Demure Thoughts
Demure is Overrated!
WTF is this shit? Ender’s Game?
Author: jen7 Apr
Parents Deciding to Have A Third Child Met with Scorn…
My husband and I are getting ready to do what many couples in these brink-of-recessionary times would consider unthinkable. No, we’re not buying a Martha’s Vineyard retreat or planning a month in St. Bart’s or eco-decorating our house.We’re planning to have a third child.
What shocks people, when we tell them, isn’t the thought of hauling three kids onto a place for a vacation, or even the idea of coming home every night to a houseful of runny noses and homework assignments. What gets them is the sheer financial audacity. Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18.
But to me, a family with just two kids seems minimalist, and even a bit sad. Back in the 1970s, when my husband and I were born, sprawling families were more common. My husband had two sisters and, following a Brady-Bunchy set of remarriages in my family, I wound up with seven brothers, real and step. I’ve always fantasized about creating a “Meet Me in St. Louis”-style household of my own, with children constantly underfoot and enough relatives around to skip to my lou en masse.
And yet nowadays, people seem aghast if a couple wants more than two children. When Elana Sigall, a 43-year-old attorney in Brooklyn, was pregnant with her third, people came up to her constantly, she said, to admonish her: “You’ve got a boy and a girl already. Why don’t you just leave it alone?”
Amateurs I say! Three kids? Try four… Unless you had all three at one time (gives momotrips her earned acknowledgment) , I am not impressed. j/k
I only have four children and still I am usually a source of surprise for people when they ask about my family. I am not sure if they are more surprised I have four children or that they are all girls. I always piss off the folks out there with single children when I say you have no idea what parenting is really about. Bear with me before you start freaking out, parents of only children.
Yes having a child changes your life in a way that no one can every adequately explain to you. You have to experience it to understand the wide variety of things which will change. The least of these being the number of hours you sleep and the reality of peeing/showering/everything with audience for at least 3 years. That said, a single child is barely a blip on the radar of life. You still fit in your current automobile. You can still go and do without much planning, the childcare expenses are still manageable etc…
Child number two is when you start to notice the difference. You require a bit more planning when you go places and eating out is a big adventure as you try to cut, feed, and calm to silence a kid on your right and your left. You will not remember eating anything at a restaurant from this point in your family unit because all your energy is (should be) spent keeping kids calm and quiet so others can enjoy their dinner. Childcare is more expensive, but still it can happen with proper planning. You still fit in your car even with two car seats in use.
Child number three is the magical child. The one where you kiss that last smidge of spare time away. Where you realize when one kids has strep it is soon to run it’s course through the whole lot. This is where your grocery bill will begin to choke you. It is when summer childcare hits the 1800-2k a month amount. It is when you notice you had your kids too close together and you have to shove three car seats into the backseat of your Altima and then force the door closed. It is when everything changes. The meaning of the phrase, “I only have two hands!” comes into sharp focus. There is always noise. There is no silence. Ever.
Child number four, well that one forces you out of your economical car and into a SUV (because Mini Vans are for the weak) or it forces you to take two cars everywhere you want to go as a family. It is when your grocery bill probably hits the 1k a month mark. It is when you have at least one child sick on any give day during the colder months. It is when you have at least one of them with some health issue, such as allergies, asthma, adhd, or general bad mooditis. You realize as parents you are totally outnumbered and your life becomes about one thing and one thing only… The Quest for Silence.
Parents with three or more kids do not freak out when seeing a child with blood pouring out of their mouth, it happens. They say things like, “Do not put your sister in the dresser drawer!” or “Stop writing on the ceiling.” You are no longer an intellectual if you ever were one. You stopped going out to eat two kids ago. Life is about trying to keep the kids from destroying your home and trying to find five minutes of silence. You do 8-10 loads of laundry a week. You always need to go to the grocery store for something. Your medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy. You always loved coffee, but now you NEED coffee. You no longer fantasize about long beach vacations, they sound nice, but you would totally settle for an hour or two of silence before 10pm.
The amazing thing about this? Even though you are tired all the time… Even though you miss silence and a life with less chaos… Even though you spent 5+ years of your life lactating… You cannot even remember your life before kids. You manage a night out with your husband once in a while and you enjoy the quiet luxury of a steak dinner in a restaurant too expensive for anyone to bring their rugrats. You enjoy a movie without having to get up 3 times to go to the potty. It is delightful and yet at 11pm you are ready to go home and make sure the kids are sleeping and didn’t tie up the babysitter.
