Pitfalls Of A Big Family

I have this theory that when it comes to the optimal number of kids, it’s a balance between your ability to give each child the individual attention and care they deserve, and the benefit of greater community. You have too few kids, and they miss out on the camaraderie, love, and learning to sacrifice that the unique personality of each sibling—and the unique combinations of each of those personalities—provides. But have too many kids, and some of their needs can slip by under the radar since you’re too tired or taxed to notice. It’s just impossible to give each one the same degree of attention when you have many.

We’re at a stage in life—four kids six and under—where the group effect is particularly pronounced. It’s easy to fall into something author Rachel Jankovic (who had five kids in five years) calls the “bulk effect.” She gives a great example of this in her book Loving The Little Years: Motherhood In The Trenches:

“Let’s say that you are trying to get ready for church, and one child is disobedient (something petty, like not putting on their shoes when you told them to). They wandered off and got distracted and loitered in the living room for a minute. In that minute the baby starts crying, you see the clock and realize that you are going to be late, you can’t find the wet wipes or the baby’s shoe, which you know you put on the table last night. The baby is still screaming, so you are trying to rock the car seat with your foot while doing the hair of your middle child who will not stop bouncing. You are shouting out to your husband to see if he knows what happened to the baby shoe, probably punctuated with ‘Sit still. Stop. Don’t wiggle.’ As it turns out, your husband is out looking for someone’s lost shoe in the car where they are prone to remove them, so you get no response. You begin to have evil thoughts about shoes. The tension is mounting. You may very well be feeling hot and sweaty while your coffee is getting cold on the counter, untouched. At this moment, the child who didn’t put his shoes on comes wandering back, refreshed with a nice spell of magna-doodling. What do you think happens?

“You take that shred of guilt and then harness onto it the stress of the whole situation. You make your child into a scapegoat… He did, after all, disobey… the consequences for his sin go way up, and the consequences for yours go way down. It is simply a classic shifting of the blame. … Oftentimes you won’t even discipline the sin that did occur, because you are wanting to leave this situation with the feeling that you were full of grace toward that child who maliciously magna-doodled. Next time, you say, you will get spankings. This time, you will just have to bear the weight of my discontent, my anger, and my lack of self-control.

"If you took the actions of each individual child, nothing big happened. One kid took her shoes off last night in the car. One kid keeps bouncing when you are trying to fix her hair, one kid had a dirty diaper, and one kid magna-doodled instead of putting on his shoes, and the baby just wants some attention… The combined effect is certainly ripe, especially when you add in the things that Mom and Dad were responsible for. The time. The lost clothing that could have been found last night. Not noticing the distracted disobedience right away. Not getting up early enough to drink your coffee.

“The situation is not sin. It is merely the combined effect of a lot of people. And just because you can pin down one sin in the batch does not mean that child is responsible for the situation. Your children are not a situation. They are individuals. Disciplining an individual for a collective situation is a great way to alienate your children. It is not only unjust and unkind, but it is untrue to the gospel. Christ takes our sins; He does not load us down with someone else’s.”

The bulk effect is when I let my reaction to the overall situation unduly affect my reaction to one child; when I functionally make them responsible for the behavior of the group. There’s a difference between asking Elijah to be quiet because Esme is still sleeping, and becoming mad at him because she woke up. There’s a difference between reminding Eric to let Elijah pour his own cereal because he’s two and wants to feel grown-up, and snapping at Eric because he triggered Elijah’s third tantrum of the hour. There’s a difference between reminding them they’ll have to deal with certain grocery-cart arrangements, and getting upset at them for making a grocery run so complicated—it’s not their fault there are so many of them. When having a lot of kids becomes a problem, it’s my responsibility to deal with it.

The other pitfall for big families is mistaking our ability to contain and organize them for actually addressing their hearts and seeing their needs.

Big families naturally require a lot of organization—keeping them clean, clothed, and fed is a major operation. It’s practically consuming in and of itself. I think our lives are doable because we’ve gotten pretty good at running the ship, but we have to remember that, as Jankovic puts it, “Christian childrearing is a pastoral pursuit, not an organizational challenge. The more children you have, the more you need to be pastorally minded.”

This means a lot of things. It means being willing to let the operation be interrupted if there’s an emotional need. It means seeing my kids: observing shifts in mood, the faint door-slam, the persistent grumpiness, and taking time out to get to the root of it. It means spending time alone with each child without an agenda. Since I have limited energy and resources, it might mean putting aside my career or ministry in some way so I don’t miss out on being able to know and address their hearts and minds.

Part-Time Surgeon

I say often that I’m lucky to be able to work part-time, but what I don’t often mention is that it’s also harder to be good at what you do when you work part-time. Any part-timer has less experience than someone working full-time, but this is painfully true when it comes to operating, where volume matters. The more cases you do, the more skill and confidence you build. I suppose one could be high-volume but still a poor surgeon, but no matter how naturally gifted one is, it’s hard to rise to the skill level of those with drastically greater volume. I do in one month one-third of the cases that my full-time colleagues do in one week. I know I could be someone churning out thirty cataract surgeries a day, but there is simply no way to do that if I only work two days a week.

And it’s more than the volume. It’s the fact that I’m less available outside of the OR to follow-up on perioperative issues. I have less time or space to innovate or teach. I have less interaction with colleagues to debrief scenarios. And operating can be stressful: if I’m not on top of my game, someone is blinded (I suppose there are no part-time neurosurgeons or cardiothoracic surgeons for a reason).

And personally, it’s a hard thing to know I’m not the best at what I do: I’ve worked towards that my whole career. I found my niche, my passion, and exceled: if I wasn’t always the smartest, I was a quick learner who worked hard; I was naturally good with my hands and an effective teacher. But now, the most remarkable thing I can say about my operating is that I do it at all. I do find my work meaningful, and I know I still offer a lot, but I’m in some ways no longer the best, and it takes only the occasional complication to remind me of that.

Dave said once to me, “you have to really be humble.” And that’s true. Maybe this season is about learning to walk in humility with cheerful grace: admitting without shame when I need help, accepting unexpected outcomes as learning opportunities, counseling patients with thoughtful foresight rather than brash brevity. Reacting to judgment from colleagues with openness and a willingness to learn rather than defensiveness.

Learning how to walk in this place, though, without beating myself up or losing heart, is tough. I used to stay up all night replaying surgeries I did if they hadn’t gone perfectly, second-guessing every step, worrying since I wouldn’t be around to follow-up the next day. The loneliness, the not knowing any other part-time surgeons, was hard. This, more than anything, is what it means to me that I can’t have it all. I feel a deep, nearly inexplicable conviction that I should be home with the kids as much as I am, but this walking in career-humility is what it takes.

