Four Children for the Doctor

By Evelyn Barkins

Have you met the Barkins family yet?

First there is the husband and father, Dr. John, a practicing physician; then there is this lawyer-wife Evelyn; and thereafter, but definitely not in order of importance, Lizzie, Martha and George, the children - and Bradley, not quite a child yet nor on the scene but, nonetheless, the dominant character of the group.

Here is the story of what happens in a modern home when the family's older and already emancipated children (who nowadays are both seen and heard!) try to take over the parental blessed event and turn it into their own pet project. Here also is the story of that inevitable but exasperating and exhilarating phase of modern child-raising in which the startled parents suddenly make the discovery that their marriage is no longer a private affair, but has become, instead a full-scale family business complete with opinionated junior partners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780883914687

Evelyn Barkins

The forthright author of this book, Evelyn Barkins, is the glamorous and youthful wife of a busy practicing physician and the mother of four small, but energetic children. Although in the middle of such a beehive of activity, she remains disarmingly calm and efficiently budgets her time to let nothing interfere with her vocation ... writing such best sellers as "I Love My Doctor," "The Doctor Has A Baby" and "The Doctor Has A Family." All were enthusiastically received by reviewers from cost-to-coast and enjoyed for their refreshing viewpoint. In addition to being a successful writer, she is an attorney specializing in domestic relations, a cum laude graduate of college and law school, a concert pianist and the fascinating center of an active social life. In this hard hitting book, "Are These Our Doctors?" blonde and dynamic Evelyn again levels her sharp observant wit and personal experience at a phase of vital modern life that has long needed more honest dissection.

Book preview

Doctor

Chapter One

Variations on an Old Theme

FROM any point of view, I had never intended writing another book about another baby. The whole pediatric business, if you ask me, has already become much too much of a twentieth century Sacred Cow for me to want to say still more about it. Certainly, from Dietary Habits and Bladder Control to Nipples, Navels, Colic and the Subconscious Mind, every repetitious, gruesome detail in the Care and Feeding of the American Child has been glorified into a holy rite. Certainly, too, beginning with the automatic fact of conception and concluding with the wholly natural event of birth, the modern mother has been ridiculously encouraged to behave as if she, personally, not only invented the reproductive process but holds exclusive copyright to it as well—the rest of the population notwithstanding!

But besides all this, it also seemed to me that by the time a couple reached their fourth child, there just couldn’t be anything especially exciting about it. You’d think that by such a time, at least, the whole production could be managed, from start to finish, as competently and casually as a pair of battle-scarred veterans falling in for a routine drill.

Anyway, that’s what I thought way back in the beginning when the discussion about our having a fourth baby at all had reached the conference stage between John, my doctor-husband, and me.

Now let’s be intelligent about such an important decision, John began, as he called our private meeting to order.

Let’s, I promptly agreed, remembering the similar sessions that had preceded the birth of each prior child. To have or not to have—in our minds there had never been much question; but always, as now, it had seemed somehow fitting that this honored custom prevail.

Well, John continued cautiously, we should think this out sensibly and in real detail . . .

Oh, I’ve done that already, I interrupted happily. And it’s actually quite simple! This is the perfect time for us to have another baby. George is three years old already and comparatively self-reliant. I’ve just turned over the completed manuscript of my new book to my publishers, which gives me months and months before publication to get the pregnancy done with. And we both want one! Won’t it be wonderful?

I rested my case on this ecstatic note, but John was as responsive as a cigar store indian.

Now wait a minute, darling, he said. "This is serious. For instance, have you thought about the extra work it will be to have another baby? Mightn’t you find four children somewhat difficult to handle?"

At times, maybe, I conceded. But there’s a price-tag on everything you want in life, isn’t there? Anyhow, one baby-sitter can still serve eight, if need be; and with my years of basic training in the field, the rest of the nursery details should be a cinch.

Well, then, John asked next, what about the world situation?

What about it? I answered cheerfully, not at all surprised at this intellectual hedge-hopping. Long, long ago, I had quickly learned that in the course of John’s scientific inquiries (his very words!) into our domestic situations, all things were truly possible.

