Parenting Without a Manual
with Karen Murphy
I'm Karen, the poster child for the concept that there's no one right way to be a parent. I went from stay-at-home attachment-parenting mom of four to being the non-custodial parent, working as a professional writer and channel-psychic. Let's talk about throwing away the parenting manual and exploding the myths and mystique of motherhood!
Check out Karen's Work It, Mom! profile and read her blog, Juxtapositioning.
Maybe this is an unfair question. After all, we all love our kids. I’m not questioning that. But what if you could turn back the hands of time for a do-over. Would you still have kids? And if you would, is there anything else you would change?
I have regrets. Things I wish I did differently. Smarter. With more forethought. It’s the old “knowing what I know now” thing. Let me explain:
I have four children. My oldest was born when I was but 20. I was married only a few months before I got this weird urge to have a baby. I mean, it consumed me. Little things moved me to tears, like the sight of Woman’s Day magazine in the grocery store checkout. You know the episode of “I Love Lucy” where a tearful Lucy sits in the audience at Ricky’s club one night and he’s singing to her and she’s nodding, smiling that special we’re-going-to-have-a-baby smile, when he suddenly makes the connection mid-song and realizes she’s telling him they’re expecting? Yeah, that episode (I know it’s weird that I know it so well). Well, it made me bawl. And I thought that was a sign. So I went from never wanting to have children, EVER (at 16), to just a few years later NEEDING A BABY RIGHT NOW NOM NOM.
Having my daughter then created a dynamic that would have been different had I waited. Do I wish I never had her? Of course not. She’s a beautiful woman. We had great years and some awful ones. She’s my kid, and that will never change. But I do wish some things had been different for her.
And I wish some things had been different for me. 20 is awfully young to be reading mommy magazines and thinking about the eventual gray hairs. There are things I could have done, would have done. that I didn’t. It’s possible my whole life would have been vastly different had I made a different choice. And her life would have been different too.
So that’s my question. It’s Mother’s Day, which is a time to reflect on what being a mother really means. If I could go back I would do some things differently. I adore each of my kids and can’t imagine them not being in the world, but … in the perfect world some things would have been different. Here’s my short list:
- start later. I went over this. 20 was too early for me. More living first, please!
- work outside the home. I stayed at home for 12 years. Now I wish I had stayed at work (the grass is always greener!).
- get more help. From anyone. Husband, babysitters, whatever. This thing of thinking you have to do it all is for the birds.
- be less anal. Self-explanatory.
- have fewer kids. Like I know which ones to cut? Hardly. Maybe I should have been twins so I could still have them all. But 4 was more than I could do well all at once. Some have the touch; I don’t.
What about you? What would you change?
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First of all, I would have planned with my husband, financially, to be a stay home mom. Staying home never crossed my mind until after I had my daughter. Then the panic attacks at work began…. I wish we would have planned financially to at least have that option.
Second, I would not have agreed to wait until our first was in elementary to have another child. Now that she is 4, and won’t be going to public school until 2010, my husband has had time to decide he doesn’t really want another child because of the expense. And now the economy is tanking. So its going to be twice as hard to convince him next year that we should try for #2. And I REALLY want another child. I’ve been baby craving for at least a year now. : - )
Erica | May 6th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I would have started younger had I known I’d be adopting (while single) instead of giving birth.
I wonder why there have been so many articles on this site about second-guessing whether our kids (or potential kids) should have been born. I’m not picking on this immediate article, but it almost seems like a trend on this site. Strikes me as odd.
SKL | May 6th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I would have definitely had my kids, but I would have had them sooner, and closer together. I also would have planned ahead of time to stay home with my kids, at least until they were in kindergarten. I am torn now because my income is desperately needed to keep our household going, and I don’t have a choice except to work. I like working, but part of me wants to be there to watch every new developmental milestone happen for both of my kids.
d_smom | May 7th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Yes I would have done it all the same. Would have loved to have an easier life..but would never think of doing anything different and not having the same children. I’d keep them all…even the one that does not keep in touch. The only part I’d want different is that I’d want to live closer to my Mother and spent more time with her while she was here. I will always miss the time we did not have.
Eileen | May 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I’m so happy to say I wouldn’t change a thing. My girls are 2 and 4, I’m home with them full-time with no nearby family, and it’s TOUGH, but I didn’t have my first until I was 33–she was hard-won, after a bout with infertility that mysteriously disappeared with baby #2–and getting 2 daughters, close in age, was (is) a dream come true. I wish some things had BEEN different (first delivery was medically traumatic and the postpartum period with that firstborn was a blur of pain, physical recovery, complications, and colic), but I don’t wish I had done anything differently. I have said to my childless friends, who can’t even fathom the challenges of sleep deficit and tantrum-enduring and all the rest that I go through during these early baby years and often shake their heads at me in bemusement that anyone would choose such a life, that despite all this I would never in a million years go back to being childless.
Shannon | May 7th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
What a great question. I’ve looked back on my college years, the early post-college years, and other times in my life and thought “How would my life be different if I had/hadn’t done that?”
Hind sight being 20/20 really makes you think about missed opportunities and, in my case, I always question decisions I’ve made. Reguarding my kids… I really wish that I had fostered more independence in my daughter. I love that she wants and needs me, but I she can’t go to sleep away camp or visit her grandparents for more than a few days.
As for my son, I wish I’d disciplined him more. I let him get away with a lot as a little guy and now it’s hard to get him to follow through with chores.
Tamera | May 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
My twins turn 3 this summer. I just turned 39. I’m glad I have twins, glad they are both girls, glad I waited. Only not glad that my husband and I argued over it for 10 years and then had infertility issues for 3.
spacegeek | May 7th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I would have done the same, I think, except maybe traveled a bit more before having my sons. And, if I could have chosen, I would have had twins and not gone through the whole pregnancy bit twice.
And I would have had them in Canada, not Guatemala, where I could have had an epidural. However, not have them? Never. They drive me insane, kill the concept of sleep and are both at the defiant stage (they are very close in age), but at the same time, they are the best things that have ever happened to me and I live for their sweet kisses and watching them discover the world.
Genesis | May 7th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I, too, would go back and make different financial decisions that would have allowed me to stay at home with my daughter for a year or two before returning to work. I would have been far, far more conservative in my spending and debt-accrual. Hindsight is 20/20, and we all have mistakes from our 20’s that we regret and have to pay for. With our current plan we’ll be out of debt (except for mortgage and student loans) five years from now, thank God.
I also would have asked for more help when my daughter was an infant. That first year was BRUTAL.
I’m actually kind of glad we had infertility problems and it took us almost 5 years to conceive. We weren’t ready in our early 20’s. By almost 30-years-old, we were much more mature and stable in our relationship. I only wish now that we could have another one, but that may not be possible…
Robyn | May 8th, 2009 at 8:55 am
For me, its the other way around! Between my husband and I, it was me, who was not ready for a kid at 26! No ways, we’d been married for over a year and knew each other way before that!
But kids, was out of my mind. I stil remember we were discussing it, and one snowy morning while my husband slept… i looked out the window and saw a little girl making snow angels with the dad watching! and it struck me, why not! We are happily married, well settled in our careers and have enjoyed our single, dating, and working years. I may still be young, but it would be nice to be still running around the park without my knees going weak!
Then there was no looking back, and i am blessed with a 15 month old daughter!
What i would differently, probably have a kid sooner that we decided to have one! Its amazing to actually feel young, and be a mother at the same time!
GNSD | May 8th, 2009 at 11:05 am
knowing what you know now, would you still have kids?
in. a. heartbeat.
gretchen | May 9th, 2009 at 6:32 pm