KINTSUGIconversations

0:00:11 - Allison
Kintsugi is the time-honored Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold to highlight the beauty of imperfection.

0:00:18 - Cyndi
We believe the same is true for life and motherhood that transparent conversations can impact generational legacy, in the spirit of Kintsugi.

0:00:26 - Allison
We embrace our differences and brokenness in the everyday pieces of life because we can all turn our messes into messages and are each more valuable when repaired with care where before we were broken.

0:00:36 - Cyndi
Welcome to Kintsugi Conversation. Hi guys, my name is Cindy and this is my beautiful daughter, allison, and we are here to have another Kintsugi.

0:00:52 - Allison
Conversation. Thank you guys, so much for tuning in. I think this is going to be a fun one, because I have been having a little bit of baby fever. I made them a safe of smelling a baby and now I cannot get the smell out of my head.

0:01:10 - Cyndi
Oh my gosh, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

0:01:14 - Allison
For those of you that don't know, I do not want more children and I have been pretty vocal about the fact that I do not want more children. However, I am a woman and I am human and sometimes when I'm around a little baby, I'm like, well, just one more. Would it be so terrible, would it? But it really would, and I don't want any more children.

0:01:36 - Cyndi
You know, I think this is sort of a natural thing though, because even at my age sometimes, you know, I'll see like a little baby and it's like, oh, and when you're holding it and cuddling it even with my grandkids when they were little, you know just that whole holding and cuddling and smelling thing but then it's like, oh, you mean, I get to do all this with you and then I can go home, I don't have to stay up all night and do all this other stuff.

0:01:59 - Allison
Oh, that works, wait. So, first of all, you mean to tell me that I'm going to be in my sixties and still have baby fever. Yeah, it never goes away. You're a woman, it never goes away. But I guess, like you said, the good thing about that is that by that time maybe I'll be about to have grandkids and then, like you said, I can just send them home Exactly.

0:02:14 - Cyndi
That's the best part, though being able to have all the joys of being around the infants and even, like when they get older, playing with them.

0:02:22 - Allison
But then it's like, okay, I'm going home now, exactly, exactly, well being that you do love to hold somebody's baby, especially mine, I mean, you guys, she would hold Harper and Jackson while they slept. Like as long as I would let her, I'm like, if you don't put them down, she's like, well, they're holding onto my shirt, so I can't. And I'm like, wow, you could put this baby down. She loved to hold her sleeping grandbaby. I did.

0:02:48 - Cyndi
But they're just so peaceful then, and just that warm, snuggly, unconditional love.

0:02:55 - Allison
Well being that you love holding somebody's babies, especially mine. How do you feel about me not wanting any more?

0:03:01 - Cyndi
kids. I think that is perfectly fine. You have birthed two beautiful children, so in the grand scheme of things, I don't see anything wrong with you making a decision that you don't want any more children. I think that in today's climate, especially financially and looking to the future, educational costs and everything else, health care, everything is skyrocketing now and I think that not being in anybody's pockets but it's a big financial responsibility having kids.

0:03:38 - Allison
It definitely is a financial responsibility, especially given the things that we want for our kids. I remember, before I had Jackson, being worried about having a second baby because I felt like, am I taking from Harper by having a second one? I wanted to just be able to give her the whole world. And now, having two, I want to be able to give both of them the whole world, and so it's definitely a financial responsibility. However, for me, honestly, the reasons that I don't want more kids are they really relate, more so to our lifestyle.

For those of you that don't know, my husband plays professional basketball overseas and so for the last gosh 11 years, we have split our time between America and whatever other country he has been playing, and he's played in Italy, japan, france, israel, china, all over the place, no-transcript. You know, now that we have kids, it has been a lot of back and forth with the kids and a lot of instability, and at times, there has been a lot on me and on my mom, because she's usually kind of my, my partner in crime when my husband is away. You know it's been a lot to be solo with the children and, quite honestly, I only have two hands and so I feel like I only need two kids, like, especially when we're traveling, it's hard enough traveling by myself with two. I just can't even imagine traveling by myself with three. And then it's just like the logistics. I'm like, ok, like you know, we do have a pretty big car, but, like you know, fitting in the car, I'm like if we had three, this wouldn't really be as comfortable.

