The Theory Of Parentivity And Other Equations
By Lara Shecter, Fri Dec 9th

When my children returned to school in September, I was remindedonce again of how quickly time is passing. I had just gottenover the shock of sending my eldest child off to Grade 1, when Isuddenly found myself delivering him to school for his first dayof Grade 2.

Albert Einstein may have been the first man to scientificallyprove that time is not a constant, but I have no doubt that thiswas something parents suspected for many centuries.

In Einstein’s world of E=mc2 time is a variable that isdependent on how fast you are moving. In a parent’s world, timeis a variable that is dependent on the birth of each child. Ilike to think of the parental equivalent of Einstein’s famousequation as The Theory of Parentivity. To put it simply, theamount of energy it takes to be a parent (E) is based on yourloss of memory (m) multiplied by the number of children you have(c).

What this really means is that when you become a parent, yourspace-time-continuum undergoes a radical shift and your brainhas a very hard time keeping up with the speed at which thingsare now moving. It goes something like this: One day you findout your pregnant, the next your baby is out of diapers, andthen your child is off to school. Sure, there’s some stuff inbetween, but it’s all just a blur of activity.

I have found that the net effect of living in this black hole intime is that my old, reliable brain was replaced by what I referto as my “mommy brain.” “Where did I put my keys?” or “What didI have for breakfast?” are common refrains. My forgetfulnessquickly escalated from the mundane to the momentous as I beganforgetting things I swore I would always remember.

All those special moments that mark the different stages in mychildren’s development just seem to blend into each other and Iam simply unable to organize events in chronological order.Which of my children lost their first

tooth in Kindergarten? Wasmy youngest daughter born yet when we went to Disneyland? Whostarted riding their bike without training wheels at age 4?Given enough time, I can usually come up with the correctanswer, but not always. The upside of all this time shifting isthat I feel I have come a long way quickly, and I have attainedquasi-expert parenting status in the blink of an eye. I realizedI had crossed the bridge from novice to experienced parent whenI met a lovely young woman who was a new mom and I had anoverwhelming desire to flee from her.

When I was a new mom, I found comfort and support spending timewith other new parents. However, once I had my third child, itbecame increasingly difficult for me to befriend someone who wasfresh off the “no children” boat.

I think the reason for this odd reaction can be traced back toone thing: poop. When I was in the throws of my first parentingexperience, poop was interesting. I had many conversations withother new parents about the frequency and consistency of ourlittle angels’ bowel movements. I admit I even found itdifficult to discuss my child in those early stages withoutbroaching this subject. Once I had changed my one thousandthdiaper, however, this topic no longer held the same intrigue.

Meeting up with a new parent now causes a similar reaction tothe one I have when looking at my high school yearbook photo. Irecognize myself, but I can’t quite believe that it was reallyme. New parents force me to ask, “Was I that neurotic? Could Ireally discuss breastfeeding for hours on end? Did I truly getpanicky if my child ate a grape with the skin left on?” Ofcourse, I was truly that neurotic and while I find it easy tosympathize with the dilemmas of new parents, it doesn’t mean Iwant to relive the experience.

While I am no Einstein, I have come up with another equation toexplain a different reality of parenting. It can be summed up asPT=S4 or Parenthood multiplied by Time = lots of Stuff.

Before I had children, I could have been mistaken for aminimalist. When I was 18, I traveled around Europe for monthswith my entire life contained within my backpack. At 22, I movedacross the globe to start a new job with a small suitcase ofclothes in one hand, and a bag of my favorite books in theother. At 25, my husband and I moved the entire contents of ourone-bedroom apartment to our new duplex using only our beat-upToyota Corolla.

Then my son was born. Before I knew it, I had accumulated morestuff than I had ever thought possible. There was the cradle,the crib, the changing table, the diaper bin, the mobiles, thebooks, the toys, the clothes, the blankets, the sheets, thecoats, the shoes, the boots, the strollers, the car seats, thehigh chairs, the booster seats, the medications, the swings, thejumpy seats, and the activity centers. And, that is the shortlist.

Recently, I gave what was left of my early baby gear to mycousin; it took two trips with our minivan just to get it allover to her house. This of course made just enough room in ourhouse for our next round of gear: the bikes, the in-line skates,the balls, the bats, the rackets, the dolls, the skis,the games, the inflatable toys, the nets, etc. Clearly, the onlyplace for minimalism in my life now is my mind.

Clearly, math and science can go a long way in clarifying theworkings of the universe, but perhaps the mysteries ofparenthood are beyond their domain. In the end, parenthood willalways defy logic and can only be explained with four littleletters: L-O-V-E.

About the author:Lara Shecter combined all her parenting theories in Now and Then- A Scrapbook for School-Aged Children. Divided in 9 vibrantlycolored sections, covering Preschool to Grade 7, this simplescrapbook allows busy parents to capture the magic and memoriesof their child’s school years with minimal time and effort.Visit http://www.bodegabooks.com for more information.