With motherhood looming over me, I have been doing a lot of reading and preparing.  Some of this reading is in actual printed books.  Unfortunately, much of this reading is on the ol' reliable internet.  What I am noticing more and more is that when mothers and fathers write, their signature suddenly becomes an identifier of parenthood.  For example, they'll simply sign "Addison's mommy" or "Carson's daddy" or whatnot.  They never sign their actual name.  They are now only known as someone's mom or dad...period.

Now, I see there being two reasons for this.  It could be to protect mommy or daddy's anonymity.  Maybe they don't want to put their own name at the bottom of their comment.  So instead they'll reveal the identity of their baby.  Or, maybe the reason is because once you have a child you don't even care about yourself anymore - everything is seen through the light of your baby.  You don't care about being known as "Sara" or "Matt"...you just want people to know you as being someone's mom or dad...maybe in the process of being that baby's parent, you even forget your first name.  This second reason is actually something that really scares me about motherhood; once I become someone's mother, will there even be a "me" left?

This is a curious phenomenon to me in the parental internet subculture.  But as with most things in life, I think that I just don't get it yet.  I can question it and judge it, but until my little boy is here, I don't think I'll understand it.  I have a hunch that most of these parents do not even care about themselves like they used to, so it is no strange thing to identify oneself in relationship to one's child.  Who knows...maybe I will be so consumed by the glory of my baby boy that I won't even care what my name is anymore.  And maybe it won't even feel like sacrifice or a loss of identity and purpose.  I'm actually hoping that my identity, moreover my self-centeredness, will go willingly and quietly.