I see myself growing in it, though. I’m getting better at learning without beating myself up; I’m becoming less concerned with reputation; and through it all I do see the gift of being able to do what I do. As paltry as it may seem to full-timers, it is a privilege to be able to speak into and change the lives of the patients I have, to be in a world outside of the home where I can exercise different gifts, and I don’t take that for granted, however much I’ve had to give up.

Nostalgia and Newsletters

I was reading through some old blog posts today, which I don’t do very often. Unlike Dave, I’m not a very nostalgic person. But I liked reading these posts (Sovereign Mysteries, Isolation and Intimacy, Guts and Glory). Goodness, I was so meditative back then. I wanted to write like Annie Dillard, or Annie Proulx.

And my life was so much about medicine. I skimmed through a copy of Wilmer’s latest newsletter lately, instead of ditching it straight into the recycling as usual, and it was like looking at a strange alternative version of how my life could (should) have ended up. They had bios of new hires, and mine would have trumped every single one there, except it would have stopped after residency, just ended like an awkward amputation. Instead of she is an associate professor of comprehensive ophthalmology at [insert elite academic institution here] whose research is making advances in the cure of [insert obscure eye disease here] under the funding of [insert major grant here] and the efforts of generous donors, it would read she works two days a week at a small rural clinic providing general eye care. Being honest, it would read she is now an expert on the best cleaning appliances, worthwhile children’s books, and quick-and-healthy family meal recipes. It would practically have switched to another genre, another channel. From full-scholarship Harvard to—what? This isn’t what I paid for!

Inexplicably, to Dave’s consternation and sometimes my own surprise, I have no misgivings about where I am. This is the channel I want to be on. It’s just odd sometimes to take myself back, to before. A little jarring. I guess the appropriate back-story of my current narrative would have been taking home-ec in high school and going to a local college and medical school, but that wouldn’t have been me (an understatement; I wouldn’t have been caught dead doing that at the time). And yet, here I am, local again, at a place where people who see me with the kids assume I’m a home-schooling Christian who has never worked, where I have to say “eye doctor” instead of “ophthalmologist” (you mean, like glasses?), and where no one knows how to pronounce Esme (which I joke correlates with level of education and/or literary knowledge).

Yet, like I say, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. I look at my former colleagues chasing after the next thing, hardly seeing their kids, and I look at people here who so thoughtfully live out their lives with principle, and I wonder how much that newsletter-stuff matters in the end anyway. In many ways, personally and relationally and practically, I’ve gotten to the heart of being Christ-like more now than I had in all the earlier glitz and glory.

But sometimes it does get lonely. I miss having friends and colleagues who push me intellectually, though I think if I did, they wouldn’t understand the decisions I’ve made in my career. I’m grateful for godly mom friends here, but while they can suggest a fun place to take the kids, they can’t empathize with the stress of difficult surgical outcomes or a challenging patient in clinic.

I wonder if my narrative will change again some day. I wonder how much of myself will have changed by then, or whether I’ll mostly still be the same (probably both). I look back on how easily I articulated why I loved medicine, and remind myself to do the same now about being with the kids. Articulate to myself, and them, what I enjoy and what they make me think about. And I should probably keep ditching most of those newletters.

Raising Kind Kids

“After all, when’s the last time you saw a bumper sticker that said PROUD PARENT OF A KIND KID?” – Michele Borba, TIME magazine article “Why Kids Need More Empathy”

If you had to pick whether your kid would be the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most athletic, or the most kind, what would you choose? I remember talking about this with Dave once during a car trip around the time we were having our first kid. I was tempted to pick most beautiful. I think I ended up picking most intelligent.

Dave didn’t think twice about picking most kind. This wasn’t a hypothetical for him; he genuinely would feel most proud of our kids if they turned out to be kind people, more proud than if they were smart, or pretty, or athletic.

This is somewhat countercultural. Just consider the selfie, which didn’t exist back when I was a kid. Our one year-old knows about selfies. Studies have shown that we are an increasingly self-absorbed culture (one rated narcissism as occurring 58% more often among college students as compared with three decades ago). And this seeps into our parenting: we arrange our lives around our kids, monitor whether everything around them is for their best, praise them constantly whether they actually do well or not. In one study, 80% of youth said their parents cared more about their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others.

At the same time, there seems to be an increasing number of articles out there about how important it is to raise kids who are kind. An article in the current issue of TIME highlights empathy as the trait most important in determining happiness and success. David Brooks discusses the “eulogy virtues” as opposed to the “resume virtues.” A NYT article titled “Raising The Moral Child” suggests instilling kindness in children by praising character over action. A blogger I read discussed how she never publicly brags about her kids except when they do something kind.

The more I think about it, the more I buy that Dave is right. It’s certainly biblical. And interestingly, it’s the one thing that I face teaching the earliest as a parent. I don’t really have to face teaching our kids to score the most goals or be first in their class or do their makeup right: I struggle every day, from the time they are infants onwards, to teach them to be kind. To share, to clean up after themselves, to be generous, to speak edifying words, to choose not to escalate a fight. To identify, process, and deal with their emotions in an undestructive fashion. To guard their noise level in consideration of a sleeping sibling.

How does one raise kind kids? On one hand, we are all born with a sinful nature, and the Bible is clear that we need Christ to redeem us, and the help of the Holy Spirit living in us to transform us to live the way we should. It’s not in my kids’ natures to be kind, and ultimately they can’t do it without Christ. So I continue to pray that they come into and one day be inwardly transformed by a saving knowledge of Christ.

On the other hand, kindness can be taught to some degree. Certainly, when we prioritize and model kindness as parents, it comes through to our kids. When I drop Ellie and Eric off for school each morning, I say “be kind to someone today!” When I see them doing something that involves putting aside their own preferences for someone else, I comment on it. We discuss kindness if we read about it in a book or story; we try to practice gratitude. We do projects together that involve giving gifts or thinking of how we can help someone else. When they kids get in fights, I try to help them understand how to think about what the other person may be feeling, both in the immediate setting but also more deeply in the context of their development as a person. Some day it would be great to take the kids on a missions trip or at least travel enough to broaden their ideas of others.

