Curmudgeon

I had a moment this weekend, while at the baby shower, where I realized I’m a curmudgeon.

I found myself thinking, “What is it with the young women in the younger generation…”

See, we were talking babies and one of the shower guests, who is pregnant with her second daughter, said she and her husband will have as many babies as it takes to have a son. Apparently, her husband is the last of male of this family so he has very specific orders from his father to pass on the family name.

Whatever. Ahem. Anyway, this young woman went on to say that she hopes she only has to have two more babies before at least one of them is a boy because she’d rather not have more than four.

Four!?! I managed to stifle my gasp of dismay. I cannot even begin to imagine having four kids.

When I was pregnant with Olivia, I felt selfish for even wanting a second child, let alone more than that. I felt like we got so, so lucky with Alyssa. She’s healthy, she’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s sweet. She was everything I ever imagined in a child and I wondered if I was tempting fate by even trying for a second.

How could we ever get as lucky a second time as we did the first?

And yet…chromosomes not counting…we did get as lucky the second time. Olivia is sweet, she’s smart, she’s beautiful.

But I only have two hands and so a third child would outnumber my arms, my hands.

In the months before Olivia was born, I worried incessantly about Alyssa losing attention, about being able to adequately mother two children.

And here are these young women wanting four, five and possibly even six children.

The guest of honor, S, is pregnant with her second child too. This will be her second son. She said she’d like to have at least two more. Her partner, my step-son, has stated he wants six children.

I can’t help but wonder how they’re afford all these wonderful babies. All of these women work. So that involved day care unless you have family around to help.

Maybe if I’d had children at a younger age, such as in my mid-twenties, I’d feel much the same way.

The hostess of the party, K, my other step-sons wife, has three children. D is four, G is three and I is three and a half months old. She admitted she’d like at least one more baby, maybe two.

Again, I was stunned.

I can see who S and her pregnant friend think they want more as they’re on the verge of their second children. They don’t have a clue right now how hard it is to go from one child to two.

But you know what? Maybe it was just me. Maybe I’m the only one who had a tough time with the transition from one to two. Maybe my own emotional reserves lacking and these young women have bottomless reserves.

More power to them.