Exit strategies

[tinyjo]

I've been thinking about it recently and it's occured to me that one of my major mechanisms for dealing with bad, difficult or uncomfortable situations is to come up with an exit strategy. That's not to say that I won't be intending to try and improve the situation or turn it around, although of course you can't always. It just helps me to feel more in control and less stressed to know that if I really need to, I can step back, get away, whatever. It takes the pressure off. I think that's one of the reasons I find myself so uncomfortable with the idea of myself as a parent - there's no exit strategy you can really plan there.

I should do a real life update soon, really. I'll get to it, I promise.

Comments

Re: Hmm...

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

It is, and it isn't, relentless. EVERY parent *thinks* about the Exit Strategy. However, just thinking about it is healthy and destressing. I don't know any parent who hasn't thought, sometimes seriously, of Just Leaving.

However, I am The Typical Older First-Time Mom, and as far as I can tell, unless you screw up your hormones bigtime via your preferred method of contraception, you need not worry about kids for a fair number of years.

You may also - if you do have a kid - have one who sleeps for seven hours or more on the trot from the age of six weeks and never looks back. They do happen.

The extent to which you are responsible-for-life is also culturally and familialy determined. If one's culture allows adult sons to kip at mum's for 40 quid a week, to include laundry and cooking, then you're stuck. If you expect them to support themselves to some degree at a reasonable age, and you raise them to be independent, then you love them deeply but let them loose when it's time.

I wouldn't trade parenthood for all the tea in China, but i did wait until I was ready and had the right partner-in-parenthood, and had accomplished some other life tasks I had set myself. People who have their first babies whilst writing doctoral theses (for example) are, in my view, quite utterly mad :-) but it does happen. I got my doctorate first. You probably have all sorts of other goals!

Your exit strategy thinking is excellent and one which I can see adopting as a more frequent exercise: how liberating your thinking is! YAY YOU.