Or, for us, I just think that two is the right decision. And then also, if I'm quite honest, I always like I think most people do not all but I always wanted a son and a daughter. I got my daughter first, which I'm very thankful for because, being that me and my mom are so close, I always wanted to have my own relationship with, you know, a daughter and kind of bring my daughter into our fold so we could have this multi-generational thing working that we do. But I always wanted a son as well. And so, you know, I had Harper first and then when I found out that Jackson was a boy, I was like, oh well, like we're good, like there's my girl and my boy. I do think, if I'm honest, if I had had another girl I would probably have been more open to having another baby, but when I found out that he was a boy, I was like I'm good.

0:06:07 - Cyndi
Yeah, I understand that. But you know, like I said, there's so many things that go into. You know, raising children now and, like I said, with your lifestyle, I mean it's really, really hard. I mean there are times that, you know, when you guys are away fortunately now we're coping over, I can travel more, but there was a period of time that I could not come to visit you guys to at least give you, you know, a month of a little bit of a reprieve by being there to help you out with the kids.

And you know, just now there are times that you know Harper may or may not want to, you know, go to wherever that is and stay for an extended period of time. I know, here, when she got made from Japan, you know she was adamant that she was never going back to Japan again, you know. But when her dad was there and she was here, you know, with just us, you know there were periods of time when you know we found that she was kind of acting out a lot more and after some, you know, kind of self-evaluation and looking at things from all different angles and picking up the things that she would say we realized it was because she was missing her daddy so much. But you know, at you know, two, three years old, we didn't really understand that she would really notice that much, but she did.

So there are just a lot of variables into having a bigger family. I mean, like you said, you know we'll travel and just the logistics of getting everybody in one place at one time. And you know, if you had more kids there'll be a period where you know Harper would need to be here, be more stable, to be in real school, but then the other kids would be small enough that they don't want to be with Dan. So it's just a whole lot of logistics. You know, I am glad that you had Harper first because that also gives you kind of another mother figure for Jackson and sort of the streak. I mean she's very nurturing with him. So I'm glad in that respect. But I know you've got one of each. So I'm like, ok, it's a wrap.

0:08:05 - Allison
How many kids did you think that I would have? Like you know, maybe, if you look at me as like a newlywet, like how many kids did you think I would have?

0:08:13 - Cyndi
I thought that you would have two, but along with that again, I'm glad it was a boy and a girl, because I could also see if you had had, you know, two girls trying for one more, hoping to get a boy. Or if you had two boys, I could have seen you, you know, trying one more time to get a girl. So you're somewhere in that two to three range is where I saw you going.

0:08:34 - Allison
Yeah. So it's funny because growing up I always wanted two kids. Like always wanted two kids, boy and a girl. Didn't really care which one came first, but like, wanted two, wanted boy and a girl. And then, after Harper was born, I went through this kind of phase and it wasn't very long, but it was like a phase where I really didn't think I wanted another one. I thought that I may be good with one, and that is because I had this like fear of like not being enough for two and like wanting her to have all of me and not have to share me, and I kind of felt like like wow, like I don't know if I have the capacity to have, you know, another one. And, needless to say, that passed.

And then all of a sudden, I decided, and I think that honestly, in our last episode, or maybe it was two episodes ago, we talked about estranged family members, and I do have some family members that I have chosen not to have a relationship with, and because of that I feel like it can make my family feel kind of small. And so I remember telling DJ like you know, we don't really have a huge family, so like let's make one. And so all of a sudden I thought I wanted to have like four kids because I wanted to give my kids kind of what I didn't have, as you know your only child and then not having relationships with certain people I was like if we have four kids and we raise them close, we make sure they always have a close relationship, like they can have this big family. However, I then realized also based on you know my situation, having estranged family members that our family is not always you know the family that we're born into and we can create our own family.

And so I said you know what? I don't really have to have all these children, I can just have two, and then we can build these relationships with other families who want a big community and we can build our own, you know, big family, even though we're not all blood related. And that's what we have done. We have, I think, probably two or three other families that feel like family to us even though they're not, and you know we've kind of committed to having our kids grow up together. I think you know down the line we'll try to do holidays together and you know, for all intensive purposes, like they will be our kids' family, so they will have that big family feel without me having to be pregnant a million times. So it all works out.

0:10:59 - Cyndi
Yeah, I agree with that. You know family is not always in your bloodline. Family is the family, is the people that you know share your goals, your hopes, your dreams. You know that unconditional love that you get from them. They're there when the things are going good, when things are going bad and it can be, you know, a neighbor next door, a neighbor across town, you know. Whatever that case may be, but you can always generate, I think, that whole family feel Like you said. You know you guys can vacation together, you guys can do holidays together and that is truly what makes a family.