I guess that’s one good thing about having a lot of kids: they’re always having to think about others. This morning Elijah ran down the stairs screaming because Eric had “left him behind,” which woke Esme up, and I got him by the shoulders and asked him to consider how his noise had disturbed her. I got to thinking how Esme will never have to worry about waking a sleeping baby, whereas Elijah has had to be aware so often of that. Even Esme’s experience now as a baby is so different than Ellie’s just because she has three siblings instead of none.

Still, it’s good to be intentional about it, and to know we are doing something important in those days when it all seems like an uphill battle. Ellie got her first love note the other day. The boy wrote, “Ellie you are so sweet and kind to me that is why I am giving this to you.” I couldn’t be prouder.

Terrible Two's

I remember when someone first mentioned the terrible two’s, I was like, what? Ellie was at the time just turning two and still easy-going. They say there are two golden periods for kids: a year (sleeping through the night generally) until eighteen months (before the terrible two’s), and six years (post-terrible two’s, which really should be terrible three’s and sometimes four’s) until nine years (pre-puberty).

Well, Ellie’s first golden period lasted longer than usual. When the terrible two’s hit eventually, I was like, oh, I see. When they hit with Eric, I was like OH I SEE. Elijah’s in the thick of it now—he’s two-and-a-half—and I’m reminded again what it’s all about.

In a way, it’s sort of comical. The terrible two’s are saying no to literally everything (“no! don’t want to!”). It’s wanting to climb into the van and get buckled on his own (“ja-ja do it!”) even though he can’t actually do it and takes forever trying (“come on, Elijah!” the others are always saying. “Ja-ja slow,” he replies). It’s always having a vocal preference (“want that one!” “don’t have poop!”). It’s getting overly emotional over minor perturbances (“shirt wet!” “blankie not right!”). It’s displaying touchy possessiveness (“mine!” “got it first!”) and being sensitive to exclusion (“wait for me!”). It’s tending towards exclamation points or wails, towards demand or distress.

At heart, I think it’s him desiring independence, but not being able to actualize that most of the time, leading to a need for verbal assertion and frequent frustration. I think of this time as a little preview of the teen years. It’s saying a last goodbye to the spirit of infancy: I’m glad at least that he still has slightly chubby thighs and a protuberant tummy. It’s the emergency of a new self, and in that sense a window into all the things we basically desire as a person: having a sense of achievement and purpose, feeling included and special. Just, you know, in super-unfiltered fashion. That’s how kids are, though. Unfiltered little pieces of humanity, running around in all their loud-talking, messily exuberant glory.

That’s what I’ve got, four little pieces of glory running around here this week while Dave’s gone. If I see things that way, can see the strange sort of irony in a still-infant-like boy making loud demands, it helps traverse these stages of transition with humor and equanimity. And that certainly helps a lot.

Of Medicine and Motherhood

Raising young children is like the residency of parenthood. I was reminiscing on my medical training experience, only to realize it’s not all unlike what I’m experiencing now. The similarities are intriguingly numerous once you think about it: the chronic sleep deprivation that comes from being awake at all hours of the night and trying to catch up on sleep at all hours of the day. The heart-sinking feeling when you get paged just after dozing off in the call room, not unlike the feeling when the baby starts crying right after you’ve settled into bed.

The unpredictability of your schedule: getting an admission just before your shift ends that wrecks dinner plans; the inevitable blow-out diaper or tantrum just before we’re ready to leave the house. The resultant difficulty of finding deep community, of trying to get to know people or attend events whilst navigating call schedules or bedtimes or being quarantined inside with sick kids. The temporally consuming nature of both, to the exclusion of all else if you’re not careful.

The wacky diets: coffee and granola bars and pilfered graham crackers and peanut butter in residency. Now it’s peas, packets of squeezable apple sauce, goldfish, string cheese. Not eating out much and sometimes not eating in much either—finishing the kids’ leftovers while standing over the sink is routine—which is perhaps why I keep losing weight.

Even the dress and accessorizing: gone are dry clean-only items, smart little purses, heels and makeup. In residency it was scrubs and clogs and white coats that accumulated patient notes, extra scripts, lenses and drops. Now it’s jeans and pajamas and diaper bags that accumulate extra socks and chew toys. Both reflecting the unending grunt work: paperwork and dressing changes and bedside consults as a resident; now, diapering and feeding and outfit changes (whoever invented onesies with buttons has obviously never tried to button up a squirming infant). In both cases, dealing with bodily fluids.

And so, it’s like I moved from one residency to another. I was just finishing the last of my medical residency years when I embarked upon what would become four kids in six years. In a way, it feels like we never got a break. I sometimes daydream about what life would be like if we had nine-to-five jobs with no kids: the fantasies usually involve a perfectly-decorated abode, pets (either an Abyssinian cat or a great dane), cultivated hobbies like oil painting and world traveling, and, between my working full-time instead of part-time and having no diapers or college funds to pay for, a hecka lot more disposable income.

But of course, catching the break isn’t the point. The point isn’t imagined comfort but forged meaning. Clearly in these seasons there is risk of burn-out, isolation, and depleted relational margins. But perhaps because we are so pushed in meeting daily demands, we are more aware than usual of how we are doing, with God and with each other. The stressors expose our inner condition and relational status, and in coming together to live the residencies of life with purpose, we become stronger. There’s really no room for narcissism or torpitude in this world of compulsory daily service. It’s a transformative period, probably in ways that only time will tell.

Primary Parent

“Most two-career families sooner or later find that one person falls into the role of lead parent. To be sure, Anne-Marie was actively involved with our boys, taking responsibility for specific chunks of their lives… But none of this is lead parenting. Lead parenting is being on the front lines of everyday life.” – Andrew Moravcsik

The reality is, there is always a primary parent. Dave and I started off extremely equitably; there were long stretches in residency when he did nearly all of the childcare during my demanding rotations. I remember once, Ellie’s daycare closed due to a blizzard. I was in the OR about to scrub in on my next case. Dave was in the ICU about to place a central line. He called out and I kept working.

But over the past six years, I’ve slowly taken on more of the everyday childcare duties. I felt more strongly about being home for the kids, so the transition happened naturally. With the addition of each kid, I worked a little less, and the demands of parenting increased a little more. Simultaneously, Dave’s career has taken off, and like they say, success begets success. The grants and speaking requests and committee invitations multiplied, leading to greater travel. He started studying for a doctorate. He was gone more; I was home more.

So I’ve been learning more and more what it’s like to be the primary parent.

