Another Baby?
I am NOT having another baby right now. No big announcement happening here on the blog. Sorry.
But it is the conversation that I, and many of my peers, friends – and fellow bloggers – have to have. For some of is, it is a conversation we keep revisiting.
I realize that for some people it isn’t as easy as a conversation or just deciding. I also know there are plenty of times we have “the conversation”, make a decision, and G-d just has other plans.  For better or worse, as Scary Mommy puts it: “It seems like all I need to do is think about a baby and poof, nine month later, I have one in my arms.”
So there are those of us who have “the conversation” because we do think that we have the ability to decide,at least on some level.
The decision can be about a lot of things, and I am hoping that you will chime in about some of them. There are two things I hear most often. For some, it is a question of family size above all else. “How could I possibly handle more? I can’t handle what I have!”, for example. Or, “I always thought I would have X number of kids, but maybe that is just my ideas getting in the way of what is practically best for us.”
For some, it is the AGE thing… “well, I am going to be/am/am over  40, so it’s now or never!” I hear too. I am going to be 39 in March, and I guess, well, I fall in this category. I say I am done, but saying so when you still have time to change your mind is one thing…..
When I was in labor with my youngest child (who will be 3 this spring), my husband said to my doula “the next time, we will…” Â There was no rest of the sentence, because I threw the birth ball at him.
Seven is a lot of children. (And any of you tempted to say, or even think ” six and a stepson” you will just have to read this post on the matter.) It is a lot.
Everyone has to do what is right for them, and for many of us that means not only having “that talk” with our spouses, but with a Rabbi. Â But I do want to address those of you who are considering going from 2 to 3 or from 3 to 4, because this is a group of women I think I hear from the most.
Here is my two cents, which may be worth much less than that:
- When you have two kids, you can have a lifestyle. I mean hobbies, vacations, date night… a lifestyle.If you want to maintain a lifestyle and choose to have a third, you have to stop and consider how close your parents live, how good a roster of babysitters you have, and how flexible you are. I believe it can be done, but with effort.
- However, if you want or are willing to have parenting be your lifestyle, than three is nooo problem, because parenting is what your lifestyle will become. You will take vacations around the kids, and basically do what you do for and about them – at least for a decade or two.
- … And if you have chosen parenting as your lifestyle, then four is really not a big change over three. Very often you can then have “team A” and “team B” for the purpose of logistics. Who is on which team is constantly in flux, but you can divide up the kids while doing  playdates/errands/ naps/baths/homework… you get the idea.  The kids have taken over the life, then house, the plans, so a fourth means more diapers and less sleep, but not much of an adjustment.
A friend recently related her feelings of still yearning, loving pregnancy and child-bearing, and wanting to enjoy yummy little babies. She is not sure if those feelings are a sign she should keep going, or just some biological stirrings that she needs to learn to contend with. Another friend told her of a woman in her fifties having a hysterectomy and crying, because for some, there is no magical age when that feeling just fades away on its own.
People often talk to me about this very personal issue, telling me that they wonder how can a person do what they do, times seven. “It seems so crazy!”
I tell them that it is crazy, and fun, and joyous and hard and full of love. That when I became a mom I wasn’t a patient person who could live with clutter or a lack of control. I had no choice but to become that kind of person along the way. I remain organized, I prioritize my expectations, I ask LOTS of people for help (and try to help in return whenever I can, ) and I am married to someone who LOVES babies, and loves kids and loves being involved with the poop-changing and bed-timing, etc., which is a HUGE factor in the equation for me.
My husband’s involved co-parenting is the primary, if not sole reason I have the family I do. However, it is precisely because he really does love babies that much, we do end up still having “the conversation“…..
What about you? Are you having “the conversation”???
Wow, wow, wow. Great post. It’s like you were talking DIRECTLY TO ME. Every single point – going from 3-4, being almost 40 (yikes!), worried about not being to handle it… seriously, talking straight.to.me!
