This Is Your Fourth?

Comedian Jim Gaffigan on having kids

I just have to say that people don’t really get excited when you tell them you’re expecting a fourth. In fact, I can only think of fewer than five people who were genuinely excited for us. Most people react with a sense of implicit judgment, which has started to grate on me more and more. No, I am not a fundamentalist Christian who doesn’t believe in birth control (one person outright asked that). Yes, I am a highly-educated professional. No, I am not having ten kids over a twenty-year span. Yes, I actually would like the same amount of maternity leave even though this is my fourth. I find myself announcing with qualifiers, like “this will be our fourth, and last, ha ha” or “this will be our fourth, and it was a surprise…” Why should I have to make excuses?

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, except to acknowledge that our culture definitely has assumptions about what is an acceptable number of children to have, and stereotypes about the weirdos who don’t follow that assumption. Two kids is good. Three kids is okay, even sweet. Four kids or more is weird and means you’re in one of the categories above: part of a weird religion or uneducated. Besides the fact that a lot of those stereotypes are wrong to begin with, we don’t really fall into any of those categories, which makes it a bit awkward.

There are very few highly-educated professional couples I know with four kids. Fewer still working moms of four. Maybe some of our cultural bent is because, in this recent age of helicopter parenting, we like to have control over our kids; we like to churn out perfect specimens who take eight lessons each and go to Ivy Leagues, and after two or three, it gets harder to hover. The level of chaos exceeds our ability to tightly control every factor of our kids’ lives.

On some level, this is something I’m working out myself. I do think that after a certain number, it’s possible that we can’t be spiritually responsible parents given it’s harder to devote sufficient attention and resources to each child. I do also see that the community benefit of having a larger family is great, and blossoms over time. I have met people from families of four who admit it was unhealthy and they would never do it, and others who loved it and wish they could have four as well. I do realize having four may change how I navigate work-life balance, and that there are other things we’ll have to adjust and be mindful about, but I am stubbornly believing that it is possible to do well, though really I’m uncertain of the details and trusting God in faith more than anything else.

Again, not sure where I’m going with this, except to say that this is what I do believe: that this fourth life is just as precious, just as deserving of genuine celebration and welcome, as the first, second, or third. That the Bible clearly describes children as a reward and praises life in a way that would surely change our self-centric attitudes. That the point of having kids is not to control every detail so we turn out people who make us look good, whatever we define that to be. That it is possible to be an educated professional who meant to have four kids, and I shouldn’t have to give any excuses about it.

Men Are Like Rubber Bands

I’m reading through Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and one of the more interesting insights was this concept of the “intimacy cycle,” in which regard men are like rubber bands: they get close, pull away, then get close again. “Just as we do not decide to be hungry,” the authors write, “a man does not decide to pull away. It is an instinctual urge. He can only get so close, and then he begins to lose himself. At this point he begins to feel his need for autonomy and begins to pull away.”

The key seems to be understanding that there is nothing personal in the desire to pull away; it’s simply automatic, not a judgment upon the woman. Like a rubber band, there is only so far he can go before he starts to want to return, and the more you let him go during these times, the more you allow him to come back with full “power and spring.” He is able to resume intimacy immediately where he left off, without needing time for reacclimation. Just as earlier you let him go, now is a golden time for talking and deeply connecting. Then after a while, he feels slack again: “to a certain extent a man loses himself through connecting with his partner. … Pulling away allows him to reestablish his personal boundaries and fulfill his need to feel autonomous.”

The problem, of course, is that this rubber-band cycle times poorly with how a woman naturally relates. Just as they are getting deeply connected, he wants to pull away, which she feels hurt by, or at least has no natural desire to do as well, so it’s easy for her to follow him, not allow him space, or punish him for wanting space. Then when he’s ready to return, she feels insecure, or still angry, or simply fears to push him away again, and doesn’t take advantage of that golden period to reconnect.

Most of the time when I read these types of books, I feel there’s gross gender stereotyping, or at least that we don’t always struggle with the common things I hear my friends struggling with in their marriages, but I think there’s some truth to this one. Today being the perfect example; my parents took the three kids. We had a lovely time out, mostly errand-running but fitting in a meal out and lots of deep conversation during which we really connected. Then as soon as we come home, he needs some time away, right after we’ve had all this deep connecting. Suddenly comments he makes like, “it doesn’t have to be so intense all the time,” or observations about how he and his guy friends like to intersperse plenty of mindless activity into their times together, make sense. At does give me some time to catch up on writing…

Journal Excerpt

I always thought a lisp would be somewhat stigmatic, but I’m really glad Eric has one. I used to try to get him to say “socks” all the time, which he pronounced “thock-th.” It’s been more intermittent lately, but lately he’s been going through a dinosaur phase, and is always asking, “ma-ma, why does th-tego-thauruth have th-pike-th?”

Another cute habit he has is saying everything with a smile on his face. Do you want to take a bath? Smiling: “noo, I don’t want to.” Or: “ma-ma, first I eat the candy, then I eat breakfast—” (he calls all meals breakfast) (smiling) “—how ‘bout like that?”

Discipline

“Discipline your child, for in that there is hope.

Do not be a willing party to his death.”

-Proverbs 19:18

I went to a bookstore once and read everything they had there about strong-willed children and discipline. That was about the point over a year ago when I realized Eric, our second, was going to be different than Ellie, our first. If I spoke with a mildly negative tone of voice to Ellie, she burst into tears. A time-out was the end of the world: she sat there sobbing and was so relieved when I came to get her afterwards she easily said sorry and tried to understand why we had put her there.

