Consider yourself warned!
A guide for those who think they want children.
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If you are planning to have kids, get ready to make some sacrifices! Once the kids come, you now have someone, or some other people to look after. It’s no longer about you. Gone are the days when you can decide on Thursday night to call in “sick” on Friday morning, so that you can go away for the weekend. You can’t. Who’s going to take care of the kids? And besides, on Saturday you have to take them to basketball, dancing school, swimming class, karate, piano lessons, soccer, birthday parties … You name it. There’s always some place they need to be.
Yep, most of your money goes to the kids and occasionally you get to spend a little of it on yourself. But, mainly you spend it on them, or on something related to them. I remember when my kids were old enough for me to buy them shoes at DSW. Now, let me be clear on this, I was not happy when this happened because I knew that the cost of shoes was now going to double, if not triple. The first time we went to DSW, I told the kids that they were going to get a pair of sneakers for gym and dress shoes for school (they were in Catholic school and wore uniforms, otherwise, they just would have gotten sneakers). We walk in the store, and as per my usual custom, I went right to the sales/clearance rack. Not my son. He went right to the regular priced sneaker section! I had to redirect him and told him that he had to at least look at the shoes in the sales rack. I mean, come on, he knew who his mother was! Boy please! So we get to the sales rack and I just had to look for something for myself. After all, I would like a pair of shoes too, and we are at DSW. How could I not look? Then I saw them! I found a pair of beautiful black and white dress sandals with a four inch heel. I just had to try them on. They fit perfectly, and I must admit, they looked good on me. I walked up and down the aisle in those shoes. I actually thought to myself, “I should treat myself to these sandals. After all, I worked all week”. Side note, sometimes I use the “I deserve it. I worked all week” rationale as justification to buy something for myself. It usually works, and it was working that day. But then, I looked at the box to find the price …. $200.00! And that was the DSW marked down price! They were pricey, but I held onto those shoes. You never know, maybe by some miracle the kids would find some shoes on the sales/clearance rack that they liked and were marked down so much that they were a steal. After all, this is DSW. One could only dream. And a dream it was. Neither of my kids found anything on the sales/clearance rack. Their four pairs of shoes came to about $250.00. $250.00! But, they needed them for school and the sandals were a luxury. So, after having a conversation with myself as to whether I should treat myself to the shoes, or pay the electric and cable bills that month, I decided to pay the bills. After all, we all can spend quality time together watching TV. I sadly put the sandals back. Now, it won’t be just shoes that you sacrifice. It will be your time, your energy, your money, your space (don’t fall into the habit of letting kids sleep with you, you’ll never get them out of your bed), your happy hours, and sometimes, your sanity. Your kids will become your whole world. You will live and breathe for them. Everything you do will be for their benefit. But I must admit, it’s worth it. You will watch these little people grow and develop and turn into well adjusted, caring, loving, and thoughtful children who eventually see, acknowledge, and appreciate all the sacrifices that you are making for them. So, get ready … and just consider yourself warned!
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When kids are babies, they can’t do anything for themselves. You have to feed them, change them, clothe them, entertain them, and take them to all their activities as they get older (the older they get, the more activities there seems to be). Taking them to their activities will become a huge part of your job. You will literally become the family chauffeur. This will be a major demand on your time. Now don’t get me wrong, a part of you loves to see the kids in their various activities and will gladly take them there. However, another part of you just wants to go home and go to sleep. If you live in New York City, or any city with mass transit, at some point your kids will want to travel by themselves. My son decided at 9 that he was ready to take the bus and train to school by himself. Now mind you, this was coming from the kid who would forget, almost immediately after I told him, to take out the garbage. This is the kid who was going to pay attention and get off the train at the right stop? I don’t think so. Needless to say, I was not ready for him to start making that journey on his own. So, we settled on a compromise. Since I had to take his 8 year old sister to school anyway, I told him that he could walk to school by himself once we got off the train. The only rule was that before he entered the school building, he had to turn around and wave. When he saw me wave back, he could then enter the building. If he didn’t see me wave back and he entered the building, I told him that I would come to his class to (1) make sure that he got in, and (2) to embarrass him (I thought the promise of being embarrassed in front of his friends would motivate him to make sure that I saw him enter the building). He was agreeable to that compromise, so off he went.
It was a funny thing to watch. As the train pulled into the station, that my son would literally stand at the train door like a race horse at the starting gate. As soon as the door opened, he was off. I would leisurely walk behind with his sister to give him his space. At the beginning, he remembered to turn and wave. Then, he forgot. Now, this was during one of my “off” phases from exercising (Unfortunately, I have many “off” phases from exercising. It seems like I’m more “off” than “on”). So I was already tired and huffing and puffing from walking up the long trek of stairs to get out of the subway station. So, you can only imagine that I did not want to walk up the stairs to get the third floor where his classroom was located to make sure that he made it in. No. Definitely not something I wanted to do! I briefly considered not checking on him. After all, he’s smart. He knows how to get to school. Who knows, maybe the teacher would just call me if she didn’t see him that day. But no, I did the responsible thing, I walked up those three flights of stairs. You will be happy to know that I didn’t embarrass him too much. To be quite honest, I was just too tired after my unplanned morning cardio. However, whatever I said or did was enough to get the point home. But my son is smart. When he didn’t feel like waiting for me to get close enough to see him wave, he would ask the door monitor to tell me that she saw me. And she did. And I was grateful because I didn’t want to make that trek up to the third floor. A year or two later, my kids’ father and I decided that instead of going to afterschool, the kids would come to my job, by themselves, after school. What! By themselves! Yes, by themselves. They were prepared. They had their new cell phones and they only had to take one train. I was a nervous wreck those first few days! Its not rush hour when school ends, so God only knows when the train’s coming. And it’s not like there was wifi at the train station either so they couldn’t call me if the train was rerouted or wasn’t running. Since I have an overactive imagination, I started imagining how the kids would handle all these strange scenarios like, what would they do if a drunk or mentally ill person tried to talk to them? What would they do if a fight broke out near them? What would they do if a pervert exposed himself? Of course, none of those things ever happened … or if they did, they didn’t tell me about it. Over time, I got used to them traveling alone on the train. To be quite honest, its great! I no longer had to take them to school, to piano class, to dance class … hell, to any class! Its like I’m free. Now that I’m back in an “on” gym phase again, I can actually leave the house to get to the gym for 6:00 am! Since the kids are already up, I don’t have to worry about taking them to school. They’re teenagers now. They semi take care of themselves. They text me when they leave home, and text me when they get to school. They text me when leave school or their afterschool activity, and text me when they get home. It’s a great feeling! So, for those of you who either want kids, or have younger kids, don’t worry. Your chauffeur duties will end soon enough, and you too will be free. Consider yourself warned! |
SassyGirlTye lives with her two wonderful teenagers in Brooklyn, New York. No matter what she says in her posts, she truly loves her children with all her heart.
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