My step mother wanted her own kids from her groin. She went through numerous IVF sessions, she cried for them, she prayed for them, had several sleepless nights because of this, it was all she talked about. She bought baby clothes before she even became pregnant but…hear me now….
BUT when she finally got pregnant and had my sister, she would hide in her room and run away from my baby sister; the most beautiful baby ever, she was precious. “Mummy locked the door” my sister would cry. We thought it was just postpartum depression but the avoidance happened even as she grew to a toddler. She fell pregnant again and had my twin brothers, at this point her participation with parenting completely vanished.
I became the mother to my half siblings. I knew her children more than her. Didn’t she want kids? She did. Looking back in retrospect, I see it clearly now how her upbringing played a role in this avoidant behavior. She had parents who were not present with her as a child. The same void and gap revealed itself as she had her own kids. She became like her parents, unable to show up for her own. The kids she prayed for, and spent alott of money in fertility treatments. My point is that you can truly want kids but the reality of having them can give birth to a version of you that you haven’t dealt with or didn’t know existed. I have empathy for people who abandon their kids. Some of them were also abandoned as kids. People are walking around with inherited patterns and behaviors.
Now I have to deal with my own parentified trauma I received from her avoidant behavior. Having to raise kids while I was still a kid. I am grateful that I am aware of this and giving myself the space and time to nurture the kid in me that was neglected and made to raise kids completely robbed of her childhood. I am consciously working through this so I can be the kind of mother my own children deserves. But I am not naive to this fact that history likes to repeat itself. I am also aware that the arena that will really test this concious work is when I step into the reality of having my own children. Nothing will teach me more than this reality. Just like my step mum. I can want kids all I want, do shadow work all I want, go to therapy all I want, read books all I want but the real zone is in the real life of parenting. This is what will test the parentified person in me. At least I have the awareness and some tools to navigate this when the time comes.
