Around the time my baby was nine months old, I started hearing this question, spoken and unspoken, everywhere.
It was on the lips of the mothers who pushed their young children on the swings at the playground. It was in the hesitation of family, who didn’t want to get their heads bitten off, asking about our plans for the future. It was in the unspoken assumption that seems to circulate everywhere that if you’ve had one, then you should have - or should want to have - another one.
Early on in my daughter’s life, a medical professional - I forget which in the blur of bodies that came in and out of my life at that point - said that they recommended that couples wait at least a year before having another baby ‘for the sake of good maternal health’. I guess that means that once you feel like you might have your life in some semblance of order, you might consider doing it all again: the sleepless nights, the endless feeding, the complete dependency. What’s different this time around is that you’ll have a better idea of what to expect; you’ll know that the screaming pink bundle does eventually turn into a lovely wide-eyed little person.
Assuming that you have some choice in the matter, there are a number of things to weigh up. Not least the actual ideal number you might want to have: two or three, one or ten? This is also assuming that nature doesn’t spring some nasty surprises on you while you’re making your choice: infertility or loss of a child among the more devastating ones. You might honestly consider whether you do really want to go through all that again. From a distance, a year doesn’t seem like much to be a ‘motherbaby’, but up close, that time can sure drag. Like me, you might have to consider whether you want to come face to face with you own mortality quite like that again, and, if you do, whether there are ways to avoid a similar outcome second time round. After all, a young child needs a mother more than they need a sibling.
You might also consider what your want your life to be like, and how many children might change that picture. Someone said to me recently that when they were deciding whether or not to have a third child, they considered whether they would still be themselves or whether they would just be ‘somebody’s mother'. In other words, she still felt like she had time to be herself and establish her own identity independently of parenting her two children, but that could disappear with the arrival of a third baby.
As I’m writing this, I can hear a tiny patriarchal voice in my head that says these reasons are ‘selfish’ or ‘unimportant’ compared to a child. But are they? Is ‘good maternal health’ - both physical and mental - really selfish and unimportant, particularly if you already have one or more children to look after?
In her romp through maternal history, feminist Shari L .Thurer notes that in eras where women are afforded a better, stronger position in society, and the maternal role is more highly valued, the childbirth rate drops. The historian in me wonders a little whether the cause and effect is so cut and dried, but on some levels it makes sense. There’d be precious little time to split the atom or write Ulysses while tending the ten children to whom you gave birth, each within a year of each other. Just think to what the old woman in the shoe (she had so many children she didn't know what to do) was reduced. Not a great outcome for mother or children. And don’t even get me started on her living conditions.
But, seriously, whether or not to have another child and, if so, when, has been on my mind. The mothers in the playground say that it’s better to knock them out pretty closely together so you can get the age of total dependency over and done with, and the children will have playmates who are close in age. Then they’d be off to school within a year or two of each other, and you could start clawing your life back. On the other hand, it could mean that your older children might not get a long period of focussed attention, and you might physically feel the strain of several pregnancies in relatively quick succession. Swings and roundabouts (well, we were in the playground).
In the last few months, some of the women who were pregnant around the same time as me have taken the plunge and announced their second pregnancies. I have to confess a tiny part of me is a little bit wistful at the news. But, hard on the heels of that sense of ‘what if?’, comes a reality check: am I really ready to deal with extreme tiredness, morning sickness, labour and possible complications, constant breastfeeding, lack of sleep and, and, and .... aaarrgh! And that's on top of looking after the one I already have.
So am I having another baby?
Call me selfish, but the jury’s still out on that one.