I loved what you said about your lifestyle being parenting. I guess that really describes us to a T. Hmmmm… good food for thought. Thanks so much for posting this!
Thank you for making my night. I hope other readers will weigh in. May you find clarity…. : )
Well, most people I know are having this conversation. I think part of being frum is never being really and truly done. We just treasure our children a lot more than fancy vacations and a certain type of lifestyle. I personally find these conversations very gut-wrenching. On the one hand, I feel stretched to the limit and constantly guilty over not giving existing kids “proper” amount of attention. On the other hand, choosing not to have another kid is also a guilt-ridden decision. How can I deprive someone of life just because I feel it would be hard to handle one more? It’s a hard choice.
Sub-wife – I am noticing how many of us not only feel conflicted but “guilty” about our decision, no matter what it may be. We moms are so hard on ourselves sometimes…
it’s remarkable how much this post also spoke directly to me. my 4th is now 15 days old and if i had a dollar for everyone who mentioned #5 since he was born, i’d be able to go to the movies…which seems like a lot of people to me! truthfully, i’m ready to do it again even though i hate these first few months of sleeplessness. but we probably won’t. i think i know how much of a limit we can take, especially not living in a frum community – we are an anomaly with 4 in a relatively secular community.
i love how you explain it as a “lifestyle” – that’s what it is for sure. it defines us in so many ways and i’m glad of it.
I found this interesting. We have two. I have been mulling a third…since number 2 was born. (He’s 4 1/2.)
Even though we are frum, we have some extenuating circumstances (who doesn’t?) and a third hasn’t truly been a possibility until the past, I don’t know, six months?
Unlike a lot of people, I can deal with the first year. The sleeplessness is really annoying, but I nurse and co-sleep and ultimately push through. For me the hard part is toddler +…
My eldest is a tough kid. She is smart and artistic and very admirable in a lot of ways but has personality traits that make her very hard to live with sometimes. If I had two like her I’d be ready to close up shop.
My younger one is a sweetheart. He has his moments, because he’s four, but if I had two like him I probably would be pregnant with #3 already.
Because of the way we have parented (extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, other things), we have already experienced some of (a lot of) the “kids are your lifestyle” that you speak of. We’ve only spent a couple of random nights away from them (in 6.5 yrs); we go on kid-friendly vacations (“vacations” = going to see grandparents…which, now that we live in Israel and my parents do not, is very $$$$). Date night is sushi in front of the TV.
On the other hand, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, as it were. My kids walk and talk and use the toilet. They sometimes help around the house. They go to school. They (not underestimating this, because they didn’t for so long) sleep through the night.
Last month I interviewed (unsuccessfully, but still) for a full time job. A FULL TIME JOB OUTSIDE MY HOUSE. It was like someone gave me a time machine and suddenly it was 2018. But of course it wasn’t, and my kids need me after school and my husband gets home from work after everyone is already asleep.
I guess I am afraid of not having the patience to do it all again. My husband would have a 3rd and probably a 4th in a heartbeat, but ultimately a good 90% of the work of this is going to fall on me. (He loves babies, but he is the primary wage earner–and he works a lot.)
So…I don’t know. But I am turning 36 soon so I had better figure it out.
Sorry for the novel…it’s on my mind. All the time, pretty much.
Great post! I had never thought about it in exactly that way, but I agree that couples with two children do have a very different lifestyle than those with more. And what Phyllis said is very relevant, a lot depends on your community.
hi, somebody just recommended this blog to me and it looks great! I’d like to subscribe- do you do email subscriptions?
Thank you Chana! I enjoy your blog a lot. I am embarrassed to say that I have not figured out how to successfully create email subscriptions. Hannah convinced me through one of her posts to do it – months ago – but I wasn’t able to then and I am not able to now. Any advice would be much appreciated. I have searched in plug ins and installed, but it doesn’t seem to fix the problem. I am clearly missing something. If I get it working I will let you know.
It’s like you climbed into my head, took all my crazy thoughts, put them in order and spoke them out loud!
