A friend came over for dinner recently and brought her newborn daughter. She was adorable, giggling, drooling and kicking her legs with gusto (the baby, not my friend). My husband and I are very open about the fact that we don’t want to have children. I am child-free by choice, and it feels like an important distinction to make: I have never tried to get pregnant, and I have no idea how my body would work – or not work – in that department. It will probably always remain a mystery. It means that my friends with kids tend to give me the honest truth about their parenting life. There’s no pretending things are better or worse than they are and I feel privileged to witness the good, the bad and the ugly. My friend told me her baby was sleeping like an absolute dream – and that she probably isn’t going to share that with any of the pals she made at antenatal class.
But, in between feeding her daughter under her T-shirt and feeding herself ad-hoc mouthfuls from her dinner plate, she also said something that stuck with me: “One of the most amazing things about being a parent is getting to relive life through her eyes.” She then reeled off some of the many things she was looking forward to: the first missing tooth (and first visit from the tooth fairy), the first birthday party, the first day at school, the first girlfriend/boyfriend/partner. Another friend explained a feeling of “secondhand excitement” at going to Peppa Pig World with her toddler – a throwback to her own thrill at going to theme parks with her parents as a child. The circle of life and all that.
