I started this blog due to a post over at scatterplot about choices, consequences and constraints. I realized Monday how true that post was, and how resentment about parenthood can sometimes get mixed up in my life.

I wanted to do a project for a class that would require me to go to the city once a week in the evenings to do participant observation and interviews. The class did not require this, but it was the project I wanted to do. But after going up there twice, I decided I had to ditch the project. The distance was too far, the effect on my family was too much. And This really pissed me off.

All Monday night as I rode the train home from the city and then tried to do some work at the dining room table, I could barely contain my resentment. While the project in an of itself was a bit shaky anyway, had I been a single student with no kids I would have gladly continued to persevere, enduring the wishy-washy-ness of the organization with which I was dealing. But no – I have kids so I can’t be gone for four hours on a weeknight in a city that I’m not really familiar with. I can’t have the schedule change at the last minute because my kids have routines that we need to stick to. In essence I felt like I can’t do the work that really matters to me and may make an important contribution to the field I am interested in because I made a CHOICE to have kids which comes with it the CONSEQUENCE of not being able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it and the CONSTRAINT I think it’s going to have on my career because I have to switch to a project that is more do-able but perhaps less interesting.

These feelings were not a good way to start the week.  And I felt guilty as hell for having them.

But alas, I was redeemed, forgiven by two little people who didn’t even realize that was what they were doing. Tuesday morning was a long morning with mommy and the kids, for my day care provider had an early appointment and therefore wasn’t opening until late morning. Reminded by a quote I’d read several days ago, I attempted to wake up leaving the happenings of yesterday behind and adjusting instead of being angry. It didn’t take long, for before I knew it, I had two kids on my lap, reading The Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are and just being and breathing and living as if nothing else existed in the world. And it was one of the most soothing times I have ever spent with my kids, knowing that all they want from me is ME, to be there, present, and engaged. Everyday they get more independent and while my interesting project will probably still be there in five years, my kids will never be like they are right now in this moment. So I was reminded to treasure that and be thankful for it. I went from resentful to redeemed, all thanks to a two year old and a five month old. Who’da thunk it?