According to our daughter’s careful deconstruction of the Christmas story via children’s board books, Mary and Joseph were accompanied by a goose, chicken, chick, peacock, mouse, horse, spider, rooster, sheep, lamb, goat, old dog, stray cat, donkey, shepherds, cows, angels, kings, wise Ones, magi (those last three are all distinct and yet totally the same– apparently her thought veers Trinitarian), tiny baby Jesus, bigger baby Jesus and a rat. In our house, the stable scene expands even more—the random toys, tchotchkes and stuffed animals which end up witnessing the incarnation are just as surprising as the original event was itself.
As I stared at the crowds amassed around our holy family, it occurred to me that with our first child, other than the occasional comment on our parenting and her stranger glare reserved demeanor, we were pretty much left alone as parents to sink or float. Family and friends came and met her, doted and then left at the end of the day. The stable cleared out and it was just us.
Our son was more complicated.
From the moment he was born, and the medical interns ushered out so that the neonatologists could start breaking the news of his probable Down syndrome diagnosis to us, we were been surrounded by people. As I nursed him the first time, four nurses came along to discuss whether it was working or not (it was, but I am still unsure if I merited a vote in that group). Our two neonatologists took turns schlepping our questions and anxieties and unfolding complications with the grace and determination of female beach volleyball Olympians.
Once we were discharged from the hospital, we came into the care of our Down syndrome clinic and its five clinicians, therapists and coordinators; our local Early Intervention, with our four therapists accompanying us over three years; our stalwart pediatrician and the two nurses who were our ‘regulars’ for phone questions, sometimes on a daily basis; our specialists (heart, ears, endocrine, eyes); our three daily childcare providers who learned along with us; our therapy group coordinators and their multiple para-educators; our three preschool teachers; our church community, our family, our friends, and every single person who stopped us in the supermarket checkout line to ask about our small, redheaded child with differently shaped eyes.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
The stable is usually painted as a serene place, where there is always ‘room for a little one,’ and each animal has a job or place to sit. It assumes that geniality ruled that sacred night. I wonder, though, if there wasn’t just a bit of sniping, jostling and differing opinions of the events from those creatures (not to mention shepherds and wise ones). After all, placid crowds around a small child seem hopeful, rather than realistic.
Our lives from our son’s birth have been similarly blessed by the company surrounding us, and also challenged. Our home, our parenting, our decisions, even our pregnancy and my age, were all fair game to public inquiry. Therapists sometimes disagreed. Scheduling my ‘household staff’ and medical appointments became a third full-time job. Our daughter often felt left out of the fun and attention. When plateaus in his development happened, it felt personal, as though we weren’t doing enough, engaging enough, parenting enough. And while it was our own family, it was never simply our own bubble. Our lives, with the crowds surrounding us, became transparent; our challenges, public.
I’m truly trying to not create a comparison between my family and that holy one two thousand years ago, because no one has time for light heresy this season. However, I wonder a lot about Mary and Joseph, with their unexpected, transformative child. I wonder if they ever felt lonely while holding nine months of angelically-announced knowledge of who this child might be. I wonder, deep in that night of labor and delivery, if their anticipation of God-among-us was comforted by the very fact that they weren’t the only ones witnessing this miracle, not the only ones carrying the story on their own.
I wonder if Mary had those moments of push and pull between the private world of parenting and the proscribed public nature of her (their) child.
Watching our family stable ebb and flow with additions, subtractions and the occasional swipe of the dog’s tail sending everyone, holy and not, flying off the table, I also wonder, perhaps, if those crowds were a gift.
They came to bring comfort. They came to affirm an unexpected family. They came to witness something wholly different from the small world they inhabited. They saw value in a small child, on the margins. I’m sure they jostled, sniped, pushed one another, because that’s what we do when we want to be part of the story, the promise, the possibility. I imagine they offered a scared couple assurance, deep in the night.
Our stable doesn’t fit neatly anywhere. It’s basically always in chaos. But ultimately it is chaos geared by and with and through love, and we’re learning day by day, regardless of the season, that there is always room for a little one here.
Who is in your stable? Who is part of your village?
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what a wonderful post – and it reads like poetry
Really enjoyed your reflections. Loved the line about avoiding heresy. A question though … Where’s the stable in the nativity story? I only read if a family home with regular family animals in residence, the baby right in the middle in a domestic manger.
