Previous Ask Bear columns for The Butter can be found here. If you have a question for Bear, The Butter’s advice columnist, send it along to asking.bear@gmail.com.
Dear Bear,
I’m married and 29. My wife and I have been married for five years but together since college. Our marriage is pretty good. We like doing a lot of the same things, she’s very cute still. Sometimes it feels like we’re playing the easiest level though. Come home from work, have a drink or two and some dinner, watch the TV, go to bed. Weekends we go to movies and such. But I guess that’s what people do.
People keep asking us when we will have children…I have no idea. Or even if I want children really. When is it time for that? How do you know if you want them? I kind of feel like we’re on autopilot and having kids would shake us up but also be a lot of work.
I’ve asked her about it, and she’s always pretty meh about the whole idea when we’re together. But then when her mom or someone asks us, she makes it seem like any minute now we’ll be making babies. I don’t understand that part either. Am I not asking the right questions? What’s the deal?
***
Dear Brave Correspondent,
First, let me say this: not having a child is a fine choice. Sure, your wife’s relatives may have some feelings about it, but those are their feelings, and not yours. They can make (or have made) their own choices – it’s your turn now. There’s no reason you have to sign on for some Official Narrative Of Marriage that includes spawning, especially if after some consideration you understand that you and your wife are just not into it. This is one of the places where that popularized phrase “you do you” really applies.
Also, not for nothing: you can absolutely have children in your lives without having children of your own. You know what every parent needs, regardless of circumstances? Aunties and Uncles to their children. People who have not already heard a rendition of the plot of a television program eleven times a day for the entire previous month, people who are keen to go to a splash pad or Fairyland or Legoland but need a kid to accompany them, people who want to spoil their dinner on junk food at the fair or take in the matinee at the opera but prefer to do that in the company of a short co-conspirator. If that part seems good to you, and not so much the other stuff, let me recommend this option most highly (if this is what you choose, see me: I have played approximately one hundred million games of Uno this week and I could really use a break).
As a parent of three children (20, 5, and 3 months) I can tell you one thing for absolutely certain: they are a LOT of work. You’re so right about that. They do shake things up. They do up the difficulty level significantly. It seems like you understand that part just fine, and what you’re not sure about is whether you want to play the more challenging parts of the game.
But, do you want to have children? To be honest, Brave Correspondent, it seems like maybe you’re in a bit of a holding pattern. So it doesn’t seem terribly surprising to me that you don’t feel any great drive to share what you’ve made with a small human. I don’t intend that to be harsh, I just think (based on your letter, which we edited somewhat for space) that you ended up on the path of least resistance and are now just sauntering along it, while many delights lay just beyond. And so, I would like to invite you to consider what it would look like to step off that path.
I’m not just talking about having children (though certainly that is a way); I am talking about being up to something in the world. Having projects, having goals, doing something to leave things improved or even just more interesting – which is, itself, a kind of improvement. Sometimes I worry that when I get rolling downhill about “leaving things improved” people think I require them to have tremendous commitment to Serious Political Goals, but that’s not what I mean. I just mean: whatever you care about, care for. If it’s important to you in the world, serve it.
So: what do you care about? Not in a pro forma, seven-year-old-recites-his-bedtime-prayers kind of way but in a real way. What of the world do you enjoy, benefit from, treasure (or loathe), besides your television? What would you like more of, or different of, or better of?
Great. Now, what can you do to make it happen?
I am biased, certainly. Every one I like a lot is also up to things in the world, hard at work in an assortment of ways trying to increase the light. Sometimes these are difficult endeavors – they take time and energy and money and, it could be argued, a certain amount of some people’s sanity. But they are enlivening in so many more ways. Participating in a community of purpose makes us feel seen and heard and understood; it gives us a place in the great chain of being mentored and mentoring others. It gives us things to care about besides whether we want Thai or Ethiopian and if NCIS is new or a rerun this week. It makes us more interesting, to care about things and work to improve them.