I have four daughters. My friends in the States are amazed at how many children I have, and how I can cope. Here in Israel, I lived in a community where I had “only” four children. I think we would have had more, but my youngest (now 19) has ODD and she made it tough to think of having more while we were coping with that. One divorce and remarriage later, I tacked on my husband’s four kids, and we became the Eight is Enough family. We had quite an interesting wedding portrait.
I was 42 when I got remarried, and the question of us having a Yours, Mine and Ours child was brought up while we were still engaged. We mulled it over, and mulled it over again, and the answer was always the same — it’s not that nine would be too many, it’s that we didn’t think it would be fair to the new baby to have such ancient parents. My father was 44 when I was born (adopted), my mother was 37, and it wasn’t easy for me, and probably harder for them. In our new blended family, eight was indeed enough.
Now I’m 48, there’s a grandson crawling around the house terrorizing the dog, and I still get broody. I have to say that out of the few regrets I have in life, one of them is not having a child together with my husband. But it wasn’t meant to be.
I blogged about perhaps adopting, and the end decision was that we wanted to adopt our 29 year old cleaner, but he’s happy with the parents he has.
As one now-senior rocker once said, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might get what you need.” And as Ben Zoma said, “Who is a rich man? He who is happy with his portion.” I’m rich, very rich. But a little broody….
“Like”.
Great post. I actually just had this conversation with a relative of mine with a largish number of kids. (more than 5). He talked about how a number of the younger ones are having behavioral difficulties (screechy tantrums, after the age of 3, general brattiness). They can be lovely children, but they are a handful. The youngest is past a year and the wife has started making noises about another one. The husband is emphatically not into it. He feels they have enough to deal with with the kids they have and I completely agree with him.
On the one hand, I appreciate your point that it’s chaotic with 5+ so what’s one more? OTOH, I think it’s important to recognize limits and what your family really needs and many times, (as in the case of my relatives) it’s not one more baby.
We’re expecting our 4th in May, b’eh. When we told our oldest, who’s seven, her response was “Isn’t 3 enough?” I was flabbergasted! I pressed her to explain herself, because I thought she felt I was too overwhelmed and grouchy with 3 (which I do often personally feel) and she was feeling my “overwhelmedness” as well. She finally explained that she feared the baby would turn out like her toddler brother who cried alot and took her stuff away. 🙂
Totally natural response.
Anyway, a lot of the points you brought up were issues with us- age was a big one (turning 36 in March). My husband and I both knew we wanted 4 so, now was as good a time as any. After going through pretty debilitating morning sickness, I have a hard time picturing going through this again, but we’ll see when the time comes…
I don’t even want to think of this conversation in our household because the answers are different everyday of the week but I am reminded of an Israeli woman who just the other day was in the news. She’s young and recently married, was told she needed a hysterectomy or she would die. She’s been fighting the health ministry to choose to keep her uterus because she says she would rather die than live, unable to become a mother. I think of her ordeal as tragic and heroic and says so much about us as Jewish women and what it means to be a mother.
There’s a joke at my 4yo’s gan that every time a mother is pregnant again, they just shrug and say “what are we secular?” I’m not sure having children non-stop for whole decades of our lives is what we as Jews do, I mean it doesn’t define us, but certainly many mothers are capable of raising and caring for large families skillfully and even while being employed outside the house.
Living in Israel, to me, makes this conversation very different. Everything is already more difficult in Israel, and resources are already stretched thinner in most families and yet more Israeli couples choose to raise large families (certainly we have higher average birthrates than the US, religious or not). Culturally I feel there is more of a place for the large family in Israeli society… there isn’t the pressure to have 2 perfectly spaced children and then stop to invest your whole life in their success as super special individuals but a more open attitude towards raising the family you have and investing your energies in the family’s well being and success as a whole. I wouldn’t want to raise my family anywhere else.
