Family has always been super important to me. I grew up in a rather small family. I have 1 sister and only 3 cousins (the eldest of which is actually older than the other two’s dad). My younger cousins grew up in the same area so we spent a lot of time together including all major holidays so we are all very close.
I always knew I wanted a large family of my own. I don’t know what I would do without the close family support I’ve had my entire life and want to make sure my children have that as well. No number of friends in the world replaces the unconditional, never wavering love of family that I’ve been fortunate enough to have.
So, I married an only child. Though hubby has many more cousins than me, he didn’t grow up with as close a relationship with them as I did. So, as you can imagine, the importance of family in my sense and experience is lost on him. Having grown up spending his time running alone through the woods and sharing his free time with the myriad of pets his family has always had, the concept of siblings is lost on him. He doesn’t understand, at all, the dynamics of how our girls get along and it’s really hard to explain to him because it is so beyond anything he’s ever known.
He too always wanted a family but his idea has always been slightly different than mine. When we were still in college and conversations about “life” would come up, I would tease him about wanting to have a whole farm full of children (think Duggar size…). While I would love to have an unlimited number of children, I know the reality of it is beyond our capacity as parents. So I settled on wanting 4 children.
If you ask me, 4 is the perfect number. My sister and I didn’t get along well as older children and it would have been nice to have a “fallback” sibling or two especially since we lived out in the middle of nowhere and there weren’t a lot of other children our ages around. Also, have 4 eliminates that “weird” middle child and helps to ensure that no one is left out.
Hubby? He’d have been happy with just Honeybun. He agreed to having another and again, would have been more than happy with Honeybun and Sugarplum. After much negotiating (and him knowing that I would not give up), here we are expecting number 3 and hubby says “WE ARE DONE!”
I still have this vision of the perfect family of 4 lovely children and can’t imagine leaving Sugarplum as that “awkward” middle child but I also know that 3 is different than 2 and I might change my mind. I know that having 3 children is going to be extremely hard and 4 will be no easier, but I try to focus on the future.
I think about what life will be like for my children and teenagers and adults. They only have 1 true aunt (though we’ve adopted others) and there is no sign of cousins yet. My children having that close and super supportive family that I grew up with is really important to me and if I have to provide it myself, then I guess that’s just what I’ll do! (Hubby willing, of course!)