And that’s what I want to encourage you to do, Brave Correspondent, before you make an entirely new human to care about – start a little smaller. In sort of the same way that people say “get a plant, and then get a puppy, and then try a baby” I want to say to you: “go overboard on a hobby, and then stay up too late working on a social or political issue, and then try a baby.” Babies and children need you to care, and care a lot. Sometimes they require every bit of your attention and energy that you frankly do not have (see also: patience). And when they get older, you will have the truly delicious experience of initiating them into your preferred and specific desires about the things you care about (and then later you will get to argue fiercely with them about the same things, and still later you will bust your damn buttons with pride listening to your kid explain with articulate certitude exactly how and why your family does it as you do).
I caught my youngest child when he was born, a piece of magic engineered by our midwife for which I will be grateful all my born days. I was the first to touch him; the first to hold and steady him. They rubbed him down briefly and then gave him to my husband, and we held him together and said a short prayer to welcome him, and the very next thing we said to him was “Oh, hello. You’re here.” After the babies are born – no matter how they come out, or whether you get to catch them (though I really recommend it) – they clean them off a little and pretty soon you take them home, and that’s when the day really begins. That has been the biggest and deepest truth of parenting for me: having a child is two conversations – one with the child, and one with the future. I predict, Brave Correspondent, that you’ll want to have a child when or if you have something you want to say to both.
Love and courage,
Bear
Tags: advice, ask bear, S Bear Bergman, the butter
This was a fascinating response to the LW’s question, and very good universally applicable advice on “adulting” that I have never thought of this way before–but that I think I knew on some basic level. Anyway: thank you! This really resonated with me and I think I will be chewing on it for some time to come.
As someone who is married, 30, and thinking through the whole ‘kids or no kids’ question while also switching careers and thinking about making her mark on the world, this was a really interesting response for me to read and think about, so thanks.
But I’m still slightly disappointed that after misreading the headline as “Ask A Bear”, the response wasn’t MROWOWLLLLWWWORRRROOAAWWRRRRR!
Agreeeeeeed, I’ve answered the kids or not question but am just starting to realize that all the free time and mental energy that comes with not having em is something to reckon with, not just a nice life bonus. This question/answer really distill a lot of those big life questions down to the important bits.
I’ve been struggling with this too – the idea that if I don’t have kids (and I’ve never particularly wanted them, nor has my spouse, so that seems the likely path), I need to do “something else” (above and beyond my career) instead.
ahhh yes and I definitely had this impression that my career was gonna be worth devoting a life-project to, hahahahaha.
What free time and mental energy? Just level I adulting (sans kids) seems to keep me plenty busy! It is hard for me to imagine someone reaching the “normal” childbearing years without developing some hobby or interest that by no means feels “extra.”
I mean, geez, I already have trouble finding the time and energy to put my OWN pants on every day, and now you expect to put a tiny human’s pants on as well?
hmm, “extra” isn’t right, but maybe “not dedicated by default to Project: Keep This Other Human Alive & Cared For?’ Like the LW says, playing the easiest level, even with plenty of things to do.
I HAVE BEEN READING IT AS SAGE BEAR ADVICE ALL ALONG.
Whoops.
I really enjoy this column but I have to admit, I would also read Ask A Bear. Because I <3 bears.
I’ve been waiting for the sidebar column, “Ask An Otter”.
This is a great answer.
Don’t live your life as a checklist, with “have kids” being the next item – go into the world and DO THINGS. Travel, or volunteer in your community (maybe with Scouts or BigBrothers/BigSisters, if you want to have a kid connection), or join a book club, or host dinner parties, or learn to sail. Teach English in Korea or build homes with Habitat for Humanity. If you have a particular skill that is interesting and demonstrable, reach out to your local school to see if there’s an appetite for sharing it with children in an after-school program. There are tons of things that you can do to kick it up a notch that do or don’t involve children, that you can do without being a parent.
I also need more Aunties and Uncles, oh lord do we need more help. Please, if you know parents offer to take the kids for an afternoon sometimes, it helps so much. Now excuse me while I continue to weep from physical and emotional exhaustion.
omggg I spent most of Saturday with my date and his kids and I thought I was fine until I got home and then I fell into bed like I was drunk and slept like I was dead and then woke up the next day and thought I was fine until lunchtime and I had a HARD NAP
So, kudos to parents.