I couldn’t agree with you more that the social considerations and ramifications of family size are different in Israel and the Diaspora. Social pressure is just the beginning. I once heard a shul Rabbi in Highland Park, New Jersey call yeshiva tuition “Orthodox Jewish birth control”. This: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/solving-the-yeshiva-tuition-crisis is an interesting paper on the tuition crisis in America.
We intended to have and raise our family in Israel, and I believe with 100% conviction that had we stayed in Israel for the last decade we would have more children than we do. At the same time, we plan to return home to Israel, B”H, in a year and a half, and our family size has been influenced by that fact as well. It isn’t just about what people say to you here – and people say a lot – but also the cultural differences of independence, and the communal aspect of child-rearing. My case is a bit of an exception in the US, as I believe my entire village truly is raising them, as I have commented on before.
I agree with you Sara, I wouldn’t want to raise my family anywhere else, even though for now, I am.
Abbi, be-shaa tova! I most definitely do not agree with the sentiment of “one more won’t make a difference.” Young children deserve a good amount of attention from their parents, who should be willing to provide it. And each child needs his/her own doctor’s appointments, parent-teacher meetings, etc.
As I’ve written the way we parent and the type of attention we give changes as we have more. Maybe your relative’s younger children are “bratty” because they didn’t get the attention they needed when they were younger. (I’m speaking completely theoretically here, clearly there could be many factors including false perception.)
I will join in on the “conversation”. I had three out of the four of my children after the age of 36 ( 38, 41, and 44). I worried the most about my last pregnancy and in some ways it was pretty uneventful, but I did notice a big difference in discomforts from the one before. I feared going from having two to three (my oldest is grown so I only have 3 at home) but found that it was not as difficult as I expected. There are times when I worry about whether each one is getting enough attention from me but that is getting easier as the youngest is now 4. And there are definitely times that I feel overwhelmed with the 3 at home and doubt I could handle another. For me now though age is an issue as I am definitely past the age that I feel I should be having any more children. A situation came up recently where we were discussing taking in a child we knew of as a foster child. The baby wound up staying with the mother but it was like having the “conversation” again for us.
Thank you for raising the point about physical discomfort. One reason I threw the birth ball at my darling husband at the mention of another pregnancy was because I was surprised at how much harder pregnancy at 35/6 was than at 32. And at 38/39? Well, I am not the daily-exercizing queen-of-sleep I was at 26, and it has to be a factor. When you don’t feel well for nine months it obviously takes a toll on the rest of the brood that you already have.
Thanks Hannah! Rereading my comments and the post, I realize I misread and attributed the “what’s one more” idea to the post when it wasn’t there. Sorry about that!
Abbi – I was going to mention that, so I am glad you did.
I have a friend who lives in a large yishuv and for various unfortunate reasons, cannot have more children. Although she has 3 beautiful kids now (2 girls and a boy), honestly, living where she is it’s like she’s barren. Her kids even feel it. Her youngest, at 3, asks when they are having the next baby because all of her friends are having siblings. 3 kids in the US is considered a “big” family. Sad and strange.
Abbi, we know someone in that situation…in Lakewood. Probably will not be an easy road. (Also part of the reason why I only like to VISIT religious yishuvim and would never LIVE there.)
Ima2Seven, my husband also says the tuition is like birth control. I don’t necessarily agree. In the US we lived in an expensive community (price of housing and price of tuition) and while a lot of people had “only” 3 kids there were many families with 4 or even 5. (Rarely more than 5 though.)
While the tuition expenses are far, far less in Israel, it’s not a fair comparison because the prices of OTHER things are more. Housing (what you get for the same price) in some locations, car + associated costs, some groceries, taxes, etc cost MORE and the salaries are far LESS. While it may be socially more acceptable to have more kids here, I don’t know that it is financially prudent for everyone to do so.
This story reminded me of a lady who was told by her son’s teacher that adolescence was like a wave. She just had to take a deep breath and dunk under for 2-3 years. To which she responded that she had 10 kids, so the implications were that she was supposed to stay “under water” for 30 years.
