through our constant service that our infant affords us access to our
spiritual depths. The demands of caring for an infant cause us to dip into
our core, where we discover that we do indeed have the capacity to give,
serve, and nurture with the intensity required. Thus our infant shows us
our ability to transcend our own selfish wishes and become present for
another. In this way, infants are reflections of our deeper humanity.
In this stage, it’s as if our being were saying to that of our child, “I no
longer know where you begin and I end. Days and nights blend into a
haze of brilliance and fatigue. I am elastic, rubber, and wax. I bend to
your will with no resistance, no boundary, transparent like glass. Even
when you aren’t with me, I am with you, imagining you. There is no
moment in which I exist separate from you.”A JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY
Whatever images we may have held of what the parenting journey would
be like—fantasies of rosy moments filled with the scent of our infants’
bodies, the undeniable pleasure of holding them, the feeling of having
created a sense of family and continuity—when parenthood descends
upon us, we find our fantasies crashing around us daily.
Because an infant needs a caregiver 24/7, the early years of parenthood
are as exhausting as they are exhilarating, as ordinary and routine as they
are spectacular. To give to our infant on demand is an enormous
psychological and emotional responsibility that has the potential to drain
us of energy and sanity, especially if we have no additional help. If we
are also juggling a career, it can exhaust us beyond all conceivable
limits, pushing us to our psychological edge. As we discover that our