Most of my friends have the latest models of freshly-minted pre-schoolers. I pay for double college tuition.
While the others appreciate my direct access to babysitters, they seem to be suspicious of how or why one would choose to have fully-formed, almost-adult children about at our age.
Chalk yet another faux paux up to my blue collar roots.
There were more people married or engaged in my high school graduating class than heading for college. Some of the older aunts were surely wondering what would become of me when I picked up a B.A. before an Mrs.
I was 23 and the leader of a group for the wives of married airmen in Biloxi, Mississippi when Jess was born. I was the oldest in the group. Many of the teenage wives insisted on calling me "Mam" and politely enquired as to the medical reason I was "just now startin'."
As a single parent five years later, there were career challenges. It would be easy and untrue to claim matyrdom. The choices were never hard. I liked the kid. We had fun.
Jessica's birthday parties were necessarily fueled more by imagination than money. The major selling point of the first home I owned was the library on the corner. We read their books, colored our own and browsed endlessly at giant bookstores.
Working in media opened up worlds not generally accessible and I brought Jessica along whenever possible. My childless colleagues treated her as a mascot and she seemed to know her place at that table depended on respectful behavior. Sometimes her questions were funny, sometimes they were the ones we wished we had asked.
She did not have Gymboree, Suzuki or pre-school French lessons, although one year I traded professional services for horsemanship camp and the Brownie Troop we had for three years kicked butt.
Jessica and I met Charlie and Jennine as both girls were entering their teens. Combining forces opened up opportunities, especially for travel. Our reconstituted family redefined the concept of road trip every few months.
Watching polite conversation between nannies and au pairs at pick up time outside a local school, I feel sorry for the absent parents.
Jess did her time in a half dozen after-school programs. I still flinch at the memory of the 5:59 p.m. pick-up grimaces, but I always got to be the first one to hear about her day.
I'd be flat out lying to claim there were things I wished we could have done if not for the want of funds. But I don't know if any would be a reasonable trade for the joy of growing up together.
As I write, my Oxford-bound 20-year-old is sitting on the couch behind my desk with a new coloring book I bought her for Christmas break. The Crayola 64 box now has 96 colors and she doesn't break them off in the sharpener anymore.
OK. So maybe I should have waited to reproduce until I could have afforded a private grade school.