By Farnaz Solomon
There was a time, when my husband and I would actually take time to think about sex. There was a time when we would go to get away and spend time together all day. I remember thinking about what I would wear to bed, what perfume I would secretly apply to smell absolutely impeccable and everything else that was “sexy”.
Now, 20 years later with 4 children and a beautifully complicated life filled with hormonal episodes, sibling rivalry, growing pains, and all that is involved in a family of 6 WHO HAS TIME TO THINK ABOUT SEX?
As with any couple who has fulfilled its organic purpose of reproduction, our size has obviously changed and intimacy has changed right along with it. Through this process of change, through all the diapers, all the sleepless nights, all the quarrels over child rearing, the importance of a strong intimate connection between a husband and wife is absolutely paramount. Making love now has the potential to be both refuge and salvation: all in one. I believe that as a family’s size increases, sex is no longer about a singular feeling or emotion, but rather a fruitful path to reconnection and unity.
For my husband and I, intimacy is the only private place to celebrate the arduous labors of having a large family. Our larger size has only intensified the size of our joys, pains, needs and desires. So if anything, intimacy is more vital and important now that it ever was before.
In every given day, as “responsible parents”, we are required to nurture, to feed, to soothe, to transport, to instruct, to guide, to provide for, to bathe, and to actively parent our children every step of the way. And although their needs and wants are paramount, (as those of any modern day, well attended to child should be), our own needs and wants are truly just as important but much easier to forget. Intimacy between husband and wife is not only a sacred place to remember those needs, but also the place to fulfill them.
So why not just do it? Why not carve out time to smell as good as we did before the pungence of parenting took over? Why not enjoy the partner we are growing with? Sure it may not be so easy, even at times impossible, to steal a couple’s private time amidst a house full of alive, awake, and sleepless children. Nevertheless, no matter how long the day, how busy the house, how tired the parent: at one point the opportunity for intimacy will manage to present itself and both the partners as individuals and as a unit will be all the better for seizing that moment together. Just remember to protect yourself or the size of your pleasures will surprisingly expand the size of your family!
Farnaz Solomon is a lawyer by profession and a mother of four by choice living in Los Angeles.