It is the hardest thing you will ever do and the most rewarding. People who say things like, “You have a boy and a girl, isn’t that enough?” besides being rude and deserving the most snide remark possible, these folks are envious. If all you want is a single child, good for you. I was an only child and I turned out well enough. If you want two kids, good for you too! We all know what the right number for our own lives turns out to be. So keep your inferiority complex to yourself. Just because you cannot imagine having more than two kids, doesn’t give you the right to talk down at someone who can. Make yourself feel better by scrapbooking or something.
Big families are not for everyone. I do not think less of people with only children. I do chuckle when they talk about being overwhelmed. I chuckled like every other parent with two or more kids chuckles. Yes we laugh at you, parents of only children. Not because we do not like you, we probably do, we remember having only one child, we call that cake.
The stupidity of the above linked article is these folks are rich and upper class. The ones who do not sacrifice luxury items like oh, haircuts and careers, when they have higher numbers of children. They just hire someone to do the laundry and clean the house. These are the folks who should be breeding excessively, not the ones doing it to get more money from The Man. Why don’t they have more kids? Well it might mean they outgrow their house in the hamptons for one. It might mean yet another breast lift and tummy tuck. It might mean just one more little inconvenience when it is time to go to pilates class. Such a tragic thing that.
I would have had more kids had I started the second half of my breeding career earlier, but I was 34 when number 4 was born and I know the health risks are higher over 35 for both mom and baby. I was done and I was satisfied. I will have lots of grandkids one day; the odds are in my favor with four daughters.
11 Responses for "WTF is this shit? Ender’s Game?"
First off – bwahahaha!
Ehem.
Okay, I am just fucking efficient, man. I always said I wanted three kids – I just had ‘em all at once. No muss, no fuss, and very few stretch marks – I was MADE for carrying a litter.
I was 34 when I had my little “litter”. My husband and I have no idea what having one kid is like. Being able to leave the house and do simple things like go to church or the grocery store with one little ole infant seat looks like such fun. Not having people stop you in the mall like you are pushing around some kind of science experiment looks like heaven. Really, having kids one at a time is CAKE. I was a damn vampire, only leaving the house after dark for the first two months of my babies lives. You’d be surprised what goes on at WalMart after Midnight. There’s a whole new nocturnal society you’ve never experienced. Fortunately, because we have only had our little team, it’s all we know, so it really isn’t hard. We did what we needed to do to survive the hard early part and even with each kid’s individual “stuff”, we are all doing fine.
It’s funny about the whole fiscal smackdown people are getting from others. We immediately purchased a big-ass Suburban when we found out it was triplets. We loved that car for 120,000 miles. We got a TrailBlazer XL (the longer, 7 seater) a couple of years ago in addition (I know, we’re such gas-guzzling Texas Republicans…kiss my ass moonbats). With gas prices the way they are and me getting 11 mpg in my TrailBlazer and my husband getting 14 mpg in the Suburban with a 44+ mile round-trip commute, we just traded in our big ole blue bus for a Honda Civic Hybrid. All three boys have to sit TOGETHER in the back. Ha, ha for them. And no we didn’t make the decision because we’re caressing trees and buying carbon credits, we just figured out the monthly outlay and it made sense. (Nice car, too. If you’re considering a Prius, check out the Civic. )
Anyway, believe me, I’ve had people tell me the most crazy things and ask me the rudest questions. It goes with the territory when you have higer-order multiples. Everyone thinks they know what’s best for everyone else. I’ve even had people ask me why I didn’t choose selective reduction, so they will ask or comment about anything. Those people that make the snide comments don’t deserve what we’ve got.
Oh yeah, and we have a saying here – “go upstairs and I don’t want to see you or hear from any of you unless it is one of the three B’s!” – bleeding, burning or barfing. So yeah, pretty much nothing fazes parents of larger families, particularly when it’s a family of boys.
I’ve got 4 and love the takedown on this stupid article. It’s Affluenza I think. You know, when you have so much money that you forget that you don’t have to by 500 dollar peg perigo crap for all your baby needs. My inlaws , who make at least twice what we do ,said for years that they couldn’t afford to have kids. We just nodded and announced the next pregnancy.
We got the better deal.