I agree with Sara’s comment about raising a large family in Israel. It is so common to have 4-5 kids that large families are taken for granted.
I use Feedblitz.com for email updates. You can also use it for newsletters like Chana’s but I haven’t set one up yet. Feedblitz charges a fee though, above a certain number of email subscribers. You can set up free email updates through Feedburner.com but it’s by Google, and the support stinks. I believe there is a way to get updates from any blog via email, but I don’t remember how to do it.
Thanks to Hannah, I now have an email subscription bar set up on the site (top right). You are always so supportive of us newer bloggers, and many of us have benefited from your expertise. Thank you!
Leah, I fortunately did not have to hunker down like that with each of my teens.
although I am struck by some of the obvious truths in your post, I feel that the “conversation” is so subject to what hkbh plans for us; I wanted to have children until my fertility was over- I did have ten pregnancies, and I have 5 living children knh. So much is not in our control, we need to understand the hashgacha that is only for us.
You are absolutely right. The conversation itself presumes far more control than we have, and there does have to be acceptance, of course. I think along with this, you are bringing up our need to focus with gratitude on the children we currently have.
@anonymous, I totally agree–you can only “plan” so much. Not much has been according to plan so far…
I encounter so much intolerance of two child families, and I am sorry to see that you are just promoting the old stereotypes. How can you say that someone with two children can have a lifestyle? Perhaps that person’s life has been so overtaken with fertility treatments (or grief over still-borns and miscarriages) that no other life is possible? When will frum women stop judging others based on the amount of children they have? Count your own blessings, and leave your judgments at home.
A person who has two children by choice – and is not dealing with such a personal agony – can have a lifestyle. This was not meant to judge anyone. I do think that you make an important point that is a different one. Women who would love to have more children but cannot suffer from so much insensitive lashon hara that it astounds me. Women living in Jerusalem and Lakewood have expressed social pressure to have more children, and women living in other areas have said they experience pressure to have fewer. You are right that it is a personal decision that is very often not a decision at all!
When I got pregnant by accident, while doing everything right to avoid it, I had 3 babies under the age of four. Many people felt that I owed them some sort of explanation, including strangers. I am not sure why all social propriety seems to go out the window when it comes to having children.
Since you raise the topic, another friend who suffered terribly from the nightmare of such treatments (that never resulted in a successful pregnancy, she adopted), taught me another important lesson. She reminded me to be very careful to whom I gripe about my kids or how tough a houseful of little babies was. Some people are yearning for such troubles, and it is okay to confide to a friend, but not to go on at the library or park for all to hear. This is related to how you expressed this in your article, which is a beautiful read.
Loved this post. I got here from a link at JewishMOM.com.
Your comment about parenting as a lifestyle really put into words something that I’ve been mulling over lately. We just had our second (and are hoping to have, G-d willing, many more), and I resumed teaching piano lessons when the baby was six weeks old. I love teaching, and the extra income is very helpful, but I realized that in scheduling my lessons, I miss putting my boys to bed three nights in a row! It’s great that my husband gets a chance to bond with the kids, but I’m sad to miss that special time, and it drove the point home that as much as I love being involved with music, I love my kids sooooo much more (duh), and I’m sure as our family grows (IY”H), I’ll learn how to still involve myself with music while having parenting as my profession.
Love your blog! I have, bli ayin harah, four kids and my oldest is five. More kids? I love them so much, I feel like there’s so much more love to give, but it will definitely be a conversation because there’s never enough of the other ingredient, which is time… Ultimately, we believe that one of the best gifts you can give a child is a sibling(s). Well, that, and the gift of learning how to fall asleep by themselves 🙂
I just wanted to let you know that I use feedburner.com for email subscriptions on my blog and it works fine. If you want, you can email me and I can tell you how I set it up.
