I know what you’re thinking, “She’s only recently back from vacation and she’s dipping her toes into the kids-or-no-kids discussion for the first time? She’s craaaazzzzyyy.” Which. Is probably true. Or maybe I’ve just been missing your bazillion smart comments… you never know. Regardless, here we go.
I’ve gotten tons and tons of emails from you guys over the last few months wanting to talk about kids n’ marriage, and for whatever reason, I picked Jennifer’s letter. Something about it grabbed me. But this post isn’t for Jennifer in particular, it’s for everyone, with thanks to Jennifer for kicking the discussion off. Today's post is about deciding when to have kids, and next week we're going to get into deciding NOT to have kids (because I know there are plenty of you who don't plan to have any, and I think that's rad.)
Hi Meg,
My name is Jennifer, I'm 25 and I've been with my soon-to-be since 2007. We bought a house last year knowing we would get married and have a family eventually. He proposed in February of this year and we are planning a charming backyard shindig at our new home. We've been discussing all sorts of things about our future together including the having (or not having of kids). We've decided that we do want children but not now and not immediately after getting married either.
I've heard so many women (and men) claim that they want to travel and see the world before settling down with kids. I don't blame them at all. For Stephen and I, we have two dogs that we are extremely attached to and we are working on creating our fortress of solitude to our liking. Travel isn't very high on our bucket list. Sure, it would be nice to have vacations, but we live in Florida, so we don't have to travel far to "get away". Anywhere else just costs a fortune. We have steady (well paying) jobs and we own our home. We know the lifestyle of being tethered to our home by our precious furry kids, so it should stand to reason that we could at any moment be conceiving a child.
I can't speak for my other half (although he says he wants to try in another three years or so) but for me, I just want to hold out a little longer. I can't exactly pinpoint the reasons why. It could be that I'm not ready for the post-pregnancy body changes because lets be honest, I haven't yet recovered from the teenage trauma, the birth control trauma, and college weight gain trauma that it has already been through. It could be that I have a deep respect for the 24/7/365 job of motherhood and my self-esteem says that I wouldn't fit in with such heroes (yet). It could be that my heart tells me that life may be short, but my head tells me to slow down and enjoy the views. I've always felt that if you rush into all that life has to offer before 30, promotions, homeownership, marriage, kids, etc...then what is left to look forward to? I guess what I'm trying to ask is...why not? When all the tangible needs that a child could ask for have been met, (aka when the planets have aligned) what other reasons besides 'travel' are there to wait?
P.S.-We don't have pressure from family or friends. Actually it is quite the opposite, they say "Recreation, not Procreation"
Sincerly,
-Jennifer
Orlando, FL
Ok. So. This is going to be a multi-layered answer from me, not to mention the thousand other layers the rest of you are going to add.
First, I’ve been somewhat surprised since our wedding by how tightly we still tie new marriage with new kids. I knew that once we got married, people might start asking us about kids, sure. But what I didn’t get is that there seems to be a powerful tie in our collective (even our indie collective) brains between being married and having kids. I didn’t forsee how many friends would have kids shortly after tying the knot (not that it’s a bad thing, quite the contrary, more cute babies for me to eat). Failing to realize this might make me a little slow, but it probably makes me a halfway decent person to answer this question (because in my surprise, I've had to think a lot about it).
David and I didn’t get married because we wanted kids. We didn’t get married because we thought the time was almost right for kids. We got married because we thought it was about time to get hitched already. Full stop. We’ve always been pretty darn sure that we DO want kids, and we had the general sense that we’d like the wedding before the kids, but that was as far as we’d thought it through. So when after the wedding I realized lots of people around me were thinking BABY,* instead of wedding, I got… a little unnerved. Even if you do have a baby right after a wedding, they are two totally discrete events, yes?
Because here is the thing: I think a good reason to have kids is that the time feels about right for kids (or you have a happy accident), and a good reason to get married is that the time feels about right to get married. I think we make a mistake (and I’m including myself in this) when we read marriage as pressure to have kids. Because really? They are two very different things.
So. When do I think it’s the right time to have kids? Since I haven’t done it myself yet, I’m only offering relatively well-pondered thoughts, but I’ve got them in spades (of course).When the pressure is on for kids, you suddenly hear a lot of people saying, “There is no right time,” and “you’ll never feel ready.” Maybe. But I’m going to say this: while there might not ever be a perfect time, there is definitely a wrong time. If you don’t feel ready for kids, for goodness sakes – happy accidents aside – wait. I’ve found over the course of 30 years that when it’s time for a big life transition, you start feeling little whispers and nudges from the universe/subconscious/God/whatever. It doesn’t feel perfect, but it usually feels good enough. If your subconscious is telling you, “Um. No. Check back in a few.” Go have some beers, or a dip in the pool, or some graduate school, and then check back.
Beyond that, I thought I’d take on an adage that I’ve heard A LOT. I’ve heard it bandied about by smart women in the comments, and smart women in my life, but I’m not sure I agree. It’s the, “You’ll know you’re ready to have kids when you can’t think of anything else. When all you can think of is BABY BABY BABY, then you know. That’s the kind of person that is ready to be a mother.” This sounds so wise, right? Yeah. But I’m not so sure it’s true.
When I was 16 my baby hormones turned on, HARD. I had a case of baby obsession unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve always loved kids. I’ve been slinging them on my hip since I was big enough to carry them (literally). I’m a baby person. But being a baby person is totally different from entering the land of baby hormones. When my baby hormones turned on I would get dizzy when I saw a baby in the street. I could not talk about anything but the baby until they were out of my sight. I am not joking about this – BABIES MADE MY OVERIES HURT. You know that thing that was said in the comments about how one day you wake up and you want a baby so much it feels like it’s a chocolate cake in the fridge and you would claw through the fridge door to get it? Right. The day I woke up like that I was 16 years old. And it lasted for ten years, right till I was 26. And then it turned off. I still love babies. I mean, I adore babies. If you bring your baby to my house, you get the night off. I will carry the baby, calm the baby down when it fusses, and feed the baby. No joke. But I no longer would claw through a fridge to get the baby like it was chocolate cake. I no longer think baby baby baby. Babies no longer make my ovaries hurt (thank God). That was hormones.
I have friends that had babies in their early 20’s, to feed their baby obsession. Some of them would make different choices if they could have a do it over. It's not that they don't love their kids, it's that the timing of their kids turned out to be really hard. I didn’t have a baby during my baby obsession period, and I’m pretty d*amn glad about it.
What am I saying? I’m saying that one day, you might check back in with your psyche, and your psyche might say, “Huh. Baby. Yeah, that might be a good idea. That’s something I’d rationally consider.” But there might be no, “BABYBABYBABYBABY AHHHHHHHH!!!” Ladies. That’s fine. The calmly planned motherhood and the oh-my-god-oops motherhood can be equally as good as the I-would-kill-for-a-baby motherhood. I know. I’ve seen it for myself.
And you know what? You might check back in with your psyche and it might say, “No baby!” Or maybe you didn’t even read this post because you already knew that you were a no baby kind of girl. That’s fine. That’s awesome. Because no matter how often the media says, “wife and mother,” like the two always go together, they are two totally different things. Being a wife doesn’t mean you have to be a mother. Just like being a mother doesn’t mean you have to be a wife. And being a mother is not the same as being a wife, even when you are both. Pinky swear.
Oh, and P.S. -
All week I kept rolling the sentence, “I've heard so many women (and men) claim that they want to travel and see the world before settling down with kids.” in the rock tumbler of my brain. You know, while I was traveling. And it just didn’t sound right. And finally I realized, we’re not waiting to have kids so we can travel, we’re traveling because we know we want to have kids one day (and we want to get in to the habit). And those are two totally different things. Travel should never been your excuse for waiting, because waiting needs no excuse. In fact, lets stop calling it waiting, and just call it, “Yeah. We don’t have kids right now.”
*Just to be clear, our families have never pressured us for kids. This is sort of the collective "people around us" not the specific "our family."
I think this question is a complicated one, that no “other” person can answer for you.
As a Speech-Language Pathologist, I’ve been working with preschool children (most with special needs) for 4 years… and the “baby” urge has never been stronger.
I agree with Meg, although you might know when is a “better” time, I really don’t think there is any lightening strike as to YES!! Baby now!
What I have learned is that waiting until the child will have a stable, emotionally healthy and financially stable home is essential in producing a happy well balanced child. I say this from professional experience. It is horrendous to see what an unstable, unhappy and financially struggling household can do to a child. I’m talking about seeing the results of neglect- which often can result in children who demonstrate as having Autism Spectrum Disorder. No joke.
Children are precious, they are vulnerable and they are *not* something to begin just because you got married and you’re almost 30.
That being said, I have also seen what happens the longer women wait to have children. As someone who knows all the things that can go wrong with pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards, the longer you wait the more at risk you are for having a child with special needs.
There is nothing *wrong* with having a child with special needs, and I have learned the MOST from the families of some of my favourite clients about love, acceptance and grief. That being said, we all picture our children (if we picture having children) as being healthy- cognitively and physically.
I strongly do not believe that as women we should treat our bodies as ticking baby-bombs. My body is mine and definitely NOT a baby making machine that has an expiry date. However. It is simply the reality that the longer women wait, the more risks.
So needless to say, this comment is long because the answer isn’t straightforward. I truly believe that if you consider Your life, Your new family’s life, Your situation- that You will make the right decision for You and Your Family.
August 26, 2010 4:50 am
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(ps- I do not want to imply that being financially unstable will result in neglect, or that being unhappy will result in neglect. I just wanted to make the point that instead of waiting for a nebulous “now is the right time” feeling that perhaps we should consider factors such as healthy family life and financial aspects.)
August 26, 2010 4:52 am
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What a brave comment. And true. It really is worth factoring in the kind of “world” we offer our unborns when deciding about children.
August 26, 2010 5:14 am
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I’m a special ed teacher and I feel like your comment was coming out of my brain.
We know we want kids. We just don’t know when. And in the back of my mind I keep thinking “Well, I shouldn’t put it off too long, I know what can happen sometimes if you do.” Then I feel like a gigantic hypocrite because I love my job and I love working with people with disabilities and I know there’s nothing wrong with it but I also know just how hard it can be on the families of my kiddos. Many of the families have come together and become closer. But I’ve seen many that have been driven apart from the stress. I’m worried that I would be such a neurotic pregnant woman that I’d drive him away with all of my fears.(Though, I’m pretty crazy now and he’s signed up for long haul already.)
I have a friend who thinks the only reason we exist as women is to have children. She told me I should go off the pill now so that I’ll definitely get pregnant right after the wedding. When I tell her I want to be just a wife for a while before adding another job to my list, she rolls her eyes and tells me that’s stupid and I should just have babies because “that’s why we’re here. That’s why women exist, you know.” And then I roll my eyes back into my skull so far that it takes hours to retrieve them.
August 26, 2010 8:30 am
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I know I am going to be a bonkers pregnant lady… and afterwards (did they look at me, are they pointing yet??? SHOW ME JOINT ATTENTION!!!” sigh). but then, knowing in advance helps reason through the panic moments. :)
too bad about your friend. but then, I have stopped trying to change people’s minds when it comes to gender equality, it’s just way too stressful since I feel so strongly about it.
August 26, 2010 9:21 am
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I’m uncomfortable with this line of thinking. There are two things that bother me-
1) Why are we not allowed to have ups and downs? Isn’t the “for better or worse” part of the vows supposed to cover this? I know my husband was in a bad place after there was a death in his family and he was hard to be around, but I tried to help him. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Why wouldn’t he do the same for me?
2) Why is the woman the only one susceptible to pregnancy craziness? I imagine my husband will be a crazy pregnant man. He’s more likely than me to freak out, panic, and get irrational in everyday situations, I don’t know why that would be different when we’re expecting. It will be as much his child as mine and I’ll be the one tolerating his nuttiness. Why don’t we worry about that?
August 30, 2010 7:41 am
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“I just want to be a wife for awhile.”
YES. THIS! I feel the exact same way!
August 26, 2010 9:44 am
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Awesome! This is totally how I feel, and have always felt, regardless of being in a relationship or not. I know I want to be married at some point, and I know I want kiddos, but I want to be married to be married- I want some time (an undefined amount of time- people keep pestering me, “one year, two years, surely not three years!”) to just be a wife, enjoy being married to my partner, and to build our married life together and our baby family of two for awhile before we add more family members. I am utterly confident that we would be perfectly happy and capable of having a child sooner than that, and also that we would be happy in our marriage without children (although disappointed, for certain), but it feels crazy to have to defend the simple concept of married without children, even with the acknowledgment that children are in our future. What about people who want kids but are unable to have them? Does that make their marriage meaningless? Oy.
August 26, 2010 1:43 pm
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Two things:
1. When I first starting working I had an ephiphany when I finally met smart, working women – OMG marriage and kids are not the same thing! Yes, obviously, but this realisation was huge for me (and not tied to my own marriage and/or kids plans).
2. I feel there is huge cultural noise that you must have a baby or you’ll regret it when you’re old. And I wonder how many people have kids because of that cultural peer pressure and a fear of some nebulous time in the future and not because they truly, deeply desire kids (and obviously I’ve never had the BABY BABY BABY feeling myself). I know you said you’ll discuss this later, but a conscious decision not to have kids even though you could seems like a huge cultural taboo. Just thoughts that rattle around in my head….
August 26, 2010 5:06 am
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I cannot “exactly” your #1 enough.
August 26, 2010 6:26 am
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Yeah. Re #2 that cultural noise is such BS. Because REALLY? We want to convince people who don’t want kids to be reluctant parents? That makes no sense for anyone: parents, kids, society.
August 26, 2010 8:20 am
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or the planet…
August 26, 2010 1:03 pm
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I don’t think the cultural noise notion is BS… I think she means that while people may NOT be telling you that you will regret not having kids in the future, most of them are thinking it. It is more of a subconscious notion, where society believes that women should have children once they are married. When a person says that they do not want to have kids, it seems like most people hesitate, and are taken aback, as they cannot understand that… unless perhaps they feel the same way and don’t want children themselves. I think things are slowly changing, and people & society are understanding more that the choice of not having children is entirely acceptable and people are entitled to their own life decisions, and if they feel that not having children is not for them, then this is a-okay. That being said, there is still plenty of pressure from society about having children, and being “childless” certainly has a negative association.
August 27, 2010 12:13 am
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Ah, I don’t think you read me very closely. Of course the cultural noise around regretting children exsists. It’s HUGE. It’s also bull sh*t. That’s what I was saying.
August 27, 2010 9:33 am
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Get out of my head today, Meg.
August 26, 2010 5:12 am
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Personally, I have no words of wisdom on this one. My brain is 100% happy being a ‘wife’ for another couple of years, while my ovaries slam me in the stomach with a hormonal baseball bat. Throw in the potentially-lengthy medical assistance we require to conceive and I’m totally torn. My partner is (both wonderfully and infuriatingly) totally supportive and ‘ready whenever I am’ since I’m going to be the pregnant one. Man would I love for the baby hormones to turn off… or for someone to just tell me what we should do. Any takers?
August 26, 2010 5:16 am
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I’m with you Cat. For us it’s not so much about when or if we want children… It’s HOW. We have a lot of reservations about all of the options available to us and making the decision about which path to take is incredibly difficult. We asked a good friend to be a known donor, but he turned us down. Now we feel at sea. We want kids now… But we don’t know what path to take.
August 26, 2010 4:47 pm
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I totally feel you on the pressure to work out the ‘how’. We do have a tentative known donor (still ironing out details) but I’m slightly terrified at it falling through. Where I live, we legally can’t adopt or access anonymous sperm… all of this is only adding to the ‘now when we know we can but aren’t in a great place’ or ‘later when we might be better financially, but might not have the options’ dilemma. Though I can see that having those options available wouldn’t make decision making any easier.
I really hope you guys works something out soon. Oh, for a ‘happy accident’, right?
August 27, 2010 7:07 pm
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I’m also dealing with the “how” with my partner… which ultimately impacts the “when.” We both feel strongly about adoption, since we both have beloved family members who were adopted, and there are just so many kids out there who need loving homes. But I have the baby fever terribly, and I just don’t know if I could be completely happy down the road if I don’t have the experience of giving birth and nursing a child. My partner worries about this route, thinking that if the child is biologically mine but not hers, she won’t feel as involved as she otherwise would.
My baby sister is about to give birth to her happy accident baby, and I can’t say how jealous I am that she didn’t have to weigh all of these factors against each other. I feel ridiculous for that, because having a baby now, when she’s 21, in college, and not in a long-term relationship with the father has all sorts of other complications. At the heart of it, though, I can’t help but look at her and think, “Why can’t we have that?”
September 1, 2010 9:56 am
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What’s funny is, lately, I’ve been asking my recently married friends when they plan to have kids. Why is this funny? Because *I* don’t want them. That ovary-hurting thing, Meg? I get that when I see a puppy (no, really, I’m not kidding), but when a woman brings a baby into my office, I suppress an eyeroll and pretend to be engrossed in work. I know. I KNOW. I hate myself for having that visceral anti-baby reaction, but I can’t help it. I HATED babysitting as a teen, it was by far the worst way to make money (but I did it, because I needed money, and apparently I was good at it even though I hated it!). Babies (and kids) … annoy me. Now, babies of loved ones? That’s different. But it can’t just be any ol’ baby, it has to be one who belongs to someone I love. And, even then, I’m glad that I can give them back.