Wow, very cute STILL at TWENTY-NINE? She must be some sort of magical robot.
I’ll be 30 soon, is my cuteness running out oh god
Yo, the second I hit 30, I automatically turned into a hag. But I also acquired a flying urn and a house on chicken legs, so it was a net win.
Wait, why did I not get my house on chicken legs??
Did you get the hidden hut in the pine forest beyond the mountains that No Man Dares Tread instead? I’m thinking of opting for that model for the privacy.
I’m 37 and still waiting for my house on chicken legs.
I just want a house. My OWN house. Chicken legs would be a bonus.
CRONE TIME BEGINS.
There’s this ad on TV for hair dye and it’s just the husband being baffled how his wife still looks like herself after all these years. He just has NO IDEA but he’s so grateful, and it’s vaguely creepy how he’s going on about her looking the same while she dances around smiling.
To be honest, I want an alternate version of this ad where it’s revealed her secret is that she’s a witch who’s sold her soul to the devil and she dances naked beneath the moonlight fortnightly, and that’s why her chestnut locks remain so chestnut.
Having just finished Penny Dreadful season 2, I have discovered soooo many ways to preserve eternal youth! Deals with Lucifer! Portraits in hidden chambers! Dying and being resurrected by science as a super-powerful ubermensch! Vampirism! These are all good options.
Better have kids now, before she becomes unfuckable.
LW, it sounds like you and your wife need to actually talk about this in a serious, purposeful way instead of you just trying to read her reactions. I can tell you that until fairly recently, I humored my relatives on the topic of babies, just to keep the peace.
For me, one of the central tenets of my feminism and my humanism is that every child should be wanted. I know that can’t always be the case, but it’s the ideal. And to contribute to my vision of the ideal, I decided to be honest with the people in my life that I am not going to have kids.
There are plenty of people on this planet who desperately want to be parents—those are the people who should have kids. For someone like me, who always felt “meh” on the subject of motherhood, having a baby *just to experience it,* would be a crazy, one-sided gamble . And sure, maybe I would win big and love being a mother and my kid would be awesome. But maybe not. And the downside on that bet is a much bigger risk than just my own happiness. It is the life of a whole new human.
So that’s what I always tell other people when this topic comes up. If you feel parenthood to be anything less than a calling for you, don’t do it. Do the thing that IS calling you.
This is a good point! One thing that I thought was interesting was that LW asked about that particular behavior of a woman pretending to her relatives that babies are just around the corner. LW, is it possible that this is just mollifying behavior, and that maybe your wife isn’t particularly interested in Making A Person together? I ask because that social conditioning can be STRONG as all get out, and it can be really easy to just go along with it rather than have difficult conversations with well-meaning family members.
Yeah, it is pretty common that saying anything other than “YES WE WILL BABIES SOON” will trigger the Well, Don’t Put It Off Too Long, You Might Be Sad Later, And I Read Somewhere That Research About Older Mothers Says talks, and avoiding defending personal major life decisions is understandable, especially if it will turn into A Thing, and especially if it’s happening in an otherwise casual conversation with family members.
oh absolutely!
Saying ‘soon enough’ is sometimes the path of least resistance when dealing with well meaning people who are dieing to tell you ‘tick tock’ and have the potential to become that 1 hour conversation with Great Aunt Mabel where every child is a special gift from heaven, and then also proceeds to tell you about how she was there when you dad was born and how awful the birth was, how naughty he was as a child but how you should definitely not worry aboutt hat because you were such an easy child.
Making it seem like any moment a baby will pop out is a way to prevent that from ever happening again.
“And the downside on that bet is a much bigger risk than just my own happiness. It is the life of a whole new human.”
Yes. This has given me the greatest pause over the years. It’s another person’s life. It’s another person’s psyche. That is a very, very big deal and not something to be entered into lightly (at least to me). I’m having to wrestle with it a bit again now, because bf will probably want kids at some stage (though he’s inclined to adopt more than have his own, or perhaps be a foster home) and so I need to work through my own feelings about it before we can even have that discussion.
Kids are pretty resilient, though.
