The Awakening

Barbara writes about an article about a woman who wrote a book about why she regrets having had children.

It reminds me of that novel — Kate Chopin, was it? — The Awakening. I hated it when I first read it. But I don’t hate it quite so much as I did then.

I can understand how a woman might feel obliterated by the expectation of giving up everything to bear and raise children.

I can understand how other women might feel shocked at anyone being so selfish as to regret having kids.

How neatly this fits into my little sub-healthy / healthy / super-healthy theory (here and here.) That the same behavior can be rooted in very different psychological places.

One person might give up everything for her kids because she feels she is nothing except a mother. Another person might give up a lot — not everything — for her kids because she has a secure enough sense of self to manage sacrifice and recovery. Someone else might give up on the kids because, in her psychological state, she is unable to care for them and for herself at the same time.

Not all selfishness is bad, depending on how you define it. It is good and proper and even holy to desire to be the self that God has created us to be, instead of a doormat or robot. It is wrong to set this desire against all other responsibilities, as if self is the only thing that matters.

Balance!

Or, in the words of E. M. Forster from Howards End, “Only connect!”