My youngest daughter, Cameron, started preschool this fall, my third child to enter the Montessori Oak Room. My fellow preschool parents are in full family creation mode, and every month I notice more and more bellies blooming wide with second and third children.

It’s no wonder Cameron urges me to have another baby, stating her case for “just one more, since one of yours died.”

She’s still trying to fill in the place for her missing “little” brother (because he was a baby), not realizing she’s the one I didn’t think I’d be having. “Have another baby, please, please,” she says, getting on her knees and folding her hands in full supplication.

That’s when it hits me that, for the first time -- I don’t want another child. I’m so, so done. Good thing - getting pregnant at 39 wasn’t easy; now, staring down 44, it’s not just my decision.

The other moms at the preschool can’t hide their shock when Tyler and Mackenzie enter the classroom for a reunion with their former teachers. They also don’t know that the five-year gap between Tyler and Cameron has a name: Aaron.

And by the way, I’m still waiting for the “you look way too young to have a twelve-year old daughter.” I hate to break the news that my extra fine lines, padding, and chin girth are pretty much the going rate for the three children and 10 years that have transpired since we first entered the school.

These moms address me as the school’s elder statesman, and not just because I can remember when the school’s annual fundraising goal was barely four digits; I am their go-to reference for topics that barely register on my radar; how I get Cameron to eat vegetables (I put them on her plate), how I get her to bed at night (she sleeps with us), how I get everything done during the day (I don’t).

They wouldn’t believe that the child-rearing topics weighing on their minds - especially the poor souls navigating the kindergarten process in San Francisco - will resolve and vanish with barely a trace, age-progressing along with their bodies and energy levels, replaced by newer challenges of raising children in a City of Plenty.

I cannot engage in their angst any more than I can contribute to the travails of a high school social calendar or college admissions process. Even with Cameron, I’m on a totally different wavelength than I was when Tyler was her age. It’s partly experience, but mostly survival; having older children allows me to triage issues of more or less importance with the benefit of knowing how the story plays out.

They can’t imagine their children out of car seats, and I can’t remember my life before Little League and dance troupe, piano lessons, and soccer. They’re so young, I say, until I do the math and realize I was barely 34 years old when Mackenzie started there at the tender age of two.

They ask me, “What’s it like?” and I just smile. I didn’t know I was young and carefree then, and neither do they.

I won’t spoil the surprise.

By Kimberley Kwok

Labels: Kimberley Kwok

Stumble This Post