This Is How It Always Is

by Laurie Frankel

How was the same answer as it is for all impossible things you do anyway. One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. All for one and one for all.

One is the loneliest number. Never put all your eggs in one basket.

On their first date when Rosie said, “So, do you have brothers or sisters?” and Penn said, “Nope. Only child,” Rosie had replied, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” as if he’d said he had only three months to live or had been raised above an artisan deli by vegans.

How did you teach your small human that it’s what’s inside that counts when the truth was everyone was pretty preoccupied with what you put on over the outside too?

“It just seems like such a hard road”—she took deep breaths until she felt herself inflated to the brink of bursting—“such a tough life. This is not the easy way.” “No,” Penn agreed, “but I’m not sure easy is what I want for the kids anyway.”

“Easy probably rules out having children,” Rosie admitted. “Having children, helping people, making art, inventing anything, leading the way, tackling the world’s problems, overcoming your own. I don’t know. Not much of what I value in our lives is easy. But there’s not much of it I’d trade for easy either, I don’t think.” “But it’s terrifying,” she whispered. “If it were the right thing to do, wouldn’t we know it?”

You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don’t get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake. It’s impossible. It’s heartbreaking. It’s maddening. But there’s no alternative.”

I wish for my child, for all our children, a world where they can be who they are and become their most loved, blessed, appreciated selves.