All the best,
Jen
Ok, so I am overwhelmed with guilt and pessured for time and tired and I occasionally run away- once a month – to the kotel of course- and I cry and ask Hashme for Help with the 5 children all under age 5 that i love, cherish, adore, and get sick of sometimes. the minute I leave I feel bad, and I hope I am not traumatizing them by not telling them I wont be back intime to tuck them in- I dont even call when I run away…I pray that my prayers at the kotel give them and my husband an easy going evening with quality time at its finest! He works late usually and I do all the feeding changing, feeding, breaking up fights, punishing, bathing, story time, shma and cleaning up all alone and tonite -my birthday – no one even said happy birthday- so of course I ran away to the kotel and walked around geula ate ice cream and came home to find this blog. So where was this blog 4 years ago??!! OK, I dont regret aany child or decision, but the fact is in my circle it was never discussed and Haval, because Ive been traumatized- and I run away and get all beat up with guilt – so the answer is- take it easy jewish mom…feed yourself, let your body go back to itself like the gmara says- it takes 2 years for a womans organs to go back to their place after childbirth!!! – enjoy life and stop running holding the I’m holy for not using birthcontrol-flag! with a heter from a rav of course! so may we allbe blesses with nachat from those we bring into the world and we should give Hashem nachat in our deep will of raising fine Jewish mensches and bnos yisrael – amen!
I never had five children under the age of 5. But I remember the days of four children under the age of 5 and a stepson with visitation issues, and setting a goal for myself to make it to the next day. I remember finding out I was pregnant when my daughter was 18 months old and my twins were two, and trying to find a way to be happy it, wracked with guilt that the only emotion that registered was terror. “This too shall pass” may seem horrible, patronizing and simple, but it is true, and it works. The day will come when all five of them will put on their own shoes. (!)
The grass is always greener, right? A part of me envies that you can run away to the kotel. When I want to run away….. I have central Jersey.
Thank you for such an honest and brave comment. Amen to all that you said.
WOW, did we have this conversation a lot in the old days. My husband and I love babies and toddlers. At one point, we wanted to have another one because we missed having a baby around the house and a friend of mine said that that’s not a valid reason to have a baby. We have to think about the lifelong responsibility of bringing another life into the world. It’s not just cute and cuddly for now, it’s a lifelong committment. At the time we had six children, and I was 43. The question in our minds was if we should stop or not. Because of my age, it wasn’t hard to get a heter to stop.
I would like to add that going to a vey good PARENTING CLASS helps tremendously. When we mothers feel that we know how to handle our kids, even the tough ones, we are in a much better position. It helps us decide which discipline issues are important to us and which issues we can give up on. It helps us realize what behavior is normal in a child, and how to handle it. It is much easier to contemplate having a larger fanily when we feel confident (at leat somewhat) in our parenting skills.
Hi! So great to read many different thoughts on this matter. For me the question is money – trusting that we’ll have enough – as they say “each child brings its own parnassah (livelihood)” which obviously doesn’t mean that he/she’s born with a wad of cash (wouldn’t that be nice;), but rather that with each child, we are given more powers to go about getting what we need/budgeting tighter/somehow the money “finds us”, etc. It’s a trust in Hashem issue. So I guess I just answered my own question – just daven.
I do agree that a confidence building parenting course is REALLY KEY. (If you live in Israel, I highly recommend the course taught by Mercaz Shefer – I took it through Liora S.)
I do not agree on the attention point. Yes, we need to make pockets of quality time with each child. But on the other hand, we can just give off the vibe that this family is whole, solid, GREAT, and the children will feed off of it. If we feel guilty about ANYTHING, the children will feed off of that guilt. So, why not think our families are JUST GREAT AS THEY ARE!?
Chaya
Mother of bli ayin harah three lovely girls
Nachlaot, Jerusalem
I am 27 and was blessed to have my first child at 21. I now have three children and have had one misscarriage. After the misscarriage between 1 and 2 I said I would only wait 6 months after each baby before leaving it to G-d. Until I turned 31 or felt to overwhelmed. I find it amazing how we talk and talk with our girlfriends and husbands is about family planning, we make deals with G-d and no matter what we feel guilty. Why? 3-4 is harder financialy here in Israel because it means a bigger car btw. A mini-van is a luxury item here. However, my kids already ask for more babies and we do live on a small yishuv, however I do see more and more of my friends taking longer breaks after 3 kids, I dont feel pressure from them just from myself. I have always been very regular thank G-d but after I stopped nursing this time my baby is one year old I find that I am irregular and my first thought was great a little break , but when I thought I might be pregnant I thought o.k great too. Then a negative test and relief why is it so confusing?