Wow, nice smug! For those of us that only have one or two, we should bow down. Why hadnt we done it before? Oh yeah, nobody told us it was a race of she who has the most kids, wins.
While the audacity of those who ask “why would you want more” does show their ass quite well. The truth is, its not how many you have that wins the race, it is how well you raise them once you get them. I can attest that Jen has great kids. They are funny, intellegent, independant and quirky (in a cute way). Kudos to Jen for that. I am sure the same can be said about Momotrips and Captkidney. But those that are out there just having bunches of babies cause they are too lazy for birth control do not even come close to what I would consider a parent.
For those of us that only have one or two, we should bow down. Why hadnt we done it before? Oh yeah, nobody told us it was a race of she who has the most kids, wins.
I don’t think she said that. She just said it’s funny to hear people with only one or two kids complain about being overwhelmed when one or two are easily manageable. It does get tougher the more you have.
And it’s also funny to see the expressions on people’s faces when they hear I have six kids. It never gets old.
Jen…8-10 loads of laundry is all??? Man, you got it easy girl.
No, her first comment was:
Amateurs I say! Three kids? Try four… Unless you had all three at one time (gives momotrips her earned acknowledgment) , I am not impressed. j/k
While she says she is just kidding she still makes the statement. Jen is my best friend and has been for going on 11 years now. I love her to death and wouldnt trade her for the world. That being said. I have had no kids and have twins on the way. So when I call her up in a panic because I am overwhelmed I am not going to want to hear “You only have 2, try having 4!” She and I both know what my reaction to that will be.
I applaud all of those that have a big bunch of kids. Good for you, if you are happy and they are happy then YAY TEAM! But please spare me the soapbox about how much more there is to having 4,5,6 kids. This was your choice, you took this responsibility on and are meeting it like you should. You are far more organized than me, far more tolerant and patient than me and you would have to be to raise 6 kids. But again I say the goal is not in the quantity but in the quality.
First of all, congratulations, Kat! Second – chill. You’re gonna have the whole “twin smug”, too. It happens to all of us. It sets in somewhere after the first wave of sleep deprivation wears off when you realize how kickass you really are for handling more than one like a pro. Right now you’re in the “Oh my God, I’m going to bring home TWO LIVING CREATURES AT ONE TIME!” mode. It’ll pass. Sleep while you can and plan on scheduling those babies! you’ll lose your mind if you follow Dr. Sears. A schedule gets them to sleep through the night much quicker, so that you can relax a smidge. That’s not as important if there’s only one, but with two or more, if they aren’t on a schedule you could have one awake all the time which is hell and makes for unhappy parents and babies.
At one time I was the president of my local parents of multiples and an active member of the area supertwin group. I’d suggest highly that you start attending some meetings. It might seem hokey at first, but it is a great outlet because, really, even Jen won’t be able to understand all your issues when the babies come. You will get invaluable advice from other parents of multiples. Parents of multiples literally “have their hands full” and those that have their kids one at a time can only imagine. They also do “kid swaps” so you don’t have to always pay for a babysitter and rummage sales so you can unload your outgrown baby gear and get some from others if you need it. Check it out. http://www.saamom.org is the San Antonio Area Mother of Multiples group. I’ve met some of them at conventions and they’re a great group (at least they used to be when I was active).
We didn’t choose to have triplets, God blessed us to have triplets. We didn’t choose to have a large family, it was thrust upon us. Had we had one at a time, I’m sure we’d have ended up only having one or two, even though I’d always thought I wanted three. Kids are hard work- even one at a time. I still wonder what it would be like to have a girl or even another baby boy just to see what it’s like to have one baby like “normal” people. However, that wasn’t the plan, I guess, because we are essentially infertile and the ONLY way we can get pregnant is with medical intervention or a donor. I’m 44, now and really need to spend that time and money on the kids we currently have.
I believe that the people Jen was mostly referring to are the ones from the article. The ones that could afford to have a dozen and complain about two. Sure it’s expensive to raise a bunch of kids when they expect nothing but Abercrombie and Aeropostale and UnderArmor (or even high fashion like some), but you have to keep from spoiling them and make them appreciate when you get them those things. (Also, Ebay and resale shops are great places to find your kids’ brand names until they are “with it” enough to realize that’s what you’re doing. Heh. By then, they’ll have to earn some money to get more than a few pieces).
