Becoming and Unbecoming Simultaneously

The paradox of parental identity—becoming a parent while losing oneself—mirrors the spiritual paradoxes Sor Juana explored: dying to self while living more fully, constraint enabling freedom. Rather than resolving this tension, this concept invites parents to hold it. Parenthood does involve real loss: of time, autonomy, singular focus, and previous identity. Sor Juana did not deny such losses but contextualized them within larger spiritual and intellectual becoming. Parents can similarly refuse either despair ('I am lost') or false comfort ('nothing has changed'). Instead: I am becoming a parent, which means unbecoming someone I was. These occur together. The work is not recovering the prior self or accepting erasure but consciously becoming someone new—who includes parental love and also intellectual hunger, relational depth and personal autonomy. This honest recognition paradoxically frees parents from guilt while grounding them in authentic identity work.