{"id":703,"date":"2010-08-18T00:01:22","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T07:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=703"},"modified":"2010-08-18T00:01:22","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T07:01:22","slug":"why-not-to-have-another-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/08\/why-not-to-have-another-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Why (Not) to Have Another Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday I received my new copy of Real Simple<\/em><\/a> in the mail. The first night with a new Real Simple<\/em> is a kind of ritual for me. I start at the front with the \u201cNew Uses For Old Things<\/a>\u201d section (Which always drive me crazy. I mean, come on, do I really need to use an old sock to wrap a wine bottle? That said, I can\u2019t stop reading it.) and then I usually skip to the recipes at the back. (I save the articles for another day.) But last night, I was feeling adventurous and found myself reading an article by Rebecca Walker<\/a>, author of several books, and daughter of novelist Alice Walker, about how she \u201c[let] go of her big-family fantasies\u201d and accepted her one-child home.<\/p>\n

I was drawn to \u201cMy One and Only\u201d because I know of a few women who are unsure of whether or not they want to have a second child, or who have been struggling to conceive. I thought, maybe this would be an encouragement.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an article about the desire to not have a second baby and it wasn\u2019t an article about difficulty conceiving. It was complicated. And it was heart breaking.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t break my heart because Walker\u2019s family decided not to add another child into their life. I have great respect for every family\u2019s decisions regarding the amount of children they should have. I fully support a family\u2019s decision to raise only one child. In fact, studies have recently proven that only children are thriving in their homes and even in their social lives. (For proof read Lauren Sandler\u2019s cover story<\/a> for Time Magazine this past July.)<\/p>\n

What bothered me was how Walker came to her decision. Why is she not going to have more children? For one, she\u2019s forty and doesn\u2019t want to push her body. Of course, that\u2019s fair. Then there\u2019s the issue of money. She recites a conversation with a friend about his child\u2019s private school education, all $32,000 of it per year. Yes, she says, there are good public schools and we wouldn\u2019t have to send our children to private schools, but\u2026 She then goes on to make the assumption that that such a number \u201crepresents\u201d the cost of adding another child into their life.<\/p>\n

Her final reason? Her husband\u2019s desire that they don\u2019t. It\u2019s her husband who is home with her son while she writes and travels, and he makes it pretty clear for her: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t fair to ask him to do more child rearing,\u201d she says. Understandably, he has \u201chis own ambitions and time-consuming dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, Walker ends her article with a paragraph that made me ache, not because her reasons are not legit, not because I have any right to criticize her husband\u2019s desire to work or their family\u2019s decisions about finances, or her understanding of her own body, but because what I heard in her voice was a broken woman, mourning something that she longs for desperately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to give my dream child up,\u201d she says. \u201cI imagined saying good-bye to her (or him), as though I was putting the baby up for adoption. I pictured the new parents arriving at the hospital, watched them park the car and walk, excitedly, up to the revolving door. I couldn\u2019t run to her and take her home myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

All I could think as I read those words were, \u201cWhy?!\u201d You\u2019re forty, this is your last shot! Put your body through it! Find a nanny! Don\u2019t write for three years!\u00a0 (The books will still be in your brain when your baby gets to preschool.) There are ways to raise your child without dishing out tens of thousands of dollars for education. People do it all the time! This is your life, sweet woman! I kept thinking, does her husband understand? Does he get what his decision is doing to her?<\/p>\n

What Walker didn\u2019t say is that those reasons are not deal breakers for everyone. She was making a decision about her priorities. We all do. If we all waited till we had $32,000 per child per year, few of us would ever go for the first kid. Some of us put our careers on hold or we find a way to work and get help with the children. What bothered me about her article was that she didn\u2019t come out and say that. What her article said is: This is what I have to do because it\u2019s appropriate.<\/p>\n

I know that\u2019s not fair of me. I know I can\u2019t fully understand the depth of the reasons Rebecca Walker mentioned in her article. But I know what it\u2019s like to long for another child, to long for a family that feels complete. A friend of mine recently told me she knows she needs to have one more child because when her two boys are outside playing together she keeps looking for the third.<\/p>\n

If Walker\u2019s words were meant to demonstrate some gained wisdom derived from her loss, I didn\u2019t buy it. She, being a strong, independent woman, would probably resent the fact that she came across as bullied by her husband, broken and sadly succumbing to the rules our culture has given her about money and about career. I just found myself wanting her to know there\u2019s another way\u2026<\/p>\n

Because no one should have to give away a child she never had the chance to discover.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I received my new copy of Real Simple in the mail. The first night with a new Real Simple is a kind of ritual for me. I start at the front with the \u201cNew Uses For Old Things\u201d section (Which always drive me crazy. I mean, come on, do I really need to use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[95],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy (Not) to Have Another Baby - Micha Boyett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday I received my new copy of Real Simple in the mail. The first night with a new Real Simple is a kind of ritual for me. 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