People with children love to tell anyone without how much life changes as soon as you enter the world of parenthood. They speak of how time flies, and the love you will feel, but it really never registers until you have children of your own. Much like dropping acid, or going through labor, there is no amount of explanation that will ultimately prepare a person for the actual experience.

One thing I have really been noticing lately is the pecking order of motherhood. It’s nothing bad or good necessarily. It’s just the way it is more or less. If anyone had explained this to me before I had kids I never would have understood, but those of you reading with a brood of your own will get it. I am in a playgroup that I was lucky enough to become involved with when At-man was a mere 6 months old. It was comprised of about 10 or so babies and at the beginning we were all first time moms. As time went on many of us added to our families, as a matter of fact, everyone now has 2 small children, with one brave enough to leap ahead and add a third. One day at play group a friend and I were talking and she mentioned that she thought it was pretty neat that we all had 2 kids, reasonably close together. What she had forgotten was that there were several members of the playgroup at the start, who had drifted away, all of them with just one child.

When I drop At-man off at school in the morning I can look around his class and see the mom’s divided by number of children in the home. Our class has a large number of only children whose mom’s flock together in the morning chatting mostly about nothing to do with their kids, but their conversations reveal their family choices. A couple are back in school, some in the middle of a divorce, one likes to tell everyone who will listen that she got a late start and feels like she shouldn’t even bother trying. I have always felt like the size of your family is a pretty personal issue, and whatever makes you happy should be what you work for. But if she feels the need to share on that level, that’s cool too. As an only child myself, I think nothing is cooler than a mom who tells anyone rude enough to ask, she has one because that is right for her and her family. Nuff Said!

When you get to the 2 kid moms, things breakdown into sub-categories. Here we have the mom’s with their older kids in 3 year old class, and younger sibs tagging along (like me). Then we have the mom’s with older kids in elementary school and their 3 is the youngest. I can’t help but liking most of these moms because they are where I will be one day. They love to give you the low down on what happens as soon as the baby can fight back, and at what age the kids are big enough to pour their own bowl of cereal Saturday mornings, watching cartoons until mom and dad wake up. The first day this happens in our house, there will be a party so big you will be able to see it from space. Astronauts in the space station will turn to each other and say “Looks like At-man and Em finally let their parents sleep in!” “Yee Haw!”

D and I are in the middle of kicking around the idea of adding a third. Mom’s of 3 hold a special place in my order of regard. The simple fact that they make it out of the house before 9am impresses the shit out of me. Playing one on one defense no longer works once you add a third. Your only hope is to convince the oldest to play for your team. This will probably render them a hopeless tattle tale in elementary school, but hey, whatever works.

I guess what I’m saying is that I find it a bit surprising how we as parents limit ourselves to our little “comfort groups” without even realizing it. Now, I’m not saying this is always the case; no one is ever brave enough to cross over to a different “clique”. But I also know I cannot be the only one noticing this separation. I feel like I have learned so much from all of the other mothers I have been lucky enough to be friends with, I always hate it whenever I catch myself falling in with my pre-determined crowd. It feels like as my kids grow, my world is ever changing. I’d hate to think I’d be missing out by not keeping my mind as open as possible. Its harder meeting other mom’s with common interests than I ever thought. It doesn’t matter how many kids they have, if they are willing to put up with my neurotic ass, I’ll take em’.