As a woman without children you may know yourself well and have a clear expectation of what “kind” of mother you will be, but you cannot underestimate the power of those hormones that come with maternity that makes you attach to the kid and put the “survival of the offspring” over everything else.
You may find yourself not enjoying parenthood or trying to find a way to become a SAHM to stay at home with your children.
My best friend, who leaves abroad, is massively career oriented and never wanted children of her own, her husband is not as ambitious in his career as her and always wanted kids, so I was very surprised when she told me she was expecting. So I said “you never wanted children” her response was, “I don’t, I’m bearing this child but once it comes out of me, the child is his. I am NOT changing my life, I will continue to go out to restaurantS, holidays and the theatre, that’s what nannies and babysitters are for. I find it so stupid that so so many women change their life because they cannot detach themselves from the child! He wants a child, he cares for it.”
She kept these views throughout pregnancy, to the point I started worrying if the child would feel rejected. Fast forward 2 months after the birth she called me in tears, to apologise for how stupid she had been and the horrible things she had said, she had spent a month crying because she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving her DD in nursery at the end of her country’s very short maternity leave. Over the next weeks she called me often from the nursery’s car park to help her calming down before work.
It is 11 years since this and she has not changed a bit, she won’t leave her DD with babysitters at all and she is still putting her to bed every night and staying until she falls asleep even when the girl is now 12 years old.
So it is possible to go to the extreme oposite of what you expected.