It’s hard. It’s much harder being at home in some ways than being at work. I mean, it’s hard to even talk about why. If I have a hard work day, I can say “there was this refractive error after surgery” or “this patient was upset about this”—a hard day at home would be something like “well I was nursing Esme and praying she would finally sleep since I needed to get dinner cooked and she was so grumpy I had to hold her all afternoon but Elijah and Eric were downstairs bickering again and Elijah started screeching so loud Esme was being distracted and I was thinking why can’t they stop fighting for one moment!”

So yes, it’s unpredictable, and isolating, and unlike Dave’s job, it never ends. I think there’s also a cultural double standard, that women should be the ones staying home with the kids. If I go out with four kids alone, people say almost apologetically, “you’ve got your hands full,” like “I feel so bad for you; how did you get yourself into this?” If Dave goes out alone with four kids, he gets all this “you’re so amazing! Look what a great person you are! They’re all so cute!” Sometimes the double standard makes it harder to feel appreciated, and rarely do I feel understood in the context of the toll it has taken in my career. People who see me with the kids just assume I don’t work or never worked.

The rewards of being the primary parent are simultaneously less tangible and more meaningful. I call it my “every diaper counts” theory of parenting. Every thing I do for them matters. It matters in living out who I am for them, in teaching them, in showing them I love them. Let’s face it: parenting young children involves mostly tasks you could pay anyone to do. I didn’t go to school for twelve years to pour milk and draw Darth Vader and wipe poop. But all of that matters, and these years when they are uninhibited in their openness and attachment won’t last forever, and I have to believe what I do now counts. Everything, the big and the small. Like they say, with kids, quality time doesn’t come without quantity of time.

If I could given myself advice, I would say: guard against resentment towards the non-primary parent. Don’t get upset if he can’t read your mind about how things are done at home; communicate better about parenting issues and daily details so you can be together in it as deeply and smoothly as possible. Remember to schedule regular time away from home for yourself. Remember to be in community with other primary parents. Remember the good moments and write about them.

Why Have Kids?

Wow, that’s a big question. And not one I actually thought about much before having kids. I just always wanted a big family; wasn’t much deeper than a gut feeling. My thoughts on this are in retrospect, though I think in some ways having kids gives you a deeper understanding of the reason for having them.

What our culture would say is: have kids because it makes you feel good, or look good, or gives you purpose, or saves your marriage, or lets you live out your dreams through them. Otherwise, they’re a major inconvenience.

What does the Bible say about this?

The first command God ever gave in the Bible is to have kids (Gen 1:28; later to Noah in Gen 9:7). It’s the sixth day of creation, God makes man, then the first four words he speaks to them are, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Other than that, I don’t think God overtly says anywhere else, “you must have kids!” And certainly not everyone in the Bible had kids. But I think it’s clear that somehow, having kids is part of God’s design for marriage, of God’s intent for us and how we are to reflect Him—the verse right before Gen 1:28 says we are created in his image. It’s not a leap to imagine how the fellowship God enjoys in the trinity, and relationship of God as father and son, are reflected in parenting.

Ultimately, the desire to have kids should come from an understanding of who God is, of his purpose and desire for us to reflect him in that way. And we should do this regarding children as a blessing (Psalm 127), a gift, not as a burden: our lives aren’t about us in the end, anyway. The moments of greatest beauty, joy, and transcendence come often in the most difficult times of laying aside ourselves, and parenting is one of the best examples of that. I mean, the cuteness is all great, but the real reward is my sanctification. No other situation in life calls for me to give of myself and put aside my own needs so completely or constantly.

I’m not saying everyone ought to have kids, and many can’t for good reason, but I think the point is to be submitted to God in your introspection. To examine your motives either way and ask yourself, God, is this glorifying to you, or are my motives selfish? Because if you don’t want kids for selfish reasons, you may be missing out on the greatest chance to live out Christ and become more like Christ you will ever have. And if you want kids for selfish reasons, that will all fall to pieces pretty soon once you actually have kids and realize how much you can’t do it on your own or for yourself.

If I had to describe what having kids is like, I’d say it’s like living in a broader realm of emotional and physical experience. The highs are higher; the lows are tougher. There is the altered travel and social lifestyle, the dealing with bodily emissions, the chores, the periods of savage exhaustion: but then there are the moments of heart-turning joy and sweetness. The look in their faces when you know they’ve understood something. The times you realize they are revealing something deep about yourself. Finding them dearer because you are caring for them, because of the lows. And there is no purer opportunity to share the gospel: to take these little beings, unfiltered in their sin and their wonder, and live out the gospel. That is a reward all on its own.

Honey For A Child's Heart

“Kids don’t stumble on good books by themselves. They read the titles they’re given.” –Gladys Hunt

I’ve been somewhat convicted that I should be more intentional about what our kids read. Because our kids do read. A lot. We go through upwards of thirty books from the library, as often as once a week. Ellie’s favorite thing to do is sit at the table with a snack and read through books non-stop: it’s a miraculous act of self-parenting. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when all the kids do that!

Ellie’s at the stage where Easy-To-Read books are too boring, but it takes a lot of concentration for her to make it through a regular chapter book; what she likes are chapter books with illustrations. E.B. White, Junie B. Jones (though my sister brought up there are some questionable behaviors in those books), Roald Dahl, and now she’s going through the Magic Treehouse books by Osbourne. Eric, in typical stubborn fashion, refuses to do any reading lessons with me; I’ve no idea how close he is to reading, but he certainly enjoys flipping through books as if he can. Still picture books, especially ones about pirates, dinosaurs, or star wars. Elijah is loving the Martin books illustrated by Eric Carle.

Lately when we go to the library, I haven’t been too active about picking out books for them; I’ll generally direct Ellie to where the books of a few prolific authors reside, and let her pick them out. In the picture book section, we head towards Bill Peet, Stephen Kellogg, Jan and Stan Berenstien, Jan Brett, Mercer Mayer, Max Lucado, London for Froggy books.

But we’ve ran out of new books to try, and I’ve gotten lax about what the kids check out. I’m always trying to talk Eric out of some violent graphic star wars spin-off novel. I’ve also gotten lax about actually sitting down to read to the kids: I was fanatical about doing that with Ellie, but I haven’t been nearly as conscientious with the others.

One BSF home lesson referenced Gladys Hunt’s book Honey for a Child’s Heart, which has a lot of book suggestions. I found a few websites that had lists distilled from that book, or other helpful lists in general:

Exodus Books

Classical Homeschooling resource

Various booklists someone assembled

I came up with a huge list of books and authors for various levels, which I printed out and stashed in the library bag. Tons of new authors and titles, which I’m just as excited to read as they hopefully will be. Read on!

