So, Are You Having a Second?

You asked, I ranted.

Pretty much how I imagine it.

“So, are you having a second?”

If I had a dollar (fine, about $100) for each time I’ve been asked this question since giving birth to my daughter 21 months ago, I would probably be able to afford a live-in nanny for the first year of said (hypothetical) baby’s life. Which is not a deciding factor for having a second child, but it would certainly help. 

“Um, yes, my partner wants one, but I’m just not ready,” is my go-to response. Feedback usually varies. Those who have zero to one child tend to give me an understanding, genuine nod, making me feel seen / heard / in need of a hug. The ones with two kids or more also nod, then say something like “I get it, it’s hard,” in a way that might as well mean, “You have the stamina of a jellyfish.” I don’t even blame them, for they are the superiors – the martyrs, the superheroes, the people who could handle having their lives irreversibly overturned into a perennial state of chaos. Because that’s what two children with small age gaps do – they turn each day into an obstacle course of micro-problems and micro-emergencies and snot and tears and toys to divide and fights to referee. You never have a chance at a clean house, a virus-free household, or a sane mental state ever again. Call any of your friends with two small kids and they will confirm. 

Here's the thing: I only have one child, and I already struggle with the mental state piece of it all. I regularly feel tired, stressed, overwhelmed and at the precipice of a nervous breakdown, no matter how many hours of sleep I get or how much “self-care” I squeeze in. Do you remember that video game, Sonic the Hedgehog? To me, having one kid is basically like skirting through Level 1 – a dizzying adventure of flying through the air and collecting the gold rings and racing through the barriers and occasionally – occasionally – slowing down before getting back on the hamster wheel. Some people are really good at it and can easily breeze through and continue on to Level 2. I, however, am really truly overwhelmed by the entire game, to the point where I think stepping one foot onto Level 2 will instantly cause me to die a metaphorical Sonic death. As in, collapse into a puddle in the corner of my kitchen forever. 

I genuinely wish this wasn’t the case. When you are in your mid-thirties, having two kids back to back makes more sense. In fact, this was always something my partner and I planned on – popping out two babies in a row, bracing ourselves for a few years of craziness, then resurfacing on the other side with a giant sense of accomplishment. It seems so easy when you are first planning it, all idyllic domestic scenes of adorable little tykes playing with blocks on the carpet, riding side by side in the car and chatting in baby gibberish. But, having gone through it once, the vision changes. You begin anticipating other types of scenes: being pregnant while lugging around a toddler, the toddler throwing a volatile tantrum while you try to breastfeed, attempting to get everybody dressed and out the door, potty training one while changing poop diapers on the other… The more I write this, the more my blood pressure rises. 

Many (my partner included) would tell me that I’m overthinking it. That life is about the craziness, that everything is temporary, that I need to just do it and deal with the consequences later, that you will never regret having a child. This is all true. And yet, we are all built differently. Some of us feel energized by big families and chaos, while others feel like depleted balloons after spending too much time around people, even if they happen to be people we love. I’m somebody who hates noise, can’t handle the empty small talk of working in an office and needs at least five hours of complete solitude a day. What is “fun chaos” for others is an OCD nightmare for me, which puts a damper into all the aforementioned wisdom. 

And yet, if I dig deeper, which I seem to enjoy doing in this newsletter-slash-public-journal, there may be more to it – a fear, perhaps. You see, motherhood turns you inside-out. It catapults you out of your life, Dorothy style, and lands you somewhere entirely different, leaving you to pick up the pieces of your past self and attempt to assemble something new. I feel like I just did that – hell, I’m still doing it, finding my new self after the craziness of the past few years – and the last thing I want is to be hurtled elsewhere. Maybe, it’s because I’m afraid that the next place I’ll land will be a one where all I am is a mom, submerged fully in the world of my children, defined by my children, owned by my children. There will be no more me writing quietly in a room, no more me riding a scooter in Europe by night, no more me as the free-spirited girl in jean shorts that I so desperately cling on to. Yes, I recognize that plenty of women live fulfilling and exciting lives with two–or even five–children (hello, Natalia Vodianova!) but, in my eyes, they are either ultra-rich or ever-so-slightly superhuman. I am neither. 

Speaking of Europe, and money, it’s interesting how much less stressed my European friends seem to be about the idea of having multiple children – perhaps, because of how much support they receive from their respective governments when it comes to healthcare and childcare. My Parisian friend and mother of three (!!!!) has been taking her youngest to the local crèche since he was a year old. A good friend who lives in Copenhagen with a toddler and a one-year-old is back to her full-time job, for her two children are both happily settled into their neighborhood daycare. The amount they pay monthly for this childcare is equivalent to how much I pay my nanny each week. Unless you happen to have family close by (which we are very much planning on doing soon), the proverbial “village” that comes with having a child in America is going to cost you a fortune. Don’t even get me started about health insurance. 

So, where does this leave me regarding having a second? I’m not sure. Deep down, I do want another child. I know that one day soon, my daughter will no longer be my baby – there will be no more unlimited affection, no more gratuitous hugs and cuddles, no more looking at me with that unabridged adoration – and I’ll want it all over again. I also want her to have a sibling, a built-in friend with whom to navigate the world. I also want to make my partner and all the grandparents happy. 

I was having this conversation in my group chat a few months ago, and one of my friends wrote. “Not wanting something and being afraid of something are totally different things. You should never do anything you don’t really want to do. But you also shouldn’t not do it because it scares you. We all have the same capacity for growth and change – some just don’t want to and are resistant to it.” She’s right. (She’s also a superwoman-slash-naturapath! Follow her here!) If I acknowledge that I want a second kid, which I do, then the only thing that is standing in my way are my own fear and inflexibility. Which leads me to a conclusion that I didn’t think I would arrive to, and might not yet be ready to accept. If having a second child is something that I really do want, then I will need to change – to stretch my tolerance threshold, to fine-tune my organization skills, to get up even earlier, to create the system and the village that it will take to make it all work.

Whether or not I can do it, now that’s the real question.