Tina Fey's Confessions

I absolutely enjoyed reading Tina Fey's article "Confessions of a Juggler " in The New Yorker. Finally, there is someone who can eloquently talk about how I feel with incredible humor.

What is the rudest question you can ask a woman? “How old are you?’ “How much do you weigh?” No, the worst question is: “How do you juggle it all?” Usually it implies, "you must be screwing up everything!" The second-worst question is: “Are you going to have more kids?” She said that she thought that she would be raising her daughter in Manhattan with many other couples with single kids, but it turned out that her daughter was perhaps the only "only child" in her preschool. The baby versus work question keeps her up at night. She quips that the anxiety she feels is due to the fact that she's on her last five minutes - the last five minutes when she could become famous happen to coincide with the last five minutes when she could have another child without a high chance of giving birth to a "ball of fingers". With her signature humor, she resolved that she would have to keep working instead of having a baby because over 200 people rely on her financially, unless she does have a baby, in which case it is nobody's business, and she will absolutely not regret it, unless it ruins her life.

Indeed I have been asked so many times by well-meaning friends and family "are you going to have more kids?" I usually feel annoyed, but also annoyed at myself for feeling annoyed, as how could I possibly feel annoyed at such innocuous questions? It must be me, who has a bad temper! Therefore, I felt a particular relief and even glee to read about Tina Fey's confessions. If only I could be half as witty or eloquent!

The guilt that I feel towards Winston when I keep realizing my deficiency as a mother keeps piling up - this question about whether or not to have more kids in the end is about Winston. I feel guilty that the main reason for not having another child is my work, in which case I am hopelessly selfish. Will he be the only lonely kid in his class? Will I give him too much pressure because he's my only kid? Will I be too protective or spoil him rotten because he's my only kid? Basically, I fret over whether I am going to be too demanding or too soft on him, and it all seems that somehow having another kid will miraculously solve that problem, that I will then be a "perfectly balanced" mother if there is another kid. Yes, it does sound ridiculous.

Tina Fey will probably not have another kid, and that will be just fine as she says, unless she does have another child, in which case everything will still be fine. As for which way is "better", as we are prone to ask, there will never be an answer. Perhaps we do not always need an answer to our questions. We just have to know which questions need answers, and which ones do not.