Moms Need To Chill Out

WHY IS IT A CRIME TO HAVE AN ONLY CHILD?By NATALY KOGAN

You know those moms who are easy-going and just take parenting in stride?

I am not one of them.

From the day my daughter was born, four and a half years ago, I’ve been a little obsessed with doing the right thing, parenting-wise. For example, when she was three months old I went back to work, and, even though my milk began to dry up almost immediately, I spent 45 minutes, three times each day, connected to the loud monster (a.k.a. breast pump) in my office, my assistant watching guard outside and some male colleagues making cow jokes in just-loud-enough voices. My doctor, my friends, my mom, my husband and my assistant, who was probably getting tired of the daily watchdog routine, all told me to just chill and give it up. No way. I had this artificially made-up goal to make it to six months and I was going to do the right thing and get there.

I tell you all this to show how hard I try to be a good parent. But apparently, my husband and I are completely messing up our daughter’s life anyway because we’re thinking she might be our only child.

The questions from, well, everyone, began around the time when our daughter turned three. I’d meet another mom who would ask me, a few minutes into our conversation, when we were having another. (It was usually “when”, and rarely “if”.)

“Oh, I am not sure, we might just have one,” I’d say, only to see the other mom’s face turn into one of disbelief, at best, and instant negative judgment, at worst. This would be followed by a range of comments, from the passive-aggressive “Are you serious?” to my personal favorite, “I’m sure you’ll change your mind soon.”

I got the same response from an OB GYN I visited recently, after we moved. When I said we might have just one child, I was given a look that made me feel like I’d just announced I planned to leave that child starving and alone in the house for days. I switched to a different OB, but I kept running into women who made it sound like having an only child is borderline criminal parent behavior.

This is probably a good time to tell you that I am an only child.

If you’re conjuring up images of a self-absorbed narcissist or a total loner without any friends, I’m going to disappoint you because while I have my quirks and “issues,” I’m actually quite nice. I like people; I am pretty good at sharing, unless it’s a piece of delicious dark chocolate for which you might have to fight me; I love my parents dearly and don’t think they ruined my life by not “giving” me a sibling. O.K., I’m a bit of a perfectionist and can’t sleep if the house isn’t clean, but I have enough friends from large families who are the same.

The other day I told a friend that I am getting really tired of the presumptuous “more kids” comments and she told me to just ignore them and do what’s best for our family.

She’s right. But first I have to figure out what IS best for our family. As much as my husband and I have talked endlessly about the reasons why we think having one is best, this is a ridiculously difficult and emotionally charged decision, and I obsess about it all the time. I hear a friend talk warmly about visiting her sister and I immediately think about how nice it would be for my daughter to experience that warmth when she is older. I see my daughter play with a little baby at the park and my eyes almost tear up as I daydream about her playing with her own sibling. I go through the good-things-about-having-siblings checklist in my mind, and come out convinced that yes, we should definitely have another.

And then I remember all the reasons why we think we may just want one. Some of them I hesitate to share here, but most have to do with worrying about maintaining our sanity, our relationship with each other and our daughter and having any time for horribly selfish things like our non-family and non-work interests.

It isn’t that I don’t think those reasons are good enough, but that I am struck at how many others don’t seem to think so. Sometimes I wish that I had a more “acceptable” reason to give them. If I were older I could say that, well, we’re too old to have another. If, like during my childhood spent in the former Soviet Union, we lived in extremely difficult conditions and literally didn’t have enough means for another child, I could use that as a justification. But we’re young, we have the means and, on top of it all, we appear to have gotten this parenting thing under control – we’ve got no “excuses.”

Which doesn’t mean, of course, that anyone has any business telling us what horrible parents we are for raising an only child or for well-meaning folks to give us endless insight about how great our daughter’s life will be if only she had a sibling. (This always makes me want to start telling them about all the people l know who don’t get along with their siblings, hate their siblings, don’t talk to their siblings or swear that their life would be so much better if they didn’t have to deal with their siblings. Last I checked, sibling love isn’t guaranteed.)

Like other parenting decisions — to breastfeed or not, to let kids cry it out or not, to go back to work or to stay home — figuring out how many kids to have is an extremely personal process, but it’s also one that causes others to share advice and opinions without much invitation.
My daughter recently asked me why we don’t buy her a brother or a sister. I tried not to laugh at the buy comment and asked her if she wanted one. “Nah,” she said, “I like being with you and Daddy.” And for that little moment I had no doubts — whatever we decide, we’re all going to be O.K.

That was a pretty good blog, eh? Very entertaining. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a guy (I hear that this is a trait that separates the sexes) but I couldn't really care less what other Dads think of my my fathering skills. If they think they're stellar parents, let's wait thirty years and compare kids.

Not to sound cocky or anything, but looking at the kids of today, I'm pretty confident in my abilities as a dad.

Anyway, I got that comment all the time "when are you going to have another kid?" To which I'd say "we''ll see what happens." Life has a way of listening to what you say and making your life go the opposite direction. Life is kind of a pain like that.

It's nobody's business but the people in my family anyway, but saying so always seems so rude to me. If the question were to be pressed to me I'd say anything to get them to stop talking because that's all I really want.

It isn't like they care anyway.

That's the root of it all, I think. I KNOW that these people, the people that want to become part of your life to the extent that THEY'RE helping you choose the number of your kids, they don't really care. They just want to be BFFs and that's all. They want to feel like they're closer to you than the other people in your circle.

Armed with this knowledge you can keep them at bay AND maintain your not-joined-at-the-hip mentality.

"That's between my wife and I, really."

Or if you want to be a bit more sassy: "What do you care?"

Because if you say that last one you'll ensure a little ego stroke too if you're in the mood where your friend rattles off all the times they've been there for you and how close you never even knew you were.

Ah, but even if this ISN'T the case and I'm just blowing smoke, it really ISN'T anyone's decision but the people in your family (I'd be inclined to think it's only between you and your spouse) so why worry about it.

Why worry about whether your OB GYN (the person YOU employ) thinks you should have more kids? You can tell them exactly where to stick the duck-bill shaped thing. What's it called? A speculum? Just for humor's sake we'll call it a quacker. You can tell them just where to stick that quacker.

So chill out, mom-who's-worried-about-everyone-else's-opinion. Life is short and while I am a go with the flow kind of person, I am also the kind of person who is very quick to cut off any unnecessary stress. Like worrying about what people at Story Time think of Annie being almost two when her little brother/sister is born.