I’m writing this on my way to pick up my daughter from school because they called to say she’s constipated. In other words, she’s having trouble pooping.
Meanwhile, I’m coming from a hospital checkup for my other child, who has colic, or is it reflux they call it? So, in the span of one trip, I’ve gone from one child’s stomach to another’s.
A long time ago, I heard someone say, “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”
I didn’t understand it. It sounded like one of those things parents say to make their job sound more serious than it is.
Now, I understand. In fact, I would like to apologise to whoever said it.
I used to think being a parent was about feeding them, paying school fees and telling them not to put random things in their mouths. I didn’t know you would also spend a considerable amount of your life monitoring their stomachs.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I started thinking about my parents.
They had five of us…
Five children.
I’ve been trying to do the maths, and I don’t understand how they arrived at that number and felt comfortable continuing. At some point, after child number two or three, surely somebody must have called a meeting?
How do you manage five human beings, each with their own stomach, feelings, school and ability to call your name when you’re trying to rest?
With five of us, surely somebody was always going through something. What were the chances that all five children would have a normal day at the same time?
How did they keep track of everybody? Who was sick? Who had homework? Who was fighting with their sibling? And who had been suspiciously quiet for too long?
Then, after dealing with all of that, they still had to go to work and find money to feed the entire operation.
Perhaps they worried just as much as we do, and I was too busy being one of the five problems to notice. As a child, you don’t sit there thinking about how your parents are managing. You just know you’re hungry, and someone should do something about it.
Still, from how I see it, they seem to have handled it better than we did. They carried on, and somehow, we all grew up. I’m only now beginning to appreciate how much work might have gone into making that look normal.
And they didn’t even have ChatGPT…
When something happens now, I can ask ChatGPT seventeen questions, rephrase the question another four times because I don’t like the answer, then go and speak to an actual doctor.
Our parents had five children and couldn’t ask a chatbot why one of the damn kids was crying at 2 a.m. They had to figure things out, ask someone, or draw on whatever they heard from the gods God.
I don’t know. I should probably ask my parents how they did it.
But for now, let me go pick up this kid, because the way today will go, whether good or bad, depends entirely on her ability to poop.