Old lies and new insights

Before I had a kid in my life (or a husband for that matter) I always thought they were annoying, ill-behaved, loud, expensive, messy creatures whose sole purpose was to destroy your life.  I did have rather bad baby sitting experiences growing up, so maybe this prejudiced me from the start.  What I also lacked was a real, loving family dynamic from which to judge objectively what a family is really like; we were more like roommates than a family.  Having kids was a duty, it was expected, a responsibility, not something one enjoyed.  From my selfish and myopic point of view, kids were the antithesis of the autonomous lifestyle.  They are.  They also reveal how small and lonely is that lifestyle if sought as the highest good in and of itself (there are those who would love nothing more than to have a family and for whatever reason, at the moment that life seems beyond reach, this is not directed at you!).  Rather it is directed at our culture in general which says 'you' are the highest good, the most important being on the planet.  And our 'feel good' theology tells us the same: you deserve to be happy and happiness is having whatever we want when we want it.  A lie as old as the world: ye can be gods!

But we aren't happy and we don't even know it.  That is why I appreciate those demanding, importuning individuals in my life: my husband and son, who remind me daily that I am not the center of the universe and my responsibilities to them far outweigh my desperate need to finish that book I'm reading.  They repay tenfold in love, joy, and fun whatever I lose of 'myself.'  They teach me humility and what it is to be loved and to love.  They remind me that there is a whole, huge, brilliant world out there to enjoy and explore and that if my whole world is myself, it is rather small indeed.  Only in dying to self can we become who we truly are.  I always thought parents were to teach their children, but each day I find, more and more, that it is my child who is teaching me more about life and myself than I ever imagined possible!