The same

I think the biggest problem with growing up is losing your identity. Not exactly sure if young people do have one in any case, but let me explain what I mean.

You come into this world, young, naive and clueless. Do you have an identity, do you have an opinion? Well, you sort of do (kids do say 'i like this','I don't like that') but they are swiftly silenced by their parents, who quickly impose their own beliefs and desires to their children, creating an army of spooky mini-me's.

Then you grow up, reaching adolecence, and you try to find a voice, you read a little, travel a little, see a movie or two, talk with a couple of people who are different than you. You think you have an opinion, you think you are starting to find yourself. Only to find out,perhaps years later, that you did exactly what your 'generation' did: everybody raised in the same time, in the same country (or perhaps in the whole world) likes, behaves, thinks of the same things. Childern of the sixties, the Romantics, the yuppies, Genration X and so on and so forth.

Then you get older still and you really think you'll get it. You get a job, you become more mature and you think you can actually see the real you. But then the other tragedy happens, you find the person you love. And then all your own self is stiffled inside the all-singing, all-dancing monster of couple-dom. There you really lose yourself and you really do not know where your own thoughts, desires, opinions start and where the better half's end.

Having all this fairly pessimistic story in mind, it was a real pleasure for me to see my friend R who is seven months pregnant. Normally pregnant people go through yet another transformation: from their normal selves to this 'mommy' thing, who doesn't have another topic of discussion and concern apart from the unborn child (for things to become only worse when the child arrives - but let's leave this one asside). For someone who has no children, my biggest fear for when this time comes is how will I keep my individuality when the little person arrives. So, it has been such a pleasure to see that other people can actually do that, they can still be themselves even with a belly superimposed on them. And having children (or about to) does not necessarily entail a total loss of self.

Could we be in it to win it, us mothers-to-be of the new milleium?