maternal instinct?

after engage last night, i was kind-of part of a conversation that was about maternal instincts and if they kick in after giving birth. the question was posed to a recent first time mother, who responded with a definite "yes" and that they kicked in immediately after she gave birth. so on my drive home (which was nothing like the drive home mentioned in this post thank goodness!) i thought about this maternal instinct idea. i have honestly never thought about whether i would have that maternal instinct once i had kids. i mean i've always been pretty good with kids and kids have always liked me so i just figured that my own kids would follow that pattern. and, as i've gotten older and been around more kids and spent more time with babies, i just knew that this would totally be the case with my own kids. obviously i'm not having kids anytime soon so i can't test out this theory just yet.

but don't get me wrong i know that nothing can compare to what i'll feel for my own kids. so there's that. and i also know that while i may spend my days with two 9 month olds changing diapers and figuring out nap times, i don't make big decisions or anything. obviously, i mean that's why the babies have parents...i just dress them in fun clothes and take a gazillion pictures of them. and i can admit that i'm totally not ready to make the big decisions (okay that's a slight lie...sure i'm not ready but a lot (or all) of that has to do with the boy and that whole situation...i'm definitely way ahead of most other 23 year olds) 

and now it's time for the scary thought i had while on my way home...what if i don't have maternal instincts? i'm being 100% serious here...what if once i have a child i just don't feel "it"...and i don't even know what "it" is! and then i realized how ridiculous it is for me to feel this way because a) i'm nowhere close to having a baby & b) do i honestly think i would ever feel that way about my own child. 

but after about 2 minutes of thinking about this i realized that this was probably definitely THE most irrational fear i've ever had. of course with my own kids it will be different...and even if i'm not that different than i am now, who cares. i'm pretty good with figuring out a baby as i am right now. i would like to admit that i think teen mom is to blame for me considering that there might be a lack of maternal instinct...i mean seriously some of those girls have it but some of them wouldn't recognize it if it smacked them in the face...20 times a day. 

i feel like it's also fair to mention that sometimes i just know that i'll have like the most difficult baby ever. but then i realize that i would probably be better equipped to handle that than some other people...and no lie my dad has joked with me since i was probably 13 that i would have twins because i would need it to mellow me out...and to show me that parenting isn't as easy as i made it out to be (in my 13 year old mind). but in the past year he's kind of realized that twins really wouldn't terrify me (not that they ever did) so now he says triplets...thanks for that one John.