I am very late to this article but this is EXACTLY how I feel about kids. Thank you for this. I’m going to print out this comment and hand it to my naggy aunts this Christmas.
For God’s sake, kids are forever, if you’re lucky. Get out there and do things while you can! Let us live vicariously through you, we parents dreaming of returning in full to social/political causes, travel, hobbies when we’re less perpetually exhausted.
I really love this answer, and the insight that this person could use a shot of passion in life. I recommend finding that even if you do want kids, because it’s nice to have a non-parent sense of self to hold on to when you’re reading Good Dog, Carl for the 18th time today.
But also, sit down and have the serious “do we want kids” conversation with your wife, LW. If nothing else, it’ll help you clarify your priorities in life, because that discussion shouldn’t be just about shaking things up now or the hard work of infancy and young childhood, but about what you want life to look like in 10, 20, 30 years plus.
Amen to your second paragraph. I felt scandalized reading this letter. Because it’s crazy to me that the letter writer doesn’t KNOW! HOW! HIS! WIFE! FEELS! on this subject! Together since college, married 5 years and this significant life fork that people choose to go down usually as a couple…just… never came up?! You only talk about it like..”I’ve asked her about it, and she’s always pretty meh”….
MEH?!
I do not want to be too much of asshole here, but if you are looking for a challenging project how about deepening your marriage by asking and listening and telling each other these kinds of things?I understand being ambivalent about kids, but it doesn’t sound like you talked about both sides in detail and really understand where that ambivalence comes from, it sounds like you went, “do you want kids?” and she said, “Eh..I dunno. Do we have any ice cream?” and it just stopped right there. Do you go deep on any of this stuff? Religion? Life dreams? Goals for the next 5 years? What your priorities are in life. What your big fears are. Maybe you did this back when you were 20 or something it’s time for a refresher Maybe do that 36 questions that make strangers fall in love thing. Or do the love mapping thing that John Gottman invented (just pick up one of his books). Go deeper at home. Shared interests are all well and good, but shared thoughts, shared dreams, shared fears and troubles…that’s leveling up.
I’m a teeny bit older than you, letter writer and since I’ve been making sweeping assumptions, I’ll keep making sweeping assumptions here, maybe having everything go so smooth through your 20s is also what’s keeping you feeling like, is this it? I spent my 20s climbing up to plateaus just to fall off them over and over. I was with plenty of people I had pretty good time with, for long stretches, but never was ready to build my life with them. When I hit my 30s I came up fighting, with a really driven feeling about love and purpose and career. Meaning comes from giving yourself to other things outside yourself, one of which can be your relationship. I fell in love again in the last year after a real shitty breakup, and this time we were talking about kids and our 5 year plans before we even said I love you. We got into it knowing what the deal breakers were and when we’d hit them. I’m not saying I have it all sorted, because I really don’t, but I do have a sense of which paths were wrong for me, and how much time is left on the clock to find the right ones and the things I have in my life now are there not because they’re easy but because I REALLY WANT THEM. It makes me fiercer, and being fierce makes life feel good and like I picked it and like each day it’s up to me to make my choices work out.
I think it’s possible being lucky in love so soon in life is a blessing, but one you don’t fully know to treasure. You have a good marriage, that’s a thing that is very desirable to many people, single and married. There’s richer stuff down deeper. If your wife is a pretty cool girl based on what you know about her, get deep and know why your wife is a fucking radiant person you can’t stand to live without. Go deep and have a wife who knows you as deeply as you have ever been known so you can trust that there’s one person on the planet who gets you so completely and wouldn’t ever let go of what was special about you if you died tomorrow. Know her like that too. Say the things in your head you are scared to say to someone else. People are amazing and mysterious. You can’t ever really truly know what’s inside them unless you ask them and create enough trust with them that they tell you. Getting along with people, that’s easy. Knowing them, how they really feel, especially when it’s not the same way as you feel, that’s so hard and so important. Lots of people stay with shitty terrible relationships, because at least that person sort of knows them and they can’t give up even a shitty facsimile of being known. And here you are in a good relationship and you might be missing out on one of the best benefits it has to offer!
