merojasc

Many of your comments resonated with my experience. In the past, I have had tough mother days because I was not speaking with my mom, or I had miscarriages. But this year is different. My mom arrived from Chile yesterday to attend my graduation ceremony happening today. She couldn’t attend my undergraduate or master’s graduation so it’s the first time that she will see me receive an academic degree. Someone recently told her that a PhD from Berkeley is kind of good so is she very proud now (after years of not understanding what I was doing). My kids, 3 and 6, are thrilled with her visit and it’s the first time we are together for mother’s day after working on problems that complicated our relationship for more that 10 years. It would have been hard to predict, one year ago, that this day was going to be a happy one. Hang in there, better things might be waiting for those who are going through tough times.

I never wanted to have kids, and my husband always took being a father for granted. Before we married (on 04/12/2014), he told me that not having kids would be his only reason for divorce; this is how relevant it was for him. Then we came to the US for Graduate school (from Chile), moved to Berkeley, and I started a PhD. When we talked about starting a family and making it work with his full-time job and my Ph.D. studies without any family around, he told me he would be in charge and has been true to his words. He takes about 60% of the household labor, and when things are hard, his mantra is, “I signed up for this.” Our kids are 6 and 3 now, and last week, I wrote the acknowledgment section of my dissertation (yay!) I cried when I thought about what I would miss by not having kids. They have transformational powers, and that can be positive and negative. My husband and I have purposely protected the spaces in our lives that we didn’t want to change. Usually, I protect my husband, and I arrange things so he can do what he likes and protect my unchanged spaces. We are happier than before having kids and have intentionally worked out problems when they show up. We have also raised our kids, so we not only love them, but we also like them. I wish I could have you in our house for a month so you could see that what I am writing is true. It’s heartbreaking to read that most of your friends seem less happy than before having kids, but that aligns with the general picture of parenting. Reading and knowing the systemic issues that influence unhappy trends can give you tools to form a system of protection in your house, just like we did with the labor distribution in our home. Good luck!