Any ol’ puppy, on the other hand, and I might faint on the street … and I never want to give them back!
*Ahem* Back to my point. The two women in particular that I’ve asked about it, happen to be women who I know both want kids, and want them soonish. (i.e., they’ve indicated in the past that they want their first kid before they turn 30, and that’s looming close for both of them.) There’s another woman who got married a couple years ago, who I was SURPRISED to hear was pregnant (and it was planned), because she said she wanted to wait [insert indeterminate amount of time here]. So, for me, the questions go to those I know who want them SOON, and they go to women who I feel an intimate connection with, and not, say, a random coworker. Because, really, unless this is a woman who you would discuss your sex lives with over wine (and we all have women like that in our lives, and if you don’t you need to get some, stat), then you shouldn’t be asking that question.
August 26, 2010 5:31 am
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so with you RE puppies :) hubs-to-be has been known to grip my arm when we pass a particularly cute one. just to ensure I wont consider scampering off with it.
August 26, 2010 6:03 am
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Someone was selling paperless puppies in the park a couple of weeks ago. I had to call my husband to come drag me away before I bought one. Babies on the other hand? I’m so uneasy around them that they usually cry after a few minutes. I’m just not the mothering type.
August 27, 2010 2:52 pm
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You are SO like a good friend of mine.
Put a baby in her face and she’ll look like she smells something bad and it’s not a dirty diaper.
But put a cat within 30 feet of her and she’s all “KITTY!!!!” and immediately has to try and snuggle.
(Seriously. Babies dying on TV shows doesn’t faze her, but if an animal gets hurt she’s wrecked. Grey’s Anatomy? When Denny died? We were both sobbing and almost needed to take a personal day from work, but whereas I was all “I can’t believe they killed Denny!!” she was, “Oh my God, I can’t believe they put Doc the Dog down!!”)
What I find funny is that out of most of my friends, she’d make one of the best moms.
Oh well. That just makes for some lucky cats. :-)
August 26, 2010 7:46 am
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I feel validated that others feel the same way about puppies (and kitties!) that I do! And, you know that Pedigree commercial with the shelter dog? OMG, it made me SOB. So, yeah, I, too, get emotional over animals in pain on TV, but not people.
August 27, 2010 3:32 am
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One of my very good friends is like this. She very nearly falls to pieces when she sees a puppy (and usually makes the owners quite uncomfortable with her cooing and gushing over it. :-D) But has already said she will probably just be “favorite Auntie Maya” to my (future) kids and won’t have any herself.
August 26, 2010 7:59 am
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Totally understand the puppy thing. I have been going through severe puppy desire for 2.5 years now and my husband still says we have to wait. I’m not in any hurry to have kids (though we want them eventually) but puppies? Yes please. Unfortunately we’re in an apt that doesn’t allow them, but I’m hoping that will change sometime soon. I’m totally ready to take care of some furry kids, but real kids can wait another 4-5 years.
August 26, 2010 8:26 am
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YES! I totally hear you on the puppy vs baby thing! We’re getting a puppy right after we get back from our honeymoon…and not having babies for a (long) while. My friends tease me that when I finally have kids I’ll give birth to a puppy!
August 26, 2010 9:19 am
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I feel bad that we are turning this into a thread about puppies (quite telling I would say) – but oh my god puppies!! I’m exactly like that as well – when a baby shows up and everyone else coos over it, I feign a smile while thinking “please don’t make me hold it!” But a puppy, well my higher brain basically ceases to function when a puppy is around. Luckily in our case marriage has immediately led to puppy – we’re getting our furry baby in a couple of months! :-)
August 26, 2010 9:41 am
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I am absolutely the same way — never really liked babies or children and have never really wanted one for myself. I am so in love with puppies, however…
I’m glad this post popped up when it did because 2 nights ago my husband actually said the dreaded “C” word (children) and I freaked out a little. Never mind that he said he wants to start having kids in 3 YEARS, and I’ve always thought that I had at least 5 years to postpone making such a big life decision.
This gives me more to think about…
August 26, 2010 9:48 am
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Not to add yet another voice to the puppy vs. baby thread, but my husband and I have a deep, deep passion for dogs. I really do believe I feel for dogs the way some women feel for children. I have an overarching desire to improve the lives of all dogs – not just mine! We are the couple that picks up stray dogs when we see them on the streets and take them to the SPCA. Some (many, in fact) women feel that children are their calling. I really feel that our call-to-nurture is to animals. And shouldn’t I just accept that instead of waiting for the baby hormones to hit me and getting pregnant because I think I should?
August 26, 2010 1:27 pm
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We have two pups and they are so. very. much. our kids right now. We call them our ‘practice babies’. Seriously, they’re pretty much like kids except you can leave at home alone all day with a dish of water and a chicken neck and noone will call the authorities.
The only friends we have that have babies are sweet enough to factor our fur-kids into joint plans in the same way they work out baby-logistics (“let’s go do brunch at a local park instead of dinner. It means you can see Baby awake and playing for a change, and the pups can be off-leash and having fun.”)
That said, we will have the human kind of baby one day. Just not yet.
August 27, 2010 5:55 pm
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It’s interesting. I am planning a summer wedding for next year. I’m 32. I’ll be dress shopping in two weeks (at appointments that were made before I knew.) I just found out I’m unexpectedly expecting and am due two months before the wedding, which I still very much want to happen. So I suppose I’m feeling the opposite pressure — that the extended family will somehow assume that this was part of some baby-obsessed Machiavellian plan, or that somehow I’m so “crazy and bohemian” I did everything in the wrong order. But we are financially stable, happy, and in a place to have a baby. Just trying to figure out how to express that to my fiance’s more traditional family. It’s odd, as they’re not religious, but I have been sternly told by them in the past that “Marriage comes first.” Well, sure. Ideally. But we are already a family, own our home together, and have been rock solid for over 6 years. Why the societal angst? Which, to be fair, I can’t quite escape myself. I also have a hunch they’ll say “Call off the wedding” and expect that we’d do a courthouse number just to make it “legal.”
August 26, 2010 5:34 am
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Speaking as an old mom here, it’s possible they were just telling you, “Marriage comes first,” because they wanted to make sure you didn’t become a single mom. It’s also possible that once they see a grandchild on the horizon they will magically surmount their biases.
August 26, 2010 6:14 am
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Thanks…and then there’s the practical questions — ARE we nuts to pay for a wedding with our very own infant party crasher and all his or her needs coming up this year? If anyone has a two month old — am I nuts to think I could have a low key but still festive party at that stage in the game? Some mother friends seem totally overwhelmed at that phase, but I’d like to think I’ll be mobile and able to get into the spirit of a party even with a little one.
August 26, 2010 7:24 am
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Eff THAT, lady. I really really have a gut level hatred of this (new-ish) American idea that when we become parents that is our identity, and our only identity that matters. That with kids we must sacrifice everything to the altar of CHILD, money, dreams, lifestyle.
I call BS. The altar of CHILD isn’t good for kids. What’s good for kids is having healthy well adjusted parents with their own sense of self that live fulfilling lives. That gives them a role model instead of a hover-craft parent.
Which is a long way of saying have your WEDDING! Your wedding is about something different (though related) to your baby. I mean, be sensible, but have a wedding. (See Offbeat Mama here) but babies don’t have to be expensive when they are small anyway. You’ll make it work. Throw that party. Eff it.
August 26, 2010 8:27 am
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YES YES YES – Being your own person teaches the kids to be their own person – Create their own happiness, not wait for someone else to create it for them. Have your wedding and go back to this link from Meg for the ridiculously perfect wedding invite.
http://apracticalwedding.com/2010/08/sponsored-post-up-up-creative-eco-friendly-wedding-invitations/upup4/
August 26, 2010 8:40 am
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If I were doing this wedding thing the same year I was having a baby, I would save the big wedding shindig for six months or a little later. Let your family settle in first, and find out who you are now that you are also a mom. This is not to say that you give up yourself when you become a mom, but you become a different you. Whether you like it or not, your life has just had a major change, and you need to plan realistically for that change.
Speaking as someone with two young children, I WAS overwhelmed when my children were two months old. There is absolutely no way I would have wanted to be worried about major life events during those first two months. Here’s a laundry list of reasons why:
1. When the baby is just two months old, unless you are one of those lucky, lucky, lucky women for whom pregnancy is a cake walk, you are likely to still be getting back on your feet physically. I’m not just talking about losing baby weight, I mean physically capable of moving around with ease without your legs swelling to the point of massive discomfort. If you have a c-section, the edema (swelling) and soreness are amplified and take a lot longer to heal. There is a reason that maternity disability leave is 6-8 weeks, and it’s not just about bonding time. Your body needs to recuperate from a major trauma.
2. If you plan to breastfeed, you are likely to only just be getting that all figured out with your baby. Breastfeeding is not easy in the first 6-8 weeks. It is totally worth sticking it out if you can, but those first 6-8 weeks are a very difficult time. Your breasts will be sore. Your baby most likely will be feeding around the clock for days at a time (and I do mean around the clock) because during that first two months, the baby experiences several different growth spurts.
3. Your breasts will be leaking like mad, especially if this is your first baby. Breast pads smell and slip around. You won’t need them forever, but for the first three months, you can count on leaking like crazy (unless your milk never comes in).
4. Babies at this age are highly susceptible to germs, and illnesses in newborns are risky because they are still very fragile. My doctors recommended keeping the baby away from large crowds (even well-meaning family) to avoid spreading germs that, in an older child would result in just a common cold but could send the newborn to the hospital.
5. Babies at this age tend to freak out and be overwhelmed in large crowds. Also, many babies this age don’t like being held by someone who is not their mom. They can’t see past their noses yet, so their sense of safety is based on a sense of smell. If they can’t smell mom near, they start to scream.
6. You will be EXHAUSTED in a deep-to-the-core way that you have never experienced before.
Babies are lovely and wonderful, but those first two months, you really need that time to focus on healing yourself, getting to know the baby and getting your new family into a routine. Somewhere around the baby’s third month, everything gets a little bit easier. The baby is less fragile, you’re feeling more spry, you’ve figured out breastfeeding and your breasts have adjusted so that you’re not constantly leaking gallons of milk the second you put on a clean shirt, you’ve figured out how to function on cat naps instead of nice blocks of hours of sleep, and you’ve lost a lot (if not all) of the baby weight.
Around the six month mark, the baby is starting to get fun — and this is when it becomes easy to be yourself again. At this point, the baby is alert and may be crawling. The baby is curious, which makes it much, much easier for you to bring the baby along to whatever it is that YOU want to do, instead of living your life for the baby.
August 26, 2010 9:39 am
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Agree 100% – but there are SO, SO MANY examples of the altar of child. On mommy-blogs alone I could find a million, not to mention people I know who had kids and lost all identity. It’s terrifying and real. That’s a whole other thing that’ll take work to avoid, you know?
August 26, 2010 1:08 pm
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A couple I know got married this past June after having a baby in May. I wasn’t at the wedding, but in their pictures they look radiant, happy, and relaxed. You might be a little crazy, but you might also say, “Hell, I just had a baby! This wedding s*** is a breeze!” (This is coming from someone without kids, so I really don’t know what I’m talking about.)
August 26, 2010 9:41 am
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I wanted to say thank you to Sarah for being so honest and open about the havoc that pregnancy and motherhood can play with your body. Not in a foreboding sort of way but in a “genuinely caring for people’s well-being” sort of way.
August 26, 2010 5:53 pm
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Even with all the downsides Sarah gave, I’m going to stand by the fact that you need to have a wedding when you need to have a wedding. I’ve seen so many couples that put it off and put it off for a better time, and then it never happens. Or they have something “small for now” and then later realize “Hey that was the real thing, I wish we’d realized that.”
Make the wedding what you need it to be, don’t wait for the perfect time.
August 26, 2010 10:44 am
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And HECK YEAH use that up up creative invite. AND THEN SEND PICTURES.
August 26, 2010 10:46 am
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Sarah, without any pressure from the other side, I really hope that you WILL have the wedding you want. All of that “first comes love…” crap can put a sock in it. Your baby is just another piece of your commitment, it doesn’t cheapen that commitment!
Get a day-of-baby-carer, like people have people in charge of other things on the day. That might help alleviate some of the concerns about practicality. But the idea of your wedding with your two month old numkins makes me so happy I can’t stand it!
August 26, 2010 8:29 am
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The few people I’ve told have all been like, “And you’re going to have a WEDDING??” and wear a wedding dress??? And register???” A few have even said, well you should postpone the wedding since you’ll have baby weight to contend with and be nursing and so on…
Part of me thinks, well, this is the party we wanted to have, the deposits are down, the save the dates are out, I don’t think I should have to skulk away and do it “quietly and privately” out of some sense of shame. But the comments I get lead me to believe that many people think of getting married as the Oscars or some kind of performance for which I should be perfectly turned out. As though I’d be letting down our guests by being a baby-weight-carrying, nursing mom instead of a “blushing bride.” But yes, I think we’ll have the party regardless.
August 26, 2010 9:02 am
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I don’t think you should have to skulk away and do it privately for shame, either, but there are practical reasons why a wedding with a 2-month old might be hard on you.
August 26, 2010 9:47 am
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I hear you. We’re talking about having a baby nurse for the first couple of months, and I wonder if that will be a help in all of the above. I realize this is a luxury but it sounds so worthwhile.
August 26, 2010 10:09 am
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My sister was legally married only a month when she got pregnant and they were planning a wedding ceremony for a few months later. The celebration was actually really sweet and laidback so everything worked out fine even if they didn’t plan it that way. My nephew was only a month old at *my* wedding but he was happy and well-behaved. My sister was probably a bit stressed out being a new mom and the maid of honor but luckily her husband helped a lot. Best of luck!
August 26, 2010 12:03 pm
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We did the wedding when our little girl was four months old and it rocked! Granted it was fairly simple, and not huge, but that was honestly what we wanted anyway. We wanted to have a full on wedding despite lots or pressure to get married sooner. We made some minor adjustments in order to make it all work, but coming from experience it can definitely work.
August 26, 2010 1:07 pm
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Dude. If you and your partner want to have a wedding, have a wedding. And have it on your terms. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to say to your family-in-law “We get where you’re coming from, but that’s not how we roll. We’re doing this thing our way, and we most definitely still want you there and hope you will support us as we build this family.” Stick to your guns, lady. With any luck, it will be a chance to open some peoples’ minds to a different way of doing things, and a little bit of proof to them that happy loving families occur in all scenarios, not just when marriage comes first.
August 26, 2010 1:55 pm
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Amen.
August 26, 2010 3:19 pm
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Meg: your postscript about practising travel as a couple so that it’s something that comes easy to you as a family is EXACTLY the life philosophy we’re trying to live out. “Start today the way you want to continue…”
Lately I’ve been plagued by another niggly thought: grandparents. We’ve decided in principle that we’re going to [try] breed. Everyone is thrilled. His parent’s are marvellous grandparents to their 6 existing grand-spawn. Mine will also be superb. However, all 4 were born in 1946 (gosh! I wonder what was happening in 1945?!) and they’re not getting any younger. I am becoming acutely aware that in order for our kiddie-links to enjoy an active relationship with their grandparents, they need to actually meet their grandparents fairly soon. I’m the product of late breeders: my parents had me when they were in their mid 30′s and they were the youngest in their families so my grandparents were properly old (or deceased) when I was old enough to have a relationship with them. It makes me sad that my children might similarly never know how amazing and dynamic their grandparents are.
It’s just a thought. We’re still getting on that boat and are going to sail the Pacific without baby in tow (for this trip at least). But it is almost enough of a thought to encourage a prompt return at the end of our (self-)allotted two years of adventure.
August 26, 2010 5:35 am
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Oh my gosh, I have thought the same thing. My parents had us at 32, 35 and 38 (I was the one born at 38) and though they didn’t plan it that way, it worked out great for them because my Dad was more established in his career and my mom was able to stay at home and when all 3 of us were in college at the same time, it didn’t break them. I want that for me, but then at the same time I think, gosh, my parents had us old, if I have kids old, how old will they be when I finally have kids, GOSH. will they be able to run with them, or be healthy enough to enjoy them, but in the end, we have to do what is best with us.
August 26, 2010 5:54 am
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Gosh indeed! Sometimes I get really really really selfish and imagine myself as an ancient grandmother and how sad it will be for me not to run around and enjoy MY (thumbs crossed) future grandchildren! I almost ditch the pill and go home to shag immediately (ok, not quite)… But sorry for that: we’re still not changing our plans, especially when the time spent childless now is so blarry important to the family we want to have in the future.
August 26, 2010 6:47 am
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yes to this. this is what makes me anxious to get the baby making going sooner rather than later.
