One is the Awesomest Number
Why I don't want a second child.
by Jeanne Sager
April 21, 2008
I wanted to want two children. After all, my daughter was a "planned pregnancy," a little girl created by two people who decided they wanted to have a child. I figured then that one day I'd want another, but we had to start somewhere. Everyone else certainly seems to want us to have another . . . and another.
Once the first one is here, you learn to brace yourself for the question. People look your child up and down with a smile playing on their lips. Then they turn to you, and the smile morphs into something closer to a smirk. "So . . . when's the next one?"
Some people didn't even wait until Jillian was out of my stomach. They'd eye my belly, their hands held up at odd angles like they were measuring a piece of furniture. "Ah, so twins run in your family, don't they?" I'd hear. The insinuations were always accompanied by that same sick grin.
Parents of multiple children always act like they know something I don't. Their eyes take on a look of pity when I say, "Jillian's my one and only." Apparently women are supposed to want babies. When they're done popping out the first one, they're supposed to be working on the second.
I guess I didn't get the memo.
Loving children and wanting them are on two distinctly different planes.
When my own mother was finished with a twenty-eight-hour labor and delivery, my father said she turned to him and said, "Oh, let's have another." My labor was half that. And all I wanted to do was go to sleep with my daughter in my arms.
I love children. I do. And not just my own daughter. I sometimes sneak a whiff of Jillian's Johnson's Baby Wash just so I can drink in the scent of baby. If there's a toddler sticking his head over the back of the restaurant booth, I'm the adult one table over making goo-goo eyes and playing peek-a-boo. I volunteer on family reading night at a school where I know no one except the teachers — it's not even the school my daughter will one day attend.
But loving children and wanting them are on two distinctly different planes. I was there once. I wanted a child desperately. Fortunately for me, my husband — an only child, by the way — wanted one too.
Now we have her, our joyful little monkey with long blond curls and little hands that pat at the backs of my shoulders when she's giving me a hug.
And while my friends are off birthin' more babies, I'm wrapped up in the world of parenting a toddler and only a toddler. I work on the ABC's and the 123's. I read Goodnight Moon until my voice runs out, then flip on the television for a helping of Sesame Street.
©2008 Jeanne Sager and Nerve Media
About the Author
|
|
Related Articles
|
|
Jeanne Sager is a freelance writer and photographer living in upstate New York with her husband and daughter, Jillian. She maintains a blog of her award-winning columns at jeannesager.blogspot.com. |
|
|
-
by April Peveteaux
On stage and on the spectrum.
-
by Amy Lutz
Your son's autistic just like mine.
-
by Liza Featherstone
Why so many parents won't vaccinate — and what it means for our kids.
|