Is There a Perfect Time to Have Children?

 

My Mom, Janice Boddicker, didn’t think so; stating, “A person is never ready for children. You just have to have them.”

For me that was not true. My husband, Tre Prater, and I married early. I was 21 and we had just finished college. He was moving to California to manage a UC Santa Barbara nightclub, The Grad. As an aspiring fashion designer, I wanted to move to California, too. However, I was unwilling to move and live with him without being married. So, we got married and moved to California where I worked as a fashion designer at Big Dogs Sportswear.

A Good time to Start a Family

Four years, and a reluctant move back to my hometown in Colorado later, circumstances presented themselves to suggest it might be a good time to start having children. Tre was working as an engineer. I was getting my MBA at Colorado State University.

As with many engineering jobs, the work begins at the home-base and then, the engineers have to go “into the field” to install the equipment. While I was schooling in Ft. Collins, Tre was working in various locations throughout the US. At this point, he was installing an automatic guided vehicle food delivery system in the Santa Rita California prison, outside of San Francisco. He had been there for about a year.

Work Clothes or Play Clothes—That is the Question?

It was October, 9 months from my MBA graduation and I was going to San Fran for a visit. I had $500 to spend. The question was . . . do I buy WORK clothes since I am about to graduate and get a job. Or do I buy PLAY clothes because I am going to stay home with kids for a while. I initially mentioned something to my husband in a phone conversation about this quandary. As you might imagine, he was dumbfounded. We hadn’t ever talked about WHEN we would have kids. We just knew that we wanted them.

Side Note About Wanting Children at a Young Age

Sometimes I wonder where my ideas and thoughts come from. I just know certain things. They are fully formed with a deep, mysterious foundation. In the 1990’s, most of the talk among my peers was about “waiting to have children” in order that they can do all these things they want to do, have enough money, establish their careers before kids come along, etc. Not me. My thoughts were this . . . I want to maximize the time I get to spend with our kids. They will want to do all this cool stuff with us.

So, here I am 24 years old, just finishing grad school with a husband that doesn’t live with me since he works “in the field.” Sounds like a good time to have children and I am going to San Francisco to visit my husband.

Flow Chart of Life

Since the “having kids” conversation did not go well, I sat down and created a flow chart of life, identifying four paths we could take and what the ramifications were for each path. Wait! You have to know that Tre was interested in getting his masters of engineering once I was finished my MBA. Here were the options:

1. Becky gets a job, which means we have to move; there are no fashion jobs in Ft. Collins. Thus, I buy WORK clothes.
2. Becky gets pregnant. Tre goes to grad school. We will live as cheaply as possible in Ft. Collins. Clearly, we cannot move the first grandchild from the family. Better save the money and NOT buy clothes.
3. Becky gets pregnant. Tre continues working. We have to stay in Ft. Collins so the family can help and the children will know their grandparents and cousins. Thus, buy PLAY clothes.
4. Becky gets a job and Tre goes to grad school in the town where Becky works. We have to move to find a fashion job and I buy WORK clothes.

So, I fly to San Francisco and present my FLOW CHART to the husband. We choose kids and grad school. I GET PREGNANT that very night and save the clothing money. Tre applies to the engineering graduate program at Colorado State University and is accepted.

Wait, What?

Skip forward eight months, I am nearing the end of my graduate program and very pregnant. Tre gets offered a job in Pennsylvania that he cannot refuse. We move, buy our first home and have our baby thousands of miles away from the family. This was not an option on our FLOW CHART.

Final Outcome

Turns out that was a great happenstance. As a couple, we only had each other to rely on. The distance helped us bond as a family. I could go into several other conversations about taking a baby home without proper training on how to care for one.

What? They are letting me take this home? I don’t know what to do.

I didn’t even have someone to help. It was two full weeks before my Mom came out and taught me about burping a baby. I will expand on this challenge in a forthcoming post.

Shortly thereafter, Tre’s new engineering assignment moved him back to Colorado. So, there I was, by myself in Souderton, PA, with no skill at being a mom, no one to help or show me the ropes, a house to remodel, and husband that was back “out in the field.” Dang! That was not in the plan either. But, we had our child (the precious Peyton Prater Stark, pictured on the left) and it turns out I didn’t need any NEW clothes because the Peyton just threw up on everything anyway.

It was a great time to have children and there is no such thing as perfect.