Adults (Family) Plan, G-d Laughs
There’s only so much you can plan in life, but put first cousins on your list.
It’s official: My husband and I are pregnant with our second child. At halfway through, this pregnancy has flown. The constant nausea and overwhelming exhaustion of first trimester seems a distant memory now. Two colds later I’ve learned how to manage the seemingly constant stream of toddler illnesses on little to no medication. I’m also practicing parenting an active 2-year-old on little to no sleep from time to time thanks to everything from hormones to the general discomfort of a growing child in your womb.
Along the way I replaced the pampering of my first pregnancy with the tough-as-nuts attitude of real motherhood, refusing to ask my overworked husband to take a sick day on my account. We still started preschool, still did Tot Shabbats, still lived life despite, and because of, the little one growing inside me. I didn’t call mom to come over and watch the toddler so I could take a nap. All of one time have my in-laws taken my son out to the park for the afternoon, so I could sleep off the cold he gave me. Quite frankly, it felt wrong to nap; in fact, for the first time in 2.5 years I didn’t know what to do with myself.
We always wanted another child. Actually, we never really talked about how many kids in total we wanted. It’s always been more of a, “Hey, we’re ready, let’s have a kid!” Followed by, “So if another comes along, would you be cool with that? Ok, me too.” We aren’t in our twenties or super-religious, so keeping up with our more religiously Jewish counterparts, let alone beating the Duggars was never going to be an issue. Our concept of “family planning” began and ended with agreeing on being ready to start a family. How it unfolds from there will happen one day at a time.
This is a great attitude for two reasons: One, you can’t over-analyze baby making when you already have a baby. There is no way to perfectly plan #2 around the life of #1. You can think it’ll be easier to have them closer together so they can be friends or you can get out of diapers quicker. You can also think it’ll be easier to space them further apart so you aren’t running on no sleep for years on end. The truth is that no matter how you do it, you will never account for every variable you’re bound to encounter. That’s a life lesson whether you have kids or not; having kids just drives it home. And the sooner you accept it, the sooner the excitement and enchantment of having a child (or, another child) overwhelms the stress that might otherwise eat you alive.
The second, and perhaps even more poignant reason to take the broad approach to family planning is that more and more folks are over-planning themselves out of family life. In our case, neither my husband nor I will ever be called “Uncle” or “Aunt.” The most we may ever get is a figurative pet name granted by a friend. Our parents’ family lines will only ever continue through us and because of us. And, perhaps most sadly, our children will never have first cousins of their own.
Once in a while, my husband and I find ourselves talking about this. After our first son was born we hit the rough patch most new parents hit. Months into sleeplessness, him taking on more at work, me learning how to handle the stay-at-home/work-at-home mom gig, we found ourselves unable to comprehend ever having another child. As our son grew older and things grew easier, I would often remark that when they got too easy I’d never intentionally want to go back to the baby days. Thankfully, children have a surprising way of delighting you into believing the otherwise seemingly impossible (that yes, you can do this again) while simultaneously proving that yes, with love all things are possible. And our love for our son meant that we didn’t want him to grow up alone. We knew we wanted more children for ourselves. We learned that we wanted more children for our son.
My mother already tells my son that he’s going to have a best friend for life. She believes in planting seeds early. Perhaps without close cousins to distract them, our two will forge a tight bond. All we can do as parents is give them each another and teach them how to treat that relationship with care. And, hopefully, we can teach them by example that having children is a very good thing; an enterprise worth pursuing as much, if not more than a career, a well-funded bank account, “experiences,” or stuff. Or fear, for that matter. We’ll do all that so that maybe, just maybe one day they can give each other’s kids the one thing they won’t have growing up: First cousins.
