“Everything Changes”
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Everything changes. Thus echo the words spoken to me more times than I care to count during my wife’s first pregnancy. Enjoy your sleep. Get ready to give up your adult fun. Say goodbye to the relationship you have with your wife. These were just some of the tidbits of wisdom that came my way, but you get the basic idea: nothing would be the same come the birth of our first child.
And then, we had that baby. And yes, many things in our lives changed. Waking up early on weekends was no longer an occasional thing but a regular thing. Watching reruns of Law & Order immediately after dinner no longer happened. And yes, the time I spent with my wife did change. But my entire world was not destroyed by my daughter’s arrival; some things remain the same as they were before then.
Now, with my wife pregnant once again, I am hearing the same pearl of wisdom, albeit in a different manner. Now, parents with more than one child are telling me to enjoy my time with my daughter, that a family of four is vastly different from a family of three, that raising two kids is different than one.
Pardon me as I slip into a colloquialism for a moment: Well, duh.
Of course raising two kids is different than raising one. I know that we will no longer have one parent “free” while the other is busy with parental duties. I realize that the available time for playing with the first child gets reduced. My daughter will, once she gets over the whole “newness” of the baby, become jealous and resentful. I get it: adding a new person to the family changes the family.
But what I can’t understand is how parents can be so condescending about it. I remember being an expectant father and feeling so disrespected by the “Just you wait” and “You have no idea” and “You’ll understand soon enough”, so I would have hoped that parents of my generation would remember how they felt as expectant parents. However, it seems they did not.
The other thing is that most of them are focused on the negative. Sure, most of their tips open with excitement about the new arrival, but ultimately they spin towards the difficulties and the challenges. Why is that? What about all the positive things?
I remember the same things when in a prenatal class before my daughter’s birth: all the parents were worried or scared or nervous. Me? I was stoked. I could not stop grinning whenever I thought about being a dad. So, it should come as no surprise that I am equally (if not more, thanks to the infectious excitement of a preschooler) stoked for my second child to arrive. Instead of spending all my time worrying about how I’ll afford two kids, or how I will make sure both my children get equal attention, I’m thinking about the other stuff: the fact that my daughter will finally have a sibling, that she’ll no longer be the only kid in the house, the fun the four of us will have.
For those with kids: do you find yourself fixated on the negative changes that have come since your child was born? Do you envy parts of your pre-parent life? For those without kids: are you dreading the changes you face, or are you excited about it?
russ says...
I’ve certainly noticed some of the negatives that come with having a second child, but the positives by far out way any negatives (thus far). Any of the “oh wait, your life will change” non-sense that I toss out is usually for my entertainment.
Dawn says...
I’m excited about the changes to come, but, like you, I don’t know why people have to say, “Oh, just wait, EVERYTHING changes,” in that threatening, foreboding way. Especially since these are inevitably the same ** people who continuously bugged me and my husband by asking when we were going to have kids.
And, it’s terrible to say, but there’s really no positive response to their comment. The baby’s in there. It’s too late, anyway. It’s like, “OH, wow, you’re RIGHT! I’m glad you said something, because, you know, we hadn’t considered that before!”
I mean, my husband and I waited until we were married five years to have kids. Did they not think we *discussed* this? (And, if we hadn’t, and the baby did happen to be an accident… well, gee… their comment sure isn’t making things any better NOW!)
Sorry to rant. I think you hit a sore point here for me. But seriously, I’d love a good, positive response to inane comments like, “Oh, just you wait…it gets worse…” and the like.
Science-mom says...
When we had our boys, we received a card that went like this:
soon.
“A BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING…EXCEPT ITS NAPPIES” I guess that said it all - although the friend who sent this added this after thought: Two babies will bring even more changes…hopefully they`ll learn to change each other`s nappies
SciFi Dad says...
@Dawn:
I don’t know if this is what you’re going for as far as a positive response, but when people said stuff like that to me before my daughter was born, I generally replied with something along the lines of, “Really? Worse? Like, do they take the baby away? No? I still get to keep the baby? Well then that’s all that matters to me.”
@Russ & Science-mom:
Thanks for commenting. I appreciate it.
Science-mom says...
@Dawn: If it`s any comfort to you, as soon as the baby is born, people will immediately start telling you “don`t worry, it will only get better.”