Everyone thinks I quit my job to have a second baby.
Well, OK, not everyone. But I’ve lost count of how many well-meaning friends, acquaintances, colleagues and semi-strangers made the assumption that I resigned from my full-time office job to allow Baby Number Two to come to fruition.
My firm assurances that Baby Number Two is nowhere on the horizon – neither desired at the moment nor even a consideration – seem to fall on deaf ears.
I am teased and prodded: “Oh, come on now, of course you want another baby, you just don’t want to admit it”, or “You’re already putting your life and your work on hold for Baby A, you might as well get it all over and done with and have the second kid”, or, “You have to have your kids close in age to one another so they’ll be friends and can entertain each other and leave you alone”.
I was told that “having the second child is easier than the first and it just keeps getting easier as you go along”. That piece of advice, in particular, made me gag. I am barely able to keep my head above water with only Baby A ordering me around. Imagine if I had both a toddler-sized dictator and a new, pint-sized one to cater for? I would cease to exist.
It seems inconceivable to people that I would put my career on hold solely because I wanted to spend time with my daughter, who was changing by the day, whose imagination needed nurturing, whose vocabulary exploded because her talkative mother wouldn’t shut up all day long. I wanted to regain control of my life and raise my daughter how I saw fit. I didn’t want to turn into a baby-making factory.
In a little over a month, my daughter will turn two and I will celebrate my one-year anniversary of choosing to be unemployed so that I can stay at home and make dresses out of Play-Doh for her ever-growing collection of Disney princesses. I’ve even started giving away and selling Baby A’s baby paraphernalia.
For Mr T and I, making the decision to have Baby A was hard enough. We wouldn’t take the decision to have a second child lightly. And the truth is, I’d be a terrible mother if I had two kids. I still haven’t figured out how to have a life of my own with just one child. Having a second one before I was absolutely ready – ready for the sleepless nights, the aching back, the overwhelming love – would be unfair to everyone. And if I never feel ready, then Baby A will be an only child and Mr T and I will make it work.
I’ve been told that our current decision to only be parents to Baby A is selfish and lazy and, in part, that’s true. Mr T and I want to have enough time for one another.
I want to have time to bury myself in a good book. Mr T wants to have time to read every BuzzFeed article that goes viral. We want time to spend with Baby A individually so the other person can sneak in a nap. We want lazy weekend naps (and a full night of uninterrupted sleep) back in our lives in the near future. We (OK, I) want a disposable income to spend on ridiculous things every once in a while.
Our little family of three, for now, feels complete. I’m good as Baby A’s mother. Mr T has his hands full with the two of us. And some of our reasons are selfish, sure, but deciding to have Baby A in the first place was pretty self-centred, if you ask me.
Hala Khalaf is a freelance journalist living in Abu Dhabi
