I'm working at the YMCA now. I spend each day helping parents sign up their kids for different activities. Some kids are well behaved. Some are not. Watching how the parents react to their children varies quite a bit. Today, I was helping a mother of two, who told me I was lucky I didn't have children.
She doesn't know I've been trying to have children for almost 4 years. She doesn't know the emotional strain I go through watching all the mothers walk around with their new born babies. She doesn't know how much I wish I could be a mother. I'm not really offended. I know she doesn't know.
But as I listened to her tell me of the struggle of being a stay-at-home Mom, I could see how her life, all her days, really revolve around these two boys and raising them. She gets frustrated with their immaturity and their antics. She longs for adult conversation. She gets stressed out with trying to provide them a good childhood and all that it entails. This woman is not alone. I see so many who feel the same way. And yet, I know she wouldn't give them up for anything.
I admit, most of the time, when I watch a mother walk in with her 3, 5, or 6 kids in tow, and they are climbing the walls, I think to myself, maybe just 1 child is enough. Sometimes, I wonder if I should have children at all. I think about how drastically it will change my life, the life that Tom and I have grown accustomed to. I know that we will have to give up things that we don't really want to give up. And, oh, the money we will spend. It will stretch us in ways we never even imagined. And even with all that in mind, I know that I still can't even begin to fathom how hard it will be.
But today, when this woman was sitting there venting her frustration to me, I had this overwhelming desire to have what she has. I want to be a Mom who is stressed out with trying to provide her children a good childhood and all that it entails. I want all the pain and streif!
On my way home from work, the DJ on the radio said she had just said goodbye to her baby brother who was leaving on a mission trip. They would be out at sea, and she didn't know for sure where his ultimate destination would be. She didn't know when she would see him again. She was obviously very emotional over the goodbye. She posed this question to the listeners: How do you, as parents, say goodbye? How do you manage to be ok with letting your children go when they get older? when they go off to college?, when they get married?, when they leave on a mission trip? What she was saying is, Man, it's so hard to let go of someone you love so much.
All the struggle and all the stress of raising kids. It's worth it. Because the love and the joy is so great. It's also why we let them go. Because the love and the joy is so great.
