Day 94 Free-Time Parenting?

In the paper this morning, I read about a 47-year old actress who’s cutting back on work because she needs “… a little more free time to be a mom” to the baby girl she and her husband have recently adopted to go with their four-year old son.

Now, she may be the Super-Mom of the Universe, I wouldn’t know. Maybe she just chose her words poorly. Maybe she’s read all the attachment parenting books, maybe she puts in more time than any other mom at her son’s preschool, who knows, maybe she’s wearing one of those tube-and-bag dealies so she can breastfeed her adopted daughter.

Having a second child at that age is a questionable decision, in my opinion, but hey, maybe her 47 years wear better than mine. (Pretty safe bet, she’s an actress after all.)

Here’s what I do know: it takes more than “a little more free time” to raise children. Parenting isn’t a hobby. It’s not a spare-time deal, a “fun” thing to do once you’ve checked off all your other life goals.

Nor is it necessary. You don’t have to do it. In fact, if you’re waffling on the idea of reproducing, take the hint and Just Say No. It’s okay. The world will manage without your genes being carried forward. And you’ll get to keep traveling, guilt-free and unencumbered.

But most of us still discover parenting by surprise, catapulted into the fast lane of the Grown-Up Highway before we thought much about it. (Surprise, not mistake. No baby is a mistake.) And we’ve found that parenting is the best, most rewarding and most important job of our lives. And bar none, the most difficult. There’s no room for selfishness once a baby enters the picture. Or there shouldn’t be, at least.

As Peter De Vries said, “Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”

The key is parents who step up and embrace the new maturity a child demands of them, every day, all day long. Not just the free time.