“Should I stop my birth control? ’Cause my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all...
” Charli XCX sings on “I Think About It All the Time,” a track from her hit album Brat . While my thought process isn't identical to hers, I can’t help admitting how seen I felt by those lyrics. The question of whether I’ll become a mom or remain childfree always seems to lead to a torrent of others, leaving me more confused than I started.
Will childbirth be as bad as people say it is? Am I emotionally prepared for the potential hurdles associated with adoption or fostering? Where will we live? Who will watch my kid while I work? If I stopped buying vintage coasters online, would that translate into the kind of savings that can feed and house and educate a child? I normally turn to my various group chats for advice on all things life-choice-related, but this topic felt too big to be handled by just a small subset of pals. So I opened up the question of how you know you want or don’t want kids to a wider group, and found that I was far from the only one wrestling with “the whole baby thing,” as a friend recently dubbed it. Below, find answers from 17 people about how they made (or are still making) this deeply personal decision.
And if you’re struggling with this topic or with related issues of infertility or pregnancy loss , take heart; as another friend recently reminded me, “Everything will probably be okay regardless.” “That was the turning po.