Sensitivity Beyond Hormones
December 13, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Mental Health
I’ve been reading this very difficult. Not difficult in the literary sense, it’s written in a very easy-breezy style, but difficult in the sense that the main character is totally unlikeable. So unlikeable that I’ve considered putting the book down and not picking it up again. Alas! I am a reading addict and I am facing a shortage of English-language reading materials here in Germany. So, I have finally gotten to the point where the vapid, shallow, hypocrite, Darcy Rhone, has decided to redeem herself. She has just felt the fetus in her womb move for the first time.
If there’s one thing I hate more than watching a personality train wreck, it’s watching a pregnant train wreck (it happens far too often in real life and in fiction). Still, I can’t shake the idea that responsible parenthood does improve us. Since I became a mother, I am more sensitive toward others and not in a baby blues, weepy, hormonal way. I feel like I have a big stake in the planet I have chosen to help populate. My care and empathy aren’t just directed toward my children, but to everyone else as well.
Am I alone with these feelings? Has motherhood been a turning point for you? Does it happen to fathers too?
Good question.
But firstly – I HATE it when you cannot like the main character – I have the luxury of putting it down due to a good local library and steady supply of op shop books – but then I read you’re being in Germany and felt double sympathy for you.
I think I am more aware – especially now my child is at school and I get to see it in action – how delicate (and rewarding) it is to have good parenting skills on hand for any situation.
I too now look at some people who have not yet had children and wish for them either to experience that so they can be less selfish, or shudder at the thought of them affecting a child – I find it both a blessing and a curse the judgementalism of being a parent.
It has changed my life in so many ways, being a parent. I have many friends who cannot or will now never have the parenting experience, but know that the relationship they have with my child and other children around them does open their eyes too.
Jeanie-
You raise some excellent points: The flip side of being more sensitive is being more judgemental. The pressure to choose sides in what constitutes good parenting is huge and dominates sleep, feeding, schooling.
I’ve had the same feelings surrounding selfishness too.
Motherhood has made me a stronger, more confident person. I can’t afford the luxury of being a cringing violet when I’m my son’s only advocate. It’s made me much more aware of the state of the world, unfortunately, and I alternate between optimism and despair. On a deeply personal level, it has taught me what true love is, and how precious another human life can be; his heart and happiness are so important to me, I’m willing to humble myself when I’m all too human and raise him up on my shoulders for all to see when we get the dance right.