Why am I so triggered by #twoundertwo?
On age gaps and choices that don’t feel like choices
A few years ago, I watched a clip of a very famous woman telling a chat show host, as though it were the most charming anecdote in the world, that someone once said to her:
‘When you have one kid it’s a hobby – two children is parenting’.
Fuck you, I thought. Then, less certainly: What if they’re right?
I’m pretty well-adjusted when it comes to social media these days. I’m on there, but very much with my professional hat on. I post about my work, my book, this newsletter. And, OK fine, probably too many pictures of sheep and dahlias.
But, mostly, I try to get in, get out. Let it all wash over me.
Pregnancy announcements, birth announcements, glib parenting jokes…none of it has the same power it once did to ruin my day or send me tumbling down a shame-spiral of if-but-when-why-not-me.
There’s just one thing. One thing that very often has me hitting the mute button. One thing that does funny, curdling things to my insides. And it’s this:
#twoundertwo
Two children under two years old. Why should it bother me so much?
It took me a while even to admit to myself that it did bother me. Initially, I tried to ignore what was provoked by posts tagged this way: feelings somewhere between dread and envy and insecurity.