Last night, I was reading my book at my daughter's gymnastics class, listening with half an ear to two other mothers talking about their children's extracurricular activities. This year is the first year we've had the girl in more than one activity at a time (swimming lessons being the exception -- swimming lessons trumped everything for us), and it's tough. We've already had to make a hard decision to keep her from trying out for something in ballet she really wanted to do because of a family conflict, and I look forward into the middle school and high school years and wonder how many conflicts will arise if she does any organized anything -- sports, band, speech, theatre, choir -- any of it.
So anyway, this women had two kids, and she was telling the mother with three kids about how she'd just been at karate for an hour and then had to tag team getting the karate kid and taking him home so he could get to bed and coming back to gymnastics for the gymnastics kid. And the other mother said how all three of her kids take piano lessons and she ends up going to this house three times in three hours or something like that, and I found myself doing mental calculations of how much all these lessons must cost and how much driving that must take, and I must've looked up in shock, because suddenly they were both staring at me.
"Um. I have one kid," I finally said, laughing awkwardly.
This was followed with both, "Oh, you're so lucky," and "My sister-in-law only has one child and my husband told me we absolutely had to give ours a sibling so I ended up with three."
There was a time, earlier in my parenting experience, when the latter statement might have reduced me to tears. The woman clearly -- from her expression, anyway -- meant me no harm. Yet she'd just insinuated to my face that I had somehow scarred my daughter for life by not giving her a sibling.
It's tough, not offending people, and I've loosened up a lot. I don't believe at all most people mean to offend each other, and sometimes I think we collectively as a society need to cut each other a hell of a lot more slack and assume good intentions. There was a time, earlier in my parenting experience, when I would've gone home and cried for two hours and worried my daughter would grow old hating me and wishing she had brothers or sisters. Compound this event with the fact earlier in the day Beloved and I made a classroom visit and one of the kids asked if our girl was an only child and I almost asked if anyone else in the class was but stopped myself because what if nobody else was? Would that make her feel even more different than being the only one in the class with red hair?
I have spent a ton of energy worrying about her only-child status. I write about this now because I am so comfortable in that status. She may be upset with me someday, but if it weren't this, it would be that. I have heard plenty of times from friends who are only children they don't really like the caretaking role as their parents get older, but I've also heard plenty from friends who have siblings who don't do shit, so it's really a toss-up, at the end of life. You just never know. No sense in killing yourself worrying about it.
Obviously, if you read this blog, you know I still worry about every other thing under the sun, but I do believe I've put the only-child shame to bed.
One thing I've noticed, though, is that I revel so much in my small family that I have to check myself when I talk to other mothers of onlies. Some families aren't small because the parents wanted it -- sometimes there's a fertility issue or a divorce issue or some other thing that held back the size of the family, and I'd hate to ever hurt another mother's feelings by crowing about only children if her heart is breaking for five. It's such a loaded thing -- but it's such a frequently discussed thing. Almost every time we meet new people as a family of three, the fact my girl is an only immediately comes up, and their feelings on our choices are often written on their faces, and it's frequently, well, shock.
But last weekend, I was in Lawrence with my best friend and her only child, which she had with her only-child husband, and we ran into her graduate advisor and his wife and only child. And it was pretty fucking awesome to not explain anything to anyone.
So, if you're out there, and you're considering stopping at one, I'll say it loud and again and over and over, because I needed people to say it to be over and over before I could override societal messages telling me I had to have more kids -- you don't. You can stop if you want. And if people ask if your child is an only, just say, "Yes, she is!" and give them a huge smile. Because I've done this many times, and it's like you see the other person consider the follow-up question and realize how rude it is ... and stop. And then we change the subject, or I ask if they have kids, too, or something else, but it takes the spotlight off me and my daughter (who is inevitably standing right there listening to the whole exchange with her eight-year-old ears).
Repeat after me: "Yes, she is!" NO EXPLANATION.
