you shouldn’t need a reason for having only one kid

My daughter will be 2 years old in a few months and I can’t believe where the time went. Belly kicks to crawling to running happened all too fast for me.

And while I had anticipated all the wonderful ways she has grown…I hadn’t anticipated what would be asked of me, of my husband.

“So when’s the next one?”  

“You are having more right?”

 “That would be soooo unfair to her if you didn’t.”  

“It’s about time, don’t wait too long.”

While we had expected that behavior from our loving and always living in the future, (a-hem our future), parents… I was shocked when I heard it from friends. From really, really close friends.

Most of them though all have more than 1 child, and have for the most part, followed the normal family path. Bought a home, drive safe cars, have good, secure jobs, kept 2-3 years at the most between each child and for some, even got a family dog.

My husband and I have been anything but conventional in our years. We married a decade after dating and moved across the country from our families to follow our hearts. (This is NOT the norm in South Asian culture). While we do drive safe cars, (he traded in his sports cars), he is a serial entrepreneur, I am a yoga teacher/former dentist so we share a different mentality on the 9-5. We try to at least, invest in intellect, larger ideas and things that mobilize so it wasn’t top priority for us to buy a home when we moved to California, (we own one as an investment back East), and we also travel way too much to ever own a dog, (even though our daughter LOVES dogs).

When we had Laila, we were surprised, in the most beautuful way. She fit perfectly into our crazy lives. But as we get into the groove of parenting, we often find ourselves wondering if we want to do it again.

Some moments, I am okay with just the 3 of us. I love our dynamic, our little unit. My husband says he’s not so sure about more, either. He likes just having his two girls. When someone asks me, or when I hold one of my gazillion friends second babies, I think, gosh, this feels so good. I could do it again.

But  I’m not sure if I want to.

This article I recently read about a woman who said she does not need a reason for not wanting kids, got me thinking.

Did I need a reason for having only one kid?

I know that my close friends, (and family), ask me because they care. And just want to know because they are part of our lives. But then there are also those women who know me well and ask me with the hint that I should feel lucky and blessed to have good reproductive health therefore, should go ahead and make more  babies. RIGHT AWAY.

What surprises me even more is that there are women who don’t know me at all asking me this question, too. What if I was a woman, like so many out there, who had fertility problems? Who was sensitive to a miscarriage? Who had lost a child?

Is it really anyone’s business how many of my eggs will be fertilzed in my lifetime?

Sometimes I want to answer with one of my mind justified reasons.

“I want to finish writing my book. We want to travel more. We just started the process of forming our non-profit.” And all the things that get facetious nods from others and sound kind of like they aren’t the reason at all.

So here I am. Reason-less.

In a recent meditation, it came to me. Without knowing what that reason is, maybe a combination of all of those things I think are or essentially just having the question present to find the answer on why I don’t know or what I really want, I decided to just let it be.

And just like my first child, we plan on having no plan. For now, 1 beautful daughter feels really good. For now, we are happy, we are full of love, it’s all that matters to us.

As a sibling of 3, I loved having my brother and sister as my partners in crime. We are in fact, so close. So I think, maybe, one day, my  husband and I will shift our minds. But maybe be won’t. We’ll see. And of course if it happened suddenly, we would embrace that little one with all our heart.

So, if you are like me, you shouldn’t need a reason for having only one child. My answer the next time someone asks if I want more: “You know, I feel grateful with my ONE amazing, wonderful and sweet kid…thanks.”

-Puja