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Literally!
I realized that in a way he is lucky to be born nowadays too, and see his Mom laugh her pants off while fetching her smartphone, taking picture of the cooking ball, and then proudly going on for the next couple of minutes about how cool and good at aiming he is. No spanking, no yelling for being to noisy, active or generally not fitting into Mom's miserable life.
What are the chances I could have had even a vaguely similar experience of motherhood... , say, a century ago? Sometime and some place where life would have been all planned out for me from the start and if I were born with ideas of my own regarding my life (and what's worse - same personality I have today) - well, too bad for me! At least every other day I reflect and appreciate no need to change a my whole life and tuck it around my child. Several arrangements around the most important areas of my life work just fine. I also don't have to believe that my Child owes me anything: now, or when he grows up. I can just enjoy motherhood with no strings attached!
I am also extremely grateful for being able to cook different meals for my family every day, if I decide to do so :) I can create a pretty good diet with not just red meat or poultry, but some enormous choice of fish, veggies and fruit. I feel happy when I see Dr. Chill stuffing his mouth with salmon, green beans, rabbit meat or drinking soup right from his bowl, but frankly - if the only groceries I could lay my hands on were good enough for making sandwiches, or if we had to live on potatoes, pasta and chicken drums - his idea of eating well would have been quite different. Yep, maybe as a highly prone to allergies child grown up in the post Cold-war era :) I still beam when I open a small plastic box of fresh raspberries to wash half a dozen for my kid. In January.
Same thought goes to being equipped with a washer, dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner and other little benefits that the past 150 years rolled on us. Real life-saviors for simplification maniacs(not pointing a finger here), who use dishwasher to wash all plastics baby items, toys, organizer containers that have been standing on parents' bath counter for too long; and who use the washing machine for... pretty much everything else. If your toddler loves loading and unloading the washer and dishwasher, and also pushing the buttons - it helps.
Personal space. I'm lucky, I'm extremely lucky to live in a house that provides a lot of clean, free, safe personal space for my son. As well as for my husband and I - after child's bed time. The mere thought of trying to fit in 4 people in 1000 sq. ft. apartment makes me dizzy; although this is not even the worst-case scenario, I know. When traveling, one of the priorities for us is to have a hotel room with a separate common area and a door to the bedroom.
I am not even mentioning all baby gadgets, diapers, toys, learning apps - this deserves a separate full size posting to refer to later :)
Pregnancy, baby delivery, postpartum recovery. I suspect if it wasn't for epidural during my first delivery, I would have very likely ended up with a c-section. Comparing the level and amount of prenatal medical attention I got the first time with that provided in other parts of the world is not something I would make a point of here; I just felt greatly at ease to have the opportunity to receive intensive medical care - should I have needed it. And I felt lucky enough to never have needed that intensive medical care.
What I was able to do - and did - for myself during pregnancy requires another separate post :) Again, something tells me access to sports, body cosmetics, prenatal massage, vitamins - are quite a recent privilege :)
Just as the whole experience of having and raising a child without the feeling of being in the surviving-of-the-fittest race followed by the feeling that misery and suffering is what all real women ought to go through is. Which is something I sincerely congratulate myself with for the past 18 months now.
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