It would make me real sad if I died and my husband was like, “she was pretty cute even at 29 and also our marriage was pretty good. Never did really get a sense where she stood on the kids issue.” When I die, if I’m married I hope my husband is like, “I’m destroyed. She knew me inside and out. Knowing what she was really like was amazing, because you know when we stayed up late talking together she told me things that none of you suckers will ever know about her now, and we had such big dreams and she got to do dreams 1-3 but we were still working on dreams 4-5, and why god whhhhhhy” and then he collapses for at least a year. Because that’s the way I want to love people and be loved.
I – but – what are you going to say when your kid asks you what the meaning of life is or if there is a god or what is it like to be a grown-up, if you don’t work out the answers before you have them? If you’re looking at telling them “basically you eat work sleep and watch TV” then get ready for an adolescent rebellion-slash-existential-crisis fourteen years in the making that will, truly, shake things up and possibly destroy the entire suburb (?) in which you may live at that point. which is what you said you wanted, so hey. maybe that’s OK. but I mean, look at how Emilio Estevez looks at his mom in Repo Man, you don’t want that from your kid.
but really you’ve got to help this prospective kid out a little bit, what are they going to brag about to the other kids? Everybody wants to be able to say that their mom can beat up all the other moms, or whatever. If you don’t feel like you have substantial accomplishments or driving motivations in life, for god’s sake get some or what are you ever going to talk to your kid about? You have to explain literally the entire world to a young child so it is vitally important that you understand the better part of it. there is a lot of world to understand and time’s a wasting.
(there, there is a project to fill your empty days and nights – follow a four-year-old around for a week, write down all the questions they ask, and find out the answers to all of them. If you’re a parent and your kid asks you why the sun shines or what gravity is, YOU HAVE TO KNOW. it’s the law. if you make up some bullshit, the authorities will find you.)
look at how Emilio Estevez looks at his mom in Repo Man
This is an incredibly specific reference and I love you for it.
“I – but – what are you going to say when your kid asks you what the meaning of life is or if there is a god or what is it like to be a grown-up, if you don’t work out the answers before you have them?”
I dunno about this–firstly because when does anyone ever figure out “what the meaning of life is,” but also secondly because I think having kids can be an important part of figuring these things out.
I’ll put in a plug for Auntie-ing. I would have liked to have kids, but by the time I found Himself I was both too old, and he didn’t want them. Luckily, my friends had lots of kids, and those kids have friends, and all those little people need Big People who will like them, and listen to them, and give them advice they might hear since you’re not their parent. As they’ve gotten older too, I’ve discovered the girls like having someone who is Not A Wife and Not A Mother to ask stuff about being a grown up woman. It’s a good thing, being an Auntie.
I have been thinking this would be a good solution for me EXCEPT I’m pretty sure my only sibling doesn’t want kids and I know my best friend doesn’t want kids and other friends who have/want kids live far away and I’m not actually very good with kids but for some reason think I might be better with my own kids than someone else’s kids so basically, I don’t know anything. But I do like the basic idea: have kids in your life, but don’t have to pay for them or toilet train them or care for them 24/7.
I’m The House That Always Has Foster Animals in my neighborhood, so once the kids and parents heard about that I started having kids over all the time to see the kittens (then two of them like to hang and talk, so now I actually have 9 and 11 year old friends).
Yeah, almost everyone in my life doesn’t have kids and doesn’t want kids.
I think people who have the luxury of having this decision to make imbue it with too much weight. Having a kid is really NOT an interesting or momentous life choice. Literally everyone’s parents did it. There are pluses and minuses to having kids and to not having kids. You don’t need to be some fully actualized, all knowing superman/woman to be a decent parent. It may actually be beneficial to all concerned if your kid is not the whole focus and primary objective of your life.
I compare it to owning a house. It makes you a bit less free, it can be unpredictably inconvenient/expensive, there is a fair amount of boring grunt work involved. Sometimes things may happen that you are not equipped to deal with and you will need to call in the professionals. Mostly its kinda nice to have that house. It’s home.
