I was attending C’s 9 month well check recently when the doctor asked me how the family was doing, throwing in the stock “4 boys… I don’t know how you do it” remark.
“I don’t know either,” I laughed, thinking longingly about my iced coffee waiting in the car.
“Do you think you’ll keep going? Or are you done?”
This question should not be vexing to my mental state. It comes up constantly, particularly when you seem to be on a steady once-every-other-year cadence of child production. For me, it’s often “will you keep going till you get a girl?” which irritates me for other reasons. But the fundamental curiosity — when are you going to stop expanding your family? — creates a quiet storm inside my head that rumbles around intermittently for the next few days that follow.
On the one hand, I answer “yes, we’re done.”
We have been in a state of endless accrual of stuff for the past 7 years. We have all the standard seasonal supplies (bikes, clothes, snow gear) to fit a boy at any stage of development up to 7 years old. We have diaper pads, baby baths, bouncers, swings, exersaucers, walkers, bottles, bibs, drying racks, sippies, plasticware, baby gates, drawer locks. With the exception of truly superfluous items or massive toy purges, we have effectively been unable to offload anything since J was born. We have a small boat of an SUV to accommodate our family size and the 4 x car seats, we have 2 boys sharing a room already, and we have a daycare bill that will equate to a significant raise in our monthly income when we get to stop paying it.
We are running a constant time deficit, and while we are more than comfortable letting standards slide with respect to things one might wish but not mandate (walk through the kitchen without coating one’s socks with a thin layer of Wheaties crumbs, for instance), we are already – with just one child in extracurricular activities – finding ourselves dividing children and tasks just to get things done.
For 7 years, we have not had a meal without cutting several people’s food into appropriately sized chunks such that they are not life-threatening choking hazards. We have not sat on our backyard patio without being spatially aware of where the youngest was and begging him to stop wandering into the street in search of the neighborhood playground. We have not left the house without a diaper bag or water bottles or snack packs or sunscreen or spare clothes. The mental management has left me so deeply resource challenged that I find myself making conscious determinations about things like “I need to be okay with a less-than-stellar performance review at work or I am going to burn out,” or “I will have to coast on the momentum of my relationships until I have time to be a good friend again,” or “I can only have fun once per week.”
And here’s the real talk: Dave and I had always talked about “3 with the option of 4,” and now we have 4 healthy, beautiful, boisterous boys. The notion of not pushing one’s luck comes to mind when considering not only another baby, but another pregnancy & VBAC delivery (at least, attempted by way of always delivering before someone would schedule you for an actual C-section) for me. And now, of course, of an age to be considered a geriatric mother!
I’m ready to move onto the next life stage. I’m ready to clear some shelf space, and worry less about a child accidentally putting himself in mortal peril by virtue of trying to eat a Lego, and for Pete’s sake put these 4 able bodied boys to work on some serious yard and home chores. I am busy. I am tired. But I am also so deeply, deeply happy.
So, yes, I say, “we’re done.” But I have yet to have that be a complete sentence. Rather, I am always compelled to offer additional context: “…but it’s still hard to say it out loud.”
There are a few reasons I believe I struggle with knowing I’m done.
The first is, simply, when you’ve created 4 wonderful children, with traits you recognize in yourself or your spouse but also some that are absolutely foreign, and you see them develop and change and become these little people that you are so privileged to know, it’s like you get the first read of the most extensive, exciting, page-turning novel and witness a story unfolding for the first time. How could you not want more of these people? It’s a slippery slope, I know, but to imagine not knowing C because we hadn’t gone for “the option of 4” is now a really sad contemplation. This train of thought falls apart quickly given the cost of pregnancy and birth to the mother (fun fact! The #1 cause of death for women ages 15 – 19 globally is childbirth!), but it still sparks a seed of greed in my brain… more of these lovely little monsters? Yes, please.
Then there’s the notion of “lasts” that would haunt me if I let them. I have become strangely emotional over bizarre “last first” milestones with C. Not just the obvious ones: the last first time he rolled over, or slept straight through the night, or moved from the bassinet into his own nursery… No, I’ve become highly attuned to the lesser known last firsts: the last first gummy smile before he cut a tooth, the last first stinky diaper after I added purees to his formerly exclusive breast milk diet, and the last first time he sat in the actual tub for his bath – and not only didn’t slip at all, but splashed so aggressively that his bath-mate, A, whined for maternal intervention.
