Having kids is guaranteed to get your heart broken. Mom-in-progress Kagiso Msimango explains.
My friend Qedani almost sounds like a fictional character. She has a lucrative life coaching practice, a wonderful marriage to her high school sweetheart, happy, well-adjusted children, and a body women half her age would kill for.
I actively maintain contact with her in the hopes that some of her mojo will rub off on me. The last time we got together, she was not her usual self. She was a little disheveled and appeared a little depressed. This was foreign territory for us, these meetings were generally about what was wonky in my life as hers was almost fairytale like. I think she could see the panicked expression creeping across my face, so she exhaled an explanation “We got dumped”. Her daughter had broken up with her boyfriend. My dear friend, who married the only boyfriend she’d ever had was now dealing with her first breakup, in her fifties!
Nothing hurts as much as seeing your kids in pain, especially because you would readily suffer on their behalf. Alas, you cannot feel the pain for them, just with them. Children should probably come with a health warning like the ones on cigarette boxes. WARNING: Having kids is guaranteed to get your heartbroken.
I remember going through a bad break-up when I was the same age as Qedani’s daughter. My mother watched helplessly as I wasted away to a sallow 43 kilos. At the time, I was too consumed by my own pain to notice how bewildered and helpless my mom was. It’s only in retrospect that I can imagine how much she was hurting. Even though my mother’s romantic history was more eventful than Qedani’s, she found herself equally impotent when faced with her baby’s hemorrhaging heart.
I, now fondly, remember her sorry attempt at consoling me by telling me that this experience would make me stronger.
“Stronger for what?” I asked desperately.
“For the next time it happens” she fumbled helplessly.
I latched on to the obvious implication, to my mother’s horror, that my future harboured more heartbreak. Which turned out to be a fair prediction, but that’s the last thing I needed to hear at the time.
I find myself thinking about all this, because the other day I went to pick up Thing 1 from a first playdate with a schoolmate. I was ready for the usual argument, because as far as she’s concerned `I always pick her up too early from playdates. Instead, when she saw me she unleashed a torrent of tears. Through sobs she recounted how her friend abandoned her when the friend’s neighbourhood playmates came around. My child had spent the past 2 hours playing by herself, in a strange house with only the domestic helper for company. I was stunned by the intensity of emotions evoked by seeing her in such a state. I even called my own mom, ostensibly to exhale, but really I needed a telephonic hug.
Elizabeth Stone was right to observe; “Making the decision to have a child…is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” I hope my past heartbreaks have made me strong enough to deal with my children’s. I doubt it.
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