One and done. That was my motto when it came to being a mom before I even became a mom. Becoming a mom was important, but I never felt I needed to have more than one child to officially qualify as a mom.
Then, before I could even get adjusted to mom life when my son was born in September of 2019, everyone started asking when baby number two was coming. I had a perfectly normal pregnancy outside of TERRIBLE heartburn at the age of 38 and it fortunately didn’t take long for me to become pregnant. Everyone assumed I would have back-to-back babies because of my age. I was shocked by all the unsolicited feedback I started getting about our decision to have only one child. Everyone had an opinion about me being an only child myself who decided to have only one child. It was a new type of mom shaming and it made me reluctant to even discuss the topic.
Covid waltzed its way into the world only 6 months after my son was born as if I needed one more thing to deal with as a new mom. I was up breastfeeding and reading about all the tragedy that resulted. I actually begin to rethink the decision to have one child. Something about seeing people stuck in their home alone made me wonder if I was doing a disservice to my son by not having another child. However, I realized the fact that I was an only child worked to my advantage somewhat during the pandemic. I knew how to occupy my alone time very well and I wasn’t really alone anyway because I had my husband and an infant. I actually cherished my alone time because being a mom meant I didn’t get a whole lot of it. I also got to witness many milestones I would have maybe otherwise missed since I was working from home with my son.
Then the reality of juggling mom life, work life and wife life hit me very hard when my son turned two. I was busy and overwhelmed!! Having just one child made me feel like I’d gotten lost in the shuffle of it all. I begin to realize that if one child had totally rearranged my life, how in the world would I manage two or more and keep my sanity.
It was at that moment I realized that I would function better and could manage a better mental and physical health balance with just one child and that was okay. I have no opinion on those who have more than one because I feel like every family has the autonomy to decide what works best for them. I had done enough self-analysis to know that in order to be the mom AND woman I wanted to be, it would be best for me to focus on nurturing just one child and define who I was as a woman within the world of motherhood. I decided to focus on making new mom friends (still an area I struggle with), taking care of myself and giving myself the mom breaks because motherhood is just hard, no matter how many children are in your family.
Thankfully, my husband was perfectly fine with just our son and felt our family was complete. He liked the idea of focusing all of our attention on just one child because he is one of six and often felt he didn’t get the one-on-one attention he sometimes needed. I still get the occasional judgmental comments, but it doesn’t bother me because I know what works best for me and my family. In order for me to be a present individual, mom and wife, managing the chaos of one child is just fine for me.