The other day our little boy had his first trial run at Montessori with me in tow to encourage him. He picked out a doll from a selection in a cart in the middle of the toy-filled room, dressed her in some snazzy going-out gear, waved his fellow toddlers goodbye and promptly tried to leave with her. As far as he was concerned, that morning he didn’t attend Montessori. He went to the “baby shop”, as he called it. The following weekend, in case he hadn’t made his feelings clear enough, he pointed to our neighbour’s child in their buggy. “Mom, baby!” he said, turning to jab his finger in the direction of our house.
There are lots of questions you wrestle with as a couple doing IVF. But one thing you never think of – or at least I didn’t during that tough period – was how it might feel to have a baby, and then wake up one day to discover that your baby, now a sturdy, funny and determined toddler, thinks that you having a second child would be a great idea. I met my now husband just weeks before my 40th birthday. Everything we have been given since then has felt like a gift. I didn’t necessarily expect to become a mother – I’d never spent much time thinking about having children before meeting my husband – but once it happened, it was life-changing. I miss aspects of my old life – the freedom to casually choose to go to a gig, read a book or travel chief among them – but as a friend said, “There will be time for all of that again”, and they’re right.
I am 100 per cent in my mom era and most of the time absolutely loving it. So it’s been a surprise – and not of the good kind – to find that even when you think you’ve won, there are still losses on the way. An only child is a lonely child? I’d never heard that expression before having our baby. But it rings in my head now: the fear of what it means for him that he will be denied a sibling. Even though we’re sure about our decision not to try again, with age as a determining factor, it remains a complex choice and a hard one. I’m one of five children, and I grew up taking the idea of having tons of siblings for granted.
I know we’re part of a trend. People are having children later and they are faced with more stressors than before: high mortgages or rents, the question of how to care for ageing parents, and far greater job insecurity. Small wonder that from being a rarity a generation ago, we one-child families are becoming a practical answer to the impossible question of how to live well in these times. And besides, we’re lucky. We have the benefit of a large extended family, and for all that our little fellow might miss having a sibling, he has undivided attention from his parents (and by undivided I mean we’re ridiculous), more possibilities financially and the space to develop at his own pace, without the potentially controlling effect of siblings.
[ Brianna Parkins: Growing up without siblings, I knew I was on to a good thingOpens in new window ]
Our little boy also happens to live on a street in Dublin where the sense of community is enormous. Already he has friends – aged from a sparky two right up to a wise old 11 – knocking on the door every evening to ask if he can come out to play. Looking for me at 6pm? I’m often to be found marshalling a colourful squad of pint-sized balance bikers on the avenue in our cul-de-sac. I’m surprised by how much it reminds me of how I grew up in the 1980s, where, in our small clearing of houses in the countryside outside Skibbereen in west Cork, we’d spend long summer days kicking a ball around, fashioning goalposts from jumpers, playing hopscotch, picking blackberries, cycling bikes and going on exciting adventures, daring each other to climb up trees and jump from walls, and coming in at the end of the day sweaty and happy and thoroughly spent.
At our neighbourhood street party in Dublin recently, flower decorations were wound around the trees, there were trestle tables heaped with platters of salad and cream cakes supplied by the neighbours, there was giant Jenga for the kids, a petting zoo and a bagpipes-led parade. There was an egg-and-spoon race, street bowling, a barbecue, a dog show and competition (all charges of favouritism hotly disputed) and a tug-of-war between odd and evenly-numbered houses. There was no kid there who didn’t have a smile on their face at the end of the day. For the adults, a singsong went on well into the night.
[ Why we need to bring back ‘risky play’ for childrenOpens in new window ]
John McGahern has a line in one of his books, that happiness is best recognised in retrospect. That may be true. But it’s also worth trying to recognise happiness in the present moment. There are many ways to find ties that bind.
Sarah Moss returns next week
