Examine Your Motives Series: Having Kids
Uh-oh, we’ve hit the big one in our Examine Your Motives series: Having Kids! This is the discussion between Stacie and I that got the series started.
Disclaimer: This is not intended at all to be an essay on why you should or shouldn’t have kids. It’s an insight into our private lives, and where we are in our decision to have kids (or not). It’s meant to prod you into asking yourself questions of which you may not have thought. Now let the story begin!
We were on a walk to the library and out of nowhere, I asked “Why do we feel that we need to have kids?“.
Stacie looked at me, shrugged and said “I don’t know“.
We then sat outside the library for a while and discussed some reasons we’re thinking of having kids. Some of these are similar to the reasons I outlined for going to college:
- It’s what you logically do after getting married
- Our families expect us to have kids
- Most of our coworkers, friends, and even strangers keep asking if we have kids or when we’ll have them
- We couldn’t possible be happy without them, right?
- We want to help mold a child into a successful adult and make a lasting impression (a “legacy” if you will)
- We want someone to love us unconditionally (hmm, is that achievable?)
- They’re so cute!
- We might feel guilty in a few years if we didn’t start NOW
Why did I bold that last one? Because that is the same reason we bought a house 3 years ago. Everyone else was getting one, and we didn’t want to lose out on the experience of ownership. I’ll save the home discussion for another time, but there are a number of parallels between the two thought processes.
It’s the “What if…?” syndrome. What if we decide against kids now, but wish we had them in 5 years? What if we’re infertile in 5 years, or the risks are too great at that age? What if our family thinks we’re disrespecting the family name? What if, what if, what if…? But what if we’re totally fine with the decision 5, 10, 20 years from now to not have kids (not that we’ve made a decision yet)?
Having kids is probably the single biggest life-changing event most of us can go through. It’s an event that stays with us for at least the next 18 years of our life, and continues to be in our lives for (hopefully) the remainder of our time on earth. It’s not something that you should just say “Let’s do it!” to. I understand many births were unplanned (heck, I’m sure mine was!), but for those of us conscious of the decision, we do have a choice. A very big choice.
You see, having kids is rarely a decision that gets better as you wait for a few years. With buying a home, if the market isn’t right now, you can wait for a couple years while renting and saving your money. With a car, if you can’t afford what you want, you can buy something that will do just fine until you can save up enough money.
With kids, there’s a point where waiting makes birth risky to you and the child. My wife is 30 and I’m 29. You don’t know how many times my wife hears “You’re not getting any younger!“. Dear goodness, WE KNOW THAT! Now shut up and leave my poor wife alone! But should we have kids just because someone is pressuring us (intentionally or not)? Should we do it because we MIGHT wish we did otherwise in a few years? What are our other options?
I’ve just been talking about having kids biologically. We do have other options open to us if we decide that children would be the best thing for us in a few years:
- Adoption: We’d probably be more open to older children if we’re also older.
- Foster Care: I’ve made the uncouth joke that “we get to give the kids back” if we’re foster parents, but with full knowledge that fostering kids forms a strong bond between the foster parents (us) and the children. Helping troubled children isn’t a joking matter, but the short-term aspect definitely plays into the decision process.
- Big Brother/Big Sister: If we really just want to make a lasting impression on a youngster, then this is definitely an option.
- Spoiling our nephews and nieces: Yep, we can fulfill our need for children with long trips to Disney with our nephews and nieces, and give them back to our sisters when we’re done with them.
During our discussion, we asked each other if our thoughts were turning selfish. Were we just being selfish with our time, money and emotions, where we could be spending those on our child? Is it right to choose a life without “our own kids”? Or could we actually make more of an impact by helping many kids, rather than just our own? Can’t we just do both?
We’re still working through the thought process, but there’s another issue that has a major impact on the final decision: Family Support System. We don’t have one down here. We’re 2.5-3.5 hours from our families, and they haven’t visited since last year. My wife’s parents live 10 minutes from her sister, and have only driven there 1 time to see the new baby. Every other time, her sister has to drive to her parents’ house. If they can’t even drive 10 minutes, why would we expect them to drive all the way down to D.C.?
