X Parents

A few weeks ago I turned on the TV to catch the end of Letterman and found myself watching a band called The Knitters. They sure did look familiar, but it took me a minute to realize that it was members of the bands X and The Blasters. I hadn't seen them since 1982 when I saw X live in concert. But there was John Doe, DJ Bonebrake, Dave Alvin, and Exene Cervenka on my TV, some 25 years after they tore through the LA music scene.

I hopped on the Internet to catch up with what these guys had been doing over the past couple of decades and found this interesting interview with Exene in which she discusses motherhood in a powerful way:

Having a baby is without a doubt the best and the worst thing you can go through in life. It's a physical upheaval from the time of conception to the end of breastfeeding and it's a constant challenge. You don't care about that, though, when the hormonal stuff takes over -- the only thing you care about is you and your kid. This is hormonal stuff, ancient, protective stuff, and it's like "get out of my way, I have a baby inside of me." You’re so profoundly in a state of awe of the human body, and the mind goes from one extreme to another in ways you can't conceive of unless you've experienced it. The miracle of conception and birth is beyond any other experience, and the idea that your baby could die at any second if you screw up is beyond any fear you could have. And, the love you feel for that baby is beyond any love you could feel for another person. The agony of day-to-day parenting can be so intense that some days you just want to kill yourself because, although you can walk away from anything else in life, you can't walk away from a crying baby or a child going through a difficult phase.