I'm Supposed to Have a 5 Year Old By Now

I’m not sure what my career aspirations were in kindergarten. I still have my little nametag from when my teachers put together a classroom bakery.  Maybe I wanted to be a baker.

I couldn’t have wanted to be an actor yet, because I didn’t see Wicked until I was 8 years old (with the Orignal Broadway cast, thank you very much). I used to joke that a million eight-year-olds saw Wicked in 2003 and decided to be actors, and that’s why the business is so competitive. 

In reality, I didn’t even want to be an actor after I saw Wicked; I just wanted to fly.

I didn’t know that Idina Menzel played Elphaba eight times a week. I knew nothing about the life of a working actor. Honestly, I didn’t even know Idina Menzel was a person separate from Elphaba Thropp until years later. That is how real the world of Wicked was, and is, to me. 

But that’s another story. 

Here’s what I did know at five years old:

• I would fall in love and get married at or by 25

• I would have children immediately, at 25 

• I would train my children to have their children at 25 so that I could be a “cool young grandma” 

Later on, I also decided that I would have three children. This choice had nothing to do with the fact that I am the youngest of three girls. I think I just liked the idea of having a boy and two girls. 

I probably came up with this whole family plan while playing with my Barbies - my absolute favorite pastime. In one of my elementary school report cards, a teacher wrote that I took great care of the dolls. 

I didn’t go around loudly announcing this plan of mine – I was actually a very shy child. 

I also didn’t revisit this dream/plan/fantasy too often myself. It was just always there, tucked away neatly in the corner of my mind. 

I didn’t think about the plan when I finished high school without the boyfriend I expected I would have by then, thanks to every teen drama ever. 

I didn’t think about the plan when I finished college still single, having gone on a lot of dates from apps like Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Hinge, way before they were mainstream. There were plenty of candidates for my future children’s father, but no winners. (‘Candidates’ is also quite a stretch; in my early 20s I was the queen of first dates but I can probably still count the number of third and fourth dates on one hand.) 

I didn’t even think about the plan when acquaintances started having kids right after college. 

I did think about it on and around my 25th birthday, a month before the pandemic. (Remember, the global pandemic that put us in lockdown half a decade ago? Insane that that much time has passed.)

I was actually in a relationship with a guy I still maintain that I would’ve never been with for as long as I was (a year and change) if not for quarantine. I can’t remember how much we talked about kids. We definitely never talked about them in a real “do you see yourself having kids with me” way. 

Looking back at that relationship in the rearview mirror, the answer is so clearly no. 

At one point, I did see a long-term future with this guy, so I guess I must have subconsciously realized that some slight adjustments would be made to my plan. No problem, I’m flexible. To a point.

And then, we broke up. 

I like to call it the breakup that broke me open. It was less about the heartbreak of losing that specific person and more about the heartbreak of realizing what little sense of self I had in that relationship, and in general. I write about a particularly fun chapter of that season, in the essay below.

Around 2021, I started to question whether or not I even still wanted kids. I reflected a lot on the commitment that it takes to be a parent. I thought about just some of the many, many possibilities of what life could look like as a mother. What if my child has severe medical issues? What if I have to raise children during a global pandemic? What if I have to raise kids under the Trump administration? What if my child committed a crime? What if my child was wrongly accused of a crime? What if my child was as depressed as I was sometimes? What if someone kidnaps them? What if they’re switched at birth? What if they hate me? Like, really, really hate me? What if they run away? What if I can’t stop them from making the same mistakes I’ve made? What if I ruin their life? What if I’m not enough for them? What if I fail them?

What if? What if? What if? 

I ultimately realized how unprepared I was for the enormous responsibility and privilege of parenthood, at that point in my life. But I also realized that I wasn’t ready to entirely rule out the possibility of having children one day.

That’s why I stopped seeing this gorgeous, gorgeous man who I rebounded with after my breakup. He told me that he definitively never wanted to have kids. He was in his early 30s, so his words carried a lot of weight to me, as a 26-year-old. I hated the idea of throwing away the possibility of a great relationship over hypothetical children, but my gut knew that it was the right thing to do.

