They Say a Child Changes You. Let's See About That Shall We?

I have this little tyke (only not so little as this any more) coming to stay with us from August. Oh how our predicable lives will change while he’s here. Admittedly it’s only for a few months but still, he’s a teenager, I’m an adult (some days) and I’ve not been responsible for a small person since I had swim duty as a uni student at the canoe pond during summer camp .

Ronald and I—because we’re the epitome of hip, young-ish and selfish; with a lifestyle that allows us to come and go as we please—have been known to run screaming Edvard Munch-like at the mere thought of adult responsibility. Simply hearing about the logistics of child-rearing can make me cross-eyed with boredom. Our high-water mark of adult-like behavior is getting the interest paid off on the credit card bill on a monthly basis but now we're taking on the actual care of a—gasp—child! Are we certifiable?

Arthur is going to jolt our routine with the impact of an electric cattle prod to the head. We have a tendency to slouch in front of box sets with glasses of prosecco, uncaring about the time of night because no child is required to be put to bed or needing to rise early because someone has signed up for the swim team. We can get up to all kinds of mischief (or not) because we’re a household of two. If Ronald wants to mooch about in years-old boxer shorts, he’ll do so regardless of any moaning on my part. No one else will be subject to the sight of bare arse through fart holes except me. The loo door rarely gets closed because what’s the point. It's all been seen before. If we wake up in the early hours of the morning and feel the need for a quick shot of whiskey to get us back to sleep, who’s to care other than the raccoons already making a racket on the front porch.

We don’t have to lie awake anxiously awaiting the return of a teenager in the early hours of the morning (Arthur’s curfew is 17 hundred hours just so you know Suzanne). Children are something that happen off to the side. And since the move to the US, we’re not exposed in any real way to the vicissitudes of child-rearing. It’s a life without that responsibility. What are we thinking?

What I'm trying to say is if there’s plenty of hand wringing that accompanies women who are childless then there’s equally an unspoken selfishness because we don’t have them. If that’s been our choice. The scales tip both ways in these matters.

I’ve also had years of doing my own thing with the occasional babysitting thrown in to keep me honest. But now, with exquisite bad (good) timing, I’m about to have a teenager that’s going to demand a whole other level of effort. It kinda freaks me out a little bit. This period will give me a taste of reality that hithertofore was of absolutely no concern to me. No wonder the butterflies have started up.

Let’s see how the three of us stumble through these next months, shall we?

The upside is I want to buy a season pass to ski here in Colorado. It’s taken me over two years but that’s neither here nor there. And I’m looking into such dare-devilry as mountain biking down cliff faces and a bit of bare-knuckled white water rafting on the Colorado River. A whole other world will open up because, let's be honest, the aunt wants the street cred too.

Maybe it’ll be Arthur who’s desperate to have a day on the couch and I’ll be the one out at the skate park.

Unlikely.