Some dear friends had come to visit and I planned a day out for them, and their 2 kids ages 2 and 4, to the zoo. Its about an hour drive from my place to the zoo and in the car both kids fell asleep. My friend, looked back at the 2 sleeping tots and exhaled deeply, with a sigh of relief, admitting she was overjoyed just to have a few minutes of ‘adult time’ to herself. The truth is, I got it, they had been visiting almost a week and, at least while I had been around, there was almost no break from the kids screaming, running, hungry, crying, fighting, disobeying or needing some sort of attention.  I thought to myself, “this is so why I don’t want kids.”

This friend however was one of those women that ALWAYS wanted kids. I have known her since high school and there was no doubt in her mind, even when we were just kids ourselves, that having kids were a key ingredient to life’s success. She had the first one easily enough, but with the second there were issues; there were doctors and drugs and painful procedures. Her husband wanted to quit trying, said they should be happy with the one little boy they had, but she was adamant  — she had always dreamed of 2 kids and she would do whatever it took to have the second. Eventually of course, her wish came true, and now it seemed to me she had a new wish, a few more moments of ‘adult time’ before those little terrors woke-up.

The truth is, this isn’t the first time I have seen this friend struggle with the kiddos; more than once she has admitted she misses our nights out, travel, more intimacies with her husband, a go-go-high powered career, and all the other freedoms and aims she felt she needed to give up when the kids came along. She is always quick to tell me how much she loves her kids though, that of course they are worth it, they have given her life a new sense of meaning and purpose.  I smile, nod, listen supportively, but I always get the vague sense that this might be what Stockholm syndrome is like — somehow victim/hostage has come to love her captors.

I have no kids, so I like to pat myself on the back for being immune to such a life trap, but if I really reflect on it, am I? Of course, my husband, Eric, comes to mind — I love him so much, as my friend does her kids, but look at how much I have had to sacrifice for him. I live in a place I don’t like, forced by his job to leave a city, friends, and a life I loved. Not for the first time either, 3 times now I have moved from my home to follow my husband across the country. Its not just were I live, it is what I do and how I spend my time that I have compromised on as well. Eric is a homebody, so while I used to love being out and about, I have modified my behaviors for him. I wanted to be a lawyer, got into some of the country’s best schools, but my husband already had a high-power consulting job at the time and we decided two high power jobs in one family would be too much of a strain on our relationship, so I declined law school. Frankly everything from my diet to my décor has been a compromise, a negotiation between the royal ‘we’, rather than an independent decision. None of this is to say I am unhappy with my life, I have adapted, adjusted myself to achieve my higher priority, the non-negotiable part of my own vision-of-an-ideal-life I have had since I was a kid –a healthy marriage.  I have aligned my hopes and expectations to be comfortable with the reality of my life. These are my choices, and yet…

And yet, when I look at my friend in the car, hungry for just a few moments of rest, I see her suffering –suffering she has invited with her choices and tradeoffs — suffering she has become blind to. Aren’t I blind to my own suffering as well? Its a bit shocking that we humans can delude ourselves, come to see what traps us as who we are and what we want. But the truth is, we all love our captors: We love ourselves, we are enamored with the world, we cling and strive to what we have and what we hope for. We are tethered and bound, and yet somehow, we close our eyes tight, click our heels together 3 times, and convince ourselves that there is no life better than the one we have or the one we long for. Sure it is hard, sure we suffer, sure we know there are tradeoffs, but its worth it right? Right? Its totally worth it…it has to be. Right?