Road not travelled

[ciroccoj]

So a while ago woffproff answered the "blog about what you normally don't blog about" thingy and asked "What would you be doing now if you weren't married with children?"

Which is a really cool question. IMHO :)

I actually expected to never be married. Or rather, I braced myself for it. I really really really wanted kids ever since I could remember, but honestly couldn't see finding anyone I would want to spend my life with, or who would want to spend his life with me. My parents had not had the most successful marriage in the world (though their relationship improved about 1000% after their divorce) so I didn't really have any idea what a good marriage looked like up close. And I wanted to have a career and accomplish things with my life, though I wasn't entirely sure what those accomplishments were going to be. I'd wanted to be an astronomer my entire childhood, until I hit high school Physics, but didn't really know what I wanted aside from that. But I imagined it would entail studying for many years, possibly moving around a bit, working long hours, etc. I wasn't sure I'd be able to meet a man who would want to put up with all of that. And any man that didn't want to, I didn't particularly want.

Chris did :)

I think if I hadn't gotten married, I would probably still be teaching. Probably still at a prison. It was incredibly cool work, and I wish I'd been able to maintain the kind of emotional commitment it required, but what with Chris' med school stuff... yeah notsomuch. Or I might have gone back to school to do a M.Ed, even though I had a kind of horror of academia by the time I left the first time.

I would almost definitely have kids, married or not. Though possibly not biologically mine, as I became infertile at age 33, and I'm not sure I would've managed to become a single mom before then.

OK, if I wasn't married and didn't have kids... that, I don't know. I think I could've lived a happy life without a spouse - albeit a difficult one, especially being a single parent - but getting hitched was never my driving ambition when I was growing up, so a career I cared about and kids to love would've kept me happy. No kids, though? That would've been tough. Not because people in general can't live happy, fulfilling childfree lives, but because I don't think I could've.

I'd probably still be a teacher. Putting a lot of my energy into my career, really passionate about my students and my subject, and probably really involved in volunteering and environmentalism and other community stuff... but kinda miserable. Unless I did something like become a foster mother or something like that.

Then again, I may be projecting how I would've felt having no kids at age 37 based on how I felt about having no kids at age 25 - i.e. like something was missing from my life, something that I had always wanted very much. It's possible that I would've realized at some point that I actually didn't need kids to be happy. I'm just not sure what would've made me realize that, you know?

Comments

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

This gives me hope. Because I also don't expect to ever be married, but neither did you...and it happened. You know how I feel about children, but marriage is something that I want very much.

I think in your case, it was meant to be. You rock as a mom.

What A Great Answer!

[woffproff.livejournal.com]

Wow---that was so thoughtful! No wonder you're such a great mom and teacher. :)

And I'm like Clearbell, your story gives me the hope that someday I'll be surprised by love.

This is just fantastic!