If you are married or in a long term partnership the question of "when are you having a child?" or "are you having another?" is commonplace. The endless curiosity we ( mostly women) have to know the status of one another's procreation plans. Ahhhhhh, there must be something biological at work here!
Now that I am out of the 4th trimester (just kidding I got asked this when I was pregnant with my third!) ppl are keen to know - "are you having more kids?"
Honestly it never really bothered me.... what strikes me now is the surprise I am met with when I shout back "NO, OMG, WE'RE DONE! My marriage is my 4th child!
What does this mean? A couple thoughts:
every child requires a physical and emotional commitment & and if you are married long enough you'll understand why it's a commitment. It takes work. It is intentional effort to make the time both physically and mentally.
a child is a forever investment - it's always going to take up mental space in your wheelhouse & anything I currently have left in the tank deserves to be devoted to my husband.
which leads me to a hot take: my marriage needs to get equal if not more airtime because if that falls apart then the existing children are the ones who suffer the blow ( I should know my parents god bless them ended up parting ways when I was just out of high-school )
children require planning + financial support + effort: when i map it out like this in my mind... marriage feels exactly like another child: it must be nurtured, it evolves, it cannot be neglected or it will surely die!!! (at least if you want it to be meaningful and fulfilling)
all this to say I really, deeply appreciate the work and effort it takes to maintain a marriage under the stress of intentional parenting and if we had one more child it would most certainly break us.
People laugh when I say this but it's the truth! And let's be honest as a society our divorce rates aren't stellar. There's also so much pressure to maintain deep friendships, career, volunteer, find time for self-care .... on the list goes. It doesn't feel that silly to me to state the obvious - if you try to juggle too many balls - one might fall.
It's important to note however that everyones limit on this is different. Some will find after one child two would break the marriage, others can confidently have 3 or 4 kids and carry on. There isn't a formula for the perfect family (although society might tell us one girl and one boy denotes as "perfect" (which is a myth we should tackle another day).
Far too little airtime gets devoted to this topic this in my opinion. It's almost taboo to even mention it. DIVORCE!!! I think we'd all like to pretend as early parents we aren't struggling (and social media presentations certainly suggest otherwise) but anytime I've ever admitted it; hands raise frantically.
"I'm there too!!"
I often think about my future with my husband and the kids .... what I hope and dream for: a strong happy marriage is always on that vision board. So here's to my 4th and final "child' the one that actually started it all. May it thrive and evolve and flourish in just the same fashion as the other 3 babies - and hopefully bring me joy that lasts a lifetime (just as our real babies do ).