EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
KID
QUIPS
During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
Early Years
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It starts as soon as the first one makes his or her debut. The baby is a week old. You are still healing from the stitches, adjusting to the permanent adrenaline rush of creation, floating on air even while you are sinking into sleeplessness and exhaustion. Relatives, friends, even strangers begin to murmur as they stand there, cooing and giggling and congratulating you on the first: So, are you going for another? There’s an encouraging smile, a bit of a wink. They’re eager who wouldn’t be? to greet another newcomer. But you? You’re weary, bone tired. You smell like milk. You spend time that you could never imagine contemplating diapers and their contents. You observe to anybody who will listen that your formerly bright mind no longer reliably retrieves certain words useful to completing sentences. Often you either offer up a somewhat related but completely wrong noun or else your stutter to a complete stop. You fear that you are contracting early onset Alzheimer’s, but of course keep this to yourself for fear somebody will take the baby from you. Soon enough, you meet other new parents, confessing to each other the same syndrome. You are relieved to chalk it up to systematic sleep deprivation. Relieved of the worry of permanent disability, you wonder: Would you do it all again? In the worst moments, (you know what those are) perhaps not, but in the best moments - and surely those, however sleepy, outnumber the others - the answer seems for most folks a resounding yes. Their next question is simply when. For us, the answer was easy. We lacked the urge to confront the obvious and significant biological hurdle that I, a 40-plus mother, had leapt once before. And as soon as the full toll of middle-age parenthood set in, we also ruled out adoption: We are simply too tired to take on another child. It will be plenty for us to see our single kid through to adulthood, and hope there will be some of us left to enjoy our retirement, which will occur immediately upon our son’s graduation from high school. But for many families, the question is not if, but when. They wonder about how soon to add sibling No. 2 as soon as the first has arrived. Or maybe honestly, I can only guess before then. They seem to envision that little family of four (or five, or six) as a given. It’s as if the questions didn’t exist as questions, only as discussions about timing: How will the arrival of the second affect the first? Will the years between them nurture friendships? Encourage rivalries? Foster resentment? Will you as parents be able to provide each with what they need? Will you be able to handle the addition? Old wives’ tales advise to avoid having two in diapers and yet others suggest that with one in dipes, a person might as well have two. Some people swear by a separation of 18 months, other two years, others three and others four and with every suggestion, others offer up examples that challenge that wisdom. My own best friend conceived her second when her first was gulp 9 years old. As she remarked then, it was like setting back the clock. Now their family sports a teenager and a kindergartner. Of course, simply making a decision to conceive or adopt child No. 2 doesn’t necessarily guarantee success and indeed, the carefully planned spacing may grow wider as couples confront biology that doesn’t oblige or an adoption process that resists best-laid plans. Then again, parents can plot, but the arrival of a first child who has high or special needs or the parents’ own adjustment to that first introduction to parenthood may inspire revision of those original plans. Ultimately, what’s right for one family may not be right for another. Like most of our parenting choices, child spacing is influenced by factors unique to who we are and where we are in the trajectory of our lives personally, spiritually, financially and professionally. The best way to succeed is to prepare prepare that first child and prepare yourselves. You’re experts now; don’t forget what you’ve learned. It’s easier the second time, right? Right. As some of our friends who decided to have another baby discovered, biology and babies sometimes have something else in mind; just ask my editor, Craig Reem, father of twins. Lisa Alvarez, an English professor at Irvine Valley College, lives in Modjeska Canyon with her husband and 3-year-old son. |
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