Life Is Not A Competition

10:48pm, Monday, October 01, 2007

We do things and live our lives according to what God has planned for us. We raise our family not because of other people’s decision. We have kids not because a friend we know have already one. One time, I was telling a friend I was pregnant again. It so happened that one of our couple friends had two kids already. He asked me nonchalantly, “Are you guys competing?” I was baffled, befuddled. Speechless. Didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t know what to say. So I asked him back, is having kids a competition? I couldn’t forget that day when he asked me about competing to have kids.

Having kids is not a competition. It is to our own convenience (or inconvenience). It’s according to our life’s situation, our finances, our principles and beliefs, and most of all, according to what God had planned for us.

Before getting married, Peter and I talked and considered having 4 kids when we get married. Also, we decided to wait for 2 years before having our first. But God had a different plan for us. After we got married, the great desire to have kids set in our hearts. We also realized we were not that young to wait for one year, what more with two. So after two months of marriage, we decided to stop our birth control plan and started making our first baby. I got pregnant straight away!

When Peter told one of his friends, she was surprised. She said, you’re barely a husband and you’re becoming a father already?” Once again, I was befuddled. Why… tell me… do you stop being a husband when you become a father already?

After our fist baby came out, I had a hard time transitioning from not having a baby to having one; from going out with my hubby a lot to staying at home coz I had a baby to think of. So I thought probably one was enough. I tell you, every time I saw pregnant women, I would tell myself or Peter what a hard future they’re going to have! They didn’t know what they’d go through once the baby came out! Can you believe that? But when Schenker (my first one) turned one year old, the desire to have another baby came in again. So Peter and I talked about it, planned when to have our second. We thought two years of age gap would be fine.

There are of course pros and cons of different age gaps. But then again, it is according to one’s situation, financially and availability wise. I didn’t want to give birth to babies and give the responsibility to others to raise them. Of course, we have different priorities. Others have to work to provide finances for the family to thrive.

Too many principles, too many reasons… This I know for sure, that when we raise our family, when we decide how many kids we have and what age gaps they should have, we do it suit our situation. We don’t get pregnant just because our friend or someone we know is pregnant!

Life is not a competition.