OK, I’m NOT Pregnant
April 2, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Filed under Parenting
Ok. I’m not pregnant. It was an April Fool’s Day joke. I’m sorry. Go ahead and throw that tomato, but truth be told, the whole post sort of shook me up a bit. Really.
Negative
I wrote that post from the perspective of actually being accidentally pregnant – as an actor would preparing for a role in a movie, I suppose. I tried to take on the thoughts and fears and excitement I would have felt. Those feelings were real. And for a moment – no, a while – I was actually a little disappointed not to be pregnant.
I had never questioned having an only child. My husband wanted another baby and I didn’t rule it out. But I never had the longing. And, sort of passively aggressively, I let time slip away until it became no longer plausible.
It does give me pause, at times, when my darling son asks if he can have a brother. (He wants an older one.) There are women who would give their life’s blood to carry a baby, yet each month I am preventing this well-working mechanism in my own body. Should I feel guilty for not giving my son a companion to share his 5-year-old dreams, a best friend for life? Am I selfish for wanting just one child?
According to OnlyChild.com, the percentage of women who have only one child has more than doubled in the past 20 years, making only-child families the fast growing families in this country. Figures recently released by the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s “statistics authority,” families with only one child now make up 46 percent of all families in Britain, a number that’s jumped four percent since last year. This only-child trend, affectionately coined “little emperors” by China which imposed a one-child family limit, has taken root in Britain, so say the experts, because of the need for mothers to work, the high cost of raising children, and the prevalence of family breakups and single parenthood.
Are my reasons as rational? Maybe not. Mine are more selfish. But it is a decision I made and, at this point, there’s no looking back.
Source: Daily Mail
Found this post while looking for the ones one parenting your parent. As an only child of a mom who lost two before me, went through a lot then in order to have me and then couldn’t have anymore, but of course not knowing any of this at 5, I still remember wanting a sibling then and my mom crying with me not knowing why and what I’d done or said to upset her so. I only just found out some of this this year and the other I didn’t ever get from her; it came from my dad.
All that being said, I’m still an only child, now the only one to take care of her now that she’s needing it. The doctors won’t do anything without my decisions and involvement, even when she doesn’t want it because they don’t think she’s capable; she’s scheduled herself for two major two weeks apart and both of the doctors offices are expecting me to have her there. I didn’t often have a problem with my “only-child” status until everybody started dumping everything on my shoulders – oh, and I also am going through the same thing with my dad who has cancer while all this is going on. I’m just glad I have more than one child – and yes, I have my husband to thank for that (and no, I don’t mean just that way – he’s the one who wanted them more so than me; I didn’t see down the road this far, then). Like you, I didn’t really have an urge for more children – any, really, my first one was an accident, like what you talked about writing about and I was so upset about it I didn’t want more and probably wouldn’t have had anymore had I not gotten a 2nd husband.
Anyway, think about how you’re going to be taken care of down the road with just one child, for his sake if not for yours!
well jen, as i told you, you really had anni. second april fool’s hit of the day for her. i thought heather’s come back was a hoot….so to speak. loveya, pa
You are NOT selfish for only wanting one child. And people who chose to remain child-free are also not selfish. It’s actually the opposite of selfish.
There’s no guarantee that siblings will actually be friends. And even for those who are, there will inevitably be squabbling. I’m lucky, my sister and I are pretty close, but we had some real doozies, even some that got physical when we were teens. My father-in-law had a sister who was downright evil. Evan won’t even refer to her as his “aunt.”