Pretty much, nothing really straightforward works for Eric. When we try to correct him for crossing a line—he doesn’t do it often, but it could be hitting someone, refusing to hold hands when crossing the street—he gets into a rage. Sometimes his rages are triggered by the smallest things, like my having to interrupt something to go pee, or my asking him if I can change a stinky diaper about to ooze poop out onto his clothing. When he’s in a rage, nothing textbook works. He could care less about whatever I say. Time-outs are me holding him down physically while he kicks and hits me. After a spanking he gets more enraged and continues the bad behavior. We’ve finally come to shutting him in a room, which means I have to stand there holding the door shut while he rages inside. It does bother him he can’t get out, and eventually he will back down a bit, but there’s no saying whether it will take ten minutes or an hour, or whether he will ever say he’s sorry or verbalize any understanding of what I’m trying to teach him.

At the end of it all, I feel pretty battered. These episodes seem to always occur at the worst times; right when I have to leave for work, or when out-of-town friends are visiting. It’s so terribly, dangerously easy to get downright mad at him, or at least view it as a great inconvenience and terrible nuisance.

The ESV version of the above verse caught my eye: “Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.” In a topical study I’m doing on parenting, I had just read Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which starts off like it has a great solution for the child who cannot be disciplined, but then ends in saying, take him out to be stoned. The Proverbs verse itself is confusingly translated: the first part is translated “for there is hope,” “while there is hope, “for in that there is hope”; the second part “or you will ruin their lives,” “let not thy soul spare for his crying,” “do not be a willing party to their death.”

The original Hebrew says “yacar” (chasten, correct, admonish, instruct, teach) your son “yesh” (there is, are, being, existence) hope, and “nephesh” (soul, self, desire, emotion, passion) “nasa” (bear, carry, take) “mewth” (to die, kill, send for execution, ‘to die prematurely by neglect of wise moral conduct’).

I take that as meaning: Correct, train, instruct your child, immediately, before too much time passes. Take heart: there is hope. Don’t be swayed by emotions or passions (either yours or theirs); remember this is a matter of life and death.

Lately I’ve been trying to collect mental tapes I can play in my head to help in difficult moments (eg “a gentle answer turns away wrath”). I think I’ll add this one: “discipline your child; there is hope; don’t bear him to death because of your emotions.” I’m asking God to how me how he has disciplined me in my life, and how that has been a sign of his delight in me. I like that image of discipline as a gift: as a meal I serve cheerfully at the table of my kids’ lives (I read that once; it sounded so ridiculous it stuck in my mind), not something I do because I’m dumping my issues on them or bearing them a grudge. I’m trying to remember, this is important, more important than anything else I have going on. It is not an interruption or an inconvenience; it is the main thing.

I’m reading through a book by Farrel called “The 10 Best Decisions Every Parent Can Make” that says, “the more strong-willed the child is, the more creative and layered your discipline will need to be” (eg word pictures, stories, separation, humor). So a practical thing I’m trying is to stay consistent about crossing lines, but otherwise being flexible—maybe diffuse a situation early on with humor, use stories to teach things (Deut 6:4-7) when he’s not in a rage, call out positive behavior. We’ll see how it goes.

Get Me Off The Ship

I am full-force into the nausea of the first trimester, and here is what it feels like: have you ever been seasick on a ship? Dave and I took a boat out to snorkel in Molokini Crater during our honeymoon, and I remember seeing a young couple huddled at the back of the boat. The girl was obviously seasick; the guy had his arm around her hunched back, and she barely moved the whole trip. They didn't eat the buffet spread, or swim with the fishes, or probably register the gorgeous views.

I feel like I'm that girl. The nausea is not bad enough to make me actually puke ever, but it never really goes away, so I go through each day mentally hunched over, in a mild daze. Unpredictable things make it worse: the feeling of air blowing across any part of my body. Dave moving the bed at night. The smell of the kids' hair after a bath. The artificial-sweetener aftertaste of a soda. The sound of a burp. Having to talk louder than a faint whisper ("WHAT?" everyone is always saying).

It's hard to really focus on much, between the nausea and the fatigue. I feel like most of the world just passes me by: I know the sink is accumulating hairs, but I can't be bothered enough to swipe them away. I look dumbly at the sticky spots on the floor and the stray Lego wedged behind the couch. It feels like a Herculanean effort to get up and do the most basic things: look at food long enough to pack myself a lunch. Actually help poor Dave with childcare.

The problem is, I still look normal from the outside. I'm still my old size (and unfortunately, too sick to really enjoy it while it lasts). And I'm realizing what most people with chronic illness probably realize: after a while, no one really wants to hear about your pain. No one really understands it. When "how are you feeling?" is met with the same "bad" or variation thereof every time, even you get tired of hearing about yourself.

I also struggle with questions that most people with chronic illness probably do: why is this happening? what does feeling nauseous have to do with growing new life? I know, the progesterone or whatever-- but why does it have to relate? And I have the benefit of knowing this sickness is both temporary and towards a good end, which many don't.

Maybe God is teaching me empathy for my patients who suffer from chronic discomfort. Maybe he is showing me the people in my life who love and support me unconditionally. Maybe he wants to challenge me to some new level of selflessness. Maybe he just wants me to be willing to dwell in an uncomfortable place and trust in his sovereignty.

But mostly, I just want to get off the ship. I want to press the fast-forward button for the next four to eight weeks. I want to wake up in a world where I'm not nauseous anymore and I actually have interest in things again.

(written September 30, 2014)