This article has been floating around quite a bit and since it’s on parenting and relationships, felt an overwhelming need to respond and clarify my position on the relationship and friendship changes when a person has a child.
1. Why did you decide to have a kid anyway if you’re so stressed out? You chose this.
Response: Why did you decide to get up out of bed this morning if you knew that struggle and pain and work lie ahead of you? For many of us, most of our lives are building blocks of choices and while having children (for most ) IS indeed a choice. It’s also a blinded choice where you do not know how you will navigate it until you are in the drivers’ seat going 50 miles per hours on a road laden with oil.
2. I hate kids.
Response: I myself personally am not a kid person. I’m nuts about my own kid, and I have come to appreciate things about having a child that make me more sensitive and aware to the world around me, but hating kids is like going around to a friend caring for a parent and saying, “God, I hate old people.” When is it acceptable to hate children? Because they can’t wipe their noses and drool on your work clothes before you even go out the door? They’re PEOPLE, not pets.
3. It’s going to be a late night at the bar, soooooo, I hope you can make it. *sarcastic tone*
Response: I actually go to bed really late because I have a spouse in graduate school who is up pretty late working on his papers. And I have a full time job in addition to researching and writing my own projects. I can see why you’d assume that, but I’m tired because I live my life quite fully. I stopped measuring life by my alcohol tolerance when I affirmed myself as a writer, not a mother.
4. What happened to you? You used to be fun.
Response: Change is not just Obama jargon. Change is a part of life. Interdependent families, with two partners dedicated to the livelihood of another human takes an enormous toll on your life. You pay with time, energy, and brain space. “Fun” as defined by late nights, spending money, traveling changes, spontaneity transforms over time. But I don’t know if that’s all parenting related. It’s like how making out in a twin bed was really hot when you’re 20 years old. At 32, that just sounds ridiculously uncomfortable. Long, deep kisses in a car before your partner goes off to work? Um, yeah. That’s hot. And still a lot of fun.
5. Why does everything revolve around your kid?
Response: See answer #2. Kids are people. They’re as diverse as they are curious, and they change daily. Children are not soon-to-be adults. They are fully formed, fully ready, fully alive. And they require attention from the moment they wake to the moment they fall asleep. And even then you’re making sure they’re still breathing at night when you watch them sleep. If it’s not children, others find vices and projects that require attention: caretaking, work, social lives, gardens, reading, fitness. People fill their lives with all kinds of time-consuming efforts. A child, a person, has feelings, thoughts, questions, and energy that is directed at their parents. They get priority.
6. You need a box of condoms. (Usually directed at families with multiple children.)
Response: It IS possible that having more than 2 children in the United States of America is actually NOT caused by mental illness.
Choice can be exercised in the refraining of reproduction, choosing how and when to reproduce, and how many offspring you’d like to have. Some people actually decide, and love, to have big families. It’s true. And they’re not all trying to get a reality TV show, either.
7. Do you want more?
Response: Families come in all sizes and shapes and colors. For me, I don’t know if I want to have more. I really love enjoying my son at every stage he is at and giving him as much attention and love as I can possible shower on him. I don’t buy that you have to give a child a sibling to be “normal.” I don’t buy that you should give birth relatively close in years so your children will “get along” and have one another to grow up with and play. Too often, I hear friends who are parents go with the flow and forget that having #2 #3 #4 is just as much and as big of a choice as deciding to become a parent. But my decision to become a parent of one doesn’t mean I want to be a parent of 5. Let me figure it out. I’ll know when I know. And, contrary to what a lot of people think, women don’t have as much control over their fertility as you’d like to think.
8. I understand.
Response: No you don’t. Just like how I don’t understand pre-school teachers. I will never get how people can do certain things day in and day out. Why pretend you know what it’s like to have and choose this responsibility of parenting? You didn’t choose it, so why say you do? The best is to say, “That sounds like a lot. I’m sure you’ll get through it just fine!”
9. I’m important, too.
Who says you’re not? Most of my childfree friends CHOOSE to be childfree, but also feel this sudden urge to petition all their childfree peeps and claim a day of importance. The nuclear family unit is dissolving. Today “families of origin/families related by blood” are different than “families of choice” and this distinction is important. No matter where we are, we need family. We need a group of people to support us and hold us when times are shitty. Family/community is one of the few places to be affirmed of our value and worth. If you find yourself saying this a lot, it has little to do with my choice to be a mom. It’s more to do with your need to find a group of people who love you.
10. Why don’t you have time for me anymore?
Response: Dude. I ask myself that very same question every. single. day. Get in line. It’s not all about you. Or me. Or the kid. It’s about transition, changing priorities, proximity, new demands, and juggling self, health, relationships, and friendships. Adjust your expectations of me. That’s what I had to do.