Ultimately, and honestly, the root issue may be a result of the human’s frontal lobes being significantly newer than the limbic system. Maybe I am logically on board with being done for all the reasons above, but my animal instincts object & tell me to continue procreating. For better or worse, I do not live one of these unexamined lives that Socrates alluded to, so I am thrust into a state of contemplation when I detect this type of internal conflict.
Two comments that massively comfort me during those mental isolated thunderstorms:
- Dave said sincerely when I agonized about this one time: “you’ve physically and mentally given a lot of yourself to this for the past many years. It’s enough. It’s okay to turn the page and start the next chapter.”
- My mom told me, after I disclosed our considerations around – ahem – most effectively managing our family plan, and shared that I was concerned about doing anything “permanent” while I was still emotional about things: “then don’t do permanent. Take the temporary fix and come back to cross that bridge later.”
I guess it all comes down to this: motherhood is a paradox – especially in the weeds of the stage with young children. You are constantly busy, but simultaneously bored. You are lonely, but wish everyone would stop touching you so you could just have a moment to yourself. You are intensely terrified that you will make a mistake, but also feel more functional and capable and strong than you ever have in your life. I remember vividly the first day that I brought J home and watched him napping in his bassinet, with some version of clinical insomnia about to set in for me. I thought “what have I done?” and “this is so amazing; we should have done this sooner” in the very same breath.
It makes sense then, I suppose, that deciding that you are done can be equally paradoxical.
All this to say, we are done. But it is still hard to say it out loud.
Growing up in the shadow of the “Motor City,” there’s a lot of talk about cars. People come from multi-generational “[Ford/GM/Chrysler] Families,” and often have allegiances that run deep enough that you park your import vehicle brands in the street (and ideally out of sight) when Grandpa is coming over. We even frame our corporate meeting “ice breakers” in terms of cars: your first car, your favorite car, your dream car.
Recently, in a large group setting, the question was: if you were a car, what kind of car would you be? Most people answered with iconic vehicles, known for being fast, or rugged, or cool.
My answer to the group: a 2012 Ford Escape.
My rationale:
- Ford is a deeply American brand, with its World HQ based in Dearborn, MI. I am a deeply American girl, born, raised, and established soundly in Michigan towns that no one outside of the state would know the names of.
- The Escape is a well-rounded, functional SUV, small enough to zip around parking lots but large enough to carry a load; it’s marketed predominantly to women. I am feminine in that I am… you know, a female, but otherwise consider myself also very well-rounded and highly-functional in terms of physical stature and capability.
- I specifically chose the 2012 model year because, while I very much like the look of the 2012 Escape, it is a far cry from current anymore. Similarly, I am – forever, and without fail – a far cry from current. I average 5 years behind any trend, as evinced by my belated entry into podcasts, excited usage of emojis long after they were old news, and delayed reaction to any fashion swings such that by the time I notice a trend, it is assuredly on its way out.
I’m curious to know: what kind of car would you be?
A few weeks ago, J was “Star Student” of his kindergarten class. This coveted position involves showcasing treasured possessions from home, sharing pictures of friends and family, and having the teacher read your favorite book to the class. Friday culminates with classmates gifting the Star Student a book of adorably clunky kindergarten illustrations inspired by the Star Student him/herself.
Dave and I excitedly opened J’s book with him on Friday evening.
“Oh my gosh, how sweet is this?!” I said. “Look! There you are wearing blue, your favorite color. And you love Legos! And I see ice cream, and a pineapple, and a burger… this is such a nice drawing from so-and-so.”
“Ha!” Dave and I laughed at page 2. “McDonald’s burger and fry! So-and-so has your number.”
By the time we got to page 3, an illustration of literally nothing except McDonald’s fries, we got suspicious. “J, did you tell your class we eat a lot of McDonald’s or something?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Well, you can probably guess how the majority of the rest of the pages of his Star Student book looked.
