“Babies Don’t Keep”

“The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.”

— Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

There’s something about these words that pierce right through the noise. They land soft and heavy at the same time—an ache and a reminder. Permission to pause. Permission to let the house go, to let the chores wait, and to let the dishes pile while you soak in what will one day only live in your memory.

Having seven children spanning nearly two decades, I can say now with a lump in my throat that I would have been wise to put the mop and dishrag down more often. To linger a little longer in the nursery light, to breathe in the scent of baby lotion, to truly feel the smallness of their hands before they reached for independence.

And while I still have a noisy house for the moment, I’ve had a reckoning with what I’ve missed with the ones who have already grown and gone. I see now how often I worried about the doing of the day while the being—the kids themselves—got lost in the shuffle. I realize now that the clean floors and home-cooked meals I once prided myself on weren’t what truly mattered. Playing with my children was.

But I missed more of that than I’d like to admit, chasing what I thought they needed—when really, it was what I needed to feel like a good mom.

A clean house.

Nutritious meals.

Enriching activities.

A sense of control.

A home in the sense of a structure—when the home they truly needed was me.

And kids have a way of convicting you.

They hold up mirrors you didn’t know you were avoiding.

Think you’re eating well? They’ll question every ingredient.

Think you look cute with that new haircut? Better hope they agree—or you’re in for a long growing-out period.

But today, my son convicted me in a place it hurt.

“Thank you for watching me practice taekwondo… although I know you didn’t like it.”

I paused.

Wait—what?

I had told him it was my favorite routine so far. I told him I loved it. I had reminded him to show it to me and gave him my undivided attention. I consistently tell him how much I love watching him— because I DO

“I know you have other things you’d rather do.”

If there were a sword that could pierce my soul, that would be its name:

other things you’d rather do.

I felt myself shrink under the weight of it. And then the realization came—

he sees my actions, shaped by obligation and responsibility, as my preference.

And he’s not wrong.

Because here’s the truth—

I am the primary caregiver.

Three dogs. Four kids at home. The house. I plan, I drive, I teach, I cook, I organize, I manage.

And somewhere in that, I convinced myself that all of it—all of it—was love.

But what I see now is that much of it was a misguided attempt to show love through sacrifice…and it wasn’t received as such.

It was the doing of things—more than the being in them.

In my effort to create a nurturing environment, I created a busy one instead. Full of movement, but not always felt.

And my son—without accusation, without anger—held up a mirror and showed me that my well-intentioned presence didn’t always feel like presence to him.

Of course I would choose him.

Of course I would rather sit and watch.

But love isn’t proven in what we would choose.

It’s revealed in what we do.

Time is a quiet thief. One day, the floors are sticky and the rooms are loud with laughter and arguments and life—and the next, the house is still. Empty nesting comes faster than anyone tells you, and we’re left standing in the quiet, realizing how quickly the ordinary slipped away.

One day—sooner than I want to admit—he will be gone. And I don’t want to look back and remember being busy.

I want to remember being full.

Even now, with my older ones, I wish I had slowed down. I wish I had seen dust as evidence of presence instead of failure. I know I would have made a different choice—if I had understood there was a choice, and what it truly cost.

It’s so easy to lose ourselves in the rhythm of responsibility: wake, cook, clean, teach, drive, repeat. We do it so well that we forget life was never meant to be merely done—it was meant to be lived. Fulfilled. Shared.

There’s no award for the tidiest house or the most efficient to-do list.

But there is a quiet, eternal reward in the love we’ve poured into our children—love that ripples outward through generations, shaping hearts we may never meet, but who will carry our DNA and the warmth of the presence that once shaped their parents.

The kids won’t remember a spotless home—let’s be honest, they probably never even noticed. What they will remember is how they were loved. How we spoke to them. How we played. How we made them feel.

After being brought to my knees today in a reckoning I didn’t ask for—but desperately needed—I feel nothing but gratitude.

And while I can’t make promises for tomorrow, today, I’m choosing differently.

To sit longer.

To watch more closely.

To order takeout more.

To let the dust settle where it may.

Because the dust will wait.

But babies don’t keep.

With You in the Reckoning,

Emily

Ash & Bloom