When my daughter nails her violin solo or my son asks the new kid to sit by him at lunch, it makes me prouder than any professional success could (and in my case, I suppose ‘professional success’ might mean this blog.)
I don’t have anything against mission trips, or Mediterranean vacations, or pets, or rocking your paid employment. Or blogs, obviously.
What I’m saying is that as great as those things are, to me they pale in comparison to the work of having and raising a family. And since there’s nothing I can think of that would be more meaningful or worthwhile in the long run than raising another little person, I’ve never been in any rush to hurry out of the baby-making phase of life.
I have a lot of children, not because I’m crazy or unfortunate or not planning ahead or trying to bug you. I just want them.
Of course we all have different mental and physical capabilities, and life has a way of throwing plot twists like miscarriages and surprise pregnancies and a hundred other things into our perfect plans. So I’m not suggesting that everyone should or even could have six kids.
What I am saying is that if you ever see my family crossing the street, there are two things you need to know: one, it’s going to look like a Thanksgiving parade for a medium-sized metropolitan area, so put your car in park and get comfortable while we finish crossing.
Two, there’s no need to worry about me, my sanity, or my situation because the big family filing through the crosswalk is everything I ever wanted.
Just smile, and maybe catch some candy as we go by.
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This article originally appeared at The Unremarkable Files.
