Twinkle Little Star: Regrets? I've had a few...but then again, too few to mention...

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Cupla emails I thought I would address here that are kinda related:

"My husband and I are going back and forth commiserating about when is the right time to have kids and if there is a right time......

I have been reading several blogs by mothers lately to help me get an idea of what its Really Like(tm), and I have to admit, I'm scared. You talk about tortured first months and how it sucks ass and everybody says how hard it is. Do you ever regret it? Do you wish you did things differently? Do you wish you waited for a better time? ...."

And also:

"I found your blog because my sister-in-law who is my best friend, has twin baby girls and she is really struggling right now. I loved your day in the life post, but that was a while back, do you have a toddler update? How are you managing toddlers these days?..."

Okay. As to the first (and other moms, feel free to weigh in here, also), I could never tell someone else when or whether to have kids, it is just such a personal decision based on so many factors. However, I'll answer these from my own perspective only.

Do I ever regret it, assuming you mean 'it' is having kids? Let's see, how can I put this so I'm perfectly clear?

NOT FOR ONE. SINGLE. SOLITARY. IOTA. OF A SECOND. NO MEANS NO MEANS NEVER MEANS NOT AT ALL... and on like that, infinity...

I think this comes from having some infertility issues, also from being disabled and having people tell me ad nauseum that I couldn't/shouldn't have kids. And from just always wanting to be a mom and from just having great kids. I am actually so far away from regret about parenting that not a single day goes by that I don't think how lucky I am. Sometimes several times a day I just marvel in gratefulness. Sometimes it just hits me at odd moments, when my kids are just climbing up the stairs for bed, others when they will do something so sweet like put their hands gently on my face and ask for a kiss, or when I hear them laugh uncontrollably or when they do something genius or just silly. If I could put a dime in a jar for every time I thought to myself, "My God! I'm so lucky I can't believe I'm pulling this off! I'm so glad I did this!" I'd have the kids' college fund by now.

The bitchin' and moanin' is not inherent to being a parent or to the kids themselves. It is a management issue. In short, this is my problem: The amount of work I have to do or should be doing is by far greater than the time and energy I have. There is very little I can do right now to change that. It will not last forever, someday the kids will be off with their friends, and someday later I will be a crazy old deafblind cat lady who does nothing but writes blogs all day or something while my kids are with their own families and having their own lives. But for now, when the kids need me and mainly me 24/7 and I also have to piece together a living and manage a house, I just have to suck it up. I went in knowing this, as much as you can know something before you are in it. I could say I can't complain, but I think people can complain even if they predict and intentionally put themselves in this situation. Complaining is a survival tactic. It's decompression. I use it to its fullest.

Any parent will tell you that there are different frustrations at different times in a kid's life. In infancy they won't sleep through the night. As teenagers they struggle with independence. Toddlerhood is particularly menacing in a way. Their physical and mental abilities surpass their maturity and impulse control. They are sometimes incessant in their wants. I think of the scene in the movie Rain Man where Raymond goes on and on about his underwear and how it should be from Kmart. Then Tom Cruise stops the car on the highway and gets out screaming in frustration. That's how toddler's are. I have a kid who asks me if he can vacuum 3645 times a day. I let him vacuum once a day, but beyond that, I have to either hear the vacuum cleaner all day or hear, "mama, I vacuum now?" every five seconds. It is cute and its a stage, but it can also be maddening. Every once in a while, I need to scream about it. But the thing about kid frustrations like these is that they change all the time. You never have to live with any one hell for all that long. And when its gone, you almost kind of miss it.

While they are going through their annoying and frustrating stages, they also go through such amazing changes that slowly metamorphosize them from those clumps of cells in your uterus to that blob of needy flesh that was your newborn into an actual human being. It is like watching a flower bloom. And you don't even know what the flower is going to look like. You don't know if it will be a rose or an iris or a lily or what. They are definitely not exact clones of you. The mystery is amazing. With every frustration, there is a thousand tiny moments of awe and discovery. You just have to let yourself notice them. I think a lot of moms are bitching on their blogs because they are shoving their frustration aside when parenting so that they might not miss the good stuff. Then the maddening stuff comes out later on to their friends or partner or on their blog. You have to do a lot of compartmentalizing as a parent.

