A Small Lament
I hear all the time, “How do you do it with five kids?” And the honest answer is this: It is really not THAT hard. I mean, there is certainly a ton… a ton… of energy expended in kid-care, but there is also a synergy to a big family that makes it work. All the kids have playmates, a few years back we got two built-in babysitters, chores are spread out over more hands, there is always someone to laugh at your jokes, the whole family is perfect blog fodder … the list goes on.
But, perhaps, the hardest thing about being in a family with 5 kids spread over a 13 year age span is that we really don’t fit in anywhere.
Here is what I mean. We have friends with school-age kids slash teens and we have friends with preschoolers… but we are the only ones we know that have both. And this amounts to an incredible feeling of not fitting in… of isolation. One might think it would be the oppposite, but it really isn’t.
We face teenage issues about making good choices, fights with friends, and hormones right alongside potty training, learning the ABCs, and well-baby check ups.
We are never in the “Same Place” for long.
Add to that and I am not really a throw-the-baby-in-a-sling-and-climb-a-mountain type of gal. I am a stay at home read-a-book-while -snuggling-on-the-couch-eating-take-out type of gal and it gets pretty lonely.
I try to look at it this way: My adventure IS my family, IS my parenting, IS how to get the laundry done, IS how to stay within our budget and so forth. And I am actually happy with that arrangement. But there are times when I wish we could throw ourselves into just one place and live our life in that place for a while…but we can’t. So, we watch… a lot. And work hard. And sleep when we can.
I get it — sort of. We don’t have a family with wide spanning ages, but both my husband and I work from home. Everyone forgets about us sitting here working away, so we don’t get invited to do anything. Occasionally we will have people over, but I really feel your isolation.
I should be clear… we have a great community around us. Great. Awesome. The feeling I am describing comes from being pulled in 7 (7 million???) different directions — which you would think would result in feeling connected, seeing as there are so many people and places to be involved with. But instead it results in feeling isolated, never able to feel fully attached or a part of any of those “directions”. And with that comes a longing for the ability to go “deep” rather than “wide.”
Thanks for sharing, Kari. You have such grace and a good hearted nature about you. You and Dave are great advertisers for a large, loving family. You do it all with pazazz!! :)