eschutz

Right there with ya sister. My husband and I got married at 22 and weren’t sure we wanted kids. We had 2 dogs and the flexibility to go on adventures that we weren’t sure we wanted to give up. It’s not like you can get a last-minute kennel reservation for a baby.
Fast forward almost 20 years…our daughter just turned two and our son is 4mo old. The deciding factor for me was envisioning life in 5, 10, 20, 30 years. As soon as I started seeing us with kids around the Christmas tree in 10 years, we decided to have kids. It wasn’t like we felt we were missing anything from our life. It was more of a conversation around what would be added if we had kids, what were we prepared to let go, and what were non-negotiables.
I look at like there are 4 main areas of life: family, friends, work, hobbies. You can’t do them all well, at best you can do 2 well and maybe squish in a third. For this stage of life, we decided family is first, followed by work and then hobbies (we’re long distance runners so it takes a lot of time). Do I miss my social life? Sometimes. But right now, the tradeoff is 2-3 hours on Saturdays running with my daughter in a stroller while we sing songs and talk about what we see on the trail. This is the highlight of my week and I wouldn’t trade it for any number of brunches with friends.

Agree, we did the same. For me, some things were non-negotiable so we addressed those differently. We sat down the grandparents and had a hard conversation where we laid out the ground rules. Remember, you are the best parent for your child and you do not need to justify your decisions. You don’t need to answer why or get into a philosophical discussion on each point – it’s not a democracy and they don’t get a vote. I know that sounds really harsh, but I said exactly that as I outlined our expectations and it helped move the conversation from a discussion of how we choose to parent to a more productive sharing of information.

In the end, I framed their relationship with my kids as very important and said this is what’s needed for all of us to keep that relationship growing. Going forward, anytime they try to push the line (a la toddlers…sigh) I hold firm in a very clear and direct way. This XYZ thing is not ok, here is the consequence for that behavior. And then follow through so it’s understood you’re not all talk.

It’s an uncomfortable approach the first time, but was really critical for our family to maintain relationships. Clear is kind (-Brene Brown).