“It makes me sad that my children might similarly never know how amazing and dynamic their grandparents are.”
i can’t imagine my kids not having relationships with my parents. and, while my parents were late breeders (33 and 35), his parents were early breeders (19, 21). it makes me sad and a little jealous that odds are his parents get the most of grandparenting (and they will be wonderful at it, i just want my parents to have ample time too.)
August 26, 2010 7:16 am
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I think about this, but the bottom line is that for me, that’s not enough for me to have a baby before I’m ready to.
August 26, 2010 8:29 am
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yeah, seeing my dad playing with the little kids in our community is honestly the only thing that makes me want to have kids now – I know he would be so happy; but if he knew that was why we had them, he would think we were nuts!
August 26, 2010 9:27 am
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This is precisely the issue I’m having. My MIL is fantastic with children. She comes alive around her great-nephews, and she raised three wonderful sons. The older two, for various reasons, are clearly never going to breed. Which leaves the youngest. Who’s my husband. Which means that her sole option for biological grandchildren is me getting knocked up.
In a perfect world, we’d manage to have kids when she’s young enough and healthy enough to help with the hard stuff and enjoy the fun stuff and give the kids lifelong memories of their amazing grandmother. But as guilty as I feel about it, we’re not ready. And the longer we’re married (we’re in year 5) the less ready we feel.
As people around us have babies, we love being surrounded by children. We’re both quite good with kids. But we also both love to come home to our cat and our books and the quiet… and each other without interruptions.
Every time I see a beautiful baby, it makes me pine for more nieces and nephews, weirdly. Perhaps I’m just built to be a really fun auntie. I think I’d be OK with that. But I know my MIL would not (even though she’s so nice she would never say that aloud! Augh.)
August 26, 2010 11:19 am
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In 1945, people were throwing bombs at each other in Europe and the South Pacific, and when the soldiers got home, they were pretty pent up, that’s what! :)
August 27, 2010 3:37 am
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This weekend I heard a friend who is in a rather unstable relationship say she was thinking about getting married sooner rather than later because she has two great aunts who she’s close to who are in poor health. She can’t imagine them not being there to see her wedding.
I was like, well at least they won’t have to live to see your divorce, which is more than I can say for myself. I was really harsh with her (we have that kind of relationship). I think most people would side with me pretty hard that you can’t make the decision to get married based on who will be around for the wedding. There is only one timeline that matters and that is your own.
I’m not sure why this opinion doesn’t carry over to baby-making. The idea that we “owe” our parents grandchildren is strange enough, but whose interests are we looking out for when we factor this into our decisions? Certainly not the child’s – having a relationship with her grandparents will not outweigh being raised by parents who weren’t quite ready for her. Seriously.
August 30, 2010 7:56 am
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This has always been a Big Discussion around here because my mister told me when we met that he didn’t want to have kids. I freaked out. That was a deal breaker. But we’ve talked about it and talked about it, and he’s realized that his reasons for not wanting to have kids were founded in worries, rather than an actual desire to not have children. And he’s since admitted to me that he was just terrified of having kids young (which I don’t want either) and also that he’s excited to have someone to watch The Iron Giant with someday… But still, it is an ongoing discussion, and I think it should be that way.
As far as the travel thing goes, I think there is some element of having kids that changes how travel can be. It gets more expensive, suddenly you have to carry around a car seat or a stroller, nap time has to be scheduled in, etc. I’m not saying I can’t wait for traveling with kids too, because honestly, I’m so excited to show my future children the places where I went when I was younger, to expose them to different cultures and languages, and explore new cities and countries, but I do get it. It will be different/harder in some ways.
And lastly, I assume some people have seen this, but this post made me think of the Nutrigrain Bar commercial. I love it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co5DZl50OeQ
August 26, 2010 5:39 am
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My point was less “we want to travel with kids” and more “we’re traveling because we know we WANT kids, not traveling to put off having them.” We’re not putting off having them. We’re not having them now, and we know we want them, so traveling now is smart.
Traveling with kids would be great, but it’s complicated, as you point out. So we’ll see how that goes.
August 26, 2010 6:45 am
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I always kind of knew I wanted to have kids eventually. It wasn’t until I was with my Fiance that I started really WANTING them (maybe it was a subconscious his-genes-are-perfect-for-my-genes kind of thing). And so we decided to get married a little earlier than we had originally planned because we agreed that we wanted marriage and then babies. We also feel like we need to be more financially stable first (darn those student loans) and that pushes back our baby time table a few years. Being the obsessive planner I am, I’m constantly trying to cram our finances, time, careers into a spreadsheet to try and find the perfect time to have a baby, the thing I want most in life (the fact that I have only recently allowed myself to know this about myself because I feel like a traitor to liberated women is another story). But of course, life can’t fit into a spreadsheet. And then I start thinking that I don’t want to rush it because once I have children that mysterious “I wonder if they’ll have my nose” stuff disappears and they either have my nose or not. Before I know it I’ll be 50 with a certain number of kids with certain noses and a certain career. I’d like to hold onto the ‘what if?’ for a little longer. But that incredible ‘I can’t think of anything else’ that Meg talks about still gets me.
August 26, 2010 5:39 am
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The baby hormones kicked in for me a couple of years ago, I have the intense baby want but I also have this intense baby fear. The thing is I know having a baby is so so very wrong for us. At the moment we are a one income family while I’m back at school, we’ve got a cat we can barely keep up with and we’re just lazy folk. I don’t know what it is about the baby hormones, but I know for sure without a doubt that however much I “want” a baby it would likely be the wrong decision for us. I’m kind of scared the baby want will overpower the rational side of me and end up causing issues in the relationship. The husband doesn’t want kids… soon anyway. We always said we’d re-approach the subject in 10 years or so, and I know he’s right that this is just not the time but I find myself getting a little sad that he doesn’t share the baby madness with me. Anyway I totally relate to the crazyness of the baby want and think there’s nothing wrong holding off, that’s what pets are for.
August 26, 2010 5:45 am
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I so hear you. I’ve had baby fever since…forever. Seriously.
Then I turned 30 and was still single. My rational brain convinced the uterus and hormones to step aside. “I’ll be too old by the time I’m married.” “I have a wonderful nephew.” “I teach. What name could I possibly come up with that doesn’t remind me of students?”
Then I met fiance. We don’t have a date yet (long story). He has two wonderful kids from his first marriage. They treat me like a mom, even though we’re still learning about that.
I’m 38, and the uterus and hormones have taken back their territory from the brain.
I want a baby NOW. RIGHT. NOW.
But it sure wouldn’t be a smart thing to do.
So, we’ll wait and see.
August 26, 2010 3:41 pm
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My husband and I met when he was 35. He’d never been in a relationship he could see lasting and had come to terms with the fact that he’d never have his own children. He loves kids and has nieces and nephews he cannot get enough of. And then he met me and I was like, I don’t care how old you are, I’m gonna want some babies and I’d prefer to have them with you.
Now he’s almost 41 and we’re still at least a year from starting, but situation changes everything. We’re both so excited about having kids (you know, when the time is right for our relationship) and we know that there are a lot of ways to get them. The first step is just both of us wanting them at the same time.
August 30, 2010 8:06 am
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“Yeah. We don’t have kids right now.”
Yup, that is the best way to say it.
August 26, 2010 5:49 am
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First, I’m so grateful to people who know for sure they don’t want kids, or at least biological ones, because, well, I’m a confirmed breeder, and have major environmental-overpopulation guilt. So, for those of you – thanks.
Second, I get all twisty-turny about this “wait til it makes sense” idea. I’m 27, and getting married, and it makes sense to wait
August 26, 2010 5:57 am
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[technical difficlty cut me off]
My career doesn’t leave a ton of room for kids. As of now, I’ve moved away from my family, and I’m not ready to move back just yet. And, yes, my favorite way to travel is completely on my own, getting lost in unfamiliar places.
But. My parents and all their friends had kids when they were young and poor, and the majority of them raised smart, funny, fascinating people with no more issues than everyone else. So I don’t support this idea that you have to be logistically ready. Does it make some things easier? sure. But biology does have a say in things, and older parents have their drawbacks, too.
I think it has a lot to do with the culture of our generation. We’re taught to achieve – reach for the stars – invest in your career! And I am so for all those things. But in that viewpoint, children can seem like a distraction, or a side project, or a burden, or a cop-out. For my parents, they were happy just to leave their hometown, and happy to call children a gift more important than anything else. Not the only important thing, but the most important. That gratitude and “take-what-the-world-gives-you” attitude are what I believe made them ready to be parents – not their ability to pay for my college.
August 26, 2010 6:15 am
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I know exactly what you mean about the environmental-overpopulation guilt! Also, I am trying to hold myself off a bit before starting to try to get pregnant and my mind keeps saying, “But people make it work in all kinds of situations that are way worse than mine!”
August 26, 2010 6:27 am
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I totally agree about the over-population guilt and still wanting kids. I’m absolutely fine with other ladies not wanting them, less guilt for me! But I am also waiting because 1. Financially we are far off from being ready. I don’t believe that you have to be rich to have kids, but being able to pay my rent would be nice… 2. I’d also like to be married and we’re not quite there yet. 3. I don’t think I’m done being selfish yet, that’s not to say you should bow at the Child altar, as Meg succinctly put it, but being a parent is a big responsibility that I’m not sure I’m ready for yet. All of that being said, I still get a little sad when that time of the month comes. I guess I’m secretly wishing for a “happy accident” to force my hand a little. My hormones certainly are ready for such an event. Luckily, every time I see a baby or a pregnant lady I think “aww, I want one!” and then remember I need to take my pill because I don’t want one YET.
August 26, 2010 10:38 am
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Meg posted a while back about the ludicrous-ness of waiting to get married until it was “perfect” financially, and I have a little bit of the same feelings about having kids. Now, I intend to wait until I’m a little bit stable, but I also know that I grew up in a poor, financially unstable family and I don’t regret that one bit. It stinks because I think there is no over-arching answer: we have to decide the timing or even the IF for ourselves.
August 26, 2010 6:32 am
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I am NOT promoting a “wait till you have lots of money and are totally settled” mindset (at all). I am promoting a “wait till you want to have a baby and feel kind of ready” mindset (excluding happy accidents, of course).
August 26, 2010 8:31 am
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My partner and I have come up against this in our future talks regularly. He grew up in an affluent, suburban family with a father who places a GREAT deal of importance on money and financial stability, and made sure the family could always take fancy vacations, cruises, go to private schools, etc. I grew up in the woods, and until I was 13, my family lived off of $10,000-$15,000 a year. I was not really aware of our financial situation until I was about 19. You know why I was never aware of it? Because my parents managed their money very well, made sure we were provided for, and that we had everything we needed. I have heard a few people say it is negligent to raise kids without a solid financial setup, but here’s the thing: money determines very little. How you manage what money you have, and how you manage your child’s wants and needs, and how you love your children and care for them are what matters. You can be just as negligent when you have a million dollars as when you have a hundred (it is also entirely true that you can be just as wonderful a parent either way, of course).
I have had to do a decent amount of convincing my partner that not having a ton of money does not negate the possibility of raising healthy, happy children. I have never had a doubt that I could raise a child well on whatever resources I had available, and he was taught that money determines your quality of life (which is so evidently not true, yes?). In my view, if I want to buy property anytime soon (which I do), and considering the fact that I will be in grad school for the next two years (and after that will still be working in the public service sector), the chances of me having enough money and little enough debt to be considered financially stable in the next fifteen years are pretty slim. And I have absolutely no qualms about having children during that period (especially since 15 years from now I will be 41) and I also don’t believe it would be at all irresponsible.
August 26, 2010 2:17 pm
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Thank you. My fiance’s dad is the same way as yours. It sure is frustrating and different than how I was raised.
August 26, 2010 3:45 pm
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While we were engaged, I was really excited to be starting our baby family — in part because I knew it would someday include babies. And I had a timeline (3 years) which was urgent (at least in my head). Since we’ve been married (4 months), the urgency has been replaced by a sweet curiosity about how our marriage is changing and growing us.
Most of my closest friends who are having babies, or planning to have babies soon have taken their time to start. So while my best friend tells me they think they’ll be ready for kids in a few more years (they’ve been married for 4 already), she’s also delighted for us that we’re newlyweds, and exploring the territory she remembers so fondly.
We don’t have a checklist of things to tick off before we start growing our family, but our reasons for waiting include saving, investing, and building side-project income so that someone can stay home with our kids when they’re really leetle. We have time and energy to do that now, so we want to take advantage of it. And also, if someone is going to stay home to raise children, we want him/her to be able to continue to grow as a person through work or education or whatever.
We’re also having the best time just being married and living in the same state (finally). We’re firm believers that a healthy family deserves a healthy relationship between the parents, and so developing our marriage seems like the best gift we can give our future children. As for knowing the ‘when’, I don’t worry about it right now, because like Meg mentioned yesterday, right now taking care of my marriage means taking care of it for today. Some other “today”, it might just make sense.
August 26, 2010 6:12 am
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Erin,
I’m the Jennifer from the question to Meg. Your comment is the first comment that I feel really connected to what I wanted answered. You hit it exactly on the nose for me when you said “developing our marriage seems like the best gift we can give our future children”. For me, that is all I need as a reason to wait. Thank you for your wonderful brain!!
-Jennifer
August 26, 2010 10:37 am
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You know my answer. :) http://offbeatmama.com/2010/06/right-time-to-have-a-child
August 26, 2010 6:13 am
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I read this article a while back and showed it to my husband (I do that with a lot of thoughtful OBB and APW posts actually and he seems to get a lot out of them too!) — spot on.
August 26, 2010 11:23 am
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I’m really happy about this post and the comments. Everyone is so…civil. This really hasn’t been my experience in life.
Short background: I’m engaged, I’m in medical school; all of my collegiate mentors were 3rd wave feminists (who I love dearly). My mother was a stay-at-home mom for most of her life. I feel like all of my female role models have deep regrets due to the presence or absence of children.
I don’t mean to suggest that any of them are not satisfied with their lives, but the Baby Boomers seem to have entered into adult hood with some very extreme notions about marriage and babies and careers. Now I’m just confused. I’m not the sort of girl who ever, ever, ever sat around wanting babies…or planning a wedding. My FH on the other hand loves kids and definitely wants them. It was a sore spot in the relationship for a while, until I realized that my avoidance of the baby plan was based in the fears and uncertainties handed down to me – “have a baby, and your body changes, and he won’t love you anymore” or “you are a horrible person for wanting a job too, and your children will suffer” or “you entire life is over because it is all about the baby” et cetera.
My peers have divided into two groups too – absolutely pro-baby and anti career, pro-career and totally antibaby.
So reading this post was great. It solidified my newly formed opinions. I’m at peace with it now. I can have a baby (or two) when I’m ready to. If I end up not being fertile, I’ll happily adopt (which I want to do anyway). I can have a job and be good at it. I can do what *I* need to do to feel fulfilled, and everyone else who came before, everyone who offers opinions now, and everyone who will like scream BABY at the wedding can just figuratively hush. They can have their ideas, but I’ll do what I want and need to do when I’m ready to do it.
Thanks, ladies.
August 26, 2010 6:21 am
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Sometimes, feminism can be very black and white. This highly opinionated division is all around me right now, but about marriage. I read APW a lot because it is so civil, because women here have a lot of different views, but mostly, we appreciate choice.
August 26, 2010 6:35 am
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When I was twenty-five I had no desire for children, I started thinking maybe I wouldn’t have them.
I felt that to be a mother, you need to be ready to put the baby’s needs first and be selfless with your time and your life and I was so not ready to do that.
Three years later, suddenly I am ready. Whatever my subconscious was waiting for happened and I’m excited to start trying for a child.
My cousin was married for ten years before they decided to have a child.
These things are so hard to predict. It is too bad that society pressures us to do it just for the sake of doing it. Terrible reason to bring a person into the world!
August 26, 2010 6:23 am
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I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot, lately. My fiance and I are getting married in just under a month and while part of me would really like to enjoy being married to each other for a couple of years with no larger familial obligations than caring for our cat, we’re both 35 and the reality is that if we want to have a family, we need to start trying soon. I have been really fortunate, through school/work/my own adventures, to have traveled extensively, and while there are still more places I’d like to explore (and places to revisit with potential children), I don’t feel like I need to do these things before I can “settle down.” (Although I do know a fair number of people who had children before the age of 30 who have confided in me that they regret not having traveled more before they were parents, so I get that). Rather, my regret, I suppose, is that my soon-to-be-husband and I don’t have the luxury of time that younger couples have of just reveling in each other before starting a family. And given how many of my married and parented friends have told me that their marriages have come to take second place to the needs of their newborns (understandably), it all makes me a little anxious! But life unfolds as it does, and I am so happy to be marrying the person I am marrying.
Oh, one other thing, my sister (who was married for 8 years before deciding to have children in her mid-30s) worried that she might not be a good mother because she never felt any maternal pings. Well, she just had her third child two months ago, and she is, hands-down, one of the most caring parents I have observed.
