It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway: And Other Thoughts on Moving Forward

by Elizabeth Passarella

I could imagine a lovely, full life without children. This is easy for me to say now that I have them. I realize this. Once you’ve been lucky enough to get pregnant, carry children to term, and have uncomplicated pregnancies—more than once, no less—you don’t start talking about how nice it would be if you and your husband could instead be sitting, undisturbed, on an adults-only beach. My dad had it right, actually. Declare that you don’t want children on the front end. Then, when the wind shifts, you embrace your good fortune and forget all earlier misjudgments. In my case, I’m second-guessing my earlier assumptions that motherhood was inevitable and that I’d be good at it. And when the wind shifts in that scenario, even imperceptibly, even only on occasion, you are supposed to ignore it.