An Ode To Breastfeeding

Today I was looking down at Esme while she nursed to sleep, nestled up against me with her chubby fist next to her mouth. I’m less than one month away from making it out to a year. For the first and last time. Never managed to make it out this far with the others.

I started thinking back on it all. I remember the sinking feeling I had after Ellie was born when I realized I could never leave her or a pump for more than three hours without serious discomfort. No one had told me about that. I remember how painful nursing through mastitis was, and the gymnastics of all the crazy holds so she could vary her latching position to prevent clogged ducts. I remember walking across the hospital to use a hospital-grade pump; eventually even that couldn’t contend with the work hours and stress and I gave it up by around four months.

Eric was memorable: scared of running out of milk, I pumped so much extra milk before going back to work that we couldn’t fit any more in our freezer. Then after I went back at three months, he refused to take the bottle, going on hunger strikes for days. My dad drove him in to the office every three hours and I’d run out to nurse him in the car. Pretty sure he screamed his lungs out the whole way there and back. I think we made it to about six months that way.

Elijah made it to about eight or ten months nursing: around then, he just lost interest. Started biting, and that was the end.

So this is something special Esme and I have going here. She’s just about the most compliant nurser I’ve ever had: always willing to nurse if I ask her to, which makes timing leaving for work much easier. Willing to patiently suck for a long time for a letdown, which helps with production. I’ve also been home most for her, which probably makes a difference.

And watching her, it’s easy to remember all the things I really love about nursing. The secret smiles they give with the nipple still in their mouth. The way their hands wave around like little birds, or reach up to rub my shirt or twirl a strand of my hair. The drunk little happy grins afterwards, the burps. It really is some kind of connection, some kind of miracle. I’ll be happy having more independence, but I think part of me will be sad too when it ends for good.

MGH and Oreos

Dave went to a conference in Baltimore this week where the keynote speaker was a guy from Massachusetts General Hospital. He came home and asked, “Do you miss your days at Man’s Greatest Hospital?” I laughed. I had forgotten we called it that. If there’s any hospital I’d consider my home hospital, it would be that one. I spent most of my third year of medical school there doing my medicine and surgery rotations, living and breathing medicine.

I remember leaning my forehead against the elevator wall on the medicine wards one time when I had finished a thirty-six hour shift. I remember stealing up to the VIP floors during quiet moments late at night on call, to grab the little Styrofoam cups of ice cream they kept there, and eating them in the dark waiting room while looking out at Boston through the glass walls. A nice break from peanut butter and graham crackers. I remember the underground labyrinth of operating rooms; the long lines at the coffee stand in the lobby. I remember looking out the window of the M2 shuttle as it passed Newbury Street on the way back to my dorm, feeling strangely detached from all the fashionably-dressed people shopping in the sunlight, living in my world of fluorescent lights, green scrubs, and Dansko clogs.

Dave informed me it’s the number one hospital in the nation. Great, I think. All that top-notch training, and here I am, sitting at this table cutting letters out for a school science project display, which is pretty much what I’ve been doing with my spare time this week while Dave was off having intellectual congress. Though I have to say—see below—they are pretty awesome letters. Ellie’s project is about Oreo cookies, so the font and colors are copied from the Oreo logo: sketched on white construction paper, cut out, pencil marks carefully erased, then glued on two layers of colored cardstock. I really love doing this stuff. (By the way, Wilmer is the only hospital facility I've worked at that stocks Oreo cookies. I ate so much of them my first year there I never could eat them again. Until this week when we did this project.)

Anyway, it’s all a bit strange to think about. Like one time when I was packing a diaper bag, and suddenly I flashed back to packing my on-call bag in residency. A fishing-tackle box full of drops, eye shields, and tonometer covers; my loops and lenses; a spare pair of vannas scissors and fine forceps. Now, the usual conglomeration of wipes, diapers, socks, snacks. Back then, I had to take a deep breath to not lose it at some idiot wanting to transfer an eye emergency in because they “couldn’t get a look at the eye” due to swelling or irritation. Try harder, I wanted to snap. You have fingers just like me. Now, I have to take a deep breath before giving Eric a time out for lying to my face and refusing to admit it, or dealing with Elijah refusing to sleep because he suddenly remembered his tiny white marble that he had to find before he could go to bed.

Dave also caught up with some old med school friends while he was out there. I’m by far an outlier in how little I’m working compared to my former colleagues. But hey, no regrets. I have faith none of that training was a waste—besides the fact that I’ll likely work more one day, I think it influenced and equipped me in many ways that come through to the kids. And, well, I’m glad I can be around to help Ellie with her project; that means a lot to me. Sometimes it's as simple as that.

My Beautiful Chaos

“Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” – mathematician Edward Lorenz, of chaos theory

I don’t think anything quite prepares you for the chaos that is everyday life with four little kids. I mean, as an FP who masqueraded as a TJ most of my life, I do a reasonable job keeping a routine and general daily expectations for the kids, but really there’s an unavoidable degree of disorder. There’s the usual, sort of baseline, chaos: putting someone’s shirt on while helping another find socks; flossing for one while squeezing toothpaste out for another. Answering one question while trying to listen to a very slow and convoluted description from someone else. The usual multi-tasking of chores while trying to be simultaneously aware of various emotional needs and verbal dialogues.

Then there’s the bigger derailments, like one person having a bad mood all day, or another not napping all day, or what happened this past week: one getting sick, followed by others getting sick, followed by my getting sick. It all can just turn on a pin, and go from routine to difficult, or from expected to unexpected, in an instant.

Part of me loves the chaos that comes with a big family. I’ve always loved big, bustling holidays and family reunions; the feeling that there are lots of people who love each other, together making lots of bustle and noise. Well, we definitely have that. We have holidays every single day around here. Can’t say I particularly like the chaos involved in the minivan-gymnastics of buckling in and unbuckling out four kids every time we go anywhere, or in having to clean tons of sippy cups and do laundry all the time. But the crazy, sometimes-loud loving and bustling: I love that.

Still, it can wear on you after a while. For one, it can be draining in an oddly lonely way. I mean, when Dave asks me how the day went, what do I even say? “Well, the house looks tidy and calm now but you have no idea how crazy it was five minutes ago.. I had this really sweet moment with Elijah.. then another moment when I almost lost it at him.. the baby didn’t nap the whole day.. I felt like I was holding her the whole day, though I guess I wasn’t literally holding her every minute.. the kids discovered a puddle to bike through outside and they loved that.. I don’t even remember the other stuff we did.. here, take the baby..” I mean, the other most chaotic time of my life was probably being on the wards in medical school, but even then you had a lot to show for it: a list of scut items checked off, admissions to present, workups to review. I think we have to recognize that the chaos of staying-at-home is a lot less acknowledged and understood.