August 26, 2010 6:24 am
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I don’t know if you’ll be able to answer this, but I was intrigued by this line “my sister who was married for 8 years before deciding to have children in her mid-30s) worried that she might not be a good mother because she never felt any maternal pings.”
Do you know what made her finally decide to have children?? Because I am completely lacking maternal “pings,” yet somehow still on the fence about having kids. :-P
August 26, 2010 6:48 am
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I have never felt maternal pings. I am just moderately awkward around babies and small children (my partner, on the other hand, somehow makes friends with every kid in the park). But, I have always wanted children. I want that crazy, messy chaos in my life, and I want to know what the experience of raising a child is like.
Also, my mother had me rather late in the game (perhaps less so for gen z kids, but certainly late for my generation). And that has some not-so-fun aspects. So I decided sometime in my teens that I would have a kid at 30.* No matter where my life was at, what was happening. No putting it off for the right time or the maternal ‘pings’ to kick in. Luckily for me I have found someone, seem to be settled, and have five years left to enjoy ‘being married’.
So, um, I guess in short my answer is – I’ve just picked an arbitrary time, and will stick with it to make sure I don’t accidentally end up not being a parent.
* Okay, I can’t be sure I’ll get to conceive and have my own child at 30. But 29 is when I start sorting that s*** out and trying, anyway.
August 27, 2010 6:08 pm
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and, if I can be “unladylike” how old is she now?
Curious 38 year-olds with baby fever want to know.
:)
August 26, 2010 3:47 pm
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I love this discussion, ,and I think it is an important one to have. My husband and I are in the “married and both of us are unsure about having kids” camp. This is actually a scary place to be. Of course, we’ve talked about what will happen if one of us becomes SURE and the other still doesn’t know (no bullying/pressure is allowed), but that’s easy to say before it happens. Anyone else in the same boat? Does it give you anxiety?
August 26, 2010 6:25 am
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I am in a similar situation. I am not engaged, but in a relationship that is definitely headed that way. One of the major stumbling blocks is our mixed views on having children: I don’t think I want kids, ever. But I’m only 23 and it is easily conceivable that my views and wants will change. Maybe when I’m 30, I will want kids. I don’t know. Right now though, I can’t say that I’ll ever want kids. My boyfriend on the other hand, definitely wants children. I think it’s foolish for him to marry me without at least accepting that I may never want children. And if one of us doesn’t want them, then we probably shouldn’t have them.
So it’s complicated. What if we break-up over the kids issue and it turns out that in 10 years, I totally do want kids. I guess I could argue the opposite, what if now he wants kids, but in 10 years he doesn’t? That’s not something you generally worry about, but in this instance, it can literally break a marriage. There are very few things that are deal breakers once you’ve decided you want to get married. The kids issue, I feel, is one of them. And it scares the crap out of me.
August 26, 2010 6:41 am
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At the age of 24, I ended an otherwise absolutely wonderful relationship with the man I wanted to marry because he wanted kids – soon – and I was unsure leaning toward “probably none but maybe one someday far in the future.” The advice I got was that you can compromise if you want 1 child and he wants 4, but there’s no compromise between 0 and 1. In the end, that decision was right for me. I asked my now-husband on our third date if he wanted kids and was so delighted when he said, “Probably not. Maybe one.”
August 26, 2010 10:20 am
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Absolutely in this camp–when asked, I usually describe us as “deeply ambivalent,” and yes it’s a VERY uncomfortable place to be, getting worse as I get older. I find myself envying women who are “babybabybaby!!” or know with conviction that they never want children. Because… one day I think “maybe, in like 5 years…” and the next I think “no way, no how, not ever.”
And from our discussions, my husband is on the same page–right now. I think he grew up vaguely assuming that he’d have kids one day, since his older siblings both did. But he really hasn’t spent any time with actual kids, and now that we’ve babysat for his nieces and nephews, he sees how exhausting it can be… I grew up with 5 younger siblings, though, so I’ve lived many years with the 24/7 reality of kids… which sometimes makes me feel like the best candidate to have children, and sometimes makes me feel like I’ve… seen too much firsthand/been there, done that.
I’m freaked out that one of us may change our minds… or that we’ll sort of wander into “no kids” by default (since no choice IS a choice, in this case) and later regret it.
August 26, 2010 6:59 am
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My husband and I are in a similar boat. When we were dating (7 years) neither of us thought we wanted kids, but weren’t willing to rule it out. Now, we have several friends with kids and I can’t get over how much we enjoy spending time with their kids, watching them learn and sharing traditions with them. My husband loves them too, and is so great with them. It has convinced me that I want kids. I am also fortunite that I curently have a great job that pays reasonably and is less than full time, which would make it perfect for splitting the difference between “stay at home” and “working mom”.
However, my husband is sure he’s not ready to have kids. He won’t rule out changing his mind in the future, but he is not ready for all of the work and changes that would be required for him to be happy with himself as a parent.
Its a fine line to walk for me, since I want to talk about kids, names, baby stuff, etc., and I know if I push too hard it will become a wall. I don’t want the issue to become a fight over who wins, or to force such a responsibility on him, since I know that kids are stressful enough even without resentment over being forced into it adding to the mix.
My answer (for now) is that we have time. I am only 33 and we are probably going to adopt so there is less than ususal biological pressures. I will keep on enjoying my friends kids. I have vowed to only bring up a positive comment here and there, so he is not unduly under pressure. I’ll see where we end up in a couple of years…
August 26, 2010 7:15 am
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That’s the boat my fiance and I are in as well. We don’t want one right now, or immediately after our marriage. We *might* want one five years down the line, but we also might not. Right now we really don’t know. At this moment right now, we both say NO WAY. But we’ve both sort of envisioned situations where that could change.
We’ve talked about it a lot, and it does give me a little worry what happens if we reevaluate in a few years and one of us REALLY wants a baby, and one REALLY doesn’t. But right now we both really feel like that’s not going to be the case. I just feel like it’s not something that’s going to blindside us… I think if one of us starts to want a baby, we’re going to see it coming, giving time for us to figure it out together. And that’s the most important thing: figuring it out TOGETHER.
I don’t have a good answer of what will happen if one of us wants a baby and one doesn’t, I guess. I just have to hope we can somehow end up on the same page and not throw away our marriage for someone who doesn’t even exist. Right now we’re on the same page, and that’s what matters.
August 26, 2010 7:29 am
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Our rule is basically “no opinion is off limits.” So days I think I don’t want kids, our rule is that’s ok. I’ve seen a lot of couples rush or push each other into it “I know you’re not sure you’re ready but it’ll be fine go go go.” And I want to have a relationship where each of us can honestly explore what we want (at any given moment). That attidude has really helped as we’ve talked it over.
August 26, 2010 8:37 am
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this is so healthy! my finace and i are in the same boat, and also usually me who is saying ‘babies?!!! are you freaking crazy? no way man!’. i know that he is ready in the next couple of years and he is happy to wait for me to get to the same place with him. and i have a feeling i will. i was always the person who said i wouldn’t have children, but over time this has softened. so my freak outs are less and less – although i still have them!
it’s also another interesting thing that for me (and many other women) the idea of a happy accident is very unlikely to happen. i have been on the pill for many, many years and barring a freak problem with the contraception it would take a conscious decision to stop taking it and start trying to make it happen. which can somehow make the whole thing more difficult! as my fiance and i are big believers in the ‘let’s just see what happens’ school of thought and this is one area of our lives where we actually can’t ‘just see what happens’.
August 26, 2010 9:12 am
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You could always just switch to something less reliable (seriously).
We also have decided that we love each other kids or no kids. Our relationship is not contigent on kids, even though we’re both pretty sure we want them. That helps take the pressure off.
August 26, 2010 10:50 am
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This is a hilarious good bad idea. In the context of doing what is good for your marriage today, you could try and get pregnant on Tuesday and try not to get pregnant on Thursday and let the fates work that out for you.
My sisters-in-law have all struggled to get pregnant and the amount of work they put into it was admirable, but unglamourous. That whole routine sometimes pushes me off the “let’s get pregnant!” wagon. I know that there is a chance that I could end up in the same situation, but it seems like way more fun to at least start in the gambling camp. You know, after we’re in a place where a pregnancy would be a welcome turn of events.
August 30, 2010 8:23 am
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I had to stop before I read the comments and thought more insightful things and say:
a) I love you Jennifer! I love that you put out this question and that you’re thinking so awesomely about something that I just discussed last week.
b) I love you, Meg! Your answers are always so awesome and multi-faceted and yay! Thank you so very very much for acknowledging that hormones are vicious (I’m a baby person too, everyone used to call me “Little Mama” instead of my name. Willpower alone walked me through some of those days!) but that they won’t be the final answer. YES!
And I plan to travel the shit out of my child. Lucky, lucky child to have that adventurous upbringing!
August 26, 2010 6:25 am
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My kids are now 20 and 23, born when I was 30 and 33. My daughter was born 19 months after I got married. I always wanted children, and my biology wanted children so bad my ovaries literally hurt. It’s called Mittelschmerz, by the way. It’s a named phenomenon.
With that as background, and therefore speaking to those who might now be similar, here’s all I know. Kids need an infrastructure that can survive their honorable demands and address their selfish demands. The two are separate. They need you to know what you believe, and to have thrashed through at least a good part of your psychology and your own need structure. They need you and your partner to have thrashed through a joint understanding of child-rearing. They really need you and your partner to have developed a shared position on the value of primary care-giving and its role in family finances.
Travel doesn’t really matter all that much, per se, except as a proxy for all the adventures of your imagination and your body. Are you are now willing to put other adventures aside to answer a baby’s needs? For a time. Maybe your kids will travel well. Maybe they won’t. But by the time you have a baby you have to be willing to listen to them first, before the siren call of much of anything else. And, you need to have found a way for you and your partner to listen to each other, over the siren call of those same, chubby, smooth, biteable babbikins.
August 26, 2010 6:26 am
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LPC, I will copy this down somewhere. Because this is a very true bit of it that often gets overlooked. Thank you for your having-been-there perspective.
August 26, 2010 8:32 am
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I agree entirely with this. I am currently working through some pretty serious family therapy with my ex. One of the things that really did our marriage in was our inability to parent together. If you can’t agree on child rearing, you’re really setting yourselves and your children up for heartache and failure.
If it is at all possible, work this out FIRST.
August 26, 2010 9:52 am
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Thank you! Can I just express how calming it is to have the perspective of someone who has dealt with this years ago and can share some perspective with those of us who are right in the middle of it? I love the spirit of commiseration amongst the 20 & 30 somethings at APW, but a different perspective can be really refreshing.
August 26, 2010 9:52 am
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I love this comment so much. Thank you!
August 26, 2010 1:14 pm
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Lady, you are wise.
August 26, 2010 1:55 pm
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It warms my heart to feel that my comments are heard and helpful. We want to help, us older women, but sometimes we don’t know how to do it because you guys are so cool. We weren’t as cool as you are, so we wonder how to engage. We want to tell you what we’ve learned, but we aren’t quite sure how much has changed in the past 20 years and whether, as a result, our knowledge is useful to you now. Thanks.
August 26, 2010 2:50 pm
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We’re not cool. We never have been. It’s all an act. We just do the best we can, like everyone who came before us and everyone who will come after us.
August 30, 2010 8:41 am
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By the time I was 10 I had been to places like England, Scotland, France, China, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Hawaii with my family (2 parents, 2 brothers). When my parents took us to Europe we were 4, 6 and 7.
SO, as a child of parents who certainly didn’t put off traveling because of kids, I would just like to encourage everyone to travel, travel, travel with their children. Yes, it’s more expensive, and yes it’s a different sort of traveling, and sure maybe I don’t remember every little thing about England since I was only 4, but I KNOW that being able to see so much of the world at such a young age shaped who I am. I am so glad that my parents opted to take us places like that rather than buy me brand name clothes or a car when I was 16 (we weren’t super rich by any means, my parents made a conscious decision to do this traveling and took out loans so we could go). I would not replace those experiences for the world. DO NOT be afraid to take your kids traveling with you.
August 26, 2010 6:30 am
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I agree that traveling with children is one of the best gifts you can give them. My parents took my sister and me to many places when we were young and it definitely shaped who I am, including my love of travel! Not too long ago, I hung out with a couple at the bottom of the Grand Canyon who hiked down and back up with their two-year old son and another couple who brought their toddler on a camping trip in the back-country of Alaska, and I thought that these were two of the coolest couples I’d ever met. So, yes, it can be done, but I think LPC paints a more realistic picture. Maybe your kids will travel well, maybe they won’t. Or maybe they will have special needs that preclude you from taking them to some of the far-flung places you had hoped to go. I guess my point is that while exploring the world doesn’t have to stop when one starts a family, you do have to be okay with the possibility that exploring the world may take a very different form than the one you had imagined pre-kids (e.g. coddling your baby because she’s sick vs. hopping on a plane to Africa) because an infant’s needs do have to come first.
August 26, 2010 6:45 am
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Oh absolutely!! When we did these trips every detail was planned down to the minute and things could go wrong (I’m sure a lot more things went wrong than I remember). I’m just saying, don’t use children as an excuse not to travel. It takes a lot of effort to pull off (again, probably more than I even realize) but I’d say it’s worth it for the experiences you will have with your children, the family bonding, and opportunities for learning.
August 26, 2010 6:55 am
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I am with you that travel is wonderful and world-expanding. But before you urge people to do their world travel with three children, you might consider what a small percentage of people can afford world travel, or any international travel. Doing so is an enormous privilege, one that most children won’t have access to. Airplane travel wasn’t something my family could afford. I ended up getting to travel outside the country before my mother ever did, and that’s something I was painfully aware of.
August 26, 2010 7:25 am
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I am fully aware that not everyone can afford to travel and I would like to think that the commenter’s on this site are smart enough to know what they can and can’t afford and would interpret my comment accordingly. I was simply suggesting that those who WANT to travel and have the funds to do so should not look at their children as a reason not to go. Perhaps I should have been more clear.
August 26, 2010 7:35 am
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my boyfriend and i are fortunate enough to be able to travel a few times a year. on a trip earlier this year we ended up sitting next to two couples with small children at the pool. we got to talking about traveling with children and they said something that really struck home: “they can never be good on vacation if you never take them” (meaning, you can’t assume they’ll be bad/difficult). i really liked that and i completely agree with the above comments. if you have the means, children shouldn’t be an excuse as to why you can’t travel.
and “my ovaries hurt” has been a favorite saying among my friend group since college. its so true :)
August 26, 2010 7:56 am
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I think we’re all pretty aware of that. As someone who didn’t leave the state I was born in till I was 14, I am VERY aware of that. I just have tried to shape my adult-hood in a way that I could try to snatch at some of the things I couldn’t get when I was small (and I’ve been lucky enough to make that work). This post and the comment above are not about pressuring everyone to travel even if they can’t afford it. We’re all aware…
August 26, 2010 8:42 am
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When it was announced that three of my book club members were engaged at the same time, talk turned to marriage, specifically thoughts from those there who were married. Kids inevitably came up as well, and I mentioned that my fiance and I aren’t planning on having kids.
One of the members actually said “Well, honestly, if I don’t have kids, I have no idea what I’ll talk about with my husband in 5 years.”
It makes me sad to think that women would find children to be filler for their marriages. I’m marrying a person that shares with me an infinite list of possibilities for our life together, and I could never imagine us having nothing in common or anything to talk about five years down the road. Or even ten or twenty. I think it’s important that we realize that kids aren’t a fix to a problem or filler for emptiness. They are precious gifts, but so is marriage.
August 26, 2010 6:37 am
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That train of thought just blows my mind. I have a hard enough time when people say that marriage is primarily for procreative purposes (this comes up a lot from marriage equality opponents, saying that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry because they can’t accomplish the primary function of marriage — I mention in a comment below my grandfather, who married again when he and his wife were in their 60s; do these people really think he and his wife should have been deprived of all of the benefits of their longer-than-many marriage just because she’d already gone through menopause?). And obviously everyone knows couples who have drifted apart over time and now all they have in common is the kids — but to be planning/anticipating that?
August 26, 2010 7:24 am
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“In fact, lets stop calling it waiting, and just call it, “Yeah. We don’t have kids right now.””
Best. line. ever. (and I apologize from the start for a long winding comment that follows….)
Oh thank you for this post – and I am even more excited for next week’s “No baby” post. I have spent most of my life on the no-baby train. I could write a book “The 2048 reasons not to have children”. It just didn’t seem to be “me”. Fortunately I found a partner who felt similarly, tho a bit more on the fence, leaning over to the baby side. But together we both have always said “Never say Never” – bc I know that me at 27 didn’t feel the same on many things as I did when I was 23, same for 30, same this year at 32.
I have six nephews, one niece and became an aunt when I was 12. I’ve grown up with children and have been able to see what really goes into the day to day, how it impacts a marriage/relationship, the really wonderful tender loving moments, the Get me Away Before I Shake the Baby moments, the moments full of guidance and teaching – and those filled with “what the hell am I doing”. So I do feel fortunate in this – especially now as more of my friends begin to have babies and able to remind myself not to get caught up in the new clothes, nursery items, the showers, the cute little bundle of joy – bc it’s more than the pregnancy, it’s more than those first few months – it completely changes your life. forever. (I’m not saying that as a bad thing just as a matter of fact) And it should change your life – and I have feelings about how I would want to be as a parent and I know to be able to be that type of parent, it would require patience, grace and definitely a change in lifestyle.
