Seeing children as a gift, not a carefully managed asset.
REVIEW OF: Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies by Steve and Candice Watters (Moody 176 pp., $13.99)

Eight years ago, I was chatting with a friend, also named Jenny, at a quaint café in Westchester, New York. The memory takes on a dreamlike quality, because we were single then—married, I mean, but unencumbered by wee ones. No car seats to tangle with, no squawking nurslings, no checklist required for a simple outing. Self, check. Purse, check. Buddy, check. Ahhhh, the simple life: we could finish our coffee and our sentences.

But then Jenny betrayed me, during that very conversation with the long lingering sentences and slow sips of latté. She said, “I think we’re going to start trying for a baby.” Just like that, she rejected the premise I assumed we shared: that you should have absolutely everything in order before you even think about conceiving.

Both of our husbands were seminary students at the time, and we were barely squeaking by. But Jenny didn’t assess her situation in purely economic terms. “I’m almost thirty now,” she said, “If I want to have more than one, it is time to start.”

Jenny and I, still in our twenties, were in the springtime of our lives, and I didn’t even realize it. I see it more clearly in hindsight, especially after reading Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies by Steve and Candice Watters.

This article was originally published in Books and Culture. Read the rest of it online here.