Fast-forward, pause
When I was younger I thought I was too selfish to have a baby.
I loved babies. I was a fairly young auntie, and when my middle sister had her daughter, I was 16, and I was around for all of it. I waited in the hospital while she gave birth, dozing on the chairs in the waiting room with my dad. I gave her bottles and made her laugh. I looked after her when I could, tucking her into a travel cot in my bedroom for naps, admiring her in all her chubby, bald glory. Waiting for her to wake up and haul herself upright, ready for a cuddle and a play.
But I was also, you know, a teenager. I liked lie-ins and lounging around and doodling and rewatching the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I liked long, quiet evenings to myself. And my sisters showed me the reality: the sacrifices they made were so great that I was just not ready for it. I could see myself having babies maybe one day, in my thirties, when I was old.
And then I met Chris, and I thought, okay, I could see us having kids. But definitely not yet.
And then we got married.
Bing! It was like a switch being flipped, a lightbulb clicking on somewhere in my mind. I wanted a baby! I wanted a family so much. I spent the next 6 years living alongside an emptiness that didn’t exist before. And I was happy, but I knew there was something missing. I wanted to live on fast-forward. Let me just skip to the end of this bit so we can get on with the next part.
This is, on reflection, why I went into childcare as a job. I enjoyed that job, looking after babies, even though it took me quite a while to become confident in it. I was the soft one, the one that always picked the toddlers up for cuddles even if it wasn’t convenient. Eventually, I got pregnant, and I loved those days at work, even when I found it hard to walk. I loved naptimes, sitting in the rocking chair with a baby curled around my growing bump, and my own daughter somersaulting inside me.
We had our kids. And those early years were brilliant and brutal. I was constantly exhausted, and so fulfilled. I loved being with them, I loved making them food, I loved letting them sleep on me, feeling the rise and fall of their chests. In those moments I found myself willing time to stop. Please, just let them stay little. Let me stay in this moment, with both my children safe and contented and close to me. Don’t let this bit go too fast.
But it does go fast, obviously. And in some ways, we wanted it to. Little ones are beautiful but physically demanding, and the lack of sleep was killing us. And so we found ourselves looking forward to the future. When our boy started to sleep through the night consistently we’d start to feel more human (we’re still waiting for that by the way, and he’s 5 now). When our eldest started school and our youngest started preschool, then it would be much easier for me in terms of freelancing. When my youngest started school, I’d have a lot more hours in the day to do work. Let’s just wait for the next bit, when life gets easier.
That leads us to now, and I just want everything to pause again.
Now life is different. And better, in a lot of ways. I thought I would find this transition into full-time school hard, and it was, but now it isn’t. Now we’re in this stage and suddenly, I’ve realised that this is the bit I want to hang onto. I like it. I like the bookbags and the wobbly writing practice and the friendship dilemmas and the uniform preparation. I moan about some of it but, secretly, I like it. I like the strange pacing of my days, the frantic beginning and ends, and the quiet, peaceful bit in the middle.
I like being needed. I like the moment they grab my hand in the playground because then everything is mental until bedtime, and I am rushed off my feet, and I go to bed tired but knowing that I have given my absolute everything. I like the poo jokes and the silliness and the creativity. I like seeing them slowly becoming the people that they are. The hidden potential in both of them, slowly emerging before my eyes. Sometimes I’m so taken aback by the breathtaking privilege of seeing it that I want to laugh, in the same way that I laughed when they were born, the astonished sound of a person who can’t quite believe her luck.
That’s where we are now. Mostly. And of course, there are crap days, and days where I feel like a failure, and days where I feel like I just can’t do everything anymore. But there are more good days.
I won’t lie, it’s been a hard ride for the past couple of years. I’ve written enough about that. (At least for now.) I’m coming out of the other side. Older and wiser and probably a bit more cynical. But much more appreciative. I know now how quickly everything can change. Peace one minute, war the next. And more than ever, I’ve realised that the ability to just stand in my kitchen staring out at the tree swaying in the wind while I wait for the dinner to cook is a massive blessing, that every moment I have is a blessing, that every memory I make and every wrinkle that deepens is a blessing, and more than ever I want it to stop, or at least, to just slow it down a bit.
Everything is connected. People, the earth, everything. That’s what I keep thinking about. I keep thinking about my life and how it’s all held together and the impact I might be having (or not having). It’s really hard not to try to be perfect. Nobody gets praise for just trying really hard, and it feels like there’s a lot at stake. But then I see people, like my Mum, and my mother-in-law, giving, loving, and trying, without fanfare or fuss or spectacle, because they know there’s something inherently worthy in it. Their lives are marked — for better and for worse — by love.
I mean, things are better now. For my generation. Women my age are getting older and embracing it, kind of. Refusing to fade into the background and to become invisible. Staying loud. The foundations have been laid by women before us, and we know that we matter, we are beautiful, and we deserve to be seen and heard. And I hope it’ll be even better for my daughter’s era. But still, that love. That quiet and consistent need to care for each other. That’s what I take from them. That’s what I hold onto.
And so when I feel really overwhelmed by it all, not just parenting (although, it’s mostly parenting), but by just being a human now, understanding how to relate to each other, and what to care about or not care about, I realise that I can just try. Quietly try. Hopefully, I’ll get to the end of my life knowing that. And there will be things that my kids laugh about, stupid things that I did or said wrong, and I’ll become out of touch. The world will be challenging in ways I can’t imagine now, and time will go too fast, because I can’t actually slow it down. But they’ll know the love I felt for them, and I’ll know that I tried, and I loved, and that will be enough.