Then there’s the whole “oh my god how could we even ever afford it!” terrors that run through my head. It’s not about putting off the travel…I would be all about bringing the child with us – opening their mind and experiences from an early age, it’s what I believe in. But that also means the extra $$ that goes with it – along with clothes, food, shelther sports/arts/music fees, school/college, and long after…
And yet, after saying all of this, in the past several months I’ve gone from 100% no/0% yes, to what feels like more 50/50 in how I feel about having children. And that freaks me the F out. the fiance gets it, and so we have decided to reassess the situation in 2 years, see how we feel then (don’t even get me started on the fears of age and fertility though…)
But as Meg said, and I originally repeated – it’s not about “waiting” to have them or “waiting” to see if we want them. What we do know for certain is that we don’t have them now, don’t want to have them right now because that’s not part of our “right now” life. And for sure, certainly, wife and mother are not the same thing and my hope is to be more comfortable in the first new role in my life, before then deciding about that second role.
.
August 26, 2010 6:48 am
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From my brain to your fingertips. Damn, you summed it up perfectly!
August 26, 2010 7:12 am
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I have a couple of friends, dear, close friends, who were always in the ‘no kids’ camp, until ‘they met the right guy’, and now suddenly they definitely want those kids.
And it’s such a stereotype, the most infuriating comment “You don’t want kids? Oh, you just haven’t met the right guy yet.” But it’s held true for a few people around me. So I’m trying to work out to fit this this annoying, annoying opinion into my undertanding of things that can be true… I’m struggling (but I reckon these people will be the greatest parents, so I’m thrilled).
August 27, 2010 6:21 pm
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I am 33 and have been married for one year now, together for 5 years. Our decision to have children now was shaped by both my age and our time together. I have never had my ovaries hurt. I don’t really drool over children. I like my life as it is now.
BUT, we knew we wanted children someday. And the more we thought about it that someday is now. It wasn’t a decision based on hormones or pressure, just one we came to as we looked at our lives as a whole.
August 26, 2010 6:50 am
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I think I must be one of the few “lucky” women who hails from a familial/friend community where whether or not we’re going to have kids is a complete non issue. Someone might ask what are thoughts on the subject are early on – out of curiosity more than anything else, but no one ever pressures us, tells us we should do it, or otherwise tries to make us feel as if we’re strange/selfish/something else for not really wanting to.
This is excellent 99% of the time, especially for someone like me, who tends toward a ‘mind your own beeswax’ frame of mind and doesn’t take kindly to people telling me what I should or shouldn’t do. BUT, there are times when I wish people WOULD bring it up, because it would enable me to think/talk through it a little more. Because while we’ve always been pretty sure kids aren’t for us, we’ve never been 100% convinced (and you’d never hear me say ‘we’re never having kids’ because a: I hate to eat crow, and b: shit happens)
And lately, I HAVE been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about what it really means to be a parent in general and what it would mean for us, specifically. I’ve especially been thinking about parenthood as it pertains to the long-haul, because while I know I love babies, and I know I love teenagers, I also know that I really, really do not enjoy KIDS, which babies very quickly turn in to.
So I’ve approached this unknown the same way I would approach any other unknown: With research. I’ve been reading anything and everything I can get my hands on about how other people have approached the decision of whether or not to procreate, and you know what? There’s just not very much out there! While I have no doubt that there are millions of other couples out there who are trying to decide if parenthood is right for them, the truth is that those people aren’t the ones writing and talking about it. Instead, the people who have already decided one way or the other are, which lends the idea that somehow everyone else in the world already knows what they want, and we’re the weird ones for being unsure.
And another thing, I’m not sure parenthood is something that lends itself well to “research,” because it seems that the more I learn about the reality of parenthood: the physical and emotional toll, the stress it places on a marriage, the exhaustion, and most of all, the expense (all of this NEVER-ENDING by the way), the more I kind of can’t believe anyone ever decides it’s a good idea, and realize the world would be a much less populated place without all of the happy accidents. Because the truth is that having children is a rather irrational act – one often sourced in feelings rather than logic (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
So I decided that I need to stop THINKING about having kids, and instead get a handle on how I FEEL about having kids
August 26, 2010 6:51 am
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Yeah, research is my #1 way of dealing with … everything. ha. But here, it hasn’t been so helpful. Because parents will almost never say that their child “wasn’t worth it,” or that they regert having him/her. Which is great, but doesn’t make the decision any more clear-cut to me.
And logic seems firmly in the don’t have children camp. So then there’s just feeling… which doesn’t seem to be helping me either.
August 26, 2010 7:19 am
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First of all, I have about 1 million and 5 things to say in response to all of this. I love APW
In short – I’m pre-engaged (that’s the new term coined a little while ago right?) In a totally committed lovely co-habitation relationship with my best best friend. I absolutely want to spend the rest of my life with this man. Lovely right? – this man also happens to not want to have kids. I just happen to be, even after nearly two years of (intense – I’ll admit it) thought – firmly on the fence. I could go on and on about my reasons for and against and his reasons against and the conversations, and how i refuse to give up this amazing person for something i might someday want. The reality is it can be a really complex issue. On top of that I feel a ton of familial/ societal pressure. Anyway I turned to research to help guide my thinking and decision making. I was really surprised at the lack of it that I found until I found out about the book “Maybe Baby – 28 Writes Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives” It’s edited by Anne Lamott. I’m from Canada, so I ordered it on Chapters online (which I think is the same as Indigo for you?) regardless it’s widely available I’m sure. It’s a really good look at both sides of the fence and also what being on the fence is like. It’s not perfect, but definitely the best I’ve found yet.
Hope that helps. I can’t say it solved things for me, but it was great food for thought, which was exactly what I was looking for.
August 26, 2010 4:56 pm
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I totally read that book. :) Loved it.
August 26, 2010 5:04 pm
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If you’re the same Michelle from below with the post about all the thinking, I just posted a yes yes yes to your post. I think it’s safe to say we’re on the same wavelength :)
August 26, 2010 5:13 pm
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F*ck yeah, Anne Lamott.
August 26, 2010 5:12 pm
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I thought Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book “Committed” contained a really excellent trajectory of her thought process of deciding, in her case, not to have kids, but it tracks her whole back and forth. I thought it was super helpful.
August 26, 2010 8:50 am
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I read that book, and I see what you’re saying, but I also had the distinct impression that while the book presented it as such, the reality was that she’d already made up her mind to NOT have children and was doing her research in an effort to gather up all of the reasons why people decide to have kids, so she could better argue against them and/or to stock her arsenal with ammunition in the form of all the arguments against becoming a parent.
August 26, 2010 11:20 am
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That was sort my impression, too, although I did enjoy the chapter. From my foggy memories of EPL (I only skimmed it, so forgive me if I’m way off base), I think her desire not to have children was partly involved in the disintegration of her first marriage.
Not that that chapter wouldn’t still be helpful for some people… it just didn’t give me the answer I was looking for. But I’m beginning to suspect that no one can, or rather, that “the answer,” the piece of advice or argument that will make my mind up for me 100%, seal the deal one way or the other, doesn’t exist. I think the questions may never go away completely, no matter what we decide.
And because I loved what she wrote, I have to add the words from http://suburbaliciousliving.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-children.html:
“Because life is not a choose-your-own-adventure book, where if you end up in the quicksand, you can flip back to the previous page and choose the other option. The trick is to embrace your choices, but I finally realized the importance of mourning the ones you didn’t pick. And that felt incredibly liberating, and very real.”
August 26, 2010 12:26 pm
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Donno. I WANT kids, and I thought her reasoning was fantastic (and helpful). I know she was coming to it from a place of not wanting kids (though she was describing a thought process that had gone on for 15 odd years, well before she did know), but I still thought everything she was saying was both vaild and very true.
August 26, 2010 12:37 pm
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I also found that chapter – and, indeed, the entire book – very helpful. I come from a position of spending most of my teenager-hood categorically stating I wasn’t getting married or having any kids. But then I met my fiance, and for a little while, enclosed in a perfect bubble of falling in love, I started thinking I perhaps decided in haste.
At the moment, my position is ‘I’m terrified. And I have no idea’. But I’m not yet 20, so have many years to make up my mind. One thing I find wonderfully helpful is honesty, and that – along with many different perspectives – was what I found in the book. It was such a comfort to know that other people have mixed feelings about children, yet they come to a decision anyway, and for the most part, it seems to be a decision that’s right for them. Since one of my biggest fears is making the wrong choice, whether that is not having kids and regretting it, or having them and resenting what happened to my life, I found the statements from conflicted but generally satisfied women to be immensely comforting.
The book really encouraged me to look underneath the fear to see what I really want. Still no idea what that is, but I’m prepared to wait for the answer.
August 27, 2010 4:00 am
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I use research to narrow down how I feel about having kids. Because that is a ridiculously big question. I use research to get a better idea of some of the things that come up in the course of having kids, so I can ask myself how I feel about colic, or co-sleeping, or telling a 4 year old what death is, or telling a 12 year old when I think they should have sex, etc etc. Research doesn’t answer my questions, but it helps me formulate better ones.
August 26, 2010 6:01 pm
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Oh, here’s a subject I know well… on several levels.
When we got engaged and started planning a 14-months-out wedding, it came as a surprise to much of our extended families. (We’re both from far flung families, so it’s entirely possible we’re behind a year in family gossip at any given time.) MANY of them asked if I was pregnant … completely ignoring that our wedding was WELL past the time frame of “shotgun.” We literally had to wait a full 12 months (people can’t count) before the rumors died down.
It happened again at our wedding. I’m the very proud godmother to one of the most adorable little boys I’ve ever seen (bias notwithstanding). Who I happen to live across the country from. So a large portion of our reception was spent holding/cuddling/sharing baby kisses/dancing with him. (Proof: Go click my name.) The new husband’s family started asking him if 1. it was my son and I was just passing him off as my best friend’s (um, EXCUSE ME?) and then telling him, 2. I was going to start pressuring him for kids, since I was clearly so baby-crazy. (My family asked us repeatedly when we were planning on it.)
To me, this is so far out-of-line, it’s crazy. Beyond the “you’re married, now have babies” adage, this type of pressure (and some fear-mongering) has no place at our wedding, or really, in our lives. I had to spend a good part of my reception explaining who this tiny boy attached to my hip was, how I never get to see him etc etc etc … and sadly, it didn’t stop all the “knowing” looks.
It’s amazing to me how deeply the “wife = mother” “mother=wife” mantra has been carved into our collective subconscious. On so many levels, it’s so, so unfair to those that choose to deviate from that “norm.” Like me (wife long before mother), my best friend (mother long before wife), my godmother (wife, not mother), my boss (mother, not wife) and, I suspect, many many of us here.
August 26, 2010 6:53 am
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I was at my partner’s family reunion a few weeks back, meeting a bunch of his family for the first time. Of course, some old aunt brings over someone’s newborn and says, “This is what happens next! Just so you know!” As if we weren’t aware? Not to mention the baby’s parents weren’t married and eschewed that narrative themselves.
I work in childcare and I love my job in that I can play with the kids for a few hours and then go to my office when they need to be changed or 15 kids need help getting in swimsuits or it’s naptime. For now, that’s great for me. At some point I’m going to want my own children, but for now… we’re both happy with our little cousins and hopefully one day, nieces and nephews.
August 26, 2010 7:30 am
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Yes. That is SO FAR beyond it’s not okay. I’m sorry that people think that “sense of humor” is okay to have.
When I finally moved to the same state as my long-distance partner, his grandmother’s fifth conversation with me EVER was “when are you having children” and she hasn’t really left it alone since. Thankfully, neither of our parents are that way.
August 26, 2010 8:36 am
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The worst part was, they weren’t joking.
::sighs::
He warned me about the rude extended family. I just had no idea how rude! At least we can commiserate now…
August 26, 2010 9:56 am
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This topic always brings two anecdotes to my mind: First, my 5-year-old godson asking very-very-unattached-at-that-point me “When are you going to get a baby?” in the exact same tone he had asked me “When are you going to get a car?” Which, of course, made me think of going down to the baby dealership and test-parenting the different models. (My response to both questions was pretty much “Sometime between tomorrow and never. We’ll have to see what happens.”) But the silliness of his question does kind of underscore that when it comes to becoming a parent, it’s not just a matter of deciding “okay, now” — you can decide this is the Perfect Time to have kids, and then go through a decade of miscarriages, or get pregnant with your first child easily and then struggle through years of unexplainable secondary infertility, or have two birth mothers in a row back out of the adoption process at the 11th hour. And those are just examples of people who expected to be able to become parents fairly easily. And many couples decide No Kids Now (or No More Kids Now) and find themselves unexpectedly expecting – the accidents aren’t always happy. The unpredictability is always just hanging around waiting to throw a wrench in the When question.
The other anecdote I always think of is from the luncheon before a family wedding, when my young cousin asked the happy couple how many babies they wanted to have, prompting spit-takes all around the table. The groom was my 68-year-old grandfather, the bride her 64-year-old grandmother. (They did not in fact have any babies together but did have a fulfilling 24 years of marriage before death did them part.)
August 26, 2010 7:06 am
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“Which, of course, made me think of going down to the baby dealership and test-parenting the different models.”
This made me laugh so hard! I have this vision in my head of a baby dealership now… Thank you for making me laugh this morning.
August 26, 2010 7:42 am
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Thank you for bringing up another reason those questions about when you’re having babies can be very tough for people. One kind of tough for people who don’t want them. Another kind of tough for people who are ambivalent. And a third kind of tough for people who would have them yesterday if they could, but they haven’t be successful at getting it done yet. A 5-yr old kid who thinks wanting a baby is enough to get you one is cute and funny, but adults (like our families, who to their credit do not know we’ve been trying) who seem to think you can go down to the dealership and get that baby once you decide you’re ready make me want scream. Yeah, stop f-ing asking me when I’m having babies, thanks, because unless you have some magic baby-making pill to give me, I apparently don’t control that timing.
August 26, 2010 11:02 am
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My fiance and I have always been that couple that would babysit for you. We both love little kiddos.
“Aww…looka the wittle outfit.”
“She/He’s so darling!”
We have hit the pressure from both sides of our family…hard. And when I mean hard, it’s pretty much every time we see our families. It’s probably due to the fact that we’ve been together for five years, have steady jobs, bought a house with five bedrooms (“look you can have four kids!”), and the fiance’s sister just had her first little one.We are getting married in October and the questions of “honeymoon babies”, have already been asked. However, we have both decided to take a year and honestly, be selfish. We want to be able to enjoy being newlyweds and being able to do whatever our little hearts desire. In the end, this will give us enough time to ‘be ready’ to settle down to our future kiddos.
Selfish? yes. But do we think its a good idea for us? yes.
August 26, 2010 7:11 am
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I think that sounds lovely, and I don’t think it’s selfish at all!
(I would love to remove the “it’s selfish not to have children” line from the whole “kids vs. no kids” dichotomy, since, in mind, it’s equally selfish to procreate. :))
August 26, 2010 7:26 am
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Definitely not selfish! I used to always say I was too selfish for children, because of all the things my fiance and I want to do for US. But I don’t think it’s selfish anymore… it’s just living our lives to the fullest, however we see fit. And everyone deserves that – whether you’re a parent or not.
August 26, 2010 7:49 am
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I HATE the argument that choosing not to have children is “selfish.” Perhaps it is, but SO IS HAVING KIDS. Honestly, make a list of all of the most commonly cited reasons for having kids (outside of sheer accident), and you’ll quickly see that the overwhelming majority of them are also “selfish.”
Want your family name/lineage to continue? That’s selfish.
Want to create something with your partner? That’s selfish.
Want someone to love, teach, show the world to? That’s selfish.
Want to relive childhood through your kids? That’s selfish.
Want an heir? That’s selfish.
Want an insurance policy against loneliness in old age? That’s selfish.
Don’t know why, but know you WANT a child? That’s selfish.
All of these things are selfish by virtue of the fact that they’re things the parents want(ed) for themselves. Their children simply helped them have them.
August 26, 2010 8:09 am
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THIS. It’s ALL selfish. It’s choosing to do what is best for us. And while that’s selfish, it’s also not–happy people make for better families, make for better societies.
While I’m a total fan of the love-child or the unexpected-bundle, if I have the choice, I’m going to take a while to build my relationship with my partner. That could be seen as selfish, or sane, or whatever from any number of perspectives. It just IS to me.
August 26, 2010 8:40 am
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Yes. I HATE the selfish line of thought (though it’s so ingrained in us that it’s hard to stop it from surfacing, I find). I think it’s related to the idea that I talked about above somewhere that being a parent should mean the ultimate sacrifice of self to child. I think that’s bad for everyone. Yes, kids take a lot of time and energy. No, *hopefully* they do not require you to give up your self. Change? Yes. Sacrifice? No.