Love, discipline and strong moral upbringing is what makes the difference. Also being there to actually parent (as in the verb). The people who generally make those kinds of comments are lacking in something in their family, or they wouldn’t say those things. Sure I’ve joked before because I was incredulous that someone I’ve known was having their SIXTH kid. On purpose. Only because I know that I think I’d hit my breaking point at four. Also out of a little jealously, because – #1 they could CHOOSE to have another anytime they want and #2 because they MUST be better organized and more highly motivated – to do even more laundry. Hell, the threat of increase in laundry makes my ovaries shrivel.
Good luck to all – those with one or two kids or those with six or more. We all need it. You know that Jen is just yankin’ a chain. She’s controversial, that one is.
Oh yeah, are they boys, girls or one of each, Kat?
Needless to say…(or should be), having more than one baby at a time can indeed be overwhelming.
I hope telling people I have six kids isn’t considered getting on a “soap box”.
I removed my previous comment because I am not playing this game anymore. You are way out of a line and way off base, Kat. I didn’t spend an hour writing this as Fuck You to people without children or with two or less.
This is so fucking stupid. I do not have to caveat every entry for every person who could possible be outside the scope of the subject. I will not apologize for being fertile and I will not apologize for talking about the my girls. I was not smug, it was meant to be amusing and it was. Your hyper-sensitivity about this is out of control.
No one is competing to have kids and no one is speaking here and expecting you or anyone else to compete. It was a conversation about kids.
Just like you knew my reaction to this sort of fucking drama. I am pissed, mission accomplished.
Deb,
Hardly a soap box. She is talking about me. You are obviously on a box of detergent if my 8-10 loads a week are light. I have a double loader washer! Or so the machine says… it lies!
Anyway, ignore the drama.
First off, I apologize. This was not a dig specifically at Jen, nor did I intend to enflame the masses. I just read the article witha different point of view. My point was that there are plenty of people out there that stand up and demand a badge of honor for having large amounts of kids yet that does mean they are great parents. I respect those that raise good kids and it doesnt matter if it is one child or 10. If you are a loving, caring attentive parent then you are a success.
Momotrips, thank you for the excellent advice. I have looked into the organization and have been a bit reluctant to join because the comments I have read from mothers with IVF is that you are treated like an outsider, especially if you are doing surrogacy. I probably will check into it eventually when I get a moment to breathe. I do not know if we are having girls or boys, it is illegal in India to tell the parents the gender of the child. It is their law and I respect it. I figure if my mom didnt know if I were a boy or a girl till I was born then I can wait it out too.
The majority of the mothers of multiples I have come in contact with are about 50-50 natural to IVF. In my group we had adopted triplets, adopted twins, surrogate twins, twins that were triplets and one died (she still called the boys triplets) and my best friend has triplets that were carried by her, but the eggs were donated by her sister. There was never any stigma with anyone – unless the person was just a headcase no matter how her kids were conceived. Oh yeah, there were some of those… Make your own judgements and don’t let those with a bad experience color your experience. If they are bitchy, you haven’t lost anything – just leave.
If you feel weird about it, others will get your vibe. However, it sounds like you have a great story (saw your bit on the Today Show) so others will want to hear it. You might be able to help others who have friends or family members who could benefit from your experience.
Sure, anywhere there’s lots of women, there’s gonna be some cattiness, but what I found was different in that group was that the common denominator was our kids and what we could learn from others and what we could share with others that might help them. It is a great thing for the first few years. I found that it really helped me keep my sanity – when I thought I was crazy for, whatever, I found out that I wasn’t the first to experience it. Oh and usually there was Mexican food and Margarita’s after a meeting. Best. Part. Ever. After your kids start school, it becomes less a priority, as the “twinness” seems to kind of wear off a little and they are just individual kids. Also, you get really busy then.
The best part is you will likely meet one or two women that you actually like and even if you drop out of the club, you’ve got that. That’s how I met my best friend. Luckily our husbands like each other and so do our kids. We get each other like no one else.
Also, best advice I ever got: from an adult quintuplet - individual birthday cakes. Always. It makes them feel special on their special day. She said that they always had one big cake and they all just wanted their own cake. This was a thirty year-old woman still wistful about not having her own birthday cake. Funny, huh? That stuck with me and I have three cakes every year.
Take it easy, and good luck.
Melissa
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