I find moments of solitude and quiet when I can, but when the inevitable interruption comes (what? how can she be crying already? she was supposed to sleep for another hour!), I try to remind myself, it’s just part of life now, and this too shall pass, for better or worse. Sometimes, I try to tell myself I don’t have to get anything accomplished except for one thing: enjoy the kids. Enjoy the way they play, the way they think, the way they talk (“come w’you?” “I no fart! Emmy fart!”). The way Elijah’s butt sticks up in the air when he crawls into the minivan (a very slow process he insists on doing himself). The way their heads bounce up and down when they run. The way they are always running everywhere, like everything is an emergency. The way their cheeks and bellies and little limbs are so soft. The way Esme gets a double-chin when she grins. Their strange imaginations (the house is a lava lake! We must walk only on pillows or die!). That’s my life: trying to enjoy the beautiful chaos.

Raising A Sensitive Child

“… it is primarily parenting that decides whether the expression of sensitivity will be an advantage or a source of anxiety.” – Elain Aron, PhD

During breakfast this morning, Ellie spilled her milk while attempting to pour milk from her cup into her cereal bowl. I sighed in frustration, and asked her to be more careful as I was cleaning up. I noticed a while later that she wasn’t eating; she was sitting there pouting and tearing up. I asked her what was going on, but she refused to say anything. I got more and more frustrated at her silence and at one point snapped, “why do you have to be so sensitive?”

I apologized afterwards, but it made me think about what it means to parent a sensitive child. I’m not a sensitive person, and in fact, tend to have little patience with people who are overly emotional. A lot of this came to a head when I started teaching Ellie math and piano this year: we’d get a point where she’d make a mistake, but instead of discussing why or problem-solving, she’d just shut down. I’d keep gently asking, “what is this note? we just played the same one last measure” or “do you remember which column you add first?” and she’d just sit there, mute. It was hard for me not to get frustrated.

What I gradually realized is that while I am task-focused, Ellie is relationally-driven. While I tend to rebut when criticized, she becomes paralyzed. She is so sensitive to my disapproval that she is unable to move forward or function if she thinks she messed up, especially if she thinks I might be upset about it. I have to forget about the task until she feels relationally restored and emotionally stabilized.

I did some reading about sensitive children: typically they are wired to be very responsive to their environment, whether physically, emotionally, spiritually, or socially. They may be overwhelmed by too much stimuli or changes in the environment, are highly aware, may seem to overreact.

I don’t think Ellie fits all the criteria by far—she has no problems adapting to change; she doesn’t mind busy, stimulating environments—but I do think she’s sensitive in a few major ways. She is very tuned in to people’s moods. She can be overly empathetic, especially when she was younger—one time, she was so upset after seeing a polar bear eat a seal on a nature documentary that she kept crying and couldn’t sleep (there was also a phase where Eric would step on bugs and that devastated her). She is perhaps more easily distracted; sometimes it can take her a long time to finish a lesson at school. Finally, she is easily crushed by criticism, and can take anything negative very personally, even when I don’t mean it that way.

There are a few ways I can help parent a more sensitive child like Ellie better. First, I need to not respond in frustration, but see her sensitivity as a gift: it’s how she sees the world, and the sooner I accept and appreciate it, the sooner I can help her take advantage of the strengths it gives her: she has empathy that can turn into compassion. She naturally seeks to please which makes her responsive to gentle forms of discipline, not to mention naturally well-behaved at school. She is perceptive, which is a gift socially and spiritually. Sensitive people tend to be creative and imaginative, and she is certainly that! Her spontaneous drawings, brilliant imagination, and creative ideas are really wonderful.

Secondly, I need to remember that she needs, and really soaks up, positive affirmation. I need to be mindful of building up her self-confidence, both through positive comments and also applying the gospel so she deeply internalizes her worth in Christ. One study discussed in the Harvard Business Review found that the ideal praise-to-criticism ratio was 5.6 for the highest-performing teams—nearly six positive comments for every negative one. For Ellie, that ratio may be even higher.

Articles also mention things like aiding focus by providing a quiet environment, or partnering with her to achieve goals rather than applying harsh discipline—I think we already do most of that with her, but good to keep in mind.

Most importantly, when Ellie has an emotional response or is shutting down, I need in my heart to be completely and consistently accepting of how she is, because she can sense even small hints of disapproval or can be driven by fear based on my past responses. I need to remember that she may take something personally even when it doesn’t seem remotely offensive to me. I need to ask God to change my heart, and give me a spirit of compassion and insight. I need to listen and understand rather than judge or denigrate her feelings.

And as she opens up, I can teach her more about how to handle her emotions, how to react when people may seem harsh to her. And I can naturally build on the strengths her sensitivity brings, and learn from her when I’m not being as aware as she is of what’s going on with others.

Adjusting Expectations

I think what’s been sinking in the last few days is that expectation really is everything. I mean, I know this—disappointment is a function of unmet expectations—but knowing it and experiencing it are two different things. Over the past few weeks it’s come to light that I need to adjust my expectations, and the result is feeling freed to be grateful, to enjoy where I am, to basically made headway in dying to bad attitudes.

I’ve adjusted my expectations for what I expect from Dave: I don’t expect him to get back by a certain time from work. I know I will take care of the kids alone much more than he will. I will be involved in their schooling and lessons much more than him. I see that God created me to desire being home with the kids, that God gifted me with a flexible job (what kind of surgeon can work two half-days a week?), that God gave me a gift for teaching and creative arts. I see that Dave carries a lot of the responsibility of leading our family in the bigger picture, of taking care of the finances, of growing his career so he will have good job options. I can see and know all of this with joyful acceptance and not resentment, which makes a big difference.

And I adjust my expectations for the kids: I try to approach my agendas and time-tables for the day with considerable flexibility. I expect them to need some of my undistracted attention each day.

I adjust my expectations for myself: I can’t expect myself to function without eating or drinking, so I make more of an effort to actually cook and eat (definitely lost too much weight after this last pregnancy). Amazing how much that helps. I expect myself to need breaks and don’t feel guilty asking for them. I try to connect weekly with at least one friend.