So, yes. I really really really don’t think not having kids is selfish. I’d argue it’s a heck of a lot worse to know that you’re not ready and do it anyway. That’s not good for anyone.
August 26, 2010 8:57 am
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As someone who has been married for two years and we both want to wait several years (6 or 7?) before having kids, I can’t help but get annoyed at the automatic question that follows “You’re married?” which of course if “Do you have kids?” I guess like you say “there seems to be a powerful tie in our collective (even our indie collective) brains between being married and having kids” and so socially people feel like its a natural question to ask. I cringe a little when I get asked that.
I think another good reason for not having kids that wasn’t specifically addressed already is being financially stable and what I’ll call “life stable”. I am currently finishing school after years off, and my husband is about to do the same, having found his passion and career calling after we got married. Then he may have grad school. We still want to travel solo, and we may move to a few different places to see what fits for us and also where we would like to settle down and possibly raise a family. When and if we do have kids, we want to be able to financially provide for our children, raise them in a stable home where they won’t be uprooted and moved constantly, and be able to send them to private school if we choose. And we want to do all of this only after it feels right for both of us. I feel like that’s a legitimate and responsible consideration (especially in these stressful economic times).
August 26, 2010 7:20 am
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I definitely appreciate this post (specifically the part that punches holes in the Chocolate Cake Theory). However, my biggest issue within the entire “when to have a baby” conundrum isn’t touched on, so I thought I’d babble about that for a moment…
My husband and I are unsure about whether we want children. We were unsure before we got married and, of course, getting married didn’t have any effect on that uncertainty. Before the wedding, I had this monumental anxiety stemming from the notion that we both needed to know what we wanted for our future NOW. All of this was, of course, the direct result of my overarching fear: That he might eventually decide he wants kids and I might decide I don’t (or vice versa). And then what do you do? I have this vision of one of us yielding to the other and ending up resentful and sad.
A lot of this anxiety has died down, essentially because I have faith in us as a couple and we’ve gotten really good at openly discussing the issue. Not to mention, there’s no way we can realistically tackle the baby-conundrum at this very moment anyway, because regardless of what the future holds we’re both certain that we don’t want kids right now.
But I still wonder: What happens if one of you wants kids and the other doesn’t? Is it the case that you should both know what you want kid-wise before you enter into marriage? I know that being a wife and being a mother are two different things and that we shouldn’t conflate these roles. But when you get married, you are committing yourself to the would-be father or mother of your kids. So, yeah. It gets complicated.
August 26, 2010 7:34 am
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My experience over ten years of marriage between two codependent people who love each other very much:
Year One: We want babies, but not now…when things settle down and his five kids from his previous marriage get used to things.
Year Two: I want my own kids and he’s not so sure he wants any more.
Year Three: I want my own kids, he definitely doesn’t want any more, it would be a dealbreaker for him, and I’m scared to lose him.
Years pass in which he adamantly continues wanting no more kids and feeling overburdened by the ones he has at times…I want kids and convince myself that I want him more and that my stepkids are all the kids I really need. Even though they HAVE a mom and I really never get to be in the mom role except in very limited fashion.
Year Eight (roughly): I recognize that he has been settled in NOT wanting kids for years and give consent to a vasectomy.
Which brings us to Year Ten, in which a lot of codependent issues came to a head and I got kicked in the teeth with 1) how much I always have and still do want to BE A MOM. It’s not “baby baby baby” as much as I’ve been a parent for years now. I know what it takes firsthand. And I want it. I want to raise a child or two of my own; and 2) how much my wonderful stepkids can never and will never substitute for my own.
So while we are working out a lot of other issues through counseling, this one is the big one and we don’t know what to do yet. I love my husband very much and he loves me…but I wish I’d known myself well enough, and he had known himself, that we could have come to the table from the very beginning and I could have said, “I want to be a mom as much as I want to be with you. Raising children is a very deep part of my identity,” and he could have responded with whatever his response would have been.
August 26, 2010 7:58 am
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Tirzahrene,
No advice, just a big hug for you. I hope the counseling helps your family sort through this complicated and difficult topic.
August 26, 2010 2:30 pm
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I’m nowhere near married/kids yet, I just wanted to talk a bit about my Aunt and Uncle. My Aunt was always into kids – she’s the Favourite Aunt in our family, because she always played with us; she has a PhD in Early Child Development, etc.
She married my Uncle when I was 13, and he was sure that he NEVER wanted kids. He was an only child, and his parents had been only children, so he’d never really had any experience with young kids and he was freaked out by babies. Even dealing with neices & nephews was something of an ordeal for him (the youngest of us was 11 at that time).
Three years later, my cousin happened as a “happy accident”. It took some time(a couple years, actually) for my Uncle to warm up to him, but now 8 years later he is the best dad you’ve ever seen and I would venture to guess that he doesn’t regret it at all… maybe when the younger one is keeping everyone up until midnight, he might regret things a little, but I think he actually enjoys being a dad.
August 26, 2010 8:28 am
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I think this is a totally personal thing to think through, but:
When I got married I promised not to be with my husband forever and ever and ever, but to put my best self into working through whatever issues came up. One of you wanting kids and the other not wanting kids is absolutely a big deal, but I think it’s one of many big deal questions. What if one of you gets their dream job in a place the other doesn’t want to live? What if one of you has a religious epiphany the other doesn’t share? What if you end up homeless, or taking care of aging relatives, or seriously ill, or celebrities who don’t get a second’s privacy? (Hey, it could happen…)
By getting married, I committed to working through the big deal issues if and when they come up. Working through them might mean compromising, or finding creative win-win solutions, or one of us changing our minds, or even splitting up. But still working through them for a solution that’s right for both of us at that point in time.
August 26, 2010 6:15 pm
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In addition to this being a wonderfully smart conversation I was happy to hear that I was not the only one who had a bad case of the BABIES BABIES BABIES hormones kicking in as a teenager. People attributed it to the fact that all three of my younger siblings were at that point where they were past the toddler and cute little kid stage and I missed that, but it was my body doing its own thing.
Now that it’s gone from BABIES BABIES BABIES to more of a babies?… babies… babies! I feel that my brain, body, and fiance can all have an adult conversation about children!
August 26, 2010 7:34 am
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Thank you so much for posting on this and I hope nobody minds if I engage in free online therapy here… We’ve been married a year and I’m about to turn 35, which creates its own angst. Our parents are the least pressuring people you can imagine–my dad finds babies completely uninteresting, my mom is pretty actively anti-baby, which is a little disturbing (I think she must have gone through post-partum depression with me and my sister) and my mother-in-law is baby-mad in the extreme but too polite to say anything about it to us. I like babies fine, and I love my friends’ kids and my little neice, but I am perfectly happy to hand them back when they start to cry.
But I’m getting crazy pressure from my friends, most of whom have have under-5s. They can talk about all the logical reasons not to have babies (no money, no sleep, no time, less interest in your career–which we’ve all worked hard for; most of my friends are physicians like me with yearsof training and serious debt invested in getting to where we are) and then they say I shouldn’t worry! Because once I look at the baby everything will magically CHANGE and I’ll stop caring about things like money and sleep and sex and career advancement because I will love the baby so unbelievably much!
And all I can think is (a) but what if that magic moment doesn’t happen and I am stuck sacrificing all those things, probably not very graciously, for a baby who didn’t exactly ask to be here, and (b) but what if I don’t want to? I like my job and I’m just getting to the interesting part, and I like my husband, and I like spending the time away from my job with my husband, doing fun things.
But (did I mention?) I’m turning 35, and my husband and I have noticed that none of our friends want to do fun things with us because they all had kids and everything CHANGED, which left us with time on our hands to discuss whether or not we should have kids too, and whether we would regret it later if we didn’t. So we are officially Trying now, and of course the anxious competitive part of me thinks that if I’m going to Try I had damn well better Succeed, so now I am starting to obsess about babies a little but I have no idea whether it’s because I actually want one or because of everything else that is swirling around in my head. Argh. And if anyone knows how to resolve these feelings, please tell me.
August 26, 2010 7:41 am
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“I am starting to obsess about babies a little but I have no idea whether it’s because I actually want one or because of everything else that is swirling around in my head. Argh. And if anyone knows how to resolve these feelings, please tell me.”
I’m obsessing too but about not having a baby. As in I feel myself becoming very anti-baby.
Like you, I wish I knew how to separate my own feelings from all the other crap floating around. But then again, maybe all that other crap should be part of the decision making process. Biological clocks, families, hormones, money considerations, careers – should it all be part of the decision? It just seems s overwhelming.
August 26, 2010 7:52 am
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I envy those who simply want. babies. And then have. babies. Maybe us others think too much. Though something tells me if I stopped thinking about it I’d find myself ten years from now with still no babies wondering if I made the right choice to stop thinking about it and just live.
August 26, 2010 8:05 am
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Yes, yes and yes again.
August 26, 2010 8:13 am
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“I envy those who simply want. babies. And then have. babies.”
YES. (Although possibly for different reasons.) Just to hold it down for the homos for a second, being in a same-sex couple adds a whole ‘nother delicious layer of complexity to the whole thing. Just like everybody else, we’re struggling on deciding the right time (luckily, we’ve settled the “if” question already) but also have to consider the added expense and extra time of insemination or adoption. Right now, we’re just not financially stable enough to support the costs of just *getting* a baby, much less raising him/her, but then again we’re not getting any younger. So, balancing the “financially ready” with the “physically capable” is tricky. (Also, my partner is the child of older parents, and consequently thinks I’m a little nuts for being worried about giving birth after 35, but I can’t help thinking that my mom had a 4 year old when she was my age, and she was the one in our family who “waited”.) So yeah, I’m a little jealous of women who can just stop taking a pill or have a “happy accident”.
The other weird thing to me is that (some) people seem *surprised* that we want kids, and that we want them relatively soon after we marry. Like, somehow b/c one of us lacks a y chromosome we just wouldn’t want to be parents? All my married straight friends get annoyed when they get asked about their plans for kids; sometimes I wish I got the chance to be annoyed by it too.
August 26, 2010 9:21 am
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At the risk of pointing out something that may be too obvious, a lot of heterosexual couples envy the couples who can just stop taking the pill or have a happy accident, also — you’re not alone in that. (And as my married male friends who recently adopted pointed out, the one small advantage they had was they knew from the start they’d need to adopt, no years of frustrating attempts to grow their own only to then jump in to the frustrating adoption process.)
August 26, 2010 9:55 am
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My suggestion would be to just give yourself permission (or an order, depending) to NOT think about babies for six months. No debating, no thinking about it, totally free. Then see how you feel.
August 26, 2010 12:40 pm
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But I think those of us who are about to turn 35 don’t feel like we HAVE 6 months to stop thinking about it. And that’s usually from the pressure from medical professionals! You would not BELIEVE how insensitive doctors are about it.
August 26, 2010 1:34 pm
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Agreed. I had my kids when I did because I knew I wanted them, I knew I was reaching a point where phrases like “Advanced Maternal Age” were going to soon attach themselves to me, and I had seen too many women in my profession suffer miscarriages, fertility problems, and worse from (a) the strains of the job combined with (b) the problems inherent in waiting until late 30s, early 40s to have children.
This was, admittedly, a selfish decision on my part, but I would not trade them for the world.
August 26, 2010 3:48 pm
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That’s basically where I end up each time. A conversation with a friend, a post like this :), or something else triggers me to think about the topic, but I never come to a conclusion. I get so sick of it, that I file it back into my “later” cabinet and forget about it.
It’s getting harder and harder though with so many people around me having babies. I sure hope it’s like weddings where I’m in the period where “everyone” is doing it and in a few years, “nobody” will be. I’m starting to hide my Facebook friends who are pregnant or mothers from my news feed because that’s all they post about: their kid(s).
August 30, 2010 6:45 am
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High fives for blocking kid-heavy facebook postings. I do this all the time. Partly because any mention of babies makes me start having the whole debate in my head, and partly because the people who are writing those posts aren’t the kind of parents I want to be. I mean, I don’t think they are bad parents or wrong in any way, I just don’t see myself adopting that model.
I really want to have kids (in a year or two) but I never want them to take over my life. I mean, they will in a lot of ways, but I want to be more like my own parents. They did a great job, but they always had lives outside of being parents. They dropped my sis and I off with relatives for a week in the summer every year and did their own thing. They took a few nights off a month and went out with friends, sometimes together, sometimes separately. We traveled (lots of roadtrips – 18 hours in the minivan anyone?) and we socialized and we spent a lot of time with grown-ups. I can’t imagine any point in my life where my mom or dad would’ve been interested enough in my sleeping habits to report them online. I don’t even have a baby book. I do have really close, healthy relationship with each of my parents though, and I’m pretty sure that is because they didn’t see having kids and having a life as an either/or decision.
August 30, 2010 10:09 am
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Abby — yes, that’s exactly what those posts do to me. Kick the internal debate up again. It’s not easy to determine what YOU want with all that external input.
August 30, 2010 11:05 am
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Emily, part of me thinks it’s like jumping in a freezing cold pool. There are plenty of logical reasons NOT to. It will be cold, and uncomfortable. But once you’re up in the air, the decision is made. And it will (fingers crossed, um) be fine.
I think everyone worries a bit about the “end of fun.” But I don’t think it’s the end of the world to have a biological clock sort of force your hand. It’s like being pushed into that cold pool. Perhaps that’s a terrible analogy, I don’t know. But yes, age is a factor, and I think the chances are pretty strong that when you meet your kid, it will make a bit more sense.
August 26, 2010 8:11 am
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“Because once I look at the baby everything will magically CHANGE and I’ll stop caring about things like money and sleep and sex and career advancement because I will love the baby so unbelievably much!”
I think, thank god, this dosen’t have to be true if you don’t want it to. If you don’t belive me go read it from someone who’s in it right now: http://www.projectsubrosa.com/
August 26, 2010 9:03 am
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“Because once I look at the baby everything will magically CHANGE and I’ll stop caring about things like money and sleep and sex and career advancement because I will love the baby so unbelievably much!”
This is my mom’s attitude about (my) kids. I’ve never had the slightest iota of maternal instinct of draw to infants. I’ve seriously thought about adopting older kids when we’re married, but have never wanted to be pregnant and raise and infant. And at this point, even adopting is a distant “maybe”.
But my mom is like “Oh, but with your kids it will be different!” I don’t buy this for a minute. And somehow I am now the selfish one who won’t give her five grandchildren. (or any).
August 26, 2010 10:42 am
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Thanks everyone–hearing what other people are thinking is very grounding and will give me much to think about tonight (as I take my prenatal vitamin and wonder if I have any clue of what I might be getting myself into :)
August 26, 2010 10:52 am
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I have to admit, this comes at perfect time! im recently engaged, and now that we are talking wedding, the next question is “so when do the kids come?”. a few friends of ours have had babies, and my younger sister is due in october this year. scary and exhilarating. i love babies-fun and so easy to amuse!
but the thought of carrying a child scares me. something about it growing inside me-it just eeks me out. FH and I have talked about kids, and we think we would be good parents, and i know our parents would be AWESOME grandparents. but we adoption would work for us. i was raised by my dad and stepmom, and my stepmom is pretty much my best friend. why should we bring a child into this world when there are children out there looking for a family? we could help someone, and i could avoid the pregnancy thing.
and going through US adoption process is a long journey, something that i think would be more rewarding than a pregnancy, something that we would both need to get through to get the next member of our family. he wouldnt feel left out (i mean, the man doesnt have to feel the constant pain, leaky breasts, big tummy, extra clothes) either.
August 26, 2010 7:41 am
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I’m one of the many ladies who emailed Meg in hopes that she’d start a conversation on this topic, so for shits and giggles, I’m going to just straight up post what I sent to her, because I think i was in a very special head space that day and nailed exactly what I was thinking/feeling, and I don’t think I could ever articulate it as accurately again:
Long story short: My husband and I are grappling with the biggest big-picture issue of all: Whether or not to have children. We’ve been together for nearly five years, married for one, and we’ve had many-a-discussion about this topic both before and after our nuptials, always ending in the following refrain: We’re not planning to have kids. Not in a “but we’re open to the idea” way, but more of a “we’re not interested, but we hate to eat crow, so lets not jinx ourselves by saying nuh-uh, absolutely no way, because shit happens.’ way. I tend to look at it this way: no form of birth control is 100% effective (though ours is as close as it gets), and I’m not naive enough to believe that I’m above the influence of my hormones and I might wake up one day feeling as though I must have a baby RIGHT NOW.
And while I’m not there (biologically speaking, I feel the same as I always have, which is ambivalent), I find myself thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking about WHY I feel so ambivalent about motherhood, thinking about how much I love being around certain friends’ children, thinking about how much we’d be giving up, thinking about how much we’d be gaining, thinking about what I’d be like as a mother, thinking about what my husband would be like as a father, thinking about what our lives would like like at age 40, 50, 60, 70 and beyond, both with and without children, thinking it’s irresponsible to have children given the gene pool from which I sprung, thinking it’s ridiculous to let fears about what I may or may not pass on to a child guide my decision making process, thinking we “owe” it to our parents to provide them grandchildren, thinking that’s not our problem, thinking I LOVE babies, and I LOVE teenagers, but I HATE kids, thinking I’ll love my own, thinking that’s a pretty big gamble, thinking we can’t afford it, thinking people far poorer than us have kids every day, thinking we’re too young to worry SO MUCH about all this (me 32, him 37), thinking we’re to old not to, thinking maybe we’ll regret having kids if we do, thinking maybe we’ll regret not having kids if we don’t.
