IN MY SHOES: How I Became A Mother
Twenty-eight years ago, Madeleine Albert Berenson, now a freelance writer in Boulder, CO, was 19 years old and living in Austin, "where I'd moved from California to be with the young man I loved, leaving behind an interrupted college career, a furious mother, a confused father and seven siblings who were all, to some degree, uncertain if I was still a member of their family." Writing in The Washington Post, she describes what happened when she found out she was six months pregnant and told her boyfriend:
He looked through me, past me, as though I were no longer in the room. With his eyes frantically darting from left to right, like a trapped animal looking for a way to escape (or more accurately, a frightened 21-year-old looking for a way to prevent his promising future from evaporating), he said, "I want to wash my hands clean of this whole thing. I'll support abortion or adoption. That's it."
When he spoke those words, I felt an odd glimmer of clarity. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew what I wouldn't do - I wouldn't choose either of his options, not the way they'd been laid before me. As confused and immature as I was, I knew that such an ultimatum could not be the basis for what I decided next.
So I left, naively believing that in a week or so he would be sorry and come after me and that together we would work through the unexpected challenges of our newly defined and shared future.
To make a long story short: It didn't happen.
But many, many other things did. And on May 18, I will have the honor of sitting down for dinner with my brilliant and kind 27-year-old son. … [W]e will celebrate his graduation with a PhD in materials science and engineering, in the company of his smart, beautiful wife; his hilarious and gifted younger brother; and his stepfather, my wonderful husband, David. It will be a fine evening, one sure to inspire much gratitude and reflection.
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