Ask Auntie Leila: Will I break if I have more children?
This is a composite Ask Auntie Leila, sparked by some of my emails and by two comments on my latest post on The School for Housewives.
The gist of the question is I Am Getting Older and It All Seems Like a Lot.
Mom A: I have [a lot of] kids, ages [teens to baby], and with homeschooling sometimes I feel like I am utterly unable to meet all the needs… and in a sense I am and always will be… but I confess sometimes it makes me fear the addition of more needs.
Mom B: I’m barely hanging on. I’ve just been having that exact intense fear. But also the thought of never having another baby breaks my heart.
With a dash of
Mom C: “what if I really am too old [by this she means near or just over 40, but I have friends who had babies after 45]”
and
Mom D: “I’m pregnant, and at a recent consult, I was (naively) surprised at how much the doctor harped on my age. They want to do so many scans just because of my age, no risk factors, not even considering my personal health history! I think our medical culture loves to scare women away from having babies past 35. Where or what is the pushback against this?”
Let’s go through these worries, because there’s no question about it: Wrangling teens, toddlers, babies, homeschooling, trying to keep the house clean, making healthy meals, having a good family culture (which of course means the joy of lessons, practices, pets/farm animals, hospitality), and overseeing everyone’s spiritual life too — this is without a doubt A Lot.
No one woman can do it. And yet, you will!
As always, Auntie Leila does not even pretend to have the answers for you. But I do have a few basic notions that help you find answers for yourself and hopefully help you be peaceful even as things are rather insane.
The whole blog here, my books (see sidebar), my Substack — it’s all meant to say you can make it through if your priorities are straight.
If it seems like I’m telegraphing them here, it’s because I already have eleventy ten thousand words written about them but it’s always good to have the outline.
Keep Sunday holy. All these comments are seeking wisdom. Wisdom is ultimately from God and if we desire it, we must do what God says in order to hear His voice. The most fundamental command in this regard is to keep His day holy. If we make Sunday the focus of everything we do, we will have that one chance to rest, worship, and celebrate, and in that repose, as we lift our eyes, we can receive what it is that He wants to tell us. If we’re always so busy and every hour is filled with “to-dos,” we won’t know which way to go.
Know this is also a stage. What I call that second decade of parenthood, when the kids are busy and have their own ideas about things, brings a new developmental stage. However, this stage resembles the one when everyone was under the age of 5 and you thought your life was going to be one endless slog through diapers, sleeplessness, and the vast irrationality of very mobile toddlers, in that it looks different now but it’s still… a developmental stage. You will get through it just as you did the other! In fact, there will come a day when things are preternaturally quiet…
Curtail your activities. Just as back then you learned you wouldn’t be doing the things you did when you first got married or were single, now you learn it might be a good idea, for instance, not to stay out so late with your gals at the book club that the next day you are in for it.
In this era, I found that being home in the hours before dinner was essential to my well being. Back when my kids were little I thought nothing of a late-afternoon activity, but in the teen years, I saw the value of the peace of returning to home base. If I had an errand or place I had to be between 3 and 5pm, I made sure to have the dishwasher run and supper well organized.
And we all need some quiet time.
Which brings me to: Know What Is for Dinner. Make your menus. I will gently insist that an insouciant “I don’t really plan” attitude can actually be wearing you down.
Yes, you really do have to do laundry. Now more than ever.
But you can get them all to help more. Set expectations by setting a timer — everyone pitching in under time pressure works wonders. Put chores on a board where they can be seen. Lie down with the words, “I don’t know how X will get done, I have to lie down; if only I had some little brownies or fairies to help me” and watch X get done. (Yet another reason to be sure to read fairy tales to your children!)
They can help more if they aren’t over-scheduled. Only you and your husband can address this busyness of our culture. But home is where “we’re all in this together;” firm conviction in this area is worth a lot to their future sense of responsibility and creativity.
If God sends you a new baby (and he might not, so why worry?), the moms of many who had babies later in life want you to know that the baby is the fun part! In fact, the baby keeps you young, gives the 9-year-old something to do, and is the answer to that teen who is starting to be disaffected or that 12-year-old who seems so self-absorbed.
You actually know how to take care of a baby! Your teen will remember what you did and take that memory to his own family later on. He will also be healed of a lot of his angst (if angsty he be) when he, perhaps subconsciously, thinks, “They loved me this same way.”
Regarding the pressure from doctors: They are just reciting a script, one dictated by the exigencies of our medical system, in which they are incentivized to avoid litigation by all the invasive methods, and they too are likely weighed down by general baby resistance in the culture.
Do your own research (e.g. into ultrasounds, tests, glucose drinks, and so on), always seeking the most natural ways to do things. It is true that as we get older, the process becomes Remember that you can just refuse to do things; it helps to be ready to use that maturity they are focusing on to deflect and resist.
I pray that every mom find a good midwife, preferably one who will come to your home and even deliver the baby there. That is the pushback: restoring the role of the midwife.
But if you are stuck with that sort of relentless pressure, do your best and hang in there. God has a plan!
Find good friends. “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.” (Proverbs 27:9) And be a good friend. Let’s encourage one another!
Honestly, do your children have your marriage, a roof over their heads, food, clothing, books, and a way to get outside? Do they go to church? Then — done and done! Take the rest of the day off!
{Instead of me linking all my posts, feel free to search the blog with the key word, like “dinner” or “laundry”. You will find everything! Every detail!}
{In case you’re wondering about Phase II of the hallway makeover, I am awaiting the installation of the carpet in the back hall/back stairs. I will keep you posted!}
bits & piecesMy husband, Phil Lawler, is starting a Just War Theory seminar on his Substack. You might be interested, your husband might be interested, and your high school upperclassman might find it stimulating to “attend” a college-level course on the subject!Glimpse into the cloister: Monastic Silence
Thinking about your home school? Here is an introduction to Charlotte Mason from Ambleside, the site I always recommend. It’s important to develop your own thoughts on education, nourished by wide reading; there is a lot of food for thought in this one essay.
The other day I found myself saying that I think Charlotte Mason systematized, in her own way and without, of course, knowing him, as he was born in the year she died, the educational thought of John Senior, a brilliant man who did not systematize. We can talk about that another time! (Now I wonder if Senior had ever heard of Mason!)
from the archivesAffirmation in the thick of thingsVision for your family
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