I was talking to a friend of mine last week who is considering having children. She asked me if I was glad I had children. My immediate reaction was "Of course!" I mean I can't imagine not having the two little beings that I love more than anything not in my life. But as I began talking, I realized it's hard to explain why I'm glad I had children. (Now keep in mind, my kids are 5 and 2.5. As my neighbor recently told me, I'm not nearly to the point yet of getting a return on my investment.) So I thought about it...
Am I happier everyday because I have kids? Probably not. My ideal day would not involve breaking up sibling fights, listening to screaming and whining, picking up toys, or trying to stay in my seat for at least 60 seconds straight at dinner time. I would love to just sit on my back deck every evening after work and drink a glass of wine. <sigh>
Do I have more money because I have children? Ha, ha, ha. Oh man, that one made me laugh out loud. I roughly estimated in my head one time that we will have spent $300K on our children by the time my youngest one reaches kindergarten. Kindergarten, not college. That includes child care, fertility treatments, and all of the other clothing/toy/medical care expenses. I could have my house paid off instead.
Do I get to do the things I once enjoyed doing? Not nearly as much. I used to love to travel. Now the prospect of figuring out how to plan the logistics of traveling with two children - strategically planning flights around naps; figuring out the master plan of getting four suitcases, two car seats and one stroller into the airport with two hands; enjoying the challenges of getting two kids to sleep through the night in a foreign place in different beds - pretty much takes the fun out of any kind of travel.
Do my husband and I have a better marriage? That depends on the day. Our marriage is good. We have faced challenges and made it through them, but are we happier on a day-to-day basis? No. I would love to occasionally hold my husband's hand instead of holding a 2 year old, a sippy cup, or a diaper bag.
So when you put it like that, why would anyone have children? Again, I thought...
Because watching someone grow from a tiny embryo to an adult human being is amazing! You can be an aunt or uncle and see this from afar, but there is nothing like being there for every milestone. My daughter hasn't even quite made it to kindergarten, and I already marvel at what she can do. The reason parents think everything their children do is amazing is because they saw their children when they were helpless, vulnerable infants. So seeing an infant who can't even hold her head up grow to learn how to read a book IS amazing!
There isn't a substitute for an amazing family moment. Last night the four of us sat in our backyard, swinging on the bench swing while the kids giggled and ate watermelon. It was awesome! (It also ended in someone kicking someone else and eventually deteriorated into two children in tears, but I'm going to ignore that part.) But for about 5 minutes, it was awesome! And there's no other way to get that awesomeness but to go through the not-so-fun stuff.
The love of a child makes you feel pretty darn good. Everyday in the real world isn't always great. Sometimes people like what I do and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they like me and sometimes they don't. But my kids always love me. If I told them Mommy had a bad day, and I need a hug. They would quickly indulge me. That's awesome.
They can be highly entertaining. For example, on the way to the zoo last week, I hear my daughter singing to herself in the back seat of the car. I turned down the radio so I could hear what she was singing and this is what I heard, "...traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true. You're a pal and a confidant." Seriously, she was singing the entire theme from the Golden Girls. I had a lot of internal laughter. Turns out her teachers had taught the kids that song to sing at their Pre-K graduation, but man, I was wondering if daddy was secretly watching Rose and Blanche behind my back.
The journey of life will feel much more complete because my children were in it. I tend to always look toward the future. Sometimes I do that to a fault. But nevertheless, that is the lens I usually see the world through. The real reason I decided to have children was that I couldn't imagine coming to the end of my life and saying, "I chose not to have children and have that life experience, because I wanted life to be easier." That just didn't seem like a good reason for me (again, not judging, just talking about me). I wanted to know that I had really experienced all there was to experience in life - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And if you want the good, the bad, and the ugly - kids will definitely deliver that!
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