I may want more kids, but my wife doesn’t
It happened again this week. We were in line at the grocery store, trying to keep the toddler occupied, and chatting with the well-meaning woman with a bright smile behind us. “Is he yourchild?” she asks. My wife and I glance at each other—a quick flicker of the eyes is all it takes to reaffirm that we are still locked in the same confusing stalemate.
At the age of 12, I confidently told my mother that I was going to have seven children. But, by the time I met my wife, some 18 years later, my perspective had changed. I wanted to be a mom, that I knew with incontestable certainty, but that was it. My twenties turned out to be both emotionally and economically tenuous, and I couldn’t imagine being able to pull off having more than one child. We got married, and the plan was one baby.
But then I see the little boy down the street pick up his baby brother with the comfortable ease of someone who picks up a baby constantly. When friends have babies, there are always pictures of the older siblings meeting the newcomer, wide-eyed and filled with wonder. I think about my own sister, and the big family I always wanted, and my heart aches. I know that children don’t need siblings, but it’s something I wish I could give my child.
If you asked me whether or not my current family is “enough,” I would say yes, we are more than enough. My child is everything I could have wished for and more, and being his mother, and parenting with my wife, is a dream come true. And yet, I vividly recall turning to her with tears in my eyes while he was only three months old. I told her I just wasn’t ready to make a final decision on the matter of family size. I needed to leave the door to more children open, even if it was only a crack.
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