I mean the whole international mess, John readily explained. Certainly doesn’t make for security, or much of a future to offer anyone’s children. War, revolution, discord—you know.

I knew. Breathes there a parent with soul so dead, who never to himself has said: Is it right to bring another child into this chaotic world? Is there really a parent who has not hesitated, occasionally, before the weight of such a decision—a decision more peculiarly his than most others in life since surely, in the realm of parenthood, even God, the sole and ultimate Creator, can only help those who first help themselves!

Heaven knows that there is usually more than a fair share of ugliness in life for all of us: endless compromises, bitter frustrations, constant disappointments, failures, unhappiness, and a haunting feeling of pointlessness in the whole business. What does it add up to, anyway? we ask in moments of despair. Why bother?

For myself, I can still vividly remember how utterly overwhelmed I was with all this when I was still in my early teens. How terribly shocked I was suddenly to become aware of the world around me! How grim the future seemed, and how useless! How cynically despairing I became! We would sit about (my young friends and I) for hours on the bare floor, drinking tea and gravely discussing the Dark Age in which we lived; solemnly indicting (in the longest, blackest words we could find!) history, society, and Man.

Since then, however, I no longer chafe because Life is real and Life is earnest. Instead, I have learned that there is also a balance-sheet of happiness as well as unhappiness that is as fluctuating but definite as the daily stock market quotations. I have learned, too, that there is a purpose to life, even if it is not always a purpose we can identify or understand. Nor do I fret any more because all paths seemingly lead but to the grave. Somehow, I know now that mortality in itself can never wipe out years of positive living which remain as much a concrete fact as that of death. Even were there nothing more than an everlasting sleep and nothingness at the end—which I, for one, do not believe—then still the brief adventure would be worthwhile: so little ventured—8 months or 8 years or 80—and so much gained!

The only real trouble with life today is that so few of us are prepared to face it. We raise our children (as we ourselves were raised, unfortunately) on an unhealthy mental diet composed mostly of Horatio Alger and Cinderella. We fill them with false reassurances that Love Conquers All, Where There’s a Will there’s a Way, Murder Will Out, Virtue is its own Reward, and hundreds of other such beautiful clichés, all of which are as reliable as a soap opera and as illuminating. We set them out from infancy onward on a futile search for a nonexistent Fountain of Happiness which can lead only to disillusionment and disaster.

But, I finished, as I tried to tell some of this to John, if we teach our children the real facts of life, and not just the ones we wish were real—if we give them their religion and the Ten Commandments as a glorious goal instead of as an accomplished, thriving Code of Modern Behavior—then they’ll get by. Security from war, pestilence and calamity is just a foolish pipedream. If the worst happens, it happens to all of us—new baby or not. And if it doesn’t happen at all, as it easily mayn’t, why, then look what a head start we’ve got on life by having the new baby now instead of sitting back in worry and fear to wait for something that may never come!

I must have sounded quite near the deep end by the finale of this dissertation, because this time it was John who laughed soothingly.

Okay, he said. Resolution accepted: so Life is Not a Bowl of Cherries and who cares? Agreed?

I laughed too. Agreed.

Good enough. Then let’s move on to the next question on our agenda, John said—and on we went.

Before we were finished, moreover, we had literally covered the globe, including Russia, Sterilizers, Formula Service, Diaper Cans (in the house or in the garage) and the Hydrogen Bomb. With the filibustering art of an opposition party debater, we enjoyed full parliamentary procedure in arriving at our foregone conclusion: pro and con and back again and ring-around-a-rosy once more. John knew all the hard ones, and I was mostly his feed-man, like Jack Benny’s Rochester. The Intelligent Parents’ Approach to Additional Parenthood, John imposingly called it, and I guess, in a way, he was absolutely right. As on the three other such occasions in our married life (when our children Lizzie, Martha and George, were in the planning stages too) we tackled every fact, figure and objection on the roster, and then proceeded to do (but intelligently, mind you!) just what we wanted to do anyhow.

Three cheers for our fourth child!

