Two is a family too.

Two may be a very small number but it still counts as a family –at least I think it does. X and I still have the same things ‘we do’ and things ‘we don’t do’ as any other family. We also have habits of talking, eating and arguing, just as big families do. And we try to have a regular lifestyle, just like other families.

But, according to an old friend, couples with one child don’t really even themselves as a family. ‘Not at all, she said, 'Family is something only for, at least, a foursome. Up till then you’re just a couple with a kid. Totally different dynamic.’

 I asked another friend. “Funny you should say that,’ he said, ‘I was at a party the other day and we all agreed that it’s not until the second one came along that we really felt like a family,’ he said,  ‘when you get to the second the whole way of life changes and you have to act as a family with everyone’s interests spread in a totally different way. ’

Maybe it’s a question of aspiration; lots of couples aspire to keep their young coupledom life, whereas my old singleton desire was for family life. However, it’s not exactly surprising that, when it comes to arrangements, X and I never seem to have the same say as, say ‘the Smiths’, or ’ the Browns’.  The Smith parents and the Brown parents apparently don’t even think X and I are even another family at all! I suppose,to them, X and I are just a random mismatched couple. 

You know that ‘the?’ As in,‘the Browns’ or ‘the Smiths’? I’d love X and I to have a ‘the’ before our surname too. Forget a family car or a family holiday, that little ‘the’ is an article that this tiny family really aspires towards.