There are several conversations parents have with each other when you have to skate on thin ice. Discipline styles, school choices, vaccinations...they can all stir up emotions that can turn a talk between the best of friends into an awkward moment.
I was stuck in one of these this past weekend.
It had to do with having a second child. One of my really close friends has a daughter who is one and a half. And I asked when she was having a second. She told me she'd like to, but didn't see how she could afford it or where she would find the room in her and her husband's tiny home.
I told her you can never budget for kids, you just make ends meet somehow and that she could always move. Nice and neat, I solved her problem, right? WRONG!
It wasn't that easy and this wasn't the only time she'd had the conversation. The pressure to have one baby and then another was not just coming from friends, but from family. After another friend started in on how she should give her daughter a sibling, it became to much and drove this mother of one to tears.
Nobody meant to upset her, but what we failed to remember is that the choice to have ANY children is never cut and dry. While the desire might be there, the realities of life can not be swept aside as simply as a pile of toys left on the floor.
And pressure from friends and family only makes things worse. The endless questions about expanding the family can make a parent feel like they are either missing out or somehow doing their one child an injustice by not providing a sibling.
There are a lot of people who cannot even have ONE child of their own. So if a couple chooses to only have and adore one child, it isn't something that should be questioned. They shouldn't be made to feel inadequate. Instead they should be praised for raising an amazing kid who is fortunate to live in a loving home.
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