And you have to do some kind of balanced combination of keeping things stable while constantly changing. Kids need stability, because they are constantly changing. And you have to provide both the stability and the ability to change with them. I think a lot of times, when parents go through rough patches, it stems from their kid changing; having a different schedule or need or a different way of expressing themselves, and the parent hasn't yet caught up to it or figured out how to address it. You are out of sync. And it takes a while to get back into sync. And even figure out how. Parenting is a slow separation. You start out as life support for your child, you end up with an independent adult that is closer with their own significant others than they probably ever will be to you again. It can be heartbreaking when you think about it, but I guess you have try to enjoy the person they become, that they have to become on their own. That has to be your payoff, not the intimacy of dependency at the start. From my experience, it seems like the parents that change with their kid and find some joy in the separation have the best lifelong relationships with their kids. They see them as their own people, not objects to be owned or trophies to show off. That is probably my main goal as a parent, to give my kids the support they need, but also to allow them to become the people they will become. I think this is the only way to have a good, longstanding relationship with your kids.

But none of us will do it perfectly. So, do I wish I did things differently? Yes and no. There are so many variables to parenting that you aren't ever going to do everything right. So can I look back and see places where I screwed up? Sure. But I think the key here is to just fix it as soon as you can. I've yelled at my kids when I shouldn't have. I have made bad scheduling decisions that didn't work for them. I have pushed them too hard to do this and perhaps not pushed them hard enough to do that other thing. The decisions you make are limitless, you aren't going to hit every one (or even a majority of them) out of the ballpark. I think it is more important to be flexible, look at what you could do better or differently, apologize when you screw up and then fix it as well as you can. I have been apologizing to my kids since they were way too young to have a clue what I was saying. I think the resentment comes in when parents act superhuman and as if they can do no wrong. Or when they stay on a path that isn't working just because they have too much pride to change or are too afraid of change to change. But again, you are not going to hit the changes exactly right or on time, but at least you have to be flexible and humble enough to try.

Would I have waited to have kids? Actually, I would have had them when I was 25 or so instead of 34. I came from that generation where women were supposed to wait and wait and wait some more to have kids. You had to go to college, get your career established, have some fun single time, get married, buy a house, save some money, blah... until every facet of your life was just so, and then you could think about having kids. In most cases, it isn't ever going to happen perfectly. There is no perfect time to have kids. Some times are better than others, sure, but it isn't ever going to be perfect. I wish I would have had kids earlier because I would have been healthier and had more energy then. I would have gone through college and had my single fun. Married or not, who gives a shit (in my case, your mileage may vary). I also don't necessarily know if I would have moved to Oregon if I would have had kids back then. There is a lot of good about Oregon. A lot of things I really love and would miss if I moved away. But two things about the Midwest that I miss are the space to roam, backyards, big public parks, space in between buildings and cars and queues and everything. Also there is more of a sense (or it is somewhat easier to obtain) a sense of community in the Midwest. Oregon is very liberal, which is nice, but it is very fragmented, too. People are so liberal, and so live and let live that sometimes that means "you do your thing, I'll do mine, nobody gets hurt." It is good and bad. I really don't know how I would be accepted as a deafblind single mom with kids conceived through a donor. But after the judgmental questions and looks wore off, I'd probably have about four or five people waiting to babysit my kids. I never went without ride offers in the Midwest. It was almost too much help to manage sometimes. In Oregon? I get a ride offer maybe a few times a year. Also, it would have been cheaper to live as well. So there are trade-offs. Here I can get anywhere via public transportation and there are a lot of places to go for kids, so it would be hard to move now. But if I started off having kids when I was 25, I doubt I would have moved to Oregon. I have family there. More than just my dad and sister. It would have been nice to have them get to know us. So, back from tangent, waiting is not always best, I don't think. It is not necessarily going to always get better. You may have more money but less time and energy. And after granting enough money for the basics, I would go for time and energy when it comes to raising kids. Don't take those for granted.