0:11:38 - Allison
For sure. So, mom, I know, of course, a lot about your I don't know situation and I don't want to call it a decision, but like why you only had one child. But for those of us, for the listeners that do not know, I did want to ask you and have you kind of share how many children did you think you would?

0:12:00 - Cyndi
have. Well, to be perfectly honest, growing up and even as a young adult, children were not on my radar period. I never really thought about having kids. To be perfectly honest, the only reason why I initially growing up you know, and I'm talking, you know 22, whatever wanting to get married was to escape from my mother's house.

0:12:24 - Allison
So you trapped my daddy? Well, I saw that as like a means of escape, you know, being that young.

0:12:31 - Cyndi
Fortunately I was able to meet, you know, and fall in love with a wonderful man who became my husband. But even in that I never I was so caught up in, I guess, living life freely and not feeling like I was being a hell, hostile joy and prison, that kids never crossed my mind. But when I found out that I was pregnant with you, you know, everything changed. You became the focal point of my life and I couldn't have been happier to know that. You know I was expecting, you know, a baby.

After you were born, you know it was just us and I did go through a period where I did want another baby and I went through, had some medical issues and unfortunately ended up having to have a hysterectomy. When you turned, I think it was three, you were three, but Charles and I had even talked about the possibility. Once we found out I couldn't have more kids, we had talked about the possibility of even adopting and kind of toyed with that idea a little bit and then, just you know, ended up in the long run just ruling that out and just being happy with, you know, what God had given us.

0:13:43 - Allison
And I think that you know, mom, while I know that you quite more than likely would have had another kid at least one had you not have to have a hysterectomy mostly because I know that I badgered you about it so much as a young kid always wanting a brother or sister However, I do think that, like you know, I have to say and I come from a blended family, so I do have siblings from my dad that are much older than me, but for the most part I did kind of grow up as an only child, because I was the only little kid in the house and I was my mom's only child, and I have to say that like there's nothing wrong with only wanting and only having one kid. Like I had a perfectly good childhood as an only child. I don't think that being an only child really stifled me at all. I am a little bit weird about my personal space, but not inside of that, you know.

I think that people that say that they made the decision, for whatever reason, to have only one child kind of get a bad rap, and I've actually talked to one of my close friends about this. Like people have said really hurtful things to her about having one kid. Like, oh well, why would you do that to him? Like why would you? You know he's gonna be lonely and like y'all?

We have got to stop putting so much pressure on families to fit into the mold that they want that we want them to fit into because we know better, so we can do better. We know that now you know people do have issues conceiving, people do have hysterectomies and some people just don't want kids, or if they do have one, they don't want another. And now that we know better, we can do better. And we have got to be more mindful of how we go about having those conversations with people. Honestly, if you don't know someone well, you shouldn't even be asking them if they're having kids, when they're having kids, if they're having more kids, you know I agree with that.

0:15:37 - Cyndi
You know people can be so hurtful and if you don't want children for whatever reason, then I'm sorry. But stay out of, stay out of this person's business. If they have made someone have made the decision not to have children or to only have one child, I'm sure they have thought about their decision, weighed all the emotional aspects of it, pro and con, and have made the best decision for them and their household. So I say to all of stay out of people's business when you don't know what's going on For sure.

0:16:12 - Allison
And if you are the recipient to one of those comments, you know if someone comes to you and says like, oh, when are you guys going to have a baby? Or oh, why don't you guys have a baby yet? Or oh, when are you guys going to give little, you know, little TJ, a baby sister or whatever it may be, you are well within your right to respond with something like you know, that's something that me and my husband have discussed amongst ourselves and something that we honestly don't feel comfortable discussing with others. We will keep you posted if we so choose, but if not, please respect our privacy and love us. You know the family that we are, however we are. You know you are well within your right to say that.

0:16:58 - Cyndi
Girl, you son, died because I was to the state of state out of my business.

0:17:00 - Allison
We know what she would say you know, just say I'm out of my business. If you have asked, you know a couple about having kids. I'm not trying to shame you. I'm just saying that, unless you really really know them well, tread lightly, because there can be so many things going on behind the scenes that we don't know. I mean, I'm sure that people came to you without knowing that you had a history. Yes, you know.

