It’s a Timing Thing

I have often said since I entered this phase of my life that we, my husband and I, kind of messed things up by not having kids right off the bat.

We married in 1982(yep…25 years!) and did not have our first child until 1990. It was a planned thing. Actually, when we got married we didn’t know if we’d have kids at all. We decided not to decide until we neared age 30. I was very clear, however, that we’d have to decide in time for me to have the first one before I reached age 30. We had our older son when I was 29. A second one came along when I was 34.

That was all well and good for us. We were established, had a house to bring the baby home to, we were, for the most part, “turning a profit” as a family, as my mom likes to say. That means we were not mired in debt and making reasonable money. We could afford the stuff the kids needed.

And we knew each other really well. We spent the first 8 years riding our bikes and camping and taking little vacations to cabins and just in general enjoying ourselves and our work.

When the kids came along we were ready.

“So what’s the problem with that?” You may ask.

Well. Now we are 46. I’m menopausal. My husband has a demanding job as a middle manager. He travels. I keep the home, shuttle the kids, make sure there’s food on the table, and work part time at two different home-based jobs.

Still sounds pretty good, huh?

Well, if you throw in the fatigue, night sweats, hot flashes (yeah, they finally started a couple of months ago), and depression…that’s a lot more stuff to take care of. There are many days when I’d rather just scrounge for peanut butter on waffles for supper than make a meal for the rest of them.

I’ve got one kid in middle school entering puberty and needing some shepherding through homework and stuff. The other is exiting puberty and will, by the grace of God, graduate high school next year and go on to college or maybe just to some street corner as a roving trombonist. Either way he needs some help getting “launched.” Because he sure isn’t staying here much longer!

I told my husband today that I am struggling to find the energy to help the kids when I feel like it’s a fulltime job just managing my own physical, mental and occupational life. I really feel like we could use a nanny more now than ever before. Maybe a nanny for me, not the kids.

In her book, “The Wisdom of Menopause,” Dr. Christiane Northrup talks about how our focus changes as we transition from the childbearing years to the menopausal and post-menopausal years. During the childbearing years we throw all our energy into the house and home and as we move into and through menopause, we are ready to concentrate on how the last half of our lives are going to go. We need to spend some time figuring out what we’re all about. And what I’m noticing is that I need to spend some time taking care of my changing physical and emotional needs.

There have been times in the last few months when I’ve felt really badly for my friend Chris. Chris is the same age as me, and has a child. But hers is only 3 years old. Chris is about where I am in this menopause process too, although she started through it when her daughter was about a year old, so she’s had a longer period in it than I have. There are times when Chris’ fatigue and emotional lows cause her to really struggle with being patient with her daughter. Three-year-olds are demanding little people, and Chris has the added bonus of having what we all affectionately call a “spirited-child.” Chris can’t turn her attention away for very long at all, as her daughter will inevitably find something to do that she shouldn’t. Consequently, Chris doesn’t get much down-time. Hardly any at all, actually. She also was married a very long time before her daughter came, so she and her husband are busy trying to change a long marriage (more than 10 years…maybe 13?) of two people into a family of three. It’s tough and not everyone is too crazy all the changes.

And so Chris, who is blossoming into a different (and I might add beautiful-er) person than she was when younger, is hampered a bit by home and family. Even more than I am. With my boys being 12 and 17, they pretty much don’t care what I do or where I go. They take care of themselves quite a bit, too. My own new interests don’t have much of an impact on them. My husband is very supportive, too. He seems to enjoy watching me gain new interest in new things. He is a big cheerleader for me and I am very lucky. Luckier than most, it appears. I’ve heard from several women about how upset their husbands are that they are spending more time on new pursuits. They’ve been home, or at work and then home, with the same schedule for all these years. It’s worked so far, why change it? “If it ain’t broke….”

I think one advantage my friend Chris will have is that when her daughter reaches puberty in around 10 years, she will have leveled out into her post-menopausal life. She’ll once again “know herself.” It may be a different self than she discovered when she was in her 20s, and yet another different self than the one from her late 30s and early 40s, but she’ll be settled again. And her biochemical make-up will have calmed down considerably. She’ll be better-equipped for the typical stormy-teenager years.

And I imagine I’ll have grandchildren by then. Hmmm.