All to say, when I’ve adjusted my expectations, I’m not as clouded by frustration. I can see and hear God more: I experience greater thankfulness and delight. I laugh a lot more. I can be present a lot more. It’s not thinking less of my circumstances or of people: it’s just thinking more appropriately about them in a way that frees me to think more for them, instead of being tangled up in my own grumpiness.

Being In The Moment With The Kids

I’ve been thinking lately how I need to make undistracted time to enjoy the kids, to be in the moment with them. It’s ironic, how I’m staying at home to do just that, yet either get so caught up doing other stuff I’m not really focusing on them, or get so taken over by tired grumpiness that I’m counting down the hours until naptime. I’m around them, but I’m not really with them.

My friend described this as “getting down on the ground” with her toddlers: stopping whatever she was doing, lying down on the ground and focusing her sole attention on them for a bit. That’s what I need to do: mentally stop myself from running down my to-do list, thinking ahead about what to make for dinner, analyzing the shortest route to put away the assortment of toys on the counter—and instead just be with my kids. When was the last time I took time to simply observe them? Asked them a question without any kind of agenda? Sat down beside them just to be present? Did something with them for no other purpose than having fun?

I mean, sure, I do some of that, but usually only if it can be fit in after I do all my other tasks. But as usual, the most important things aren’t the most urgent things. I think my kids sense when my attention is fully on them, and when I’m distracted. And with four of them around, I think each child senses when I’m focused only on them, or when I’m distracted by their siblings, and that “mommy has time just for me” feeling is important.

There are a few ways to make this kind of time. I think one is just to be attentive and open for unexpected opportunities of undistracted connection with each child—sometimes the best moments are the spontaneous ones. Or the ones that happen after discipline. This involves having a mindset of mindfulness, of being present and tuned in to your kids, so you can catch those moments when they arise. It involves not being so externally committed that you are unavailable or unaware.

Another way is to schedule these times in. Dave and I try to take each of the kids out alone for a date about once a month. We have the regular luxury of dropping off one or two of them with my parents to have more undivided attention for the others. We took Ellie on a trip by herself to D.C. before she started kindergarten, which would be a nice tradition to continue with the others. We make bedtime routines a priority. Other times for undistracted attention might be during dinner, a daily walk, or ten minutes set aside during the evening.

Sometimes I think: God has given me these children to delight in, and how much better would my days be if I did that, if I enjoyed the moment with them. These days won’t last forever.

One Step Ahead

One of the best pieces of parenting advice my mom has given me is: stay one step ahead of your kids. Stay ahead of them and they will have somewhere to follow (by implication: don’t, and they’ll hang out and bicker all day).

There’s some truth to that. I think I’m naturally inclined to do what strikes in the moment, or let the kids have free play, so it takes some planning to think ahead. Every Sunday, I try to sit down and update the dry-erase board with their weekly lesson plans. We do a few categories that are easy: catechism (I just use the next question on this new city catechism tool from Tim Keller), memory verse (I pick a song from the GT Halo series—memorizing to music is incredibly quick and effective), Chinese (pick a few new characters). Then math, science, history, art, and/or music: if I know what they’re learning at school in those categories, I teach those. Otherwise, I pick whatever topic strikes my fancy (this week: food groups and shapes; last week: history of Taiwan to go with the presidential elections). Typically this involves some online research and preparing some diagrams to put up on the wall or handouts to color. Lately I’ve gotten into looking up fun science experiments. It helps to check out related books from the library.

Generally, we try to do one lesson per night. Last fall, we were shuttling the older two to all kinds of outside lessons, but it just felt too busy; it was probably fine for Ellie, but Eric was clearly tiring out, and it split up the family too much. We decided to just stop everything for now and focus on teaching things at home. The range of ages is a challenge, but generally I teach to Ellie’s level and find the boys tag along fine, as long as I keep the activities varied.

Thinking ahead is good too in terms of stepping back occasionally and assessing how each child can grow in terms of their personality, character, and habits, and how to help build up their strengths and redirect or work through weaknesses.

Definitely takes some discipline, but it pays off: the kids have something to look forward to, or something to redirect them when they’re bickering from boredom. They’re like sponges; pretty much able to soak up whatever I teach them. And any forethought I’m able to give about their character growth equips me to make the most out of random conversations during the day.

Not Yelling At The Kids

I think I’m yelling too much at the kids, and it bothers me. When they don’t do what I ask them to do, I repeat myself to the point of getting frustrated and raising my voice, at which point they finally respond. This morning, I had to get all of them out of bed/crib, dressed, diapers changed, fed, teeth brushed, table cleared, dishes washed, hair tied, nursed, jacketed, shoed, buckled in, bags and lunches loaded, in thirty minutes. I did a lot of put those books away and eat! if you don’t finish in ten minutes you don’t eat! and what did I tell you about getting dressed? don’t just stand there!

Other common yelling scenarios include cleaning up after playing, starting lessons, not bickering, getting into the tub, getting out of the tub, getting into bed, getting out of bed, eating, sitting down in their chairs while eating…

I’m just challenged that any yelling or talking in frustration is bad. It teaches disrespectful communication. Some studies suggest verbal aggression is linked to issues with self-esteem, aggression, and depression (not sure how far to take that, but disturbing nonetheless). And it should be something I can decide not to do. Otherwise all I’m teaching them now is not to listen when I ask them to do something (by repeating myself with no effect), or that they only need to listen when I sound frustrated (since that is when they respond).

Here is what most articles have to say about getting your kids to listen to you:

1. Make sure you have your kids’ attention. At the very least, eye contact, and verbal affirmation from the kid that they heard you.

2. Say it once. Don’t repeat yourself.

3. If they don’t obey, explain your rationale.

4. If they still don’t obey, warn them about consequences (either natural consequences or discipline). Then be consistent about allowing/enforcing those consequences.

Some random thoughts I have about how to work on this issue for me:

- again, examine myself: how can I give myself more physical and emotional reserve to deal with this? For example: I obviously need to get up earlier in the mornings to give us more time to get ready. Perhaps I should be intentional about praying before the day starts.

- prepare the child for my expectations and explain rationale earlier, before the situation occurs. For example: explain the night before why they need to obey the next morning.

- get verbal affirmation: ask the kids to say “okay, mom” when they hear me. Keep in mind that kids’ peripheral attention may be worse than what I’d expect from an adult, especially if engaged in play. Don’t assume they are disobeying unless I’ve confirmed they did hear. Expect myself to be physically close enough to tap them on shoulder or squat down to their faces if I want full attention (don’t shout across room or stories).

