When I was married to my second husband, Ted (whose name is not Ted), we had the kids conversation before we got married. (This is discussed in both No Children, No Guilt, and – in a slightly different context – What Every Woman Wishes Modern Men Knew About Women.) The consensus: It was fine that I didn’t want kids.
However, a couple years later, kids came up again. He wanted them.
“Come on,” he said. “It would be neat!”
I tried to see his point of view.
Tried to imagine a child crawling around. Tried to imagine our child crawling around. There were things about it I admittedly didn’t hate. Although I grew up with absolutely no desire or inclination to be a mom, on the rare occasion when I gave it serious thought, I could see why people enjoyed it.
I really, really wanted to make sure I was considering it from all possible angles. After all, it’s the one permanent decision one makes in one’s life (outside of getting a tattoo, but even that can be lasered off).
Karen Charlton, in “How Do You Know When It’s the Right Time to Have a Baby?” writes,
I think the decision … is actually a lot more significant for You, the woman, than for your Mr. You have more that will change. (He will still keep his job, work the same hours, things will just be different when he’s at home).
She wrote this in a letter to a friend, so it’s fair to say her friend might already have decided she wanted to stay home and that most of the change would, in fact, be hers, but in terms of offering advice to a wider reader base, it misses an important mark.
When Ted starting talking about his “sudden” (it was always there – he just didn’t tell me) desire to have kids, I couldn’t help but remember a scene from the dinner table when I was visiting the in-laws over Thanksgiving. His brother Paul and Paul’s wife Ashley had recently had a baby, who was in a baby seat at the table next to Ashley. Paul ate his tasty warm dinner gratefully, glancing now and then at his wife while she struggled to get the baby to eat, struggled to get the baby to simmer down, struggled to get the baby to sit still in the chair. Not once did she touch her food.
Eventually, she got up and pulled the baby out of the chair, having still not taken more than one bite of food.
“I’m going to see if a nap helps.”
Paul halfheartedly asked, “Want help?”
“I got it,” she said, already on her way out of the room.
Later, after the baby had woken up, Paul played with it a little bit, but when it came time for things like changing it and cleaning it, Ashley was back on duty.
No way, I thought. That is NOT the kind of parenting roles me and someone else would have. Fifty-fifty as much as possible.
Still, that was the environment Ted and his brother were raised in.
But because Ted had always seemed a little less traditional (although, I had to admit, his “traditional” side was revealing itself more and more the longer we were together), I had reason to hope he felt the same way I did about equal parenting responsibilities.
I said to Ted, “You want a child.”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what if I wanted to go back to work after having one? Would you want to stay home and take care of it? Can you imagine being the one to make the doctor’s appointments, buy the clothes and groceries, figure out what day care to take it to, get it enrolled in school, and all that?”
For a minute, he said nothing.
“Because,” I said, “the care would obviously be divided equally between us [eyebrows raised to make sure he got that part], but if you don’t want a kid so much that you’d be willing to do everything involved in caring for it, I–well, it would say to me that you don’t really want one.”
He left the conversation somewhat frustrated. (I understand completely. What’s a traditional man to do with a modern woman?)
He did, actually, want a child (or children) – but only as long as I would be the one to do most of the work. That alone let me know that if ever I were to decide I wanted a baby, it wouldn’t be with him – or with anyone else who didn’t really want children, but who merely wanted me to have their children.
My point: The decision to have a child should always weigh just as heavily on the man as it does the woman. If you (a man) don’t want it bad enough to take care of it beyond making money, you don’t want it bad enough.
After all, the woman could say she wants to stay home at first, and then decide later that she wants to go back to work. Or she could die. She could leave you and the kids. Always assume that having a child means being a full-time father, and then ask yourself again, “Do I really want one?”
(Note: This is not in any way intended to denigrate men or fatherhood. It is a response to the notion that men don’t really have to think about having children, or that they should expect that having them means there will be very little disruption in their lives, which implies that their role in their child’s life is largely insignificant, an idea movies and magazine articles – and even many women – have perpetuated for far too long. Note #2: The use of the word “it” was intentional to protect the privacy of my ex and his family, and to avoid the cumbersome use of s/he, he/she, he or she, she or he, etc.)
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What Every Woman Wishes Modern Men Knew About Women
by Sylvia D. Lucas (also on Amazon.co.uk)
A desperately needed antidote to The Game and The Rules.
“A weird combo of really funny and really insightful.”
