The pitter-patter of little feet gradually turns into the drumbeats and trumpet blasts of daily life. Then, suddenly, you find yourself questioning this thing called family and wondering what on earth you were thinking. Sure, the kids were cute, but for the past few months, you’ve been feeling a constant, nagging frustration that crawls under your skin the minute they tear through the living room in their muddy boots. Instead of being the calm, patient mom depicted on shows like Little Bear, you’ve become the wicked and evil witch of Hansel and Gretel, ready to stick your kids in the oven at the first opportunity. And, dads, you’re guilty too—feeling supercharged, knowing that no matter how thrilling the football game gets, there’s always the chance you’ll miss the game-winning play or get summoned to take out the trash.
You need a break. You need to get away from it all. You talk about it with your friends and imagine an idyllic life without children, releasing a large “aha!” dramatic enough to rival the next Calgon commercial. So, you make a plan.
Reveling in a Child-Free Moment
You and your spouse decide to get away for a bit. Or perhaps you have so much work to catch up on that your spouse volunteers to take the kids to the in-laws for a long weekend. Either way, you are sans children for a brief respite, and even before it starts, you’re thinking: Heaven, right? No one calling your name. No one bouncing a ball in the living room while you’re on the phone. No one saying they’re hungry, waking you up at 2 a.m., or needing a nap while you try to finish shopping. Your car is free of car seats, so you no longer have to stretch and bend to buckle in wiggly children. There are no sippy cups to fill, no homework to check, no rooms to clean, and no laundry scattered across the bathroom floor. You even entertain the thought of walking around naked, sleeping in until noon, and napping at 2 p.m. You imagine staying up all night, watching movies laden with curse words and sex scenes. Yep, Heaven! The countdown begins, and you feel like a kid waiting for Christmas.
Then, they are gone. The kids have left the building. You walk back into your house, and everything feels… different. It’s silent. You can hear the walls settling, and when you sit down on the sofa, there’s nothing wet or hard poking you in the butt. And the remote is all yours. Chances are, you keep the television off just to savor the one thing that’s been missing since the day you had children: Quiet. Really, how many times have you shushed the kids, putting your finger to your lips like a teacher with a soothing “Shhhh!”? You crave peace and quiet like a pregnant woman craves pickles. And now you’ve got it.
All those things you’ve been wishing you could do if only you didn’t have to take care of children are within reach. You could finish that masonry project. Stay in bed and make love to your spouse all day. You could even paint the living room, kitchen, and dining room in one day. You can order takeout for dinner. You can spend all day working on the computer without interruptions. In a life without children, anything is possible. You might even wonder why all those single, childless people aren’t the richest, most successful people in the world. After all, what else do they have to do but make money and get things done? You stretch out in the peace and quiet, moving through your world without children, feeling a freedom you haven’t experienced in years—or perhaps, ever. The first few hours are heaven sent. And then it hits you.
As nice as it is to get away from the kids, they sure do add a lot to your life. You realize how skilled you’ve become at multitasking and how enriching those spontaneous hugs and moments of love are when your child grabs your hand. You tackle a few more tasks that are difficult to finish with a houseful of kids, like painting, and realize there’s no one to give you a break. A football lying on the floor reminds you that just last week, you were out in the yard teaching your son how to throw. The ballerina slipper that’s been missing for weeks is found while you’re deep-cleaning the living room. You wish you could call your daughter and tell her you found it, just to see her face light up when you do. There’s something priceless and unexplainable about the way a child looks at their parent.
The day rolls on, and the longer you’re away, the more you begin to miss the things you thought you could live without. Dinner feels boring with no one else at the table, and eating your meal while it’s still hot seems overrated. The dishwasher has become almost useless with just one or two dishes to wash, and your spouse, whom you’ve been waiting to spend time alone with for years, feels dull and uninteresting when they’re not also being a parent. Nighttime comes, and there’s no one to tuck into bed, no story to read. Even though you’re tired of reading the same story over and over, you pick up the book anyway. You reach that one part your child loves the most and realize that without her laughing at the way you read it, the meaning is lost.
At some point, you start to question this craving for peace and quiet. It gives you too much time to think, and the more you think, the more you think about your family. When we’re away from the people we love, we often realize just how much we love them. Our routines may be crazy hectic and nerve-wracking, but they are routines nonetheless—and these routines include the people we love most in life. For the first time in perhaps a long while, you crave a little noise. The house without children feels empty, and the heart without children feels emptier still.
Life without children may sound good in theory. The truth, however, is that you’ve already lived it. During that phase of your life, like most people, you couldn’t wait to climb aboard the family bus and take a ride. Your life revolved around having children and building a life that was completely different from the one you have now—but still fulfilling. Then, when the family blooms, you find yourself wishing you could go back. The thing is, while it might be nice to return to life without children for a moment or two, it isn’t what you really want. That “old you,” the one you sometimes think was left behind with the unfinished oil paintings, no longer exists. And you realize that what truly makes you whole is sitting on the sofa (or the floor of your living room), popping a bag of popcorn, and renting a movie about a mouse, a vampire, a princess, or a toy—and sitting with your family. Sure, it might be so noisy and chaotic that the kids never really watch the movie. Someone will be upset about the last piece of popcorn, and your living room will definitely look like a movie theater after the show. You probably won’t even be able to sit next to your spouse because the kids will squeeze right in. But you will feel—and know—that you are exactly, precisely, and entirely where you belong, and where you are happiest: in YOUR life, WITH YOUR children!