Hi Chris, thanks for the comment! I suppose a stable is a reach in terms of exegesis from the Greek, but it’s what we call it in our house with small children because it’s how many of the nativity scenes we have at home portray it! Sometimes you use what you got and make it work for the littles 🙂 Might not translate exactly for others. Thanks for clarifying!
You have done a beautiful job articulating your experience- thank you for sharing these words.
Thank you for the kind words Christian 🙂
Our first child was born 3 months prematurely in the 1950s. Other than being kept in an incubator until he reached the 5 pound mark, there was no massive cast of experts as described in today’s essay. He was supposed to be due on January 20; my labor began very unexpectedly on October 15, just after my stepfather had visited to tell me that my mom had just birthed my new baby sister…who weighed more than twice my son, whose birth weight was 3 pounds 10 ounces. Nobody said anything about Downs’ Syndrome for several months…when he was about five months old, the doctor opined that that might be a possibikity, but nobody seemed to know for sure. It was not until our little boy was two years old that a pediatrics specialist finally confirmed the idea. So we were pretty much on our own, raising our first born, loving him, and not worrying overmuch about developmental stages. He learned to walk when he was three, shocking our doctor who had predicted that he’d probably never walk; he learned to talk at three and a half, about the same time as his baby sister did (she weighed in at an even seven pounds, after a full term pregnancy.) Baby number 3, another boy, showed up a couple years after his sister, and was a big-boned, husky infant ( No ultrasounds then, the doctor had thought this might be a pair of twins.) For the next couple of years, all three were roughly the same size, so I simply ordered jeans and Tshirts from Ward’s catalogs, eight or ten at a time, and put whatever garment I grabbed on whichever child was most in need of that item of clothing. Worked fine. Our eldest died, unexpectedly, at age 22. This was just before our daughter’s planned wedding, and also just before our younger son left for Navy boot camp. In just one month, we were out of the parenting business and launched on the empty nest period of our lives. We now have five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, whom we dote in, of course. It’s fun watching our daughter learning to be a grandma!
Our first child was born 3 months prematurely in the 1950s. Other than being kept in an incubator until he reached the 5 pound mark, there was no massive cast of experts as described in today’s essay. He was supposed to be due on January 20; my labor began very unexpectedly on October 15, just after my stepfather had visited to tell me that my mom had just birthed my new baby sister…who weighed more than twice my son, whose birth weight was 3 pounds 10 ounces. Nobody said anything about Downs’ Syndrome for several months…when he was about five months okd, the doctor opined that that might be a possibikity, but nobody seemed to know for sure. It was not until our little boy was two years old that a pediatrics specialist finally confirmed the idea. So we were pretty much on our own, raising our first born, loving him, and not worrying overmuch about developmental stages. He learned to walk when he was three, shocking our doctor who had predicted that he’d probably never walk; he learned to talk at three and a half, about the same time as his baby sister did (she weighed in at an even seven pounds, after a full term pregnancy.) Baby number 3, another boy, showed up a couple years after his sister, and was a big-boned, husky infant ( No ultrasounds then, the doctor had thought this might be a pair of twins.) For the next couple of years, all three were roughly the same size, so I simply ordered jeans and Tshirts from Ward’s catalogs, eight or ten at a tine, and put whatever garment I grabbed on whichever child was most in need of that item of clkthing. Worked fine. Our eldest died, unexpectedly, at age 22. This was just before our daughter’s planned wedding, and also just before our younger son left for Navy boot camp. In just one month, we were out of the parenting business and launched on the empty nest period of our lives. We now have five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, whom we dote in, of ciurse. It’s fun watching our daughter learning to be a grandma!
Virginia, thank you for this thoughtful and lovely response. I have heard so many stories of families from a few generations before mine and their journey with a child with Down syndrome, and yes, I can hardly believe how solo it was then! That must have opened up blessing in different ways– not having too many cooks in the kitchen, and the ability to simply ‘be’ where your son was. Our children each open up new ways of seeing and learning, and now that is coming from your own grandchildren! God’s peace to you and yours, Kit
I love this so much. Thank you Kit!
Thank you Becky!