I know my family is different, and an hour closer that Stacie’s, but they live paycheck-to-paycheck. They can’t miss much work, so they need to plan any trips carefully. My sister is a single mom of 2 girls, and can barely take a day off work, so we can’t expect her to visit often. My gram would love to drive down every month, but she had a stroke last year, and while she can drive locally, no one trusts her to drive that long distance. They all say “then move closer”, but the jobs just aren’t there for us.
So there you have it. We’re now considering staying DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids). I’ve laid out the reasons why, and other options in case we want kids to be a part of our lives, but for now, we’re relieved to have this enormous weight off our shoulders. It’s not final yet, but we’ve given ourselves other options. We just never took the time to ask ourselves WHY. We’re going to take more time to consider the reasons we want kids before taking the plunge either way.
Has this helped you? Leave a comment with your opinion or insight. I’m not looking for people to bash us or praise us for potentially not having kids, but I will entertain constructive suggestions. Also, this is our own opinion about our own lives, not a suggestion on what YOU should do with your life. I just want you to examine your motives before making such a big decision. Kids are great, but you need to make sure you know why you’re having them!
Photo Courtesy of Jim Epler
I agree that having kids is probably the biggest decision a couple will ever make, not probably – absolutely. It will consume you 24/7 for the next, not next – rest of your life.
But then you may as well ask what is life all about. If life is an ego centric existence that we move through and then die, kids just get in the way. But if life is meant to be a series of experiences that enrich our neurons and tantalize our emotions then kids are a must. If life is an opportunity to make a mark in the world, leave a legacy and impact our-kind then birthing, nurturing, and releasing into the world mature independent humans is an experience we would be foolish to miss.
Imagine living your 30s the same way you lived your 20s? What if your 40s and 50s were just a continuation and replay of your 30s? What would be the point of that?
My philosophy is to experience all that life has to offer, and we do this best by playing many roles. Employee, business owner; giver, taker; child, parent.
If instead you want control, neatness, comfort and only level happy emotions kids would be a mistake for you.
Steve
Life Coach from LivingReal.net
Steve, well put. However, in our 20s, we didn’t take any vacations (except weekend trips to visit friends or some work trips). We’ve been wanting to go back to Ireland, and also do a trip to Italy. There’s alot we wanted to do, but we held back because we couldn’t handle it financially, assuming we would have kids that year or the next.
I tried to keep the discussion about money to a minimum because I don’t want people to think that’s how the conversation got started. It’s not about money. Rather, it’s about opportunity and desires. We would have less, and more, opportunities with kids, but we also want to make sure we have kids for the right reasons. People can still have kids for selfish reasons, so I wouldn’t say abstaining from having kids is always selfish.
I mentioned the other options because they free us up to make the decision when we’re more ready. Say in 5-10 years, we’re ready for kids. Obviously beginning with a baby would be tough, and we don’t want to be retiring as their life is really launching. We’ve seen it in our own families and it’s tough (not impossible, but tough physically and emotionally). But we can try to adopt, or foster, and older child. There are no easy decisions to life, but you can still try to take time to think them through properly.
After reading your post and considering my own experience, there is one factor to this decision that I think is almost impossible to consider. Before you have a child, you can’t began to fathom the joy they will bring into your lives. Before our first child was born (unplanned pregnancy)we were excited about it, but mentally could not conceive how awesome it would be to be parents. When our baby was a couple of months old I was rocking him and my husband and I were staring at him and we realized that we didn’t know if we could bear to only go thru this process one more time. There are definitly difficult times and it changes your life, but the joy just washes all the less than perfect parts away.
I say this not to try to persuade you either way – both choices are valid. And I think that it’s great that you’re making this decision consciously. I just wanted to make you’re aware that perhaps there is a factor that is impossible to weigh beforehand.
(And I say this from the perspective of someone who always wanted children, babysat for years, and grew up in a large extended family. None of those experiences prepared me for the joy that came with having a child.)
I know this is a blog about personal finance, but you have previously mentioned your Christian faith.
I think God’s will in your life should be among your motives for considering having children. I know that there are many sides on this debate and I am working and cannot pull up the applicable Bible verses, but I’d be interested in hearing about this factor in your choices/decisions.
Amen to both Mary and Michelle.
