I've hesitated for a long time to write about this on my blog, but I've finally decided that I should stop avoiding it, especially given my extremely small audience (not like I have thousands reading my posts...).
A couple years ago I brought up having kids with my husband, and to my surprise he explained that he didn't want to have kids anymore. I tried to discuss it a bit with him, to learn what had changed his mind, and his arguments came down to a) the world is a terrible place, who would want to bring a child into this b) we can't afford kids and definitely don't have space in a one bedroom apartment c) he likes his life how it is now and doesn't feel like changing it d) I would have less time for him as a spouse if we had kids.
Throw in a few counseling sessions, some more time, a few more discussions and many tears, and we're at a standstill. The last time we talked about it, he repeated his suggestion that if I really wanted to have kids the best option would be for us to divorce so I could find someone to have kids with.
Along the way you start wondering what your initial motivations for having kids were anyway. Is it just the societal expectation? Because it seems like a great "project" in an otherwise empty or emptying life?
When we met and got married, having kids was something we would do on our own time, not when other people expected us to.
And as I got close to 30 and then passed it, I finally understood what the biological clock is: not some internal maternal desire that suddenly arrives on a random Tuesday, but the dawning realization that if you don't get a move on it might be too late sooner than you imagined.
As with the expression "a bird in one hand is worth two in the bush", it's out of question for me to leave my marriage and the husband I love for some hypothetical possibility of having children. Besides, it's not the abstract idea of becoming a mother that interests me, but the possibility of raising a family with my husband (who I think would be a wonderful father).
I read a book about living a fulfilling life without kids to see if I could reason my way into the idea, but a lot of arguments of the "downsides" of kids seemed flaky to me.
Like my high school French teacher who admitted that while she'd always expected to have kids, but that it didn't look like it was going to happen since she was 35 and still unmarried, I've begun to think seriously about the implications of never having children.
What would it be like if we never have children? How would my life be different? Some things better?
I think the idea that we were ready to have kids came from a feeling
that we were settled in who we are as individuals; we didn't need to go
find ourselves anymore. And if we were settled, it was a bit of a plateau. Starting a family would mean a big new adventure.
But perhaps I shouldn't be looking to hypothetical children as the source of my life's adventure.
I was once chatting a bit with two older colleagues, one who is a grandmother, and the other who never had kids, and when I tried to politely explain that we don't have any kids yet, but that perhaps if our financial situation changed it would be possible, they both agreed that having children is not the kind of decision you can really do a cost-benefit analysis of: sometimes you just need to take the plunge.
It's true that our current childless situation allows me to plan all sorts of things that wouldn't be possible if I had to take into consideration small children, and we could certainly glide along in the current arrangement.
But I can't help thinking of all the childless couples I knew as a kid/young adult through my parents or family, and how disconnected from reality I felt them to be. Even at 20 years old, I saw these people as the anti-examples of how I wanted to be and live.
In the meantime, pray no well meaning person ask me "Oh, you don't have any kids yet?"
3 comments:
This is so complicated and it is something I can relate to even though we just had our baby.
My husband and I had talked about how we wanted two kids before getting married. Then after we got married, I asked him how he'd feel if it turned out to be impossible, and he said he wouldn't particularly mind! I was so surprised because he loves kids, he's a big kid himself. So I did get to thinking about what our lives would be without children, how much freedom we would have, all the things we would be able to do forever, and how much expendable income we would have. In the end having a baby was a gut feeling as you say, but I honestly don't know how I would have felt if we really hadn't been able to conceive. Maybe it would have been fine. Maybe I would have been heartbroken. Funny how I have no idea.
I even have these thoughts now---I know I would like another baby. But J seems ambivalent for now, and I do sometimes think about how nice it would be to not have to go through all the hard parts again.
I agree that the biological clock is real, and it's a b*tch.
I hope no one asks you about this too. It's none of their business, unless you want to bring it up like you have with certain people. There's always something people want to know about---why aren't you married? when are you having your second? why are you having three? Anyway, I wish you all the best in dealing with this.
I think you are exactly right that it is not something that can be rationalised. My partner and I are childfree by choice, and for me, it is honestly just a strong gut feeling I have that I do not want to have children and that having children would not be compatible right what I actually do want from my life. If I'm asked about it, I can come up with a million 'rational' reasons not to have kids, but the honest truth is that there is only one real reason: I just don't want to. I don't think it is something you can really control (though I will say that I am very open to changing my mind if my gut feeling changes - I'm 37, however, so that seems unlikely). It is a really hard situation to be in when two people in a couple have different gut feelings on this. I'm very sorry you are having to navigate it and wish you and your partner well in figuring things out.
I'm really sorry to hear that you and your husband are going through this. It must be so hard.
I read somewhere once that being a parent is both one of the most selfish and the most unselfish things you can do. It's totally unselfish because you always put your kids before yourself, but totally selfish because you put your own children before anything and anyone else. Both of these things can be scary as well as wonderful.
On the other hand, I think perhaps the childless people who are disconnected from reality are the ones who haven't found other ways to be "unselfish". (I put that in inverted commas because I don't mean it as a criticism at all.) Having children is the obvious path, but there are other ways to engage with the world (friendships, other family relationships, creative projects, charity work, activism etc.).I know many childless/free people who are very happy and fulfilled because they have the time to devote to those things, and I always hoped that if we didn't have kids, I would be like them. However, I know that that is easy to say but harder to put into practice!
Sending you lots of good wishes, and lots of strength and courage in finding a way to work this out.
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