Rachel Opens Up

"My mother is a housewife. Stay at home mom. I'm the youngest of nine kids, did you know that?"

I shake my head. No, I didn't.

"When you have that many kids, it's a lot. That's putting it mildly. The first one you dote on. The second is a blessing. The third is an unexpected joy, but it makes things difficult. Four and five are a difficulty. Six and seven a burden. By the time number eight rolls around, well you're not paying much attention anymore. Add another to the pile and it's all too much to bear.

"Everything becomes harder when you have that many kids. Simple things like driving to the next town over are a logistical nightmare. Cars have five seats, the average one at least. With eleven of us we couldn't even take two cars and my mom didn't like driving anyway so we just didn't do things as a group.

"My parents were good parents. They did their best to care, not enough to wrap it up and keep from having more and given that I'm pretty sure they're not done, well that makes things even more complicated than they already are.

"And maybe it's the circumstances of the world I grew up in, but I've always been good at watching things. I knew my parents, my mother specifically, had it hard. My parents are traditional and my dad was so focused on success and getting enough money just to feed the family that the burden of parenting mostly fell on my mom.

"So it would be only too easy to dismiss her troubles as her own fault. It would be easy to say 'just don't have nine fucking kids and everything will be fine' and leave it at that. But I watched. I looked. I observed. And do you know what I saw?"

I shake my head. She sighs and looks around the street. Stopping at a stoplight her gaze travels to the corner on the other side, the farthest one from us. I follow her gaze and see a young couple pushing a double stroller. Two kids, twins, and for a moment I see what she sees.

They look exhausted.

"Parenting and having kids is a burden. It's a burden that comes with some joy, don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are a whole lot of good reasons to have kids and with less of them the burden is lessened, but it's still a burden."

The light switches and we continue to walk, turning once we reach the other side and passing along the front of a diner that is packed to the brim and only now, late in the lunch period, starting to empty out.

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