All the Children, In

for now, at least

Are All the Children In

by Florence Jones Hadley (at least in part)

I think oft times as night draws nigh
Of the old farmhouse on the hill,
Of a yard all wide and blossom-starred
Where the children played at will.
And when the night at last came down
Hushing the merry din,
Mother would look around and ask,
“Are all the children in?”

Tis many and many a year since then,
And the house on the hill
No longer echoes to children's feet
And the yard is still, so still.
But I see it all, the shadows creep,
And though many years have been
Since then, I can hear mother ask,
“Are all the children in?”

I wonder if when the shadows fall
On the last short, earthly day,
When we say good-bye to the world outside
All tired with our childish play,
When we step out into that other land
Where mother so long has been,
Will we hear her ask, just as of old,
“Are all the children in?”

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Have you read this poem before? A phrase from it came to my mind today.

I looked it up to see who the author is and when it was written. Some sources say the author is unknown, other sources say the author is Florence Jones Hadley, a hymn writer of the early 20th century.

One website stated that “parts” of the poem can be attributed to her. But not all? Apparently, I guess. Very little could be found about her online.

Photo by Gianluca Grisenti

All the Children …

I’m a mother of three children. They’re not children anymore. The oldest will be 20 this year. (How did that happen, seriously?)

The middle child will be 18 next month and the youngest is 15—both of them boys who are taller than me. (And that’s saying something; I’m nearly six feet tall.)

When I was young, I pictured having a household of kids, like the family I grew up in. There were six of us. My mom also came from a family of six kids, and my dad from a family of five.

My mom’s mom, I think, came from a family of 13 kids. (Correct me if I’m wrong on this, Mom.)

I thought seven would be a good number. I’d even picked out names.

But picturing a future family and building a family are two very different things. When our oldest had just turned six and the youngest was only a year and a half, my husband and I moved from southern India to California, starting over in many ways.

It was a challenging stretch. I didn’t even have a driver’s license at the time. Within a year, I went back to school — starting at the local community college. It took me four years just to decide the direction I was going and get an Associate’s degree in English.

It didn’t seem prudent to expand our family at the time.

Some evenings, my husband would load the three kids into the family car and drive them to pick me up from college. Some evenings, I’d take an overcrowded bus to our little two-bedroom apartment.

I spent another five years at the education thing — BA in English, then MFA in creative writing. By the time that was done, our oldest was about to begin her last year of high school and our youngest was in middle school.

And I was nearing forty. Yes, plenty of women have babies in their thirties and on into their forties. Plenty of families decide to add one more about the time their oldest goes off to college.

But I think we’ll wait until the grands come along.

So, we do not have a gaggle of kids. If I were that mother in the farmhouse on the hill, I would not have to look around and do a head count: “There’s Anne, Mary, Ernestine, Martha, Frank, Bill, Lillian, Fred, Dan, Jack, Bob … but where is Jane?”

They might come cheaper by the dozen, but our family of five is perfect for us, and I am beyond grateful for each of my three children.

(Extra points if you recognize the names and literary reference in the previous two paragraphs.)