I distinctly remember 25 years ago attending a potluck/party with our ‘old hippie’ friends. BB, (before baby)we would have stayed and partied much longer into the evening. But when my wife said it was time to take junior home, there was no regrets, second thoughts or ‘aw shucks’. The joy of holding and coddling that which is of your own making is beyond the ability of words to describe.
That said – to the parents out there – our kids learned to be flexible and able to bed down in many places, not always needing to be in their own beds.
Ireland and Italy – did that BB on a shoe string and now that the kids can be left alone we took the opportunity to stay in the hotels we sneaked into during our hitch hiking days, (to use the bathroom)
Steve
I’m really impressed that you’ve actually thought about this. It always annoys me when people assume that someone (including themselves) should have kids just because thats what you’re supposed to do.
If you found that you were unable to have children in a few years, it would probably be very upsetting. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world, you would find new ways to have happy and fulfilled lives.
Thanks for the insightful post. My fiance (now husband) and I talked a lot about our options and I appreciate hearing someone else who isn’t having kids just because it was assumed and part of “growing up.” A difficult decision and a very thoughtful post.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate your uplifting attitude in your responses.
Michelle: We are indeed Christian, and one of our steps is going to speak with our pastor. We’re close with him, and he really knows the parish, so he can pull from other people’s experiences to help us.
Regarding the emotional aspect of having kids, I don’t argue one bit that we would love our kids to death, and be glad we had them. We would both be great parents (in our own ways), but the factor is whether we would be having kids for the right reason. If we’re having kids just to make ourselves happy, that’s probably not the right reason. But that’s why adoption is an option. We’re not bringing a “new” baby into the world just for our enjoyment. We’re helping an existing child who otherwise might not be cared for.
What about the fact that it’s a natural process? In a way, the “right” decision is to have children because it’s nature’s way; we live to procreate and continue the species. This is obviously a raw way to look at it and humans have a level of conciousness that can be somewhat beyond this natural aspect, but if you look at the basics, it’s natural.
I’m not saying this is the answer, since we have the ability to decide and everyone’s situation is different, but you can’t forget the root of it all.
MoneyFwd: I sort of alluded to the “natural” aspect when I said “it’s what you logically do after getting married”, but you’re right. All species are meant to procreate, but with the overpopulation of the world, is it really our responsibility to bring more children in if we can prevent it? That’s why we’re leaving open the possibilities of adoption and foster care. Take care of the kids that are already here and need a home and family.
Im going to keep it short. My son now 24 yrs old was an “accident”. If not for that accident I probably would have never had a child and he is the only one I had. But the love I feel for him is the most intense I’ve ever known. It’s a different love than you feel for a parent or a spouse. I can’t imagine not ever knowing that kind of love.
My husband and I both want to stay childless as well. For many of the reasons you’ve outlined above (and we are not part of any faith).
We’re too young to hear “you’re not getting any younger”, but everywhere we turn, we hear “when you have children…”, and we’ve just given up correcting people and saying: “no we don’t want any kids at all”, because then it turns into an hour long discussion of disbelief and shock that someone would never want to have any kids of their own.
I’ve considered adoption, but I like the Big Brother/Big Sister idea better. Many parents just want cute little babies and tend to ignore the kids who are already grown and in need of much care and love….
Both Mike and I grew up with a huge support system: I was always seeing and hanging out with my cousins, and he lived with his grandmother along with his parents. There were many family events that both of our families celebrated (separately): birthdays, almost every holiday, etc. We are now a few hours away from that and struggle with the decision of moving home for that aspect (and few jobs) or staying here. We don’t want our kids to not have a support system which factors into the “no kids?” discussion. I’d love to hear how those of you with kids deal with being away from close family.
I can’t tell you how much I admire you both for thinking things through. Let me just say, though, that if things will simply be tight but otherwise financially you’ll be okay, you may not want to wait. It took us 15 months after we started trying to have kids for me to get pregnant with a “keeper” (I had two miscarriages along the way). I also have friends who’ve had to wait much longer for their child.
About the family support thing – good friends are priceless. I’ve done a lot for mine and vice versa. Becoming friends with a wonderful group of women who all had kids the same age as mine was one of the very best things I’ve ever done. It also helps keep my kids surrounded by other kids and an extended “family.” And although having family right there is nice, it’s perfectly possible to manage with just the two of you, especially when there’s only one kid and you can trade off when you get tired.
