing that my job as a parent would involve getting to know who each child really was, and then helping and guiding them to self-actualize. My job as a parent was to lead them. My job was to be their guide. My job was to give them the tools they would need to become themselves.

Distracted by everything else around me, misinformed by popular culture, and still determined to prove myself as a competent parent, I made every mistake with my kids. Sure, I loved them, nurtured them (at least during infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood), and provided them with a roof over their heads and food in their bellies; but I did not seek to discover who they really were. Driven by my desire to prove how competent I was, I became harsh, over-bearing, impatient, and cold as a mother. Distracted by sinkfuls of dirty dishes, endless loads of laundry, and night after night of interrupted sleep, I craved solitude, isolation, escape, freedom, and a chance to simply be. I welcomed distractions: long chats on the phone with other young mom friends; soap operas; romantic relationships; housework; LaLeche League meetings.

And then, ten years into parenting, a created what would become another deep regret as I became involved in religious extremism (Christian Fundamentalism). Still striving to prove just how right I was, attempting to prove to myself and the world that I knew what I was doing, I decided to follow the rigid, punitive, black-or-white, right-or-wrong, angelic or demonic world of Bible-based living. Spiraling deeper and deeper away from the gentle, kind, loving mother that I wanted to be, I became critical, mean, abusive, and stick-yielding mom believing that parenthood was somehow defined by my ability to discipline and punish, all in the name of god, of course.

Knowing what I know now, if I could do it all over again, I would have had one or two children instead of six. But that implies that I regret my third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-born children and I do not. What it really means is that I believe I did each of my children a disservice by bringing them into the world. Even putting my own lack of maturity, wisdom, and understanding aside, I also realize now that perhaps prior to marriage, and prior to conception, it would've been wise to evaluate the potential genetic makeup that my children would inherit. That evaluation may have spared my children the mental health predisposition that has fallen upon each of them from both maternal and paternal genetics. Another regret, not taking genetics into consideration.

I often feel frustrated as I near my fiftieth birthday because it has suddenly become so clear that youth really is wasted on the young. It has taken me all these years to see the big picture, but now it is too late. What good will all these insights be when it is far too late to actually apply them?

Sure, I know NOW that parenting requires forethought and preparation, but my kids are now adults. And I know NOW that parenthood requires enormous stores of patience, but where was this realization when I was reprimanding my children for acting like kids?

I know NOW that I had my OWN self-actualizing to accomplish and I know NOW that my own personal growth was hindered by the distraction of parenting. But so what? What good is that knowledge now?? Too little too late. I know NOW, for example, that had I known myself better when I was a teen, I might have been best suited to become a funeral director and realizing who I might have been or even who I could've been has been a realization that has come far too late for me to do anything but mourn the loss and lament about having missed the boat. Is it any wonder that at the same time I was first becoming aware of what I could've done and where I should've gone that I was having recurring dreams every night about getting on the wrong train or missing my exist once boarded? And isn't it ironic that I would dream, night after night, of struggling to find my way back home, and never quite making it?

I regret my passivity. I regret my impulsivity. I regret my need to prove myself. I regret not first getting to know who I really was before creating six beautiful, wonderful children who all deserved so much more than they got. I regret screwing it up so badly.