Strange Cravings

I learned something new today. It is something that most women, from my young nieces-in-law to my octogenarian mother all probably know but to me it was a revelation. It started out with a lunch with my girlfriend. It had been a while since we had seen each other so we had planned for a nice long chat over lunch. Knowing that she had recently spent a week at her mom's place I figured that she would have some mother stories to share and vent over.

She did but the story that surprised me the most was about another mother - her daughter. I must admit that it still boggles my mind to think that she and my best friend from highschool are both grandmothers! I don't seem old enough to have grandmothers as my closest friends. It freaked me out when I turned a Great Aunt a few years ago but I'll go there another time. For now I am at Red Lobster having a lovely lunch and listening to my best friend vent.

It turns out that her mother wanted to take my friend and her daughter on a trip to Europe. Pretty nice offer if you ask me. My friend, however, saw it differently. She wants to go to Italy but her mom wants to go to Paris, a place my friend has already been to. And for the first time ever, I actually stood up for her mom. The bottom line is that her mom, who was born in Europe, wants to take a last trip visiting her home town and other places she remembers. She wants to show her daughter and granddaughter these places so that someone will know and remember after she is gone. Sorry girlfriend but you can go to Italy on your own time, this trip is for your Mom as it is doubful if this octogenarian will be able to make too many more big trips.

I've recognized a similar trait in my own mother lately. We hate thinking about it but they know that the clock is ticking. Time is growing more precious to them. Knowing this understandably makes them see and do things differently then those younger than them. I get it. I know my friend does too. Most likely it is because she does understand that she freaks out and gets very upset at the idea of this last "memorial" trip.

But it turns out there is another clock ticking. This one belongs to her daughter who is in her early thirties and who just informed her mother that she may not be able to go on the trip because she would like to have another child. OMG was pretty much my friend's slack jawed response because her scatterbrained daughter already has three kids! Plus my friend then added that the last time she saw them her son-in-law commented how nice it now was with the last child finally potty trained, so no more babies in diapers. And now her daughter wants another one!

In telling me this story my friend wondered if she should council her daughter to ignore the baby craving this time around. I must have gotten a blank look on my face when she spoke about getting the urge to have a baby and how even she still occasionally gets the twinge to hold a baby again. Meanwhile I continued to have this clueless look. My friend stopped talking and I think she was getting a bit perturbed with me. Sure everyone knows I don't like kids but I knew she was thinking that I was taking it a bit too far. Except this time it wasn't an act.

I finally realized that I had to fess up. I joke a lot about my incompatability with children but in complete seriousness I had to admit that I never knew that the clock continued ticking even after women have had children. I thought that once you had a child then the biological clock turned off. Instead I now learn that even woman past child bearing years still get the urge to have a baby. Maybe that explains the cluster of women around any co-worker who shows up with her newborn. (I would either hide in my office or wave from across the hallway.)

Now it just so happens that last night I watched an old rerun of House about a woman who was a psychopath, someone who had no feelings at all. Well, I am not a psychopath but whatever piece of DNA that constitutes that maternity portion was completely left out of me. I never once heard that ticking clock and for my 40th birthday I had a hysterectomy so as to be done with all of that for good. So I truly never understood that ticking clock or the baby cravings that other women had until today.

My girlfriend finally got through to me when she equated the urge to have a baby as being similar to the urge to have a cigarette (we are both ex-smokers). Now that urge I can definitely understand for even after 5 years of being smoke free there are still times when I have a craving for a smoke. So apparently after having children, even when in menopause, most women still get cravings to have a baby. Huh, imagine that.

PS. Oh shoot. Should I delete this? Nah, hopefully my family will just laugh. You see that it wasn't until I was editing my blog that I realized that I was surely putting my foot in my mouth this time. For after three children (all girls), my mother also had that baby urge again and to my Dad's delight had a boy. So I'm sorrry Mom and Mike, I didn't mean to offend you. Just chalk it up to me being me. But I suppose you could say that at least I now understand why my little brother is around (and I am glad that you are!).