Thinking, thinking, thinking, and more thinking. On one hand, I know that this is a decision too heartfelt to THINK our way to a conclusion, but on the other hand, I know it’s too impactful to FEEL our way.
So what’s a couple to do?
August 26, 2010 7:43 am
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I want to “exactly” this 100x.
August 26, 2010 7:46 am
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Ugh, amen to everything you said. My fiance and I are right there with you guys.
August 26, 2010 8:07 am
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why thank you for clearly and intelligently writing for me as well. Yes, all of the “thinking” , oh I do so much “thinking”
constant thinking about all of those very same things you wrote. And to echo K’s comment earlier, sometimes I simply envy those who know they want babies, and then have them. I stare at them, and get lost in my head (thinking again, damn it!) about “wow, must be so easy if you are just THAT sure”.
August 26, 2010 11:10 am
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“thinking it’s irresponsible to have children given the gene pool from which I sprung, thinking it’s ridiculous to let fears about what I may or may not pass on to a child guide my decision making process…”
uhh yep. feeling THAT. well, the first half is kinda where I am, the second half is kinda where my husband is. but I’m really both at the same time.
both of us do want children, and thankfully we agree in terms of when – basically, if we have an oops we can handle it and be totally happy but ideally let’s wait at least another 2 years before we start thinking about trying. we shall see if that stays true for the next 2 years.
August 26, 2010 12:47 pm
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Yes Yes Yes – all the thinking! I couldn’t agree more.
August 26, 2010 5:10 pm
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We are still 6 months away from our wedding and over the summer, our FRIENDS (none of whom have kids) and family started the baby pressure. I gave the we are waiting answer, cuase we really are, cause we still aren’t 100% convinced kids are for us. It changes daily because we see and remember that kids screaming at the grocery store and we are not sure if we want to deal. I think “yeah, we don’t have kids right now.” is the best response ever. Its quick and sums up the situation. I would like to share this link with everyone its from the globe and mail newspaper up here in Canada. Its an interesting perspective. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/i-really-regret-it-i-really-regret-having-children/article784948/
August 26, 2010 7:48 am
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Yikes, that article was a little terrifying. I just sent it one to one of my good friends. We’re both in our early 30s, got married within the last year, and not feeling the “BABY! BABYs!” I always assumed I’d have kids, but I anticipated I’d be a lot more ready by now.
August 26, 2010 9:26 am
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I know the article is a little extreme, it always gives me a pause to think about the long term effects of having kids, sure babies are cute toddlers and preschoolers can be fun, but what about the rest….I for one want to have a pretty good handle on being a wife, before I decide to add another role into my identity as mother.
August 26, 2010 12:01 pm
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i really feel like the “we want to travel (or what-have-you) before we have kids” is founded in an irksome attitude that you have to have a good excuse to not want kids. and it needs to be an excuse that expires (as in: after we’re done traveling, we will have kids). i’m sure it’s very true for some folks, but i also feel like it’s one of the only things you can say to not get some sort of cultural lash-back – though generally polite – for not wanting children (right now, or ever).
on the pro-children side, i think it enforces a strange perspective on children, namely: you will never be able to do any of the fun things you like after you have them. there’s truth inside that: children make things harder. but they are not prison guards!! you can do awesome things with kids! sometimes they give you an excuse to do things that you totally forgot were awesome. and sometimes they make it harder to do awesome things, but they don’t prohibit them.
here’s the thing – i think when people say “we want to travel before we have kids,” they don’t mean exactly that. or, not just that. for the most part, they’re not saying, “when (if) we have kids, we’ll never be able to travel again,” but rather, “when (if) we have kids, it will be harder to travel.” which is only an example that is easy to say and culturally understood. it is like shorthand for “when (if) we have kids everything will be harder” (and different, and maybe better!) and we’re not ready for that yet. which is fine!
but it is really hard to say, and really hard to have understood and validated. because having children is supposed to be exciting and never scary, but, really, i can’t imagine it not being both.
August 26, 2010 7:57 am
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Exactly.
Though I maintain, we’re not traveling to put of kids. We don’t have kids now, and we’re traveling. Which is different.
August 26, 2010 9:07 am
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Again. Love this mentality!
August 26, 2010 12:27 pm
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This is a total EXACTLY. I feel a lot better about the “travel excuse” now that you put it in these terms. I guess I should have read a little deeper into what they were really saying. Because, yeah, shit is gonna get HARDER and the simple life just feels too good right now. I’m not looking for an excuse to expire, there is no definitive time limit on baby waiting, there is no turkey thermometer that pops up in your bedroom, or countdown widget on your computer’s desktop. But in the meantime, I will say “We don’t have kids now” which is a current fact, not an opinion on future plans, and also what Erin had said earlier “developing our marriage for our kids’ future”
August 26, 2010 11:04 am
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I’m not sure if anyone will make it down this far in the comments, but it seems like most people’s comments, as well as those that I know in real life are mainly in set camps: 1) we want kid(s) soon/now; 2) we want kid(s) sometime in the future; or 3) we don’t want kids. Does anyone else fall in the very awkward territory of “I always thought I would have kids, but as I’ve gotten older, I’m not sure what I want anymore?” Neither my fiance or I imagine our lives without eventually having children, but I’m not sure how much we actually *want* them (well, at least in the foreseeable future)
August 26, 2010 8:01 am
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Yep. I think this is more normal than people let on (especially because I’d guess many people in this camp go on to have kids, and then they feel like it’s awkward to admit that for a while they were not sure they wanted them).
August 26, 2010 9:09 am
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Hmmm. I haven’t read ALL the comments so I may be repeating someone else.
I has my son when I was 19 and daughter when I was 29. I was not married to either of their fathers.
Thus the decision to have them (i.e. to continue with my pregnancies rather than to conceive) was mine alone. It came down to this:
“Well, things could be worse.”
August 26, 2010 8:09 am
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Since it seems most are in favor of putting off having kids, which I can certainly understand, I want to give the side of not waiting. Our little daughter is one of those “happy accidents” that Meg references, or as we like to call Lucy, our little love child. We conceived her unintentionally when we were engaged. Before finding out I was pregnant we were more of the we’ll put off having kids for a few years.
Although our plans changed quickly as we rushed to throw our lives together in preparation for our unplanned edition, we were able to talk about a lot of ideas and plans we had in regards to our lives. We got married four months after she was born despite pressure from our families to do it sooner.
Anyway, I’ve done a lot of thought about the good things about having a baby early in marriage/life. The thing that has been great for us, is that in many ways we started out life together, or at least married life together with a baby. We knew going into it that it is very important for us to learn how to balance being married with having a child. I have seen many people who as soon as they have kids that it is their main focus. Their marriages appear to exist only in relation to their children. I realize this does not happen to everyone, but it can. Our marriage comes first even when Lucy is grouchy, or needy, we know that we must put each other first, even if that just means volunteering to change a diaper for the other person. We make lots of couple time, even if it just means going on a date in the basement after she goes to sleep, when we cant’ get a babysitter. Our creativity in romance has soared.
Another plus of having a baby early aside from learning to balance, is that our marriage is growing up, we are growing up with a baby. We are learning how to be a family with a kid in our marriage. We are learning to fully live our lives while having a baby. I’m developing a career that allows me to mostly work from home, and we are learning how to travel with her, go camping with her. She is just part of our lives, not a far off phantasm or dream. We haven’t been tempted with the, “things will be better once we have a baby” mentality (not saying that is true for you guys, but I have heard this line of thinking before).
So although I respect the idea of waiting for readiness (that was my plan afterall!) I think there are some huge advantages for having a baby earlier.
August 26, 2010 8:12 am
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I totally agree with you on the virtues of having children young. My own parents were rather young when I was born (20 and 23), so growing up, I always had the youngest parents out of all of my friends, an in some ways, this also made them the FUNNEST parents out of all my friends. (I know, I know, “most fun,” but “funnest” worked better here).
This is one of the factors in why I’m SO all up in my head about whether or not to have kids at the moment, because at 32, I FEEL like I only have 3 more years in which to do so (if that’s what we decide). I KNOW that’s not the case, because women can and do get pregnant after 35 every single day. But I FEEL like 35 is the cutoff for me, partially because of everything we know about fertility, but more so because even if I DO decide I want to be a mom, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be an “old” mom, sending kids off to college at the same time I’m trying to retire.
This is a notion I’d probably be wise to unburden myself of…but there it is.
August 26, 2010 8:25 am
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Yes! I think we are fun parents partially because we are young. We have tons of energy and have no problem with scooping up the babe and going camping for the weekend randomly, whereas our older parent friends seem tired, and scheduled all the time. I realize that a lot of factors could contribute to tiredness, but I feel so energetic as a parent and I think it will be a good thing for Lucy to have young, adventurous parents!
August 26, 2010 8:40 am
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My parents were much older than all of my peers’ parents in school. My mom had me five months before turning 38. Because of the complications with my own birth (I apparently wasn’t very nice coming out) I also grew up an only child. I think because of this I’ve always wanted to have kids in my late twenties/early thirties. And what you said about retirement is true. My parents are at retirement age, but I have been in college and we are all going through this ugly recession, so the likelihood that they will retire soon, if ever is slim.
August 26, 2010 9:08 am
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I’m 34, so I know how you feel, but whoa! You don’t have to be an old mom! Let em keep you young!!! Heck, I’ve even considered starting to lie about my age… :D
August 26, 2010 12:56 pm
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I had a young mommy too and it’s been a big factor in our decision to try for kids as soon as we reach a baseline level of stability – probably 1-2 years after we get married. It’s not just youngest, funnest mommy aspect; a huge motivator for trying to have kids soon is looking at her lifestyle now.
She had me in her early 20′s, spent her 30′s when I while I in school building up her career, then I was out of the house when she was in her mid 40′s. I was gone and she had a career she loved, tons of free time, disposable income, and was still young and healthy enough to really make the most of it. Now she’s jetting ’round the world and learning belly dance and rescuing dogs and going to alternative theater festivals and generally leading a far cooler life that we are. My fiance and I would both really like to sign up for that.
August 26, 2010 1:51 pm
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For the flip side of the young parents discussion: I had young parents too (24 when they had me and I’m the 3rd kid) and I actually think that made our relationship more difficult. At 24 they had no idea who they were individually, much less as a couple. They hadn’t had any time to experience things or grow. They also had the tendency to treat us like peers instead of parents, and while that makes for fun TV it’s unbalancing. I never really felt like I had parents. They had a messy drawn out divorce when I was 16.
August 26, 2010 2:49 pm
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Yes. that’s my experience with young parents too – at least a young mom. except my parents were doing their messy divorce when I was about 1.5, drawn out through my whole childhood. definitely feel you on the “treating us as peers” problem.
August 27, 2010 6:56 am
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Definitely unburden yourself of all that baggage. Much like I believe Stacey and Clinton when they tell me to dress the body I *have* not the body I hope someday to have, I think I should make decisions based on the life I have now.
I will never be a single 20-something with a cool NYC apartment. I won’t have a serious relationship with a woman. I’ll never have a child with a young dad. These were all options at one point in my life, but I made decisions at the time and now I’m a 20-something with a 40-something husband in Virginia. I don’t regret any of those decisions, and now when I make a choice, I don’t think “I used to think I’d settle down with a lady instead of a man – What am I giving up or gaining by having a kid with a man?” I try to think “If we have a child, what will our lives look like in 5, 10, 20 years? What will they look like if we don’t? Which version am I happier in?” I have to make my decisions based on things that *can* happen, not on things that already have not happened.
August 30, 2010 10:55 am
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Beth, I just really wanted to say how much I agree with you. My parents had me young, accidentally, and had to put a lot of creative imagination into making things work, practically and financially. But I had the best childhood growing up with them. And to this day my parents says they wouldn’t have it any other way. They are fond of suggesting that couples who do wait a long time after marriage to have kids can get so comfortable as just a two that throwing the mess of a baby into that can seriously destabilise things. I’m not sure I agree 100% with them on that, but I’ve not been able to follow in their footsteps, due to the life I’ve chosen, and that makes me kinda sad.
August 27, 2010 2:28 am
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My hormones started screaming BABY soon after we got married. It didn’t help that a couple friends had just had adorable babies.
But the thing is, are my hormones going to be screaming TEENAGER in 13 years? Um, no. I think the baby excitement helps us get past all the scary, overwhelming things that come with motherhood, but we can only let the hormones take control when we’re at a time in our lives where it’s feasible, when we’ve had a rational conversation or two about WHY we want kids, and we can honestly answer something beyond, “They’re so cute!” I don’t know yet what that answer will be, so I’m going to content myself with babysitting for awhile.
August 26, 2010 8:20 am
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I have to say that I come around to that idea everytime the BABY BABY BABY feeling starts rushing into my brain. Starting a family now sounds nice, a little baby to play with, but they grow so quick, am I ready to deal with a rebellious teen (or 13 year old college grad genius?) Those are the thoughts that stop my BAB-…… in their tracks. BIGGER PICTURE…puppies cute, but they quickly become full size dogs as babies are adorable, but soon they are walking, talking, thought provoking, garbage disposals. Like I said, I want them, but am i ready now? heck no. I would like to enjoy the company of my walking, talking, mows the lawn, takes me on dates, husband :)
August 26, 2010 11:10 am
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I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about whether or not I want kids, and my ambivalence is causing me a lot of stress because my husband is MEANT to be a father. He loves kids, he is fantastic with them, and he definitely wants his own. On the other hand, I’ve never really had any sort of active baby desire let alone the BABYBABYBABY desire. When it comes to kids, I *think* I’d be perfectly happy having one, but I *know* I’d be perfectly happy without. And where would we be if I ultimately decided that kids weren’t for me?
I think my ambivalence is partially because my parents raised me to see a good marriage and a stellar career as of the utmost importance but kids were totally optional. So when I was a little kid imagining my life as an adult, I imagined a career, friends, a husband–but no kids. Add this to the fact that as one of the youngest in my family, I’ve never been exposed to kids who weren’t my own age, which made the idea of kids very foreign to me.
As more and more of my peers begin to have children, I have begun to see kids—the concept—as something feasible for me and kids—the people—as actual individuals instead of as a collection of screaming, ill-behaved annoyances hell bent on ruining your perfectly lovely dining experience.* Interacting with kids on a one on one basis has made realize that I like kids as people. I like playing with them and reading with them and teaching them new things. I like hearing what they have to say. And I like having them around in general.
Unfortunately, these first good experiences with kids haven’t been enough to counteract my ingrained ambivalence or, even more importantly, the fear I feel about having kids. When I think about kids, every bad story I’ve heard about parenthood gone wrong—from screwing the kids up to kids ruining your life/career/marriage—and every negative message society puts out there comes back to me. I worry I’d be an awful, awful parent who screws up her kids. I’m worried that I might want kids at one point but end up resenting them later. Or that the kids would be fine but my relationship with my husband would be inextricably altered by resentment caused by parenting conflicts. There is absolutely no basis for these fears in my personal life, but the fears seem to be confirmed by countless studies and articles I’ve read as a women’s studies major. When you have literature to back up your irrational fears, it’s harder to dismiss them.
Actually, sitting down to type this out has seriously helped me figure out that it’s not that I absolutely don’t want to or shouldn’t have kids. It’s that the lack of experience combined with a whole lot of fear has made me wary of the whole enterprise. I’m so clearly not ready for kids now, but I definitely could be in the future and I know what issues I need to address beforehand, which is a huge relief. Especially since I’m only 24 and my husband is 25. We have time to wait and work through this together.
———————–
*I know, of course, that not all kids are screaming or ill-behaved and that sometimes kids have good reason to scream or be ill-behaved, but prior to a few years ago my ONLY exposure to kids was when they were misbehaving LOUDLY in public. Not a great introductory course.
August 26, 2010 8:27 am
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Oh gods. The ‘Exactly’ button was not enough in this case, though I did click on it.
That is so very much me. I like kids a lot, but my mother went through horrible post-natal depression, and my aunt finally had a kid at 41 after years of trying…who is so spoilt he’s a complete terror who, to be perfectly honest, is the only human being I’ve ever considered strangling. I feel awful saying that, but he really is a screaming, wilful, unpleasant, selfish, horrible child. I know small children can be selfish and difficult, but I spent some years volunteering at a holiday club for primary-school age children, and I adored most of them, even when they got a bit stroppy.
I suppose I’m saying I’ve seen when it can go wrong, and I’m so afraid I’ll not being able to handle life with a child/it’ll break up my marriage/ruin my sex life/end my career/etc, that it gets in the way of whether or not I actually want children.