There are people with two kids who have hobbies and vacations and date nights?
I finally found my way back to this post after several weeks. Such great insights from everyone. Of course, I am more confused than ever. (And if ChayaV ever comes back – I think you are a long last friend of mine from Yerushaliyim! Last I saw you, you had two little girls! Mazal tov. The small Jewish world thing never ceases to amaze me.)
Thanks for this interesting post. I must say that I’m so jealous – I wish my husband loved the whole taking-care-of-babies thing… We have 3 kids (1+twins) and he always complains about it, which makes it so much harder. I don’t get enough help from him, although he does try. It also saddens me that he adamantly refuses to consider another one (1 kid would be enough for him….). If you know some magical way to transform a man into a baby-lover, I’d love to hear it 🙂
Wow, Tami. That is a tough one. You can’t make a man love babies, but my guess is there is some trade-off. Not all husbands can do everything, right? Lots of other things don’t get done around here because it is more fun to take care of the babies….
I think twins is hard for anyone, any time, regardless of how many other kids you have. (Says the mom of twins.)
I hope your husband is enchanted with some other stage in their childhood at some point.
Havent managed to read everything here but must say that perhaps I’m really the odd one out.
I have two young children (who I love)
I have a full time job (not out of choice anymore)
I live in Israel
I’m 38
I dont have a lifestyle!!!
But/And having another child is not necessarily the right option for me.
Its a combination of my husband’s preference (that I would definitely work to change if I was positive myself) and my G-d damn honest admission of my financial fears/our financial reality/what all that does to my sanity.
I could push through and deny the latter but then i’d need much stronger pills than now.
I wish I could live in the US so “just” having two kids didnt feel like such a failure.
THere i said it….
Ima – I dont know how you do it!
Love
Lisa
I’m mommy to 8 bli ayin hora. I am also a professional and work outside the home. Motherhood is challenging, frustrating and exhilerating. It forces me to stretch myself and be more tolerant, more loving, more giving… It also is very fleeting. Before you know it that two year old will be bar mitzva’d then graduating Mesivta (I’m there). As such, I have more patience and tolerance with the younger crew. So when they are all fighting *again* or when there are three naked little girls crying in the dining room two hours before shabbos, wrapped only in slipping off towels, take a deep breath, grab the camera and enjoy their littleness. (My perspective: Should my teenage child appear in public thus attired it would not be cute. They grow really fast!) More children is a scary thought. Pregnancy is very hard for me. I am inspired by Rabbi Fischel Schacter’s lectures (available for free on the web, google him). He is a high school Rebbe with 14 children.
Thank you for the frank comment; I am starting to feel the “littleness” slipping away every day lately….
Why cant you have date nights with 3 kids? I think thats actually very impt. to marriage and chinuch!
Jessi, Please let me know to which comment you are referring, because it isn’t clear to me. I think that depending on the ages and dynamic of the family, many pull it off and many do not.
For those of you who made the decision or had Hashem make the decision for you to stop… please do what Kathleen mentioned in her comment and consider foster care, or even just taking in a troubled teenager for a few days/weeks. It’s a huge need in the frum communities and a bigger chessed than you well ever realize.
Some of us can’t have that conversation. It is not in our hands at all, it is not easy, sometimes it can be a matter of life and death. To those of us, who never lose the yearning but can’t even entertain the idea that it could be an option, we just have to be incredibly greatful that we have what we have. It hurts to hear conversations like this. Some people have small families because that’s all they were able to have and that was even a miracle. Talk like this just reinforces the pain.