I Am What I Am

So, I'm back...I was away for the weekend with Big Boy and Little Lad, I've dropped them home and now I'm back in my own lovely little flat, having driven for a total of about nine hours today - such is my dedication to both work and the boys.

And I really miss them. So much more than I thought I would - although I could never have admitted that to Posh when she identified this evening that I do miss them, as she would then think she'd scored a point. She always warned I'd miss them, and I always agreed that I would. I just never understood how much. And it makes me question one of the other stories of my life, that of my relationship with parenthood.

Are people born to be parents? Do people learn to be parents? I had parenthood thrust upon me. Posh has always been obsessed by the idea of parenthood: she had a small collection of baby clothes when we met, which was 6 years before she had Big Boy. This collection gradually grew, and there it was, ready and waiting for someone to fill it. Anyone. She subscribes to (and preaches) the 'mystery of maternal instinct' theory...that she'd just 'had this feeling' that she wanted to be a mother...not even wanted; had to be a mother, so overwhelming was this urge. And that same theory is at the heart of her judgements of me. It is her belief in such a thing that enabled her to say I was wrong - just wrong, absolutely and without question - for not being willing to choose between kids and career. A freak, she said.

I, on the other hand, had always maintained my innate lack of design for parenthood. I decided pre-Posh that I was too selfish to have kids, and for some years I've thought maybe I should have stuck with that initial instinct. But in the last few weeks, I'm really starting to realise what Olga keeps telling me - that I am in fact a quite reasonable parent. Without Posh around I'm much more relaxed around the boys - not constantly feeling that my parenting is not good enough; not picking up all the time on her own stress; and just starting to chill and hang out with them and enjoy them as people. I wish I had known all of this before, but hindsight's a wonderful thing, eh? A crucial part of what was incompatible between me and Posh, it seems, is this difference in understanding of parenthood. And I understand my position as a parent much better now that I ever have done. I fail sometimes, and it's ok. I don't have to be perfect with them. I want desperately to do my best, and I love them enough to sacrifice whatever I can for them.

But I will not sacrifice me, which is what Posh wanted from me...And, I think, what she is doing to herself...Or maybe (more likely?) the pre-erasure of herself was in place all along.