Hi Eva, I’m a 34-year-old guy working in the “creative industries”, and have been with my girlfriend, who’s 35, for almost three years. We’re very happy together, we travel, we’re trying to buy a flat, etc. However, my girlfriend has recently started talking seriously about wanting to have kids.
For a long time, I hadn’t thought about it, and when I did, my inclination was that I didn’t want to. As I said, I have a creative (ie: unstable) job, and aside from anything else, the idea of providing for a family stresses me out. I don’t want to lose her, but I don’t want to stop her from fulfilling her dreams, and I feel completely incapable of even thinking about a kid, let alone having one.
I just don’t think I can do it. Bob Got a question for Eva? Drop her an email, here: AskEva @ condenast . co .
uk. Oh, Bob: this is you thinking about it! You’re doing it, right here; you’re starting to lay it all out, for me, for you. You’re sketching out the beginning of a conversation you can have with your girlfriend.
You’re investigating the anxieties (like your financial instability) that contribute to your wariness around having kids. It’s a very good start. In my experience, the decision of whether or not to have a baby is never just about having a baby.
It’s about responsibility; it’s about our experiences of family; it’s about our fears of loneliness or dreams of completion; it’s about questioning our place in the world, who we are, who we want to be. It’s about existential contemplation of our mad uncertain future, and a hundred itchy little feelings that this sort of soul-searching brings up in all of us. It’s terrifying, honestly, when you think about it.
And it’s hard to hash over all of this with yourself, let alone with your partner. If it’s any consolation, I imagine that, before coming to the decision that she wants kids, your girlfriend has interrogated herself in similar ways, whether consciously or not. Though the impulse to have a baby is commonly thought of as simple, hormonal, a matter of “just knowing”, I’d say the majority of people considering parenthood find themselves in some kind of conflict, at some point in the process.
Of course, at 35, your girlfriend’s decision-making process is influenced by her biology in a way yours is not; there is the possibility that, if she waits too long, the decision will have been made for her. Perhaps you were hoping I would just tell you to do it (do it!), or not do it (don’t!), or kick the can a little further down the road. Or that I’d tell you to go with your gut, your heart, whatever.
I think, in fact, you should do the opposite. I think you should think about it even more, ask yourself question after question about your past, your dreams. And then, once the decision is made (I say decision, but getting a baby is often a long and arduous journey, apols), understand that there is no correct one, that wherever you end up, you will inevitably find wild gradations of pleasure and regret and yearning and judgement.
I am regularly shocked by how straightforward this decision is painted to be, by the binary ideas regularly shared about parents and people who are childfree, whether that’s about being boring or selfish, fulfilled or free. The truth is that having kids might be the “wrong” decision for you, but even then, life as a parent might bring you profound joy, and vice versa; you might decide you want children, and discover new depths of pain. It’s real life, and it starts now.
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