For Some Couples One Kid Is Enough

by Karen Karbo

Our divorce—which I couldn’t help thinking was related to having become a mother—was an incomprehensible life development. It was particularly difficult to grasp in light of my parents’ intact marriage and the dearth of divorced couples in the Southern California suburb in which I grew up.

Back then, “stay-at-home mom” was a classification that didn’t exist. The mothers I knew didn’t work, and if they were dealing with postpartum depression, exhaustion, boredom, lack of interest in sex or their husbands, they kept it to themselves.

For a time, I wondered if I wasn’t a modern day Demeter—one of those women who, upon having a child, find their men to be superfluous. Rather than focusing on their husbands and affectionately tolerating children underfoot, they adore their children and value men for the security they provide, but little else.

The opportunity to have another child after my divorce arose when I became involved with a man who would turn out to be one of the worst romantic choices of my life. Because I already had my perfect girl, I was in no hurry to have a new baby.

But to this day, I occasionally throw myself down upon my non-churchgoing Episcopalian knees and thank the Good Lord in His infinite mercy that I never had a child with this lunatic. It would have ruined my life, and one of the tough but crucial lessons I learned from our liaison was the degree to which physical attraction is absolutely no indicator for procreation. It’s the tyranny of biology at work, pure and simple.