You’ll Understand When You Have Kids

To my son,

One day, I’m going to say to you…

“You’ll understand when you have kids.”

And you’re going to roll your eyes and think to yourself,

“When I have kids, I’ll let them do what they want.” or “No, mom, you just don’t understand me.”

We will go on and every time we disagree, you’ll get infuriated and come to hate this phrase. Every time it comes up, you’ll want to scream because this phrase is just a lazy thing to say to keep you from your way. It’s just something I say when I don’t have a good enough reason to explain my actions or words.

You’ll grow up too quickly and experience your first run-in with unkindness and my heart will break for you. I’ll cry when you go to bed later because I won’t be able to save you from those mean kids at school. But you’ll grow stronger and put on tough skin and I’ll be proud of you for it.

Then, you’ll meet someone and think you are in love. I’ll warn you that she isn’t right because I know your beautiful soul and love it more than I love my own. But you’ll insist and get angry, saying I am not supporting you enough. Then, she will break your heart in half—and mine will shatter into a million pieces. You’ll take your anger out on me and I’ll take it, because maybe that will ease your pain, even if it hurts me a little more. And when it comes up in conversation and I tell you it was for the best and you get mad, I’ll say to you,

“You’ll understand when you have kids.” and you will storm off while my heart aches just a little bit more.

You’ll graduate high school and go off to experience college. You’ll be ecstatic and I will be scared out of my mind. You’ll make all your decisions about school, and I’ll suggest other options because I will remember all the things I regretted about school and make a valiant effort to save you from them. I’ll get thanked with eye rolls and everything short of being told to F off. I’ll be hurt, but I’ll laugh and let you choose as you please.

“Why don’t you ever just want me to do what I want?” you’ll ask and you’ll already know my answer.

“You’ll understand when you have kids.”

You’ll shake your head and hug me goodbye, eager to get away from that lazy excuse for advice. And I’ll be left in the doorway watching and waiting for you to come back. I won’t sleep a single night the way I used to, because I will spend every moment in silent prayers for your safety and happiness.

One morning you’ll wake up to 3 missed calls and several messages asking if you’re alive. You’ll be annoyed out of your mind and call me asking me why I’m so psychotic and explain you just slept in. Then, before I can answer, you’ll say,

“Yes mom, I know. I’ll understand when I have kids. But I’m not a psycho like you.”

I’ll laugh and tell you to just wait.

You’ll graduate and no matter where you go or what you do, nobody will be able to take the pride I have for you and who you are away from me; although, I will not tell you because it’s important that you stay humble.

We will both blink and you’ll be 27. One day you’re a kid. The next, you’re not.

You’ll find out you’re going to have a baby. In that instant, you’ll have a million memories of your life run through your mind. A thousand life lessons, a hundred regrets. And you’ll panic, because you’ll wonder just how in the world you can possibly teach your baby all these things before it’s too late. You’ll wrack your brain on how you can keep your baby from all the pain you’ve felt, how to give them a steel heart, how to teach them to love, how to forgive, when to trust and when to be cautious, when to fight and when to walk away. You’ll be overwhelmed to your core because you just started to get the hang of this thing—how could you possibly be ready to raise a baby in a world you still don’t have figured out?

Then all the sudden, the day will come. The most beautiful, precious, fragile thing will slip into your world before you have time to think. And somehow your world that you’ve spent your whole life polishing and perfecting disintegrates into the earth around you and the 27 years you lived before does not matter anymore, because you have an entire other world to build and protect with everything you have in you. As soon as you saw that little baby, nothing else mattered.

Two weeks in, you’ll be crying because your little baby is crying and it hurts more than any of your own pain ever hurt. After many sleepless nights, infinite tears, and just as many doubts about being good enough, you’ll take a hot shower and cry it all out alone.

In that moment, you’ll think of me. Endless emotions will flood your brain, and your heart will ache an ache you have never felt. Because it has only been 2 weeks with your own and you’ll realize just how much pain I must have felt in the 27 years that you have been alive. You’ll realize how unbearable some of those times felt in your own heartache and you’ll multiply it tenfold for me. You’ll break down alone in that hot shower, because finally, after years of fighting me, being angry and moody and difficult, you’ll feel it all as if your heart was put into my chest.

And at last,

You’ll understand, because you have kids.

Thank you, mom. I hope to have half the strength as a mother to him as you had for me and Trent.