Susan
/ January 14, 2012I think this is often what men mean, although they never do say THAT directly. My ex was pretty much of the same mindset when he tried to convince me to have another child. The scene at Thanksgiving where the wife had to forget about eating HER dinner because “baby comes first” was me (and every other new mother) almost twenty years ago. And that was by NO means the only warm meal I didn’t get to eat. No way was I going through all that again.
From this and other personal experiences, I can honestly say that most “traditional” (ie conservative) men believe that taking care of the baby is “women’s work,” which they simply think they’re “too good” to do themselves. While this may not be true of all conservative men, I haven’t met any men who are the exception.
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ January 30, 2012I hope there are more of them than you think.
cheri
/ January 24, 2012I absolutely Love how you handled your ex. That is the exact mindset of most of the men in my country. They don’t mind being fathers if you (woman) do most of the work.
I’m currently in the process of talking to my long term boyfriend about having kids. I don’t want kids and he does really mind as he believes it’s what’s expected. I will bring up this topic again using your excellent reasoning. Does he want to be 50% responsible for a child?
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ January 30, 2012I’d love to know what he says. Have you approached him about it yet?
Michelle
/ January 24, 2012When my husband and I were in the early stages of discussing kids, he said (I kid you not), “Well, you can just stay at home with them, like how [his sister & SIL] do.”
I immediately ripped him a new one because he assumed: 1) that I was willing to leave my career (I’m not), 2) he did not make any implications of how much child care he would provide and 3) that our standard of living would not change if I did leave the workforce (I make more $); and did not provide any supporting info that my being a SAHM is even doable.
I watch nowadays my sisters-in-law jump up and take care of the kids; while the brothers-in-law sit in the living room & talk baseball ALL DAY. Where did they learn this 80%-20% behavior? Their parents, of course. I have not seen my FIL feed, burp or change any of his 8 grandchildren… and I’m not adding to the brood until the men provide 50% care for their progeny!
[End of rant]
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ January 30, 2012Ha! Good plan. Has he come any closer to accepting half the responsibility?
Michelle M.
/ February 2, 2012I’m a plan-maker – I decide by pro/con lists. I asked him to write out a spreadsheet of how this is going to work out, since we can’t conceive naturally. $30-50k out of pocket (no insurance coverage) just to MAKE a child. So I asked him how we’re going to raise this child once it’s born, when we’ve got $50k less in the bank.
I asked him this a couple months ago. I know he won’t come up with one b/c he’s not a list maker. He’s a “oh, everything will turn out just fine” kinda person. So I figure if he wants me to change my mind, he needs to prove his side via my decision-making style.
Cheri
/ January 30, 2012We’ve been talking about this all lot lately and he’s coming around to the idea of not having kids. He likes the idea of having disposable income and we’re starting to talk about traveling. Until three months ago, we never really thought we had a choice when it came to having kids. It’s silly, I know. It was something we were both raised to expect eventually. I’ve always been somewhat hostile toward the entire childbirth process. In my country, women aren’t allow epidurals and die from complications in childbirth all the time. The stories of negligence I heard from my mom (who works at the hospital) hasn’t done a lot to inspire confidence in the whole medical care system.
I’ve actually begun to seriously look into tubal ligation and I’m trying to work up the courage to discuss it with my gynecologist. Wish me luck.
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ January 30, 2012Best of luck, Cheri. I hope you remember when you go in that it actually shouldn’t (in an ideal world) take that much courage. It’s your life, your decision – no one else has the right to tell you that you MUST have children. (If they try, ask them, “Why?” See if they’re able to come up with a logical reason.)
carly
/ February 2, 2012Wow. I absolutely adore this advice. Surely, my boyfriend has asked himself these questions and is very comfortable being the stay at home father. But that doesn’t mean i’m comfortable having the child in the first place. But still, I can see myself asking someone this question even if they knew they didn’t want kids…just as a judge of character and how they view a relationship.
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ February 2, 2012The answer does say a lot about the person, doesn’t it?
Ange
/ April 15, 2012Thank you so much Sylvia, for this blog!
I am in the process of getting a divorce at the moment from a man who wanted to have children (I have never, ever felt the inclination for them), but he didn’t want children with ME, he wanted children because he was getting older. And I knew that from the way he treated me and what he expected of me, my life would end up being – 2 children, no ambition job that paid the $$ he expected me to earn, full-time mother who gave up everything so that HIS children and HE could have what they wanted. Ummm, no thanks!
Now that I am away from him, I couldn’t be happier, particularly with my decision not to have children.
Sylvia D. Lucas
/ April 24, 2012Why, that set-up couldn’t possibly sound less appealing…