I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, filtering through saving site offers and the latest social media trend, recipe sharing, when an article posted from today.com jumped out at me entitled, “Mom Survey Says: Three is The Most Stressful Number of Kids”. This is particularly relevant to our family situation since at any given time our own third child will be making his grand debut. To be honest, I read it with some trepidation. I don’t need to be convinced that it will be a transition adding another little one into the mix, though how tough it will be is still to be determined.
I specifically remember overhearing my own parents having a personal discussion when I was in elementary school about how the transition from two to three kids wasn’t easy for them. It’s funny the things that stick with you from your childhood. I’ve got little windows of time recorded in my memory bank and for some odd reason, that discussion of theirs has always stuck out to me. I admired the way I was raised- my parents were very poised, relaxed, confident and they were a go-to couple for other families to receive counsel on parenting- so I figured if three children about did them in, it would undoubtedly be hard for me as a mom, too! My husband and I knew early on in our marriage that we would like a large family (as in, more than the 2.06 child per household national average) so I figured we would just cross that bridge of “third child challenges” when we came to it.
I guess the drawback to this third child freak-out of mine has been that I never really considered how hard the transition would be having our first child or our second. I just naturally assumed if going from a family of four to five was hard, then the only logical deduction was that having our first and second child would be easy. There was no consideration taken for colic, breast feeding challenges, sleepless nights, or meeting the needs of two babies nineteen months apart. I naively went into mommyhood under the assumption that I could somehow research and educate myself out of those problem (as if reading parenting manuals somehow exempted me from the challenges of caring for little ones). You can imagine what a surprise I was in for! I love my little ones more than life but I felt totally unprepared and ill equipped for meeting their needs day in and day out. It’s fair to say motherhood came naturally, but that didn’t mean it was easy.
In hindsight, I would have done myself a favor if I had prepared for Baby #1 and Baby #2’s arrival the same way that I have braced myself for the inevitable challenges that will come with #3. I’ve sought counsel from a lot of friends that welcomed their own Baby #3’s to the family this year. I’ve asked a lot of questions. I’ve prayed fervently. I’ve read a few parenting articles here and there, but I’ve also been around the parenting block long enough to know when to follow my own intuition and chuck the plan, the precious schedule, for the sake of everyone’s sanity. I’ve set realistic expectations for this little one’s arrival; my goal is to make sure the kids are clean, clothed, and fed for the first month. That’s it. After that point, we can further discuss what else is worth implementing into our routine. The way I see it, I figure if the expectation is baseline, it’s all up from there.
It almost sounds as if I’m preparing for battle. I guess, in some way, I am. It’s not a battle of me against my kids; to the contrary, it’s really a battle against my own expectations, a battle against the unrealistic pressure our culture has heaved onto the backs of young moms to be a Pinterest-perfect matriarch that has it all together all the time, and a battle to combat selfish desires within me that loathe and self-pity the lack of “me time”. It’s as if this battle has less to do with family size and more to do with being a mom in general.
Yes, I’ve heard it all.
The third child will be hard.
My husband and I will be out numbered.
We’ll need a minivan.
My stress levels will be at their peak.
But I refuse to let the hype of the third child get to me. I’ve had a long time to process it all and I will not settle for surviving through the season of three little ones. No, I will enjoy it and embrace it. And on those tough days that feel more like a battle? Well, I just need remind myself that our third child’s name means “a peaceful victory” and hope and pray that it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy within his life... and the life of our family.