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Even so, the bombed-out marital landscape is not as personally unsettling to me as the paradox of parenthood. First of all, one at least enters marriage consciously and with consent. The terms, whether one intends to keep them or not, are clear.

But children are different. Birth control notwithstanding, one is not apt to be in a rational state at their conception. No one asks you, the prospective parent, or the unborn child, if either agrees to enter into this relationship. Children happen. In fact, their appearance — or failure to appear — often foils the best calculations of man and machine. One may speak of a contractual relationship between marriage partners, but that possibility simply does not exist with a parent and child. "I didn't ask to be born!" The phrase reverberates with all the unanswerable ambiguities of the universe.

In our small rural community, a situation thought to be the last bastion of old-fashioned family values, we have about 250 souls. Among those there are at least nine families that during the past year have been seriously damaged either by violence or desertion. Several of these have been church families. The whole gamut of child-rearing exponents, from Parent Effectiveness Training to Bill Gothard's Basic Youth Conflicts, seems a weak joke when prescribed as an antidote to this kind of problem. Given the choice, I'd rather muddle through with Mary.

Before the birth of my first child, I dreamed of her as my own production, my signature upon the world. But from the moment she was first laid in my unready arms, I have instead been startled and spellbound by the separateness of this creature. With her folded fists and squinting eyes, she was a stranger to me. Her infant cries, as I searched frantically for the source of her discomfort, were a horrifying sign of our frustrated communication. And now, as she prepares to leave for college, packing up the chaos of her personal belongings and at least half a dozen career choices, she is still a stranger to me. Even though I am convinced I know her better than any other human being does, nevertheless she is a singular, unpredictable entity.

A friend once told me she thought the curse on Eve in Genesis was not simply to bear children in pain. That is soon over. But that is only the beginning. The real sting is being allowed to participate in creation, but always having to see one's handiwork turn out differently than one had intended. Perhaps I've been an unnatural mother, but I've never had even the faintest hope of predicting how, where, or with whom my daughter would turn out. She's as much an enigma as the magnetic field of the Milky Way.

To further compound my feeling of unnatural motherhood, I have to admit that I am glad to see her go. I know the hole left by her extraction will be painfully felt by the rest of us. But quite plainly, I find myself an awkward parent, abashed at the ineptitude with which I play my part. I am uncomfortable and confused by telling other obviously unwilling people what to do. As a teacher I honestly relished my authority, which I felt was properly justified by my superior knowledge of my subject. I lopped off grade points with never a quiver of conscience. College students, after all, have a choice of whether or not to subject themselves to a teacher's authority.

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July (Web-Only) 2008, Vol. 52