Even now, years and years later, knowing that I am now sure that I want to have children and that the time I spent questioning my decision only strengthened my choice — it’s painful to write the words ‘hypothetical children’. 

It’s painful to think about a time when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a mom anymore, a dream I’ve had for 25 years now. (The same age I was supposed to start having kids, funnily enough). 

I still carry around my evergrowing list of ‘What ifs?’ The more I live and learn, and witness the world unfold, the more my fears and anxieties grow. Sometimes I think about having a son, and how I can never allow my perfect black baby boy to play with toy guns. I think about Gwen Carr*, mother of Eric Gardener. I had the honor of performing for her, when I was acting in There’s Blood at The Wedding.

*I was so, so nervous to tell this woman the story of her son’s life and death, in a large-scale picture book when she first came to one of our rehearsals. It hit me on that day that Gwen is never not thinking about Eric. I saw the joy on her face as she talked about him. I realized the importance of telling people who have lost their loved ones that you’re thinking about them too.

Some of my ‘What ifs?’ are far less consequential but still very emotional. I once texted a friend, ‘What if my daughter wants to go to her boyfriend’s house for Thanksgiving?? What if my kids want to go to sleepaway camp and I can’t talk to them for weeks?!’ 

As the list of ‘What ifs’ grows, the excitement grows too. 

I have a list of baby names that I love and am totally not sharing thanks to what happened to Charlotte on Sex and The City.

I think about watching Gilmore Girls on low volume while rocking my newborn back to sleep.

I have literally written letters to my future daughter in a green Staples notebook.

I’ve been thinking about “the plan” again recently. I just turned 30. 

According to five-year-old Alexa, I’m supposed to have a five-year-old by now.

Instead, I just have a fun little monthly reminder from my uterus that I’m not pregnant.

Things didn't turn out the way I planned. Sometimes I’m sad about that, and I make space for those feelings. 

But here’s the thing – when I have children, I will now know that I am having them because I, thirty-year-old Alexa, want to have them, love them, raise them, and inadvertently give them a lot to talk about in therapy.

I love my inner child, but I am not beholden to plans that were made by a 5 year old.  5-year-old Alexa is not the boss of me.

Saying that “things aren’t going according to my plan” is the equivalent of saying “I am not living up to the plan that I created for myself when I was literally five years old. I am not living up to the standards of a 5-year-old.”

And let’s be clear – I have a LOT of respect for 5-year-old Alexa.

But I’m also okay with her being disappointed that things didn’t go exactly the way she hoped they would. She’s allowed to be sad about that. Thirty-year-old Alexa is too.

While holding space for disappointment, I also hold space (and hope) for the possibility that what’s coming next, is something better than I ever could have planned or imagined.

For all I know, the next chapter of my life will be so out of this world amazing that it knocks 5-year-old Alexa right off her little feet. 

(Is it wild that typing the words ‘little feet’ just made me think of baby shoes? Would it be wild if I went online and bought a pair for my future child?)

If you’re thinking, wow this girl has baby fever*, you can totally just go ahead and say it. My life is nowhere near where I’d like it to be when I start a family. And yet I’m thinking about that family all the time. Two things can be true at once. 

*Also, if you’re currently dating me and reading this (I am so single right now as I write this, so this is me manifesting here), I’m not trying to pop out babies immediately. But, like, clearly, I want them and if we’re dating you know that. And also, if any of this scares you, maybe I’m not your person. Who knows? As I write this, you don’t even exist! But if you do exist and you are indeed a real person that I’m dating who is reading this — you know what, I’m going to stop rambling and just finish this up. But also if you are my person and you’re reading this, how cute will this be to tell the kids about one day okay bye!

---

I think I’ll keep the plan but change a few things 

A refresher on the original —

• fall in love and get married at or by 25

• have children immediately, at 25 

• train my children to have their children at 25, so that I could be a “cool young grandma” 

The update —

• Fall in love and get married by [whenever I find my person]

• Have children at [when the time is right] 

• Do not train children to have children at a certain time, or even if they don’t want to. If and when I become a grandma, I will totally be a cool grandma, no matter how old I am. Stop being ageist, 5-year-old Alexa! 

Hang in there, 5-year-old Alexa. It’s all going to work out the way it’s supposed to.