So it turns out that half of the women in the music class we go to are pregnant.
When I found out, I was partly jealous as I miss the attention I got when I was pregnant. Once the baby was born, all attention was on her (rightly so as she was a freaky looking little thing that every one cooed over!).
Long ago when I was naiive and very single, I thought I'd be married by 30 and have four kids. I think in some way this was driven by the boyfriend of the time who was 1 of 4 brothers and had a rather dishy dad.
The reality is that I think we won't have another. I'm resentful of my husband for sticking to this decision but also quite grateful when our toddler has yet another cold which she happily passes onto to me. So this leaves us with an ONLY CHILD. There are websites dedicated to only children (seems odd to have a plural here). http://onlychild.typepad.com/. Both me and hubby come from a family of 3 kids. The only child cousin I have was always seen as rather spoilt which is something people are now warning us about with our ONLY. I did have a mate who was an only child but we haven't spoken in ages so I can't pick her brains about the experience.
I'm sure that we are spoiling or not as much as anyone does with their first kid so I'm going to ignore those people.
Now I've got to make sure that our ONLY does not become LONELY child. Think we may put her in nursery some days a week so she gets to see a bunch of kids regularly. Or maybe a childminder. Of course this is no guarantee that she won't be lonely. And to those multi-kid parents out there, may I just remind you that children with siblings can also get lonely and spoilt.
P.s. Oooooooooh I just remembered another mate who is an only child. He's odd,sometimes antisocial it's true but he's a great friend. I think he will let me pick his brain if I ply him with some form of alcohol!
4 comments:
I'd definitely consider nursery. It was the only option for us really as we couldn't afford for either of us to take any time off once the maternity leave year was up. 'Cos I work for myself I'm a home dad for two days a week and the wean is in nursery three days. I take and collect her.
All I can say is she really enjoys it, it's made her very confident with other children and adults, plus you get a reasonably independent view of how your child is developing.
Aye I think you may be right. Just looking into our options now. Only problem is that my hubby has contract work, and if he doesn't get that renewed, not sure we will be able to afford a nursery.
I was lucky in that I saved some dosh before marriage/mummyhood so can take a bit of time off. But must admit am rather alarmed at how fast that is dwindling away!
One of those sites that talks about the only child is: http://www.susannewmanphd.com. I'm the author of the book Parenting An Only Child. Some of the book deals with making the decision to have an only. There's an onging discussion of only children on the Psychology Today magazine website:
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/singletons
Susan Newman, Ph.D.
Thanks for the link to the psychology blog...I got side tracked reading about 40 is the new 20 which is very relevant to me.
Post a Comment