If only more people in the world could put this amount of thinking towards such an enormous decision (no matter how “natural” procreating may be). There would be a drastic decline in child abuse/neglect, poverty, etc. So many people willfully fail to see any option aside from having their own genetic offspring, or fail to see beyond the child’s baby phase.
I’ve always wanted to have kids. We will probably start trying over the next year and everything is pretty well aligned. I’ve never thought that much about my motivation, I have just always wanted to be a parent and to bring up children. While we haven’t discussed it, I believe I know my partner’s motivation. It might be an interesting discussion.
I just want to mention to you that it is nice that you guys are thinking so deliberately about this step. I knew a really wonderful woman, 40, married and in love, who decided to carry a baby for friends who were unable to have children. I really admired her. I think it is great to think about all the different ways you can help the next generation besides just procreation. Best of luck.
To all the religious zealots out there who tell everyone to have babies because of god or because “we can” or whatever – you are actually being ignorant and selfish to think that a new life has more value than all the orphaned children already in the world or that creating life is even good for the rest of the world at all!
One human life is the source of incredible amounts of waste and environmental degradation.
But, apparently you feel that the earth was created by god for humans to wreck completely.
In many, many ways, choosing to NOT bring more human lives into existance is incredibly generous and loving since it provides more resources to the children who are already here.
Get out of your church and your self-absorbtion for a little while and take a look at what’s really going on in the world! And, quit judging everyone by your own little view of what’s “right.”
Jill,
Please don’t take into account how many church goers adopt or foster children or are infertile. I wouldn’t want to break that fragile little bubble of hate you have going for you there.
Some other ideas:
What about genetics? What if two people have the ability to create gifted (intelligence or otherwise) offspring and can raise them in a stable environment? What if they teach them to be loving and thoughtful people who will contribute to humanity and the world alike?
Or is the “carbon footprint” of another life just too much to offset what benefit they might make? Even if they come up with a power source that cuts energy pollution by 3/4? Even if they end up adopting the orphan or abused children of the next generation?
I don’t think it’s as simple as “having kids is bad” or “having kids is good.” It’s a personal decision and if you care about your children, a lot more work than people think it is.
Best of luck to you in whatever comes about!
This is my first time reading your blog (linked here from The Simple Dollar). I wanted to respond to clever dudette’s question about having kids when you don’t have family close by.
Background… My husband and I met at college which shall remain unnamed as it is a big rival of Penn State… We married out of college and moved to Chicago for a job. In Chicago, we were 8 hour drives from our nearest family, and my sisters were about 20 hour drives. NOT close.
It is a HUGE decision. I agonized over having children for 8 years. In fact during many trips to our extended family, we spent our time discussing whether or not we would have children.
We decided to have children. I have no idea why as I had been determined since age 12 that I never wanted them.
They are a JOY and one of God’s biggest blessing. We have 2. As for how we dealt with not having a family near by…
1st … the church we belonged to was our family. When we had our 2nd, it was our “adopted grama” who was on call for the hospital run. It was our friends who were on the day care emergency contact forms. These were the people we called when our air conditioning died on the hottest weekend of the year (Friday night) and they would come over and fix it. These were the people who baby sat our kids when we needed a night out. These were the people we went camping with (even though many of them had teenagers) So even though our “blood relative” family was not near, we had family.
2nd. Every spare vacation from work (mostly) was spent on visiting family.
3rd. We put up pictures going up the stairs of our house with pictures of my 3 sisters and my husbands family and at least once a week, we went through the names.
4th. Digital cameras / websites/video phones are awesome. My daughter who is 5 can comfortable have a 1/2 hour conversation with her grandparents and tell them stuff that we hadn’t heard yet.
I won’t lie.. being 8 hours away was hard. In fact, we then looked for 4 years to get closer (while still maintaining our financial goals and not going broke in the process). With much prayer and fortitude… we ended up moving about 4 hours closer to everyone (to Cincinnati)… where my husband has a job and I am currently staying home for a few years. My kids see their grandparents more now.
