The Children | Adventures

An empty panelled room with wide plank floors, a tall mullioned window standing open and sunlight falling across the boards. — The room that is not ready yet An empty room in the afternoon light.

The room that is not ready yet An empty room in the afternoon light.

The agent says office, and I'm already wondering where a bed would go. I've been doing that in houses for years. An empty room, some afternoon light, and suddenly I'm thinking about someone who isn't here yet.

Having children is an adventure I'd love to go on with the right person, if it's something we both want. It isn't a requirement for sharing a life with me. I'd want to hear how she feels about it and leave room for us to decide together. I can imagine being happy with her in a life that takes a different shape.

If we choose to have children, the home I have in mind is somewhat traditional. I'd like to earn enough that we could live on my income, leaving her free to spend her days with the children and the house if that's what she wants. If she loves her work, I'd want to make room for that too. She may have spent years building something she cares about. Meeting me shouldn't mean being asked to put it away.

An adult and a small child seen from behind, walking hand in hand down a sunlit forest trail, both carrying packs. — Out on the trail A walk together, at the pace of the smaller pair of legs.

Out on the trail A walk together, at the pace of the smaller pair of legs.

Whatever I earn would go into our account, and we'd decide together how to use it. I'd handle the finances, but earning the money wouldn't give me an extra vote on how we live.

There are jobs I'd be happy to take responsibility for: the vehicles, the land, repairs, hauling things, and the phone calls nobody wants to make. Once something is mine to handle, she should be able to stop remembering it for me. We can divide the rest according to what makes sense for us, then change the arrangement when it stops working. I don't expect a division we agree on before having children to survive every stage of raising them.

She'd be doing work I value enormously. Saying so won't be much comfort if I finish my day and leave her to keep going through the evening. I'd need to notice what still needs doing and get on with it. The children would be watching how I treat her time as well as hearing what I say about it.

A warm tiled farmhouse kitchen with fresh loaves cooling on a board, preserving jars in a cabinet, a basket of oranges and a child's crayon drawing pinned above the range. — At home Bread cooling in a kitchen with a child's drawing above the range.

At home Bread cooling in a kitchen with a child's drawing above the range.

I'd like them to grow up on the land, with woods to explore and a creek worth getting their boots wet in. We could teach them to use real tools as soon as they could do so safely. They'd see us making things, getting stuck, and coming back the next day to try again. Some afternoons there'd be nothing arranged for them. I'd be interested to see what they found to do before we rushed in with suggestions.

Small boots, a glass collecting jar, a magnifier and handwritten pages on the mossy bank of a clear woodland pool. — Loose in the trees Boots and a collecting jar left beside the creek.

Loose in the trees Boots and a collecting jar left beside the creek.

There are a few things I'd like to help them learn before they leave home. How to make something useful. How to enjoy their own company. How to talk comfortably with an adult, ask a question, and listen to the answer. Those seem worth spending time on, though I expect they'll have interests I haven't thought to put on a list.

We'd raise them in the faith. We'd say grace and mean it, and try to behave in ways that made sense alongside what we'd told them about God. If I'd been unfair to their mother, they could hear me apologize. I'd want them to know that being the father doesn't spare me the embarrassment of admitting I've got something wrong.

An overhead view of a laden dinner table with four pairs of hands of different sizes reaching across it, a golden loaf at the centre. — Grace, and the apology they overheard A place for each of us at the table.

Grace, and the apology they overheard A place for each of us at the table.

They'd hear us disagree too. I hope we'd usually manage it kindly, and that when we didn't, they'd see us return to the conversation and do better. I'd like changing their minds to feel ordinary. They should have plenty of practice watching their parents do it.

There's one small thing I keep imagining. The children are in bed, or supposed to be, and we're talking quietly in the hallway. Their mother mentions something one of them did that afternoon, and I tell her what I liked about it. Then perhaps I say something about her that I'm glad the children can hear as well.

A dim upstairs hallway at night with warm light spilling from a partly open bedroom door across a patterned runner. — After bedtime The hallway after bedtime, with light still coming under the door.

After bedtime The hallway after bedtime, with light still coming under the door.

I'd like to make room for those conversations. Let them overhear us being pleased with them, without calling them over to receive a compliment. Let them hear affection in the way we talk to each other when we've finished being in charge for the day. They can lie there thinking we have no idea they're awake.

All of this is easy to imagine with a full night's sleep and no children. I haven't done it yet. Some of what I've written will probably need revising before the first year is over, and I'd hope to recognize that before she has to point it out too many times.

We may also want children and find that we can't have them. That's difficult to leave on the page after everything I've just described, but it belongs here. Wanting them badly enough can't guarantee anything, and neither can faith.

If that happens, I'll be there for the appointments and for the days afterward when there's nothing useful to say. She won't have to make peace with it on a schedule for my sake. We'd have our own ways of grieving, and I'd want us to keep talking even when we couldn't make each other feel better.

I'd still want the life with her. We'd have to discover what it could become, with God's help and probably a good deal of uncertainty. I would keep choosing it with her.