(Came down on the no side of the kids/no kids fence, then had an oops baby late in life, don’t want any more but love my kid and am still pretty happy with my life– I can’t answer every question my kid asks but we google a lot of stuff together.)
THANK YOU for this practical and encouraging comment. Googling stuff together sounds very nice.
Yes, this, forever.
Thank you so much for this comment. This is what I needed to hear.
If bringing a new human into the world isn’t a momentous or interesting life choice, then what is? Brand of cat food or hair nets?
*Yes,* being able to choose when and if to procreate is a luxury in the sense that that choice is only easily accessible to certain segments of the population and only in recent times. However, you could say the same of making the choice to provide your children with adequate nutrition during all stages of their childhood. Or the choice to accept medical treatment. These are choices that everyone should be able to make, and they are choices that matter — even if not all people at all times had options in these areas.
I loved this response. Just… loved it. It’s isn’t like a light bulb comes on for each person and then you think “Oh, I really want kids.” It’s far more complicated and yes, lots of people ruminate on it for a long time. These were valid points and suggestions and I hope the LW took your advice and thought about these things.
This is so timely for me, since the boy and I finally had the kids-or-no-kids convo a few weeks ago, after years of him sticking his head in the sand. He basically didn’t want to think about it, but I was always clear that if we didn’t have kids I wanted it to have been an actual decision, and not a well-we-kept-postponing-the-decision-and-then-it-was-made-for-us thing (context: we’re both 30).
We landed on no kids, as I’d more or less expected. He’s just really not into kids, and is someone who doesn’t deal well with change, in general. It also plays a part that he probably wouldn’t be much help with the practical side of raising a kid, and I don’t have enough of a burning desire for kids to be ok with that. I sorta mourned the decision a little, because it felt like closing off one possible path, but I’m actually really happy that now it’s decided and I can start thinking about what I want my life sans kids to look like (which, honestly, isn’t THAT different from the life we’re currently leading. It’s really nice!)
What I am feeling a little guilty about are my reasons for being happy with the decision. It feels like “career” is a more or less acceptable excuse, but while I have a good job (which doesn’t scale back easily), and always want to keep working, I’m not really that ambitious, and my career isn’t vital to me. Nor, honestly, is the liberty to travel, which is also one you hear often.
What I do find very important is the writing (mostly about pop culture) I do on the side, even if most of it’s unpaid/only read by two dozen people. I have trouble finding time for it now, and I just know that with a kid it’d be almost impossible to keep doing it. It sounds like a small, petty thing, but I really derive a chunk of my sense of self from it. And, honestly, I’m also happy I’ll get to keep doing things like sleeping in during the weekend and having impromptu dinner-and-a-movie dates with the boy and sometimes being irresponsible and lazy just because I feel like it. And I love that I’ll keep having alone time!
It rankles me a little that people ask you to justify the decision to not have kids, but not the decision to have kids. But maybe that’s in part because I keep being scared that people won’t think our reasons are good enough.
No kids by choice here; I tell people there are too many books I want to read. And then they look at me funny. It sounds flip, but my life ambition is basically to read, and make things, and dig in the yard, and be present, and love people. Just not fruit of my loins.
Sometimes people push back, or Iook so horrified I cave and soften my answer, and explain that as a much-older sibling very close to her much younger sister, I have already participated in raising a functional human to contribute to society, And then I ask them, if you how scary and painful it can be to love someone that much, would you have had kids? And then I yammer about all of the benefits of extended family parenting–two people get exhausted trying to civilize new humans.
“It rankles me a little that people ask you to justify the decision to not have kids, but not the decision to have kids. But maybe that’s in part because I keep being scared that people won’t think our reasons are good enough.”
I wish more people thought like this. Having kids is a choice and not just something that magically happens. I don’t think enough people (certainly not enough that I know) actually think about the reasons for having children.
Kids are pretty resilient, though.
"I – but – what are you going to say when your kid asks you what the meaning of life is or if there is a god or what is it like to be a grown-up, if you don't work out the answers before you have them?"
I dunno about this–firstly because when does anyone ever figure out "what the meaning of life is," but also secondly because I think having kids can be an important part of figuring these things out.