I would like to add that when I was a kid… I had a grandmother who was 1/2 hour from my house and a grandmother who was 6 hours from my house. I was much closer to the grandmother 6 hours away because SHE took the time to know me and love me. It’s not always a matter of physical proximity that determines the depth of a relationship.
Sorry this was so long but I thought I could add a little bit to the discussion from a different perspective.
Jennifer, I greatly appreciate this advice, and this is one reason I put the question out there. We worry that our kids won’t get to know their family like we knew them, but that’s probably the wrong reason to not have kids. However, we’re still conflicted about what type of family to have (biological, adopted, foster, mixture of all three).
I just began my graduate degree program which will take up the next 2 years or so of my life. I can’t imagine adding more stress or work that what I already have, but when God calls, I have to listen, right?
Oh, and GO PSU! 🙂
I have always been an extreme anti-kid person, seeing no reason other than inflated ego to pro-create. There’s the baby-itis (want a baby, not a kid), the save the relationship (or trap a man), the check (child support), the egomaniacs (I’m so awesome there should be many or mini me’s), the attention bathers (which can be any of the above), and occassionally the would raise ‘good people’ (a rare breed) intentioned folks who actually think about and plan this heavy weight decision.
I never wanted children, tried once or twice to be convinced with no avail. Now that I am 42 (clock ticking like a clock tower) I have seriously started questioning my conviction. I have learned at least a handful of things, am financially stable, and have all the time in the world to offer. BUT, my husband who I think I enrolled on the ‘no kid’ bandwagon now says absolutely “no way!”
I used to think I could always use foster as a back-up, but you risk getting attached to a temporary situation, purposeful heartbreak – kudos to those who can. Then there’s adoption, you don’t really know what your are getting, like a dog from the pound, they’re all sweet and cute but time will open hidden wounds. Which I am not dis-sing, my pound pooch is the cat’s meow, but he has some serious psychological problems that break me heart.
I’ve been asking parents and the only regrets I hear repeatedly are that they wish they would have waited, but that it is an experience of the extreme, high’s and low’s, but not to be missed.
I do not think having children is selfish.
I understand about the population problem but let’s face it the real problem is the way we treat the planet these are the issues we should be more concerned with.
If we treated the planet better then additional humans on the planet wouldn’t cause so much of a problem. Were our Parents selfish for having us? If they decided to not have us then we wouldn’t have the opportunity to even debate about this subject. We as humans have a choice we can decide not to have children or we can decide to have them. We cannot play god, the world is not and never will be perfect it is organic we cannot design the perfect world there are good and bad people not everyone contributes in the way we want them to, not everyone has an education. If we were all the same and all had the same opportunities life would just be plain boring with no challenges isn’t life supposed to be diverse? I’m not saying that we should not even consider the population problem I just don’t think that saying people are selfish for having children will help the issues it just puts a divide between those who have kids and those who choose not to. We all make choices in life and they are not always the right ones. If you decide not to have kids but you are a really horrible person who upsets everyone then what is your contribution to the world? People pass away every day there are natural disasters and the population decreases. There are many people who can’t have children and so they adopt, the world knows what it is doing. Some say you should only have kids if they are going to be doctors or scientist or whatever, well doctors keep us in good health and make us live longer so where’s the sense in that. The best thing we can do is to look after our planet be kind to each other embrace our differences and respect peoples choices whether we agree with them or not. I don’t have any children and I don’t know if I will but if I decide to then that will be my choice and if I don’t it won’t make me a better person for it so everyone should stop being so bloody self righteous take a look at the real problems in the world and get real.
This post made me smile, and I emailed it to my boyfriend- it’s a discussion we’ve been having between ourselves too. Because I grew up in a big family, (I’m the oldest of seven!), I guess that I always just saw having kids to be the logical step. But when my boyfriend asked me to think about why I really wanted to have children, the only reasons that I could think of were that I wanted to spoil them, and that I wanted to create something that was mine, that I could love unconditionally. He gave me a hug and said I could always spoil him 😛
But since deciding that kids aren’t likely to play a part in our futures, we’ve been bombarded by negative critisism, from our families, friends, and even just random (and incredibly rude) strangers who seem to think that it’s their business if we choose not to reproduce. So thank you for talking so openly about a decision that many people come to, but so few people are ready to accept.