They Taught Me To Think

Chapter One

The Birthing of Dissonance

My mother told me the story of my birth--of her being in labor and waiting for the midwife. None of my six siblings ever gave her such trouble in childbirth. I was the one who almost took her life. She was 38 years old and pregnant in the 1960s era when women were deemed way too old to have children at that age. Her intense heart palpitations while she was in labor had terrified her, and she was certain she wouldn't make it out of the delivery room alive. Every time the labor pains struck, her heart felt like it would collapse. So she used the labor pangs to push. And so it was, in one of those deep excruciating exhalations, that I arrived. My mother had called for the nurse, who--upon seeing the mess on the bed--was furious that my mother had taken matters into her own hands and had pushed without supervision. But mommy could not be bothered; she had been relieved of her pain. And I, a silent partner to her crime, remained umbilically attached yet utterly set free.

Years later when the story is retold, mommy says that since my birth I have been impatient. I am not sure how the blame suddenly shifted to me, how it became my impatience rather than her stubbornness in not calling for the nurse sooner. And daddy chuckles in agreement with his wife.

Of a truth, I am known for my grave impatience. But what can I say? It's the to-may-to/to-mah-to debate. My parents call it impatience; I brand it independence. However we view it, my manner of entry into this world is the context that has so shaped my existence--proactivity borne out of thirst for independence.

I surmised, too, that inherently I knew my parents had to be stopped. They already had six children, I was the seventh, and there were no plans to discontinue this baby-making trend. But enough was enough! They had followed well God's directive to multiply and replenish the earth. It was time for them to retire from childbearing. So as my first act of altruism, I had entered this world with a heightened--perhaps even divine--sense of social equity to level the reproductive playing field and end my parents' apparent quest to abuse God's gift of childbearing.