I remember. I remember being tired and feeling poured out. I remember the effort it took to stop for a few items in the grocery store, or to manage my time well enough to get around to a full cleaning job on the bathroom.
It hasn’t been all that long since I had a newborn, a 2 year-old, a 4 year-old, a 6 year-old, and an 7 year-old (and a 12 year-old, 14 year-old, and 17 year-old), but already, I have taken enough of a step back from that season to have romanticized the hardest parts. I can remember buckling my seatbelt over the moby wrap I never bothered to take off, and banning my preschoolers from the upstairs when the toddler was taking his nap, but it feels farther away than I ever thought it would when those were the day to day realities of a long, fruitful season of life.
I stood among dear friends this weekend, women in the trenches of parenting large families still growing, and I remembered the bits I’ve forgotten along the way. I remembered every conversation interrupted by a hand on my shoulder, and reminding the energetic 3 year-old not to chase his friends through a forest of adult legs. I remembered the sound of an indignant toddler screaming out his displeasure, and what it was to miss the bulk of a sermon because a diaper needed to be changed and whoa, what a diaper it was.
A few years ago, I was the mother people shook their heads over, wondering when I’d finally figure out what caused that. That season has come to a close, and nowadays, I’m more likely to leave the house with five or three or even one child… a small enough number that I rarely come into contact with that special breed of social police who feels it’s within his or her rights to question motives or sanity in regards to family size. I have no one who needs to be fed mid-outing, haven’t needed a stroller in a park for years.
And while I can honestly say that I don’t miss it— I feel a deep and abiding peace from the Lord in the completion of our family— I can say this:
I regret nothing.
Talking to my dear friends, listening to them finding the most simple joys in the midst of a season where they are being stretched thin, I was able to share my heart, and affirm the thing I suspected so many years ago, when the question “Are you done yet?” was a common echo from both complete strangers and those closest to us. I don’t regret it.
The thing is, no one does. At least, not anyone I’ve ever met. I literally have never met anyone who has ever told me, “I wish I had only had two children. The last five weren’t worth it.” I’ve never met anyone who has said they wished they had gotten to the empty nest season sooner, or had had less years with their children. It’s always the opposite. Always.
I don’t regret all the chore training, sitting on the floor in front of the little plastic potty and reading Peter Rabbit for the tenth time that day, or singing “Father Abraham Had Many Sons,” on a loop for months at a time. I don’t regret the terribly early mornings, the sciatic nerve pain of pregnancy, or letting a wailing teether chew on my knuckle for relief. I don’t regret the laundry that multiplied exponentially over the course of the day, or the pile of board books that lived in my van.
Even though my youngest is still a preschooler, I get to be the voice reminding younger moms of this truth: there is much blessing in this season. It will come to an end. There is a new fruitfulness waiting beyond this, but don’t wish for it yet. Enjoy what God is giving you here and now, and listen to Him. The other voices.. they don’t matter. Because they don’t know. They can’t see God’s plan for your future, or the future of a single one of your children. They can’t refresh you, and they were never meant to be the beacon guiding you through your days.
I regret nothing from those busy, hard years of parenting a slew of small people who relied on me for everything. And if you’re walking in obedience to the Lord, you won’t, either. It may be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. You may have days where you acknowledge that this is beyond your abilities. You may become an expert at crowd control. But you’ll never regret the work you’re doing right now, growing your family.