- be open to natural consequences: eg, no time for a bigger breakfast if they lag at getting dressed.

Anyway, it’s clearly a spectrum. I don’t want to be giving them a time-out every time I have to repeat myself about anything, nor do I think I expect them to jump up and obey every little command—they’re kids, not soldiers. I guess what I want is an atmosphere of respectful communication—where they listen to what I say, and I listen if appropriate to their thoughts—and a habit of timely obedience—because they respect my authority and have faith in my love, just as we ought to obey God immediately, even when we may not want to or may not understand why. And I want not to yell, which is ultimately up to me. Still thinking this one through.

Parenting In The Interruptions

“But the reality is that if your eyes ever see, or your ears ever hear the sin, weakness, rebellion or failure of your children, it’s never an imposition. It’s never an interruption. It’s never a hassle. It’s always grace. God loves your children; he’s put them in a family of faith, and in relentless grace he will reveal their need to you again and again so that you can be his tool of awareness, conviction, repentance, faith and change. And because in these moments he asks you to forsake your agenda for his, this opportunity of grace isn’t just for your children, it's for you as well.” – Paul Tripp, Parenting: It’s Never An Interruption

Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: You know what you need at a crime scene?

Det. Shakima 'Kima' Greggs: Rubber gloves?

Bunk: Soft eyes.

Kima: Like I'm suppose to cry and shit?

Bunk: If you got soft eyes, you can see the whole thing. If you got hard eyes -- you staring at the same tree missing the forest.

Kima: Ah, zen shit.

Bunk: Soft eyes, grasshopper.

- Season 4, The Wire

Some of the hardest things for me to deal with in my day are the kids interrupting my plans. Dave and I are both task-focused people, and I value efficiency perhaps too much: from experience we allow for contingencies, but somehow the interruptions always happen. We’re late for school because Elijah refused to get into his car seat, then bucked like a bronco when I tried to forcibly buckle him in. Ellie gets to bring a toy into the car, so the other two insist on bringing toys too, then they all argue over what type and how many to bring. Eric and Elijah bicker so loudly that they wake Esme up, and now I have to hold her and can’t continue the lesson I was trying to do with Ellie.

When the interruptions happen, I always want to react a certain way: I’m angry they interrupted my plans. That they caused me extra work. That they embarrassed me in public. When I’m really tired, it seems like they’re doing this on purpose to make my life harder—why can’t they not bicker for one minute? why can’t they not knock over cups of milk I have to clean up?

Sometimes it’s just accepting that kids are kids, and will be messy and inefficient and all that. But my friend, who is a fan of The Wire, mentioned a phrase that’s always stuck with me: seeing the situation with “soft eyes”—seeing the issues behind the behavior. I can then address the root issue instead of snapping at the symptoms. And I can almost always find a way to bring in the gospel. And really, that’s more important than whatever I have planned—so in a sense, the interruptions are God catching my attention and saying hey! this is more important than the laundry!

Here are some questions I ask myself to try to see with soft eyes:

- Does this reflect an issue I have? My mom once gave me great advice: when you’re bothered by something from your kids, examine yourself first. Sometimes I’m grouchy and tired and that attitude leaks into the kids. Sometimes my own biases and insecurities influence how the kids act.

- Have I spent enough time with this child? With lots of kids, it’s easy to give some less attention without meaning to; plus I get too distracted doing chores to get on the ground and play with them. Sometimes just holding them, or taking them out for a date, is what they need.

- What is really the wrong here? It’s not just because it annoys me; how does it offend God? What weakness or sin was behind it? From there I can go into discipline, or focusing on the right way to behave.

- Is there any root cause behind the wrong that I’m missing? Sometimes a strategic change upstream can prevent the situation. Sometimes I can give the kids tools to help them prevent recurrences in the moment—for example, helping them identify and verbalize emotions can help prevent tantrums.

But the main thing is to not react in anger or disgust, but to see with gospel eyes that interruptions are opportunities. They are hard, they are frustrating, they nearly always come at a cost of something else getting done, but they are some of the most important chances I have to teach the kids. To demonstrate grace to them. And really, I see this in my life too. I’m sure my life would be a lot smoother if I would just obey God all the time—but it’s in the struggles, the derailings, the overcoming of my rebellion, that I experience his love, his grace, and respect his commands. I want that for my children too.

Joyful Submission

I confess that sometimes I struggle with thoughts like, how come I always take care of the kids alone more? How come I’m the one getting up in the middle of the night?

And they escalate: he’s never had to deal with this. He has no idea how hard it is.

Now, there are logical answers to these questions: I wanted to work less. I’m the one nursing. I have no regrets about working less and no grief about where my career is. We agreed together for him to pursue a doctorate; that and his job entail occasional travel and I support that. He’s there one hundred percent as a caregiver when he’s home. It doesn’t do any good for me to get grouchy before he leaves for trips, to get inwardly resentful while he’s gone.

I’ve been realizing that at heart, I have not been submitted to Dave, to unreservedly supporting his outward pursuits, and providing the unconditionally peaceful home that allows him to lead without fear. Well, okay, mostly and definitely outwardly, things are fine, but inwardly I haven’t always had that heart attitude. Ultimately, I have not been in submission to God. It isn’t an accident that I find myself in this situation. God surely has something for these kids, and surely something for me, and until I embrace that fully, without comparison or resentment, I am not being submitted to God. He hasn’t called me to tell Dave how to do his job, or look at how my former classmates or current colleagues are doing their jobs; he’s called me to do my job, and do it well, with the strength he provides.

Frankly, it’s tough. I mean, yeah, I worked pretty hard in the past, but it was always for myself, and any suffering was temporary. But now—trying to meet everyone’s needs while fatigued, dealing with the endless demands and bickering and occasionally discipline, cooking, cleaning, doing lessons, coordinating rides and naps—doing it alone for most of the day—it’s probably the toughest thing I’ve ever done.  There’s no way to pretend, no reliable break, and my true self comes out in a jiffy. It’s a spiritually raw situation: I either submit to God and live it out by his strength and wisdom, or I tank as my fatigue-induced irritability naturally overwhelms the situation.

Sometimes I think: how much of my life has really been lived out as Christ lived? Have I just said I would follow, thought about and studied it, or have I really put myself aside, given up what’s comfortable, been willing to suffer, been driven to witness? Well, if anything, this is probably the period of my life that looks most like how Christ lived. I am a witness to these kids. I am putting myself aside and trying to live out the gospel in service with joy and intentionality. God, I submit myself to you. Give me the strength I need.

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.