These preliminary deliberations, however, while wordy enough for the Congressional Record, still completely missed the mark. Certainly, the months of pregnancy that followed were beyond anything John and I had so ridiculously tried to anticipate through mere logic—except, of course, for those more ordinary, routine obstacles of any reproductive course.

We knew from past performances, for instance, and were consequently well forearmed against, the inevitable Zombie shapelessness of pregnancy that would (and did) envelope me from the start—that increasingly peculiar, ponderous, ape-like state of being that makes one gradually feel less and less like an identifiable human being, but more and more like an independent abdomen on stilts. Forearmed, that is, only against undue alarm or shock on this account; but not, unfortunately, against the mounting self-consciousness, discomfort, annoyance and complaint that also invariably accompany such an overwhelming metamorphosis!

Similarly, we knew too, and were thus thoroughly prepared for the fact that most people would regard a fourth baby as practically indecent. From the popular point of view, as we had unfortunately encountered it with George, our third, a second baby is forgivable as a kind of necessary prophylaxis against the conventional crime of having an only child. All subsequent offspring are definitely in the litter group. Consequently, the horrified, "Oh no! Not another baby!" that greeted me with the unfailing monotony of a well-oiled metronome wherever I went, was not at all surprising—nor were the painful embellishments on this favorite theme that were so bluntly tendered by our most cherished friends!

But you can’t mean it! This singular remark, for example, came from Agnes Abbott, the wife of Bob Abbott, John’s closest doctor-friend and a boon companion in her own right, when she first heard our announcement. Why, I don’t believe it, she exclaimed; a fourth baby!

She said fourth as if it were fortieth, and so it probably seemed from her vantage point of one son and one daughter, very properly spaced two years apart. As I had long ago discovered, there is no severer Caste System in the whole world equal to that in maternity: mothers-of-two always regard mothers-of-three as unduly prolific; mothers-of-three invariably look similarly askance at mothers-of-four; and so on down the line. Wherefore Agnes, I told myself calmly, trying to meet her outraged stare.

Aloud I said: Don’t worry, Agnes. Even a fourth baby is legal, you know. John and I are married. Remember?

Married! she scoffed, still looking like the innocent victim of an unprovoked act of aggression. Really, Evelyn, that’s carrying a marriage license too far!

Many people, unfortunately, would have echoed these sentiments had they so dared. My mother, for instance, being a charter member of the Hands-Off—No Interference parental school—especially after innumerable unhappy experiences in the past—greeted the news of the advent of a fourth Barkins with a heroic silence—a silence that vibrated between us with enough electrical sparks to ignite an engine.

When she could finally trust herself to speak, she sputtered: Well—I mean—naturally, it’s none of my business and don’t for a minute think I’m trying to interfere, BUT—. She paused significantly after this traditional introduction, and then continued with increased confidence: "Do you really know what you’re doing? After all, you and John are by no means rich! Aside from how you’re enslaving yourself like this, can you afford four children? With four to provide for, will you still be able to do enough for each one? Have you stopped to consider that?"

I had—two babies before. The age-old question of how much is enough when it concerns parental duty to children, was something upon which John and I—but not my mother—had long ago agreed. As far as we were concerned, the only limit on the spiritual love and care and guidance from parents to children is a mother’s and a father’s individual capacities to grant them, and not the number of recipients in a family. Parental love is a wonderfully strange phenomenon: the more it’s drawn upon, the greater its balance grows, and the more immune it becomes to bankruptcy. Two or ten children—each child is assured of his own peculiar and separate share in this constant, never-dry well of understanding!

Materially, of course (which is more what my mother had in mind) the economic laws do operate. Obviously, one doesn’t need an Einstein-like mathematical brain to realize that one-third is less than one-half, and that one-fourth is an even more diminished portion. Nor does it take any greater insight to be sharply aware of the undue stress placed upon such practical considerations nowadays.