0:17:24 - Cyndi
Yes, please be more considerate, because I do remember I was at this huge convention with my husband and people might think they, everyone knew you, of course, and they just kept asking me over and over oh when are you going to give the house Not a little sister, a little brother, whatever and I was fresh off with my history, I can remember are actually leaving the room, his almost almost hysterical. I was so upset that people just kept asking me that. And you know when, sometimes, when there are medical reasons why you can't have other children, you do take on a sense of failure, a sense of you know I'm not good enough, I'm not, you know, woman enough, all of those emotions. So when people keep asking you that, it just digs that knife so much more deeper.

0:18:15 - Allison
Yeah, and so I invite you, if you maybe have accidentally been one of those people who have, you know, said something that you now see is inappropriate, you can totally apologize. You can totally say, hey, I was listening to this podcast and you know they were talking about XYZ, and I realized that, you know, I don't really know what is going on with you or why you have made the decisions that you have made regarding your family. So I'm really sorry if I crossed the line and offended you in any way, I'll mind my business.

0:18:46 - Cyndi
Yeah, just just be more considerate of other people's feelings. You know, I always say to people you know, trying to walk a mile, or not even a mile, trying to spend you know a few steps and someone else's shoes we always want to think that, oh, I'll handle this situation a certain way, but not until you're actually in the throes of those situations and those emotions do you really know how you would handle something. So just be more kind to consider the people's feelings.

0:19:15 - Allison
For sure, for sure, I agree, and you know, the decision to expand your family, to start having kids, to have another kid, no matter where you are, it's not an easy decision. And it's also not an easy decision not to have any more kids. You know, I know, in the beginning I was adamant like I don't want any more kids and I don't However, like it's not a decision that I necessarily came to lightly and it's something that me and my husband talked about in great detail. And it's also something that when I was practicing therapy, I did have, I think, two clients come to me who were kind of battling with whether or not they wanted more kids or not. One of them was actually a couple and one wanted more, one didn't, and then the other was just an individual.

And so you know, in therapy, what I have done with clients in the past when I was working in that capacity, is to try my best to kind of like guide them through that situation and the pros and cons and I know we are talking about human life here, so it's weird to say pros and cons, but there are pros and cons right to having a baby, especially if it's a second or third baby, and so I have them like walk through the pros and cons and sit with them as they do, that they might journal some at home, and then we will kind of walk through those pros and cons and we will make the decision first logically, based on those pros and cons. So a very logical decision Like does it make sense for you to have more kids? Can you have more kids financially, emotionally, do you have space in your house, in your car, all those things for more kids? And then, after the decision has been made logically, that's when we kind of step into the emotional aspect, because at the end of the day this is a big decision and no matter what the logical answer is, there's gonna be emotional factors that come into play as well and those emotional factors are gonna differ for everyone. But then we kind of walk through the emotional factors before I allow that person to come to a decision.

0:21:16 - Cyndi
Yeah, all of that makes a lot of sense, and then there are, like you said, pros and cons in having only one child. There's pros and cons in having more than one child. So I think you need to just really take time, though, and examine, first of all, why you want more kids or why you don't want more kids, and sometimes, if we can, it's a very emotional decision, but sometimes, if you can take the emotion out and kind of look at it generically, I think that also helps to form the right decision for you and your household.

0:21:51 - Allison
It does, and we recognize that there may be some of you guys listening that are walking through this very decision, and so we have included a PDF for you guys in our show notes of kind of conversation prompts, questions to walk through with your significant other. If you guys are kind of on the fence trying to decide if you want to have another baby or not, there are three things for you guys to kind of discuss together, and then there's three questions for moms and three questions for dads so that you guys can get the conversation going and discuss whether or not you both want more kids and try to come to the best decision for your family. So we invite you guys to check that out and see how it goes.

0:22:40 - Cyndi
And I encourage you, though, to take other people out of your decision. I'm not saying don't discuss this with other family members or other close friends, but understand that everyone has an opinion as to how someone else should live their life. You can't live your life based on what society or what anyone else thinks is best for you. You know. Take the time to make the decision for yourselves, and also know that is of no right or wrong answer. It's the answer that best fits you and your household.

0:23:14 - Allison
That is for sure, for sure, the truth. We wanna thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Conversations and if you are not already in our Patreon community, we invite you guys to join that. We will link it below for you guys. And in our Patreon we always share like bonus episodes to accompany every single episode that we release, and my mom is talking all about her experience raising only one child me in our first bonus episode. So be sure to have a listen to that as well. Thanks for listening, guys. Bye, bye.

0:23:50 - Cyndi
ATTENTION.