Two points I’d like to add to this, though:
I hereby throw my lot in with all the above commenters who point out that it’s not necessary to be 100% put together before you have kids, and anyway all the parents I know who thought they were all put together now think in retrospect that they actually weren’t but it was totally okay, because they just learned on the job.
If you decide not to have kids, you can always reconsider this decision later. TALK TO YOUR WIFE and make sure you’re both on the same page and both feel comfortable bringing it up again later if you change your mind. Children is probably THE most important thing you have to be open about with your spouse.
As someone who’s considered this question in the past (albeit with a LOT of societal pressure added), I love Bear’s response to this. The progression of start with a hobby> then social/political issue > THEN maybe (MAYBE) think about kids makes so much sense to me. A workable roadmap for the easily overwhelmed. Thank you, Bear.
Hoo boy. Just got to this as I was away (partying in childless bill at a music festival) , so late to the game on commenting. I’m 31 and my husband is 34. He’s very pro kids, and I’ve always been ambivalent at best. I kept expecting to feel like I’d want my own at some point, but I’m only getting more and more nervous and reluctant. The idea that I’ve got to decide soon is really wearing me down; I’ve shed many tears about it. I just don’t want ’em, but I know my husband would desperately regret not having them. I KNOW he’d be a wonderful father: he’s kind, generous, funny and knows just about everything. I, on the other hand, struggle with depression, need lots of personal time and space, and just don’t really like kids, tbh. Hoping that if we ever have one or more, motherly instincts will kick in and I’ll be happy, but mostly I’m worried that I’ll resent my kids, my husband and my life and cannot escape. What to do…
You and I sound like we could be clones, based on this comment. Replace ‘husband’ with ‘partner of 9 years’ and we’re a match. I don’t know what to do either. Is having a kid something I’m willing to do to keep my life together? Just saying that out loud makes me wince.
I am adding to the chorus; feel exactly the same as you two. I am marrying my partner of nearly 10 years (granted I am 26 now) soon and I while I’ve been very vocal about my fear and general distaste for pregnancy, labor, and parenthood that whole time—I feel like i’ve only just been able to have an upfront conversation about it without it ending in ‘oh you’ll get maternal in a few years’. He needs to have kids. Even adoption is an option for him (to aid my terror of pregnancy and labor) but he needs it as part of his life fulfilment. I feel like it’s my duty to work this out now prior to marrying him—or risk really messing up our lives. It’s an awful feeling.
Hoo boy. Just got to this as I was away (partying in childless bill at a music festival) , so late to the game on commenting. I'm 31 and my husband is 34. He's very pro kids, and I've always been ambivalent at best. I kept expecting to feel like I'd want my own at some point, but I'm only getting more and more nervous and reluctant. The idea that I've got to decide soon is really wearing me down; I've shed many tears about it. I just don't want 'em, but I know my husband would desperately regret not having them. I KNOW he'd be a wonderful father: he's kind, generous, funny and knows just about everything. I, on the other hand, struggle with depression, need lots of personal time and space, and just don't really like kids, tbh. Hoping that if we ever have one or more, motherly instincts will kick in and I'll be happy, but mostly I'm worried that I'll resent my kids, my husband and my life and cannot escape. What to do…
I am very late to this article but this is EXACTLY how I feel about kids. Thank you for this. I'm going to print out this comment and hand it to my naggy aunts this Christmas.
oh absolutely!
Saying 'soon enough' is sometimes the path of least resistance when dealing with well meaning people who are dieing to tell you 'tick tock' and have the potential to become that 1 hour conversation with Great Aunt Mabel where every child is a special gift from heaven, and then also proceeds to tell you about how she was there when you dad was born and how awful the birth was, how naughty he was as a child but how you should definitely not worry aboutt hat because you were such an easy child.
Making it seem like any moment a baby will pop out is a way to prevent that from ever happening again.
"It rankles me a little that people ask you to justify the decision to not have kids, but not the decision to have kids. But maybe that's in part because I keep being scared that people won't think our reasons are good enough."
I wish more people thought like this. Having kids is a choice and not just something that magically happens. I don't think enough people (certainly not enough that I know) actually think about the reasons for having children.