A Lifetime Ago
When I was expecting my first child, I was in a very different set of circumstances. I was working full time at a bank and Rachel, my wife, was working full time at a newspaper. I was dabbling in design and web development (at the time, web development was entrenched in the flash trend and I was so excited when I learned how to animate a loading bar – shudders). Rachel and I were also writing and performing music together regularly and were starting to grow a following for our music. As soon as we found out we were expecting, we shifted gears and decided to move from Austin back to San Antonio where we felt we would have more support from our home church family. We also bought a house and a minivan. I didn’t really expect things to change much beyond that. We kept our full time jobs, I kept doing some design work on the side, and we kept playing and recording music together.
“This Is Easy!” Right.
When our first was born, it was amazing and life changing in all the wonderful ways you would expect. We actually got permission from our jobs to bring our relatively quiet infant to work with us for a few hours per day, so we were able to maintain our full time jobs without getting childcare. He did great at shows too… we just put him next to the stage in a playpen and we’d play our set with very few, if any interruptions. It was the “best of both worlds,” we got to enjoy this amazing new human being, keep a steady income from our day jobs, still pursue our passion together, and still have money to put away in savings. I still remember taking him with me in his car seat to meetings and thinking, ‘wow, this is pretty easy.’
Shattered Illusions
This lasted for a little while, but then our quiet infant got older and Rachel and I started to feel a little self conscious about bringing him into work. He became less tolerant of the playpen during shows and grew bored more easily when I’d tote him along for meetings. I wish I could say that my illusions began to diminish then, but it wasn’t really until number two came along that my illusions were finally shattered and I realized how self-centered I had been. This was a change I had not prepared myself to deal with and it sent me in a bit of a tail-spin. I would spend the next few years oscillating between accepting and dealing with my new reality and trying to fight that reality to assert my own idealistic desires. Fight as I might though, reality always wins. Don’t get me wrong here. I could not ask for or imagine a better reality. My kids are amazing and my days are filled with more wonder than I could ever find searching for it on my own. Looking back, I wish I had managed my expectations differently and had actually prepared myself (as much as one can) for the new reality I was to experience.
Whatever Your Change May Be
Though I intend for this to speak most directly to those of you who are or will be expecting children soon, or even those of you who have recently become parents, I want this to be helpful for anyone anticipating a change in circumstances in the near future.
Ways You Can Prepare Yourself and Break Free From Your Illusions
Expect things to change. Expect things to be different from the way they are now and deal with those possibilities today so that you can come into the new season, unknown as it may be, prepared to face your new reality. Below are a few simple things I have learned to do when preparing for changes that, had I taken more time to do them when number one was on the way, could have saved me and my family a lot of undue strain:
Talk To People With Experience
I have quite a few friends with teenage kids, and there’s nothing I dislike hearing more than how much busier they are now that their kids are grown. I feel super busy now and my oldest is only 8. A close 2nd is hearing from them about how much and how constantly teenagers eat. In my fantasy world, I don’t have a grocery bill that rivals my mortgage payment. In my fantasy world, I like to think that things only get easier from here… the more independent they become, the less crazy my life will be, right? Almost everyone with ACTUAL experience has told me the opposite. Those teenage years are around the corner for us, and I’d rather be prepared over-prepared for what may be our reality, than living in the fantasy world of my own false expectations. You can almost always find someone you know who has personal or at least similar experience with what you are about to go through. Not only can they serve as an informative resource, but also may become a source of support and encouragement as you face your new circumstances.
Do Some Research
In the rare occasion that you are unable to find someone you know with experience, there are countless people out there with experience they have generously shared online. When researching, it’s important to consider your source, but even more important is weighing the information you are consuming against your own expectations and personal beliefs. There may be an expert with years of experience that has a completely different value system, and there may be an every-day-person who clumsily articulates exactly what you need to hear. A few sources I keep coming back to are sub-reddit communities, bloggers with whom I personally identify, and the good old-fashioned google search.
Brainstorm (Play the “If This, I Will.” Game)
One of the ways I try to prepare myself both mentally and emotionally for any change in circumstances is to have a brainstorming session with myself or with Rachel and play the “If This, I Will.” game. Often times, when coming into new circumstances, we try to protect what we believe is essential, often to the detriment of that very thing. An example of that for us was our savings. We believed that putting money into savings was so essential to our budget, that we never considered an alternative employment setup that, while temporarily may have prevented us from saving, could have freed us up to grow in other ways that would have allowed us to be saving even more today. These days putting money in savings is hit or miss. It would have been better to accept this potential reality and have a plan for what we would do, than to have it just happen to us. Here’s how it could have looked had we done this exercise when we were expecting our first:
-If we have to put our baby in childcare, we will keep our full time jobs and cut back on our savings for now.
-If it makes more sense for us to take care of him ourselves, we will cut back on our hours and cut back on our savings for now.
-If we have to cut back on our savings, the world will fall apart and we will crumple up and die… okay, that’s probably not going to happen, but what could happen.
-If we can’t save money right now we will make due with what we have until we can save money again.
-If making due with what we have right now causes us to go into depression, we will seek counseling.
And so on and so forth…
I’m being a little humorous, but you get the point. This exercise is not meant to help you track down every single possibility, but it is meant to help you grow in the belief that you are powerful in the face of your circumstances. It’s not about having a plan as much as it is about knowing that you are capable of making decisions and doing something about whatever might come your way.
Rachel and I have baby number 6 on the way (another boy) and we are just as excited and nervous as we were when expecting number 1. I have to ask myself, what false expectations might I be carrying into this new season? How am I preparing myself now for the changes that are coming? Hopefully doing these few things will help prepare you for the changes that are coming in your future. Now excuse me while I go and take my own advice.