I've been organizing things (it's January, after all!), and I came across this quote I had torn out of an article. The article addressed the growing sentiment that having children is an unecessary burden. I love the thought expressed by the author.
"The truth is, we need children. We need children because we need to be changed. We need what nurturing them teaches us, what it reveals to us about ourselves and the change that it invites in us.
It has been painful to be so exposed to my own weaknesses in mothering. And the truth is, I recognize I will always be far from where I know might be best for them. yet, how can I be grateful enough for them, for teaching me, for inviting me (or forcing me) out of myself? As Novak so poignantly says, 'They are, I know my liberation. They force me to be a different sort of human being, in a way in which I want and need to be forced.'
Before having children, I had thought much about how they would need me - but now I know it was really I who needed them. I needed them to need the best in me, because it would invite me to try to become just that for them."
Jenet Erickson
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