More than ever, in our present civilization, man does not live by bread alone: he demands cake (with whipped cream on top) and meat (the choicest cuts) and fresh fruits and vegetables (in variety as well as abundance) and new cars and fur coats and Florida vacations, among Lord knows what else! Accordingly, whether he can afford it or not, it has become man’s supreme goal in life and the avowed purpose of modern parenthood to give his children everything, especially the things he didn’t have; to give them music lessons and dancing lessons and riding lessons and beautiful clothes and culture and a B.A. degree and as much of the general jackpot as his years of struggle and drudgery can buy. It has become a personal disgrace and a cardinal parental sin to tell a child (even where the fact is so and a needless luxury is involved!) I’m sorry, but we can’t afford that. As Mother had just intimated, it has become fashionable indeed to raise children who must inevitably grow up and face (dangerously untrained!) the dull, menial chores and tight, uncomfortable budgets that with very few exceptions are the beginnings, and often the ends, of all our adult lives, as if they were heirs-apparent to a Rockefeller fortune. It has become twentieth-century logic to substitute the accumulation of money for the pursuit of happiness; to confuse contentment with prestige, and peace of mind with power or professional and business success—and then to pay twenty-five dollars, and up, an hour for child psychologists and psychiatrists to explain how come we have become such a muddled, miserable, self-confessed generation of neurotics!

For my mother, however, there was little point in even starting to expound along any of these lines. From past discussions, I knew only too well that in the realm of living philosophies, we were and would forever be two parallel lines that follow in the same direction but never meet. Instead, trying to keep it deliberately light, I said, half-laughing: Of course we know what we’re doing, Mom. We’ll get by. You should see the amount of basic equipment we’ve got left over from the others, and the samples of Pet Milk John’s been saving for just this. We can feed twins! Don’t you go worrying now. What if we’re not rich? After all, what’s money anyway? We’ve got plenty of love!

Love! Poor Mother! Maybe it wouldn’t have made for as much variety or progress, but honestly, in instances like these, I can’t help wishing that God would be a little more consistent and considerate when it comes to this irrational business of matching children to parents—if only for the continued domestic tranquility of the whole tribe. As is, though, the painful smile on my mother’s face became fixed, and the tone of her voice was cold enough to deep-freeze a side of beef, as she said: Really, Evelyn! Can’t you ever be serious? This is a very serious matter that I’m talking about! Isn’t it about time you started being practical? What can love buy—shoes, milk, bread?

Nothing like that, I answered promptly, but it has its place.

There was a misleading flippancy in my reply. Certainly, neither John nor I (heaven forbid!) is any fanciful surrealist hiding out in an ivory tower, stubbornly unaware of the hard financial facts of life, or even momentarily deluded that the Best Things in Life are Free. On the contrary, we are disgustingly practical with a very normal respect for the almighty dollar. I like mink (if I had the chance!) as well as the next, and both John and I (just try us and see!) are absolutely, unequivocally open-minded about Cadillacs, Palm Beach, and April in Paris. It’s just that we also are convinced that these things in themselves are not sufficient reason for being—that the feeling of being part of a family, of belonging, of being loved, of having a few good friends, of having interesting, useful work to do, of learning to laugh at life and ourselves as well as others—that these are truly the real, significant, lasting, worthwhile achievements of a lifetime!

Sure money’s important, I told my mother. "But how important? John and I feel we’ve enough for the basic necessities: food, education, and such. Frills—the extra maraschino cherries on top—with or without, we’ll work that out when the time comes—and on a strictly democratic, equal basis, including John and me. There’ll be none of this giving the best of the Best Years of Our Life to our young, and then hanging it like an Albatross around their necks forevermore!"

How can you talk so unfeelingly? my mother demanded as I paused for breath. Parents always give everything they can to their children even if it means doing without necessities themselves, and they never expect any return for it! That’s human nature!

Recognizing this as her holy gospel, I hesitated before making any reply, the mildest of which would still be deemed either ignorance or heresy. Then I said: "But it’s also human nature, no matter how closely children are part of them, for parents to want some show of appreciation when the children are grown, some kind of positive return, if not in coin, at least in homage, gratitude and respect—and to turn bitter and angry when none of these is forthcoming, as they usually are not!

Anyway, I finished abruptly, "that’s how it seems to me from so many of the cases I’ve seen in my law practice. But