On changing your mind

When I was a little girl, I thought I was going to be a doctor. My dad had suffered a fairly serious car accident before I was born, and I wanted to fix him. I was going to be an orthopaedic surgeon.

Then calculus happened.

When I was in my early twenties, I thought I was going to be a doctor, but of the sociological variety. I was taken under the wing of a professor who groomed me, gave me a job, and generally used me up.

We parted on amicable (if superficial) terms, and I dropped out of grad school.

After the birth of my son I wanted to be a midwife.

Then physiology 101 happened. And being a mom.

Now I'm a seamstress for theatre. If you're having a hard time following the thread of commonality here, I don't blame you. There's only one, and it's me. These were all interests that I had that I pursued until I couldn't. Until I changed my mind.

There's a lot of people in the world who will present changing your mind as a bad thing. That it shows a lack of consistency, or courage of your convictions. I say this is bullshit. You know who doesn't change their mind? Bigots. The world is a changeable place, and it has no place for consistency.

When you become a new parent, there's a lot of pressure to make up your mind on a lot of issues, and quickly. Some of them, like education, you have 4-6 years to contemplate. Others, like how the hell to get this baby to sleep, happen a little more urgently. There are people who will tell you no matter what you do, that you're endangering your child. Likewise, there are a similar camp that will tell you you're doing the best thing for your child because you chose it. Understandably, we prefer to listen to the latter.

But what about when we choose one path, and we realize we should have chosen another. What about when information changes, as it always does in this wonderful, excessively researched world of ours? Should we steadfastly stand by what we originally decided, a sick feeling in our stomach? Historically, that's what we all did. Changes of parenting philosophy occurred between generations, not within them.

Now that I know you've read this far, I'll bust it out, against my better judgement: I'm talking about vaccinations.

I'm not going to go into the data. There's lots of people who have written about that, for both camps. I have my own beliefs on the subject, and that's pro-vaccination. I don't think that people who don't vaccinate are bad people, or bad parents. What I'm afraid of is that when we change our minds, we can't admit it. It's not too late to vaccinate your kids, and it's not proof that you're inconsistent. If you still feel confident in your choice not to vaccinate, I'm happy for you, but this post is not for you.

Now, I did decide to vaccinate both my kids, so lest you think I can't come down off my high horse, I'll leave you with this: When our son was a baby, we decided to circumcise. It was an awful, traumatic experience for him. I hated it, my husband hated it. We both felt guilty that it happened to our little person, just two weeks old, by our own decision. They strapped him down to a board that had an indentation of a baby's body on it with the legs spread. He bled and cried and anyone who claims it is otherwise must have had a very difference experience than we did. It felt barbaric. I had to leave. My son, who I was supposed to protect was left to be cut by a scalpel. Since that time, we've changed our minds on circumcision. We'll have to answer to our son on that, at one point. We can't reverse the procedure.

Vaccination, happily, is not like that. So, if you've changed your mind on anything, it's not a bad thing. It proves you're evolving as a person, moving and shifting along with an ever-uncertain world. And if you change your mind pro-vax or even anti-vax, I'm proud of you.

For what it's worth, this coulda-woulda doctor, sociologist, midwife, and actual seamstress is proud.

First post!

"I like your writing!”

When people say this, I have to laugh. As a mother of two young children, the most writing I do is usually signing my name at the bottom of a receipt for groceries.

I used to write.

I used to hole myself up in a quiet room and write and write. I mostly wrote overly emotional poetry and abbreviated (but inspired) short stories. Sometimes I wished I could pitch my short stories to someone and have them write them for me, as it appears I do not have the attention span for it.

The longest thing I ever wrote was when I was a preteen. It was an epic tale of an alien girl sent down to ancient Egypt to interfere with a royal succession, but she ends up falling in love with the king she was sent to overthrow. She also finds herself in the midst of a religious revolution, of which she is at the centre. It was about 100 pages long, but was lost when we upgraded from Windows 3.1, and my father used the hard drive for shooting practice. We shot a lot of old electronics.

I had an unconventional upbringing.

So unconventional, in fact, it would make for great writing. But, aside from the fact that writing about my childhood openly terrifies me, I don't know any writers with kids. The writers I know have some spare time. They smoke and drink a lot. Okay, I only know one writer. He does all of those things. He also writes a lot, so I can only assume that is a lifestyle well-suited to wordsmithing.

I hate the idea of being a mommy blogger. Even the term is fucking patronizing as all christ. Like, it's as though we went back to the pre-feminist days of female literature being written for females, a certain section of the newspaper reserved for the woman in your life, with articles on how to starch your husband's collar, and properly discipline your children. But I digress.

I haven't written anything more than facebook status updates for longer than I'm willing to admit. So maybe, just maybe, I could write a little more. I don't want to get my hopes up. 

But anyway, about me: I'm a mother, a seamstress, a (sometimes) costume designer, wife, tattooed, pierced, occasionally depressive and perpetually anxious introvert. I know a lot about medicine and biology, because I used to think I was going to be a doctor. I know a lot about childbirth, because I used to want to be a midwife. Sometimes I'm funny. Probably this blog will be mostly read by my mother, and a future employer that will pass over me because of it. But fuck them. I didn't want their stinkin job anyway. 

Enjoy.