So confused. It’s good to hear someone who’s on the same page as me. I think, perhaps, the only way to peer underneath these fears is to talk, a lot, and try to figure out how my fiance and I would fire-proof our marriage, so to speak.
August 27, 2010 5:09 am
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I’ve been with my fiancé since we were in high school. We have a progression of responses from family friends— “Who’s this guy?” turned into “She’s still with that guy?” to “Really, she’s STILL with the same guy??” to “So, are they gonna get married?” to “Seriously, why aren’t they married yet?”. Once graduated from college (year six of our relationship), the Marriage thing hit high gear, which we thankfully tamped down with “he’s in school, just be patient.” But now that we’re engaged, and will be married in less than a month… And I’m nervous about the Baby Talk.
We want children. We definitely want children; we’ve been talking about it since WE were children (heh). But not yet.
It doesn’t feel perfect, but it usually feels good enough. If your subconscious is telling you, “Um. No. Check back in a few.” Go have some beers, or a dip in the pool, or some graduate school, and then check back.
Ohhhh, yes. YES. Because I feel the itch, like crazy. I love little baby feets (oh my GOD, the TOES), babies in Red Sox hats absolutely send me into conniptions, but I also feel that strong voice in my head going “ARE YOU CRAZY?!”. So I have the ache and the push, both at once. Our practical side (never far from the surface, of course) definitely says it’s time to wait. My fiancé just started a PhD program in chemistry that will take another four to five years. Personally, I made the choice to wait until after the wedding to apply for graduate schools, so I could very well be starting a Masters program next fall (FINGERS CROSSED). So, yeah. I’ll grab a beer, start grad school, and wait, thankyouverymuch.
The only kink that makes me sad—my grandmother. She’s 94, she just had a MAJOR heart attack this month (and is recovering really well, thank God), and is desperate for great-grandchildren. I’m the first among my cousins to get married, and a small, sad part of me wishes we could give her great-grandbabies before she dies. I don’t think we will. And it’s heartbreaking.
August 26, 2010 8:29 am
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In our families, “wife & mother” might as well be one word. It’s pretty much expected that you will be pregnant within three years of marriage. If you aren’t, women start whispering behind your back about whether someone’s plumbing is broken. (No joke.)
We aren’t even married yet (and for us, that’s a pre-requisite for kids) and already my future in-laws and my mom and step-dad are making references to the arrival of grandchildren…even though I have never in my life expressed a desire to have kids. EVER.
But you should never have to come up with some contrived reason about why you aren’t having kids, or why you haven’t had them yet. That decision belongs to you and your fellow parent. I just wish I had the guts to tell my future mother-in-law that they can go ahead and sell their home when she retires, and that she doesn’t need to plan her retirement on the imminent arrival of grandchildren. Because I’m not pregnant. And I might never be.
August 26, 2010 8:29 am
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yay! Babies!!! You know how dogs see a tennis ball and lose all ability to focus on anything else – My fiance calls babies tennis balls. I get it, they are awesome. I actually used my baby wanting to find me a good guy – OK before you guys go bonkers – listen to my logic.
I like to fall in love…Love to love. I grew up in a crazy home but we love the pants off of everybody. So I had a hard time dating because I was taught to treasure people’s differences and idiosyncracities. (sp?) and then its hard to see those “unique qualities” aren’t always a good match for your “unique qualities”. Finally, I realized that if I asked myself – what if my kids turn out just like him? I was HORRIFIED! Like break up the next day, horrified. Apparently I have bigger standards for DNA provider than I am a dater. (Again, I realize the crazy here but sometimes you just have to know who you are!)
Anyhow, I got a lot pickier with who I was dating (and I don’t mean looks, just personality, adaptability = fatherhood stuff) and suddenly, I meet the guy. And facing life’s challenges suddenly seems easier. And guess what, having kids is on both of our lists in a big way – but Im not living for it. I’m older so we will probably have to start right away but I realized for the first time in my life, I like the guy more than I like the (future) babies. If it didn’t happen for us, Im not going to break up with him or slowly let our marriage deteriorate. He’s the only person I trust to hold my hand and tell me its going to be okay.
AND if it does happen, I hope my kids are more like him – He’s Awesome! So, for us anyway, we can’t completely separate the two – We want to have a family. But if it turns out that our family is made up of two – That will be great too!
Oh and we plan on traveling – all the time constantly with or without…cause travel is great!
Funny enough, my friends think having kids shuts the door on that but I grew up going places about once a month and sure, its not easy but once the kids are older and the parents get that routine, its not that bad.
August 26, 2010 8:34 am
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Yes. The wonderful Maggie Mason has a line that, “You shouldn’t marry a guy unless you’d be proud to have your sons grow up and be just like him.” I think that’s probably a pretty good measuring stick whether you plan to have kids or not.
August 26, 2010 9:14 am
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Totally agree about this advice (which I also saw first on Mighty Girl) – if you had kids that grew up to be just like him, how would you feel. And also totally agree that this is a good step-outside-your-usual-perspective type of measure of a partner whether or not you actually want to have kids with that person. I also think it’s kind of an interesting test to think about your partner applying to you, to help you see yourself from a different perspective.
August 26, 2010 10:16 am
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What always gets me about people inquiring about kids is that unless you KNOW the couple wants to have kids, it’s a question that could have a horrible answer. I watched a friend have to answer that question after suffering a miscarriage shortly after their wedding day. The askers always meant well, but UGH it was bad….
I too did the BABY BABY BABY as a teenager, but Meg is totally right. That was hormones. I’m in the midst of another BABY BABY BABY, but it’s different.
It’s not any baby, as it would have been at 16, it’s OUR baby. It’s not an indistinct thing and it’s not satiated by holding someone else’s baby anymore. I want the whole thing, the pregnancy, The Boy’s hand on my belly, the midnight “The Baby wants pistachios, please go get me some,” the backaches and the swollen feet and the ability to say, “I grew a lung today, what did YOU do?” when The Boy complains about not having any clean laundry. Then the 4am feedings, the not having the ability to leave the house without 6 different bags, soft kisses on squishy little baby necks, finding Cheerios in my shoes, and having to say, “Don’t put your finger there!” and “WHAT? Why would you DO that?!?” 14 times a day.
But for health reasons we’re waiting a little bit and it’s killing me. But it’s what we have to do. Even if it BLOWS.
So yeah, it’s definitely different this time. I still want the chocolate cake, bad enough to claw through the fridge, but now I’m grown-up enough to know I need to wait until I’ve had dinner first.
Is there anyone out there who is thinking of (or who has already) cut their waiting time for kids short and are dealing with family/friend backlash? I went through a “no kids” phase, but at the time I knew it was only because I wasn’t with someone who could be a father and I wasn’t willing to consider being a single mom yet. And when we got married we said we wanted to wait at least two years. But now that we’ve changed our minds, it’s like they think we’ve been brainwashed by the masses. Because how could we think of doing something as bougie and pedestrian as pooping out a baby??
Their derision is more of a statement on their own personalities than ours, but JC-on-a-raft is it ever annoying…
August 26, 2010 8:42 am
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I can’t answer you on the last one because we never told anyone we were planning to wait, or that we were not going to wait. Other than with my ob/gyn, if the issue comes up in conversation it’s always “if we have kids then ___.” And since I am already past the age deadlines many commenters mention, we can get away with leaving it open like that because people seem to be polite enough not to push as to whether that “if” hinges on choice or on ability to conceive.
But as far as that goes, I hear you on that first paragraph. Also, sometimes people who publicly say they are waiting aren’t actually waiting. Even though some people find “oh no, we’re not ready yet, maybe in a few years” to be an unsatisfactory answer, it’s still a much easier answer than “we wanted to already have two kids by now, but unfortunately I’ve had 3 miscarriages in the last two years/we’re struggling with impotency problems/our doctor cannot for the life of her figure out why I’m not pregnant yet.” (And vice versa, unexpected pregnancies are rarely publicly announced with a “crapcrap, we really wanted to wait five more years before starting a family but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to terminate this, although I’m still not 100% sure we made the right call.” Which is smart.)
So really, it all boils down to, leave the couples alone and just joyously welcome any children they do create/acquire, should that happen at some point sooner or later.
August 26, 2010 10:14 am
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EXACTLY.
I know there is a button for it, but it needed to be said.
August 26, 2010 1:09 pm
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Oh, my god, your BABY BABY BABY paragraph kills me. KILLS ME. I’ve been dating my guy since high school, we’re getting married next month, and we’re in our twenties (26 and 25). We both definitely want kids, but I’m so with you with how it’s changed. We talk about baby names and what they’d look like, I know the energy I’m doomed to endure (holy cow), the brilliant moments, the curly hair and dark eyes. And I’m so ready for all of it, with him.
But—
I still want the chocolate cake, bad enough to claw through the fridge, but now I’m grown-up enough to know I need to wait until I’ve had dinner first.
YES. We are not financially or emotionally ready for kids just yet. We’re excited and starting to think about it, but we gotta eat our veggies first. That means he finishes grad school, and it means I start AND finish (PhD vs Masters, heh). We wrap our heads around life as a married couple, and we really solidify our own grown-up selves. And then, when we’ve finished all our peas and cauliflower, we can head straight to the chocolate cake.
August 26, 2010 10:33 am
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Definitely. The Boy would have been happy if I’d gotten pregnant on my honeymoon. (Probably before that, but we want Grammy to be able to hold her head up in church….) I took a little longer and I’m all, BABY. NOW.
But we’re getting things situated, and when the time comes I’ll go off birth control and see what happens. Making an effort to have a baby without knowing if you have to make an effort is silly. Takes all the fun out of the makin’ part of baby makin’….
August 26, 2010 1:18 pm
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I’ve always been on the fence about having kids, leaning towards not; so many examples of bad parenting/difficult or special needs children and just a lot of dysfunction around me has always made me wary, and I never really felt the strong urge. To me, it’s just so much work and responsibility for something that can go horribly wrong at every possible juncture. Then the other day my fiance did something, I forget what, but it was very cute and boyish and I had a momentary flash of seeing him as a child, then seeing a child that was OURS, and something clicked. All of these years I’ve been thinking of parenting other people’s children–friends’ kids, young family members, screaming hellions blocking the aisles at Target–but had never really considered the fact that if we had a child it would be ours, us, half me and half him. There is something about that which is really appealling, and softened me up a bit. Still not a definite; when (nosy) people ask I say “It’s not OFF the table, it’s just not necessarily ON the table either.”
Maybe a comment better suited to next week’s post about whether or not to have kids, but my .02
August 26, 2010 8:50 am
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Let me try to organize a few thoughts I’ve had while reading these amazingly insightful comments.
When I met and fell in love with the man I’m going to marry in 10 days, my mind went baby CRAZY. Like, immediately. Before meeting him, I thought I’d get married late in life and have a few kids in my late thirties. Then, all of a sudden at 23, I became obsessed with babies and pregnancy and the whole process so much that I shifted my career towards becoming a prenatal massage therapist and labor doula. I think I’ve always been fascinated by these things, but it was just buried down deep until he/our relationship dug it up. (Someone mentioned something about feeling like a traitor to feminism and I think there’s something like that in all of this with me as well…)
Another thing that I thought of/remembered while reading the comments was how many people asked/hinted that I might be pregnant when we got engaged. Maybe this isn’t the right thing to say, but I was reeeaaally irritated and almost insulted by this. I don’t mean to suggest that I’m above anyone who’s life included a “happy accident”… I guess I’ve just always taken my birth control very seriously and for someone to doubt that really pissed me off. It suggested to me that they thought the only reason we should get married is because we were having a baby. It’s so presumptive and plus, it’s private! I loved the comment that we should only be asking women about their baby plans if we’d talk about sex with them over a glass of wine.
Anyway, at this point I’m 26 and feel like I’m on the world’s largest teeter totter when it comes to having kids and when. There are days when I do feel the Mittelschmerz, (love that there’s a word for it!) very very strongly. I think there’s a lot of beautiful, pure, honest, raw feelings that directly correlate with how much I love and adore my future husband. I want to create a baby. With HIM. I want to experience pregnancy and birth. With HIM. I want to raise children. With HIM. At times it feels like the beautiful reasons and how strongly I feel them should be enough. But then the teeter totter slams me back down to the days when someone asks me when we’ll have kids and my knees jerk and I say, 10 years! Get off my back! I’m terrified! The more you ask, the more I want to say, never!!! …Then the little “ticking time bomb” starts ticking in the back of my head and the teeter totter goes up again… Anyway, I guess my point is that I’m swinging back and forth here. I love the women who are 100% or even 97% sure one way or the other, even in their present moment, knowing that their reality may change and shift. I’m at 50/50 as to when, which as I’m writing this, feels like some kind of crazy baby purgatory.
August 26, 2010 8:52 am
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We reached the point where we felt “good enough”, three years and change after the wedding, to start trying. I don’t feel ready, but I’m literally “as ready as I’m gonna be”, which is exactly how I felt about moving to a new state (and now I love it!), getting a third dog (can’t live without him now!) and getting married in the first place (BEST! THING! EVER!).
I’ve given up on big bursts of inspiration for major life changes.
August 26, 2010 8:52 am
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Exactly. I’d actually really like to get to that “good enough” place. Because seriously, when does the sky open and a beam of light hit you and words whisper “Get Married Now!” Ok. I’d argue that stuff DOES happen sometimes, but way to often that’s just wacked out brain chemestry talking. I’d really like to get to that rational quiet good enough place.
August 26, 2010 9:19 am
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Yes, yes yes!
August 26, 2010 1:40 pm
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I went to a wedding in June where a big portion of the wedding talked about the two of them having babies. “Will you accept children freely….” “These hands will hold your children” “With your children all around you…”. These weren’t from readings, these were from the officiant. Then at the reception, the groom’s father’s entire speech was about how proud he was of his son and about much they love their grandchildren and would really love to have more grandchildren right away. I thought this was really repulsive. I didn’t think a wedding band was a fertility treatment. Honestly, the subtext of the whole day was “Congratulations. Now get in there and knock her up immediately.” What if the two of them can’t have children? Does that make their wedding vows a sham because they promised to have kids in their vows? Are their families going to be less proud of them if they don’t have children? Because that’s what it seemed like.
Perhaps I’ve never thought wife=mother because it wasn’t a part of any wedding I’d ever been to before. Maybe that’s why that wedding was so shocking, because the vows I’m familiar with don’t mention children. My family is protestant and I’m sure my grandmother would’ve had a heart attack because talking about people having babies was the same as talking about S-E-X and you just don’t do that (I can see gran saying this with clutched pearls and hushed tones).
August 26, 2010 8:55 am
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I know that the “Will you accept children freely?” part was part of our Catholic wedding service. I don’t know if the service you went to was Catholic, but I am pretty sure it’s fairly standard in that particular service. If it was Catholic, it isn’t so much part of the vows (or it wasn’t with ours), but it is along the same lines of “Did you come here freely and without reservation to marry?” type of question. Every wedding I’ve ever been to has been Catholic so I never really thought it was odd.
That being said, I never thought of it in the way that you mentioned. It’s interesting to get a different perspective. I never really associated wife = mother, but I always assumed we would want to have children (and thankfully his assumption was the same) some time after we married.
August 26, 2010 4:48 pm
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I’m 24 and have been in the same committed relationship for approximately eight years (not all of them good, but most of them pretty awesome). My almost-fiance and I don’t plan on having kids until we’re about 30, and though I’m not sure of his reasoning I’m sure of my own. It has taken me a long time to find myself, to edge away from peer pressure and the “shoulds” of society to figure out exactly who I want to be and how I want to express myself. I’m not ready for all the little (and indescribably large) acts of selflessness being a mother would require of me. Which of course makes me feel like a b*tch, because don’t we all want to do good and be considered selfless and nurturing, etc? Like we’re taught that self-sacrifice is the ultimate measure of goodness? Maybe that’s just me…
But then there’s also this tiny little voice inside me that goes, “But you’d be a great mother. You love babies. You can’t wait to see the flicker of creativity and the spark of knowledge in your child’s eyes. You can’t wait to share the world with this beautiful little person that your love made. SO WHY ARE YOU WAITING?!?” The voice has gotten progressively louder this year- so much so that I even mentioned it to my boyfriend who looked at me incredulously, not understanding my confusion, a little worried that I might have gone crazy.
I’m not really one of those people who believes everything will eventually fall into place, because life seems to be a series of chaotic events, one right after another. Waiting for the day when things are less hectic, more profitable, less confusing, more settled and so on, seems like waiting for death instead of enjoying life. It’s never gonna be perfect, a car or an air conditioner or a washer will break. The dog might eat something it’s not supposed to. The cat might send a favorite vase crashing to the floor. In other words, unless circumstances are perennially dire, that’s not enough to say “We’re not going to have a baby” or even “We’re not going to get married”.
So how to deal with my confusion? The worry that I will always want children, but may never be completely okay with the sacrifices involved? How to deal with wanting one and not wanting one at the same time? When it’s not something tangible telling me I’m not ready, or that I am, but instead an internal fear of losing myself by having a child or never feeling complete if I wait or never have one?
August 26, 2010 8:57 am
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