Mental Health 7 years ago Is anyone else afraid to have kids?
{this article was written in fall 2014}
As my biological clock starts to click louder and louder {and louder}, I have started to truly ask myself the question: Do I want to try to have children?
I will be honest here for a minute and say that years ago, when I was in my 20s, when I heard a woman say that she didn’t want children I would immediately slap a stereotype on her. Then, as I entered my 30s, with friend after friend having miscarriages, failed attempts at IVF and various other infertility issues it got me to thinking about how I don’t even know if I can have children.
Unfortunately, the only way to figure out if you are able to have children is to try to have them, naturally that is. I’m all about keeping options open and love the idea of adoption but first thing is first: Do I want kids?
Year after year, my husband and I keep putting off our decision by saying “We’ll give it a year and see how we feel.” But, then I look up it’s been over 7 years since we first breached the subject and it sometimes makes me question why we are putting it off. Is there something wrong in my marriage? I feel genuinely happy and I absolutely adore Grant. Are there times where I feel like there is a tiny missing piece to our relationship? Maybe. My therapist has informed that there are psychological tricks that DINK {dual income no kids} couples have to battle. We have been together over 10 years and I sometimes also fear that by bringing a baby into our world that it will complicate things. I know a lot of friends who have made beautiful babies that have fit seamlessly into their lives. I also know a lot of friends who have become enemies with their spouse, and I watch on the sidelines of yelling, disrespect and downright ugliness toward one another.
I jokingly say from time to time, “If there’s anyone I want to have kids with, it’s you!” and he giggles “Well, I hope so, you married me.” However, this southern girl has it stuck in her traditional mind that you follow the get married + buy a house + have babies formula. Nowhere in my equation growing up did I have a “work on a successful career” part to my life of happily ever after. Now that I find myself, over 6 years into marriage and 6 years into running a small business {both of which I find very rewarding}, I am faced with this incredibly life altering decision.
I also didn’t really know that I was on the fence about having kids until I was finally able to make a choice about whether or not to have them. It’s one thing to say that age is just a number but it is quite another thing to actually believe it. Right now, today, I do not believe that age is just a number. I am reminded by my age just as often as I am the money in my bank account. It seems as though every time I log into Facebook it’s someones birthday or I’m filling out some sort of paperwork indicating which age box I fall into. And, the most frequent reminder is getting the age old question “When are you & Grant having kids?”
After doing some very deep digging into whether or not there is something wrong with my marriage, I then resort to asking myself what is wrong with me? Why do I cringe when I hear a baby cry and not coo? Why is it that I dread going to children’s birthday parties rather than dream of the day I would be so lucky to throw one. Don’t get me wrong, I love my best friends kids, I do. But not enough to make me want one of my own.
It’s not that I am 100% positive that I do not want kids, I just don’t know 100% that I do want them, and shouldn’t you feel 100% about that? I mean, you are bringing a human being into our world and in my opinion you should feel pretty close to 100%. I am not afraid to have kids because I don’t feel as though I would be a great Mother. I know I would be. I suppose there is a small selfish part of me that is afraid that I will lose myself in my children. I have this conversation very often with my very successful, very hard working and very incredible mother friends who truly do have it all. They have their marriage, their job and their baby. I’m not worried about them, I’m worried about how I would handle it all. I am a complete OCD, ADHD and hyper-focused individual. I struggle with work/life balance all the time and I am still trying to get a handle on running a small business, being a wife and having a social life. Sure, I could probably juggle a baby as well, but I am not going to bring a child into my unbalanced life when I can’t even get a handle on things as they are.
But I do have a handle on one thing: I am very, very happy with my life. The other fear is that by hyper-focusing {because I know me and I know this is what I will do} on a baby I would inevitably neglect another area of my life that makes me happy. But then my Mom friends say “Jacey! Children will bring you more happiness than you’ve ever dreamed of having.” And then I’m back to square one. So my fears go something like this: Can I even have a baby? Do I really want one? And, if I do, will I be able to live my happy life the way I am living it now, but with a baby in the mix?
So, where does that leave me? I’m not quite sure. But I do know this: There is nothing wrong with my marriage. There is nothing wrong with me… and at the end of the day I suppose we’ll just have to give it another year and see how we feel.
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