J insists he did not tell his class he likes McDonald’s, nor that we eat a lot of McDonald’s, nor that he mentioned McDonald’s at all. I proceeded to ask his classmate at the bus stop the following Monday. She confirmed there was no mention of J having an unusually high inclination for fast food known to be almost entirely nutritionally void.
I am therefore equal parts mystified as to what the muse was behind this clear trend of McDonald’s, and expecting that our final parent-teacher conference this year will include a surprise discussion around the importance of healthy habits in child nutrition.
- Wine tasting for beginners. Camp #2.
- “May your presence in the office be like a rainbow —
Very visible, but no one can reach you.”
Irish Blessings for RTO. - “The Restorative Power of Eating Chips Before Bed.” I feel so seen. (c/o my brother, a fellow ‘after chips’ connoisseur.)
- “Epiphany in the Baby-Food Aisle.” Humor, anguish, rage, joy. A hero’s journey. Worth the full read.
“Every mother you know is in this fight with herself. The sword that hangs over her is a sword of exhaustion, of frustration, of patience run dry, a sword of indignation at how little she feels like a human when she so often has to look and behave like an animal. Mostly, it is the sword of rage: the rage and shock of how completely she must annihilate herself to keep her child alive.“
Cherry blossoms and migratory birds get a lot of press coverage as the seasons change, but the warming weather this past weekend reminded me of some lesser acknowledged – but no less legitimate – signs of spring:
- An Amazon overnight package of mass quantities of sunscreen shows up on our porch following a panicky late-night purchase while looking at the weather forecast.
- I begin a 4 week period of sounding like I’m wearing a scuba mask and looking like I’m constantly on the verge of crying. What are you allergic to, you ask? Spring itself, evidently.
- I enforce the annual “rage clean” of our garage.
- The number of chalked hopscotch courses on our neighborhood sidewalks explodes at such a rate that some wonder when it is technically considered graffiti.
- McDonald’s starts carrying their delicious icees, & our family unit’s consumption is considered by market analysts to have a positive correlation to company shareholder value.
girl friends who lift you,
get you, and laugh with you when
you’re not at your best…
(origin story.)
Hack #5: Space is the Secret to 1:1 QT
I am one of five children and a bona fide middle child. While I know there were daily choices my parents made to ensure none of us felt like we were anything less than a top priority, my mom set a particularly amazing precedent: the “Getaway.”
“Getaways” with Mom were epic when we were kids. Getaways were 1:1 overnights, and the general tone was “treat yo’self” before that phrase was in vogue. My siblings and I talked about these for months (years) afterwards and they live on in our shared narrative.
My Getaway memory — crystal clear even 20+ years later — is as follows:
- We went on an extensive trip to an exotic location
- We saw Homeward Bound in theater
- She let me buy something from the quarter machines at a store when I asked (that was a hard pass in any other context… and now that I’m a parent, I understand why)
- We talked about everything I wanted to talk about, and ate what I wanted to eat
- We went to a hotel (with a pool!!!!) and stayed the night
- I had a great time
I found out many years later that we had only gone as far as Ann Arbor, <1 hour from home.
So when I wanted to get some QT with A, our resident Daddy’s Boy, I knew just what to do.
Friday I picked up A from school early and we hit the road! We went to a hotel not far away and swam in the rocking indoor pool with a massive shallow end. We got room service pizza and pasta and ate on the hotel bed like it didn’t matter if we spilled. We shared a slice of chocolate cake that was not contingent upon him finishing some portion of his entree. We stayed up late and slept like logs. We had continental breakfast and I didn’t blink when he wanted to spoon his strawberry yogurt into the dregs of his orange juice. We went for an extended joyride on the elevator. We swam again and played out roughly 70 scenarios where our pool noodles were hoses extinguishing fires. We listened to his favorite tunes all the way home (who knew?).
Could A articulate what we did by the time he got home and Dave asked how his adventure was with Mom? No.
Did my 2 year old tell me in no uncertain terms that he would be riding a motorcycle when he “got bigger” because we saw two on the drive? Yes.
Did this Getaway help reestablish our bond that has never been the same since C came along? Perhaps not.
But did he have a good enough time that he requested I join him in a resounding and very public “hip hip, HOORAY!” chorus over our breakfast orange juices?? You bet he did.
