“I remember you looking at me, Eve strapped to my chest in the crowded restaurant, you with two children at school and one child with you squirming in his carseat, and matter of factly saying ‘One child is so easy.’”
We both had a good chuckle about it, recognizing that indeed three children is a bit more challenging than one, naturally. I remember that first year with Eve in particular in that I felt more at rest in that year than any other time in my adulthood. At last I had embraced the needs of the moment, not looking beyond the day at hand, anxiousness or dreams alike distilled in the necessity of tending to this little life today. The worries of tomorrow simply did not take hold, for I had an altered disposition that came out of necessity but was rooted in stillness, even if accompanied by little sleep and a range of questions.
I now have two children, and my sweet friend since having courageously taken on the exhaustion and exhilaration of entrepreneurship. Though she not being the first mama of multiple children to highlight the ease of one child. Particularly a not yet walking child who remains content to sleep in a comfortably strapped baby carrier. While I cannot speak for a mother of three and know that your selfless investment must grow while children do, I also noticed that mama’s do not confine their “You have it easy” comments to a particular age or number of children. Maybe you happen to have a child in the “Oh, but she’s cute” stage and so those little toddler temper tantrums are but little inconveniences. Or the “Oh, but he’s just growing so much” stage and so the incessant asking for food is merely a gentle reminder of their marvelously growing bodies. Or the “Oh, but they’ve reached puberty” and so the stench coming from their bedroom that doesn’t seem to merit a shower means nothing in the unreasonable suggestion to find their socks and put them in the hamper.
Now mind you, I absolutely want to carry an attitude of seeing those moments that require a tired yet listening ear or that plea for a snack right as their little head hits the pillow as elements of childhood that create space for my own intentionality as a parent and as a person. I do not want to perceive their words or dependencies as inconveniences over which to grumble. What a gift to your soul, and to the privilege of parenthood, to find contentment and even opportunity amidst very real challenges.
Although what I noticed is that such a disposition is not generally taken by the individual whose children are actually in said stage of life. Rather, the scenarios given and minimized are reflections of the past. They are not passing along insight into their own current reality, but romanticized moments of what was for them and perhaps what is for you. For what they are experiencing now is much more challenging. Everything in the past that they thought was a challenge? Child’s play. Literally. Now they have a ten year old who talks back or a teenager who kicks holes in the wall or a high school senior who lies incessantly or a college student who is partying his way through thousands of dollars.
We spoke last week of romanticizing the future… in my husbands case, rather humorously 50 years in the future, but we realized that we have all succumbed to the easy temptation of envisioning the future free of woes. I wonder if perhaps we have done the same for days gone by.
We have conditioned ourselves to believe that the burdens we are experiencing now, more than at any point in days gone by, give us much greater reason to be dissatisfied. We have found a way to romanticize the past so that we can grumble about the present.
I still agree with my friend that one child is far easier than three, and the days of breakfast dates with little more to do than color on the restaurant provided placemats and leisurely sip my cup of coffee are long gone. That is, so long as my children are present.
But I realize too that I can sit in my romantic view of what was either as fodder for my present weariness, or as a way to prompt a tendency towards resting in my current reality. If the former, I am in close proximity to losing not only hours, but days of what could be beautiful if only given a shift in my frame of mind.
Yet seeing as we are so easily wooed, we romanticize the future far better than it can assuredly provide, and we romanticize the past far too late. The only way that we can do neither is to romanticize the now.
And don’t we all know that when it comes to romance, we can fall into it readily enough, but only when we choose it do our souls find the satisfaction of forever.
EXPOSITION: Be honest with yourself – again. Have you ever found yourself romanticizing the past but only in retrospect, whether by minimizing the current challenges of a friend who is walking what you once walked, or by simply thinking more fondly on the past than the present?
RISE: To think well of the past is a beautiful thing, but you may have missed out on its offerings if your only relishing of the past is when you are no longer there. How can you romanticize, in a way that leads to contentment and rest, all that is before you before it’s gone?
DENOUEMENT: “I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. (A paraphrase of Paul’s words to his fellow believers in Philippi – The Message)