Despite my health and my old age! I am extremely lucky to get to spend the time I do with my kids. That was a hard decision to make, giving up my career for all practical purposes, to stay home with them. I played by the rules and worked my ass off for a career that just looked at me as disabled, damaged goods in return. This kind of work is much better. It is hard work, and it is all day and never ending, but it is the kind of work you like to do. So if you are going to work hard, you are lucky if it is something you really want. My motivation for my career declined as I saw the outlook looking more and more bleak as my disabilities progressed. This is something that no one can take away from me (well not with out a bloodletting fight, anyway.) This is something where I know I'm doing something worthwhile that I enjoy and that I manage myself and where I can see immediate results. It is sad that society dismisses parenting like it does, it gives the impression that it is all doldrums and monotony. And there is some of that. But it is something where you get out of it exactly what you put in to it. I like that kind of work.

Okay, my schedule. God, what do I say here? I keep fiddling with it. And here, this is going to show you how anal I am, and I will probably remove this is a couple of days, but here is my latest written out schedule:

My Schedule (.pdf)

That schedule is already outdated. I've switched a lot of stuff around so Aaron gets more supervision and Naim never naps anymore, so... But I literally have to write down everything I have to do and when or I lose pieces of it. (So, if you are laughing that I put down when to take the kids to the bathroom, I understand why. But I actually need to remind myself to do that. Oh, and "Centers" and all of that? Its just the wording that Funshine Express uses, but it means, I'm going to throw crafts and activities their way.) The other thing about that schedule is that it assumes that I can get up and be energetic all day long and accomplish all those things. That does not happen regularly. So I am perpetually behind on housework, office work (writing, things I actually get paid to do), there is always more that D needs that I could be doing and just don't have the time. That part where it says "free time"? It really doesn't exist. It does in that I do flop on my ass after I put the kids to bed and say, forget it! I'm done. But it isn't as if it is a schedule that actually maintains what I have to really accomplish. There is no schedule right now that will really work to get everything done in a timely manner and still leave time for free time.

My solution? I shirk my responsibilities in a priority and rotating order. One week it is housework. Then when the kitchen is so gross I can't find a clean spoon anymore, that rises in priority and something else gets dumped. Maybe laundry, until I haven't a clean pair of underwear in the house. Then it is something I promised to do for church. Or a much belated phone call to a friend, or my blog or whatever. I rotate the people I blow off so hopefully no one person is getting screwed all that often. The daily 'have-tos" get done. The kids get fed and clothed and entertained, D gets fed, I get showered (usually), things like that. But everything else is on a rotating schedule of blowing it off until I can get to it. So, it isn't a model of a great schedule, but it is the best I can do.

One thing I will point out, if you are new to reading my blog, is that I have a set of unusual circumstances. We are running two households. The kid's father is quadriplegic so although he can help, sometimes I have to help him help. Like I have to stick around and grab the kids out of some predicament they got themselves into when he can't. I also have to do things for him. When we sit down for dinner, I not only have to get juice refills for the kids, I have to get refills or whatever for him, too. When my dad is here, he is pretty self sufficient but at times I have to manage him a little and help him out. I also don't drive, which takes more time to get errands done. I also have to take longer to do things because I can't see and hear well. We have to watch our money and budget closely, so that is sometimes time consuming, and you just can't hire out or get something new that would save you time all the time. And I have two kids that are exactly the same age. There are challenges there. They both need the same things at different times and can't really help each other out like different age siblings sometimes can. I know its all relative, but when I think of a household with two able bodied adults with decent incomes and just one kid, it is hard to see what they possibly could have to complain about. I bet they get actual, real life "free time" once in a while.

But again, I am not complaining. Well, I am. I'm doing a tough job. And for the most part, I'm doing it very well. So I get to complain sometimes. But I chose this, I wanted this, I enjoy this, and I never, ever regret this.

Comments

Having kids is the best thing that I have ever done. But it is exhausting. I sometimes think about how I'll never know what it would be like to have two able-bodied adults and one kid, because I was very sick after my daughter was born, and my husband worked evenings. I would work a full day and come home and be in charge until bedtime, and I felt like I was going to die. But when I got healthier and my husband stopped working evenings, I suddenly realized the situation was manageable! But, of course, I don't regret it, not even a tiny bit.

Posted by: cherylc | November 19, 2007 at 09:11 AM