Pregnant Pause

Yesterday I encountered a unique counselling experience...a couple who were going to require significant intervention to conceive, and who weren't really sure that having kids was a great idea. "We have a lot of fun now, come and go as we please, travel, sleep in, have very little responsibility other than showing up at work. Its a lot of work and kids needs always take priority, so why ruin a good thing?" was their question. Kids was on their "should" list rather than the "want" list and I considered that they had observed a little too much parenting reality to ever see having a baby as a romantic notion again.

After talking through several scenarios, the husband said, "Hey maybe we'll just keep having fun and when we get too old to enjoy life, we'll adopt a couple of kids like you did. It'll be nice to have someone to take care of us in our old age."

"And if you're lucky, you may be senile before they hit adolescence" I responded closing their chart. "Kids don't make your life better, you do. Kids make your life different, and if you don't want different, don't do it."

Tony and I wanted different when we adopted the kids and knew that it wasn't going to be easy. I don't think I've ever met parents of any age who were not dog tired by the end of the day if they were parenting "actively"...and by that I mean, checking and helping with the homework, cooking nutritious meals, keeping the kids mentally and physically healthy and active, while still managing to make a living...And doing all of that while still knowing your kids will hit puberty and add several miles of plaque to the coronary arteries.

"Why did we think using the TV as a babysitter was a bad idea?" asked my dear man last week when we were enjoying an adult conversation and the kids were engrossed in Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special. We've always restricted their TV time to weekends in favour of keeping the concentration on school work and other activities during the week...but our resolve and hair is thinning lately and it seems like a harmless way to get back to having a few minutes of couple time.

Whatever the cost to our bone density, we've decided that there really is no substitution for hands-on-parenting and at the end of the day we hope it pays off with healthy happy adult children who swing by the seniors home with a box of chocolates now and then.

"Are you going to die soon?" Grace asked me on a particularly trying day. "Because you look like Grandma" she explained. (No offence Grandma, anyone over 4 feet tall and 20 years old looks old to her.)

"Are you going to take care of me when I get old, cook my meals, take me out for manicures?" I questioned

"No way" she laughed.

"I'll take care of you" said Lil

"Thanks Lil, but your short term memory is worse than mine. We'll burn the house down" I responded testily.

In reality the two of them together are perfection. Lil is always the upbeat, happy go lucky, high energy crazy child who couldn't organize herself to save her life. Grace is a super bright nerd who doesn't suffer fools and speaks only when she has something important to say. Grace will handle the estate with perfection, and Lil will take me for manicures and make my dinner in the microwave.

I knew there was a good reason we did this.