Mom wasn't happy about my being.
She was over 40 and being pregnant at that age in that era carried a lot of risk both for her and I. The hormonal swings this pregnancy were more severe than they'd been on the four previous ones, and being much older this time, she tired out quickly, leaving the four boys pretty much a free hand around the place, when those hands were prone to the devil's work.
I think it's fair to say that had abortion been available as it is today I wouldn't have been born. I likely shouldn't have been, but more on that later.
She had a very difficult bout of post-partum depression after too. It got so bad that at one point, in a fit of frustration she apparently held a knife over my infant self. I'm not sure if anyone else intervened or if common sense just prevailed but obviously nothing further happened.
I can imagine that it was terribly difficult for her, but for other reasons too. For most of our time together I was trying to help her deal with the guilt of it. She had sinned in a way that she could never forgive herself for and despite speaking of it with dozens of clergy - many of whom flat out told her that God had forgiven her but she needed to forgive herself - she likely went to her grave assured she wasn't getting into heaven because of what she'd done.
And I was the constant reminder of this. Which should've been a burden but while I didn't grow up wealthy and were by most definitions among the poorest of the day because we lived in late 20th Century Canada, I never noticed it. I never felt it. I never begrudged it.
Many friends simply had more than us, went to places we didn't, and I enjoyed their stories and wondered what doing that would be like, but never felt deprived because of it. I think it helped that none of the people around me had all the same stuff. That helped me realize we are all different - one friend's family had a pool, another had a massive ham radio tower and set-up, another had a boat, another had a massive model train set-up in their basement, I had a ground level bedroom window facing a patch of land outside that was perfect for performing puppet shows through.
While I was outside for much of my childhood, once we moved to rainy Richmond, BC it resulted in a preference to stay home and putter creatively, invent my fun over going out and getting into trouble.
That may sound bad to some, but no one who has spent any time with me would accuse me of not having fun. Comfort and happiness comes from within and more often than not misery comes from without and if there's one thing I've learned its that the people who have much to lose do far more worrying about being without than those who had nothing to lose.
Mom had a short fuse, an Irish temper, and while you could go a while where it didn't flare up, when it did there wasn't much warning. The back of her hand could come out like the crack of a rifle. And while I got paddled with a wooden spoon from time to time when I was willful, and occassionally saw a handful of pennies fly at me in a fit of pique, I never felt the back of her hand.
Mostly I enjoyed just playing, rather than trying to get her attention; but despite the age gap I've seen enough of my brothers to know they had enough of her in them to poke the bear to the point of outrage, and then the gall to claim they shouldn't have been punished for it.
I was, of course an infant for most of this and by the time I grew self-aware almost all of it had already happened.
What I'm saying is I grew up blissfully unaware I had been unwanted, I never had any sense of being unloved, so as far as I'm concerned I wasn't. Had it been any different, had I grown up unloved and unwanted, I'm rather sure I would be the first to know about it.
So yeah, it wasn't a normal upbringing, it wasn't a sit-com family, but I've been attentive enough my whole life to realize, neither was yours.
