There Were No Children in the Garden of Eden

The Man and I went on a date recently. It was very refreshing.

But the night before our date was rambunctious. We went out to a burrito restaurant. That excursion was an exercise in incessant ear drum busting. The 22 month old girl had a fit of the wails which we endured at the restaurant and on the ride back home.  It was way past her bedtime, and I was already exhausted from undergoing The Marathon of Motherhood (aka, fourteen straight hours of care giving). Being the responsive and attentive mother that I am, I blasted my favorite Alicia Keys album in the car to try to appease her. Didn’t work. (However, I thoroughly enjoyed singing along to Girl on Fire while my little girl experienced her own fire of a tantrum.)

I digress. Date night was a lovely dream. No children and just the two of us. Felt like the first 7 years of our marriage prior to children: QUIET. We even cracked a few jokes. And I got to talk with The Man about my writing in a bleeding heart artsy fartsy kind of way (instead of my usual stressed out and panicked “Oh my God, how am I going to get this story done with all the other stuff I have to do in my already overloaded life kind of way.”)

The time we spent together was well worth the money we paid to the babysitter, and the money we shelled out for dinner, and the money we shelled out for after dinner Starbucks coffee. I have to remember to make up for all the food and coffee I inhaled, but that was worth it too…in a way.

This date reminded me of what my pastor and mentor said to us ten years ago during pre-marital counseling: “After you say ‘I do,’ you are a new family unit. Before any children, the two of you are a family. Remember that.”

It also reminded me of what I read in a Preparation for Parenting course I took before we had our first child. The teacher of the course made a poignant statement: there were no children in the Garden of Eden. In God’s original design for a family, he had one man and one woman in mind, a husband and a wife. They were the foundation.

Yay! I now have biblical license to let the children run amuck while I watch Redbox movies all day with The Man. Okay, I stretched scripture a bit, but I do have to keep my family relationships in right perspective. Marriage first. Children second.

A lot of times, I become so child-centered I forget that The Man and I are the foundation. It’s easy to do, especially when children are small and require a lot of physical care and attention. I’ve heard lots of stories of well-meaning parents who pour everything into their children, and so they have nothing to give to their spouses. By the time the children have grown up and left, the marriage has shriveled up. I don’t want to be that person.

I’ll carve out that extra time and expense to have those date nights. I’ll take the time to talk to The Man each day when he gets home from work instead of bombarding him with my Honey-Do list. Because a strong marriage is the foundation from which our children are built.