We added our third child when I was forty and that’s when the skeptical stares started. You know the ones. You are just coming up to the counter at the local gym or squeezing through the candy-packed aisle at the grocery, baby on your hip, mask of exhaustion painted on your face where make-up should be when some bright-faced-twenty-something looks over in disbelief and says, “My! You have your hands full.”
You want to speak up, to defend yourself, your children, your life choices as wonderful – not the burden that this person sees when looking at you from their smug single, or younger, or simpler existence. But proper etiquette restrains you and you smile politely, passing the baby to your other hip so you can grab your preschooler before they pitch out of the grocery cart while simultaneously admonishing your nine-year old not to talk to the strange man behind her.
Perhaps because my youngest is clearly adopted and thus, I feel the need to defend her existence in our already busy household or perhaps because I don’t take kindly to those who think they know better, I find it difficult to keep quiet. I want to set them straight. To explain that I love my life this full. That this was God’s plan for us, albeit less traditional than the younger-double-income-two-child parents that seem to populate our suburban landscape. That children – at whatever age you are blessed with them – are a gift. That even in zapping your perimenopausal energy they really are keeping you younger. I mean think of the exercise your heart alone is getting!
So instead of smiling politely as if I agree with their skewed observation I came up with a pat answer for these moments. I admit I might have actually heard it somewhere else, most likely another smart mom, but I love it and it is mine now. It is only four simple words, but it packs the polite, but pointed, punch I want to deliver. A punch that speaks to both this outside observer and my beautiful children. A punch that says all I feel: that I am blessed to have these children, that I have found my calling (at least for now), that I am okay being a bit more tired than the average forty-something woman, that I like life full rather than empty.
So now these moments go like this:
Surprised, superior stranger: “My, you have your hands full don’t you?”
Smiling, child-holding, in-love-with-life (well most of the time) me: “Better full than empty I always say!”
Slightly stunned, sheepish, and hopefully wiser stranger: “Well, yeah, I guess so!”
You should try it out yourself the next time someone comments on your choice of joining the world of parenthood a bit late, or a bit too much, or both. Just look them in the eye, hug that child and say, “better full than empty, I always say!”[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]