The questions came fast after we got married. “Baby? How many? Boy? Girl? What about the age gap between you and your husband? What about between your step kids and the baby?”
I already was trying to assimilate into marriage, a family, a family with a lot of history-good and bad. Maybe adding a kid right away wasn’t the best thing? Let me catch my breath first.
“To add or not to add” was a discussion for a few years. Sometimes it was, “YES!” other times it was a sad, “NO.” There were so many factors for my husband and I do work out. Our age. My husband is 16 years older than me. I have always wanted two kids. One boy. One girl. I’m not the only one in this marriage, though. I have my own needs and desires, but so does my husband. Does my husband want more kids? If so, how many more kids does he want? Questions I had to take into consideration.
Next up: our lifestyle. We both have a ton of flexibility with our job. We have traveled the world. Literally. Having a kid would bring a few challenges to that and we wouldn’t be out galavanting across the world (carefree) anymore.
Next factor: our jobs. How would childcare work? Being that we don’t have much family in the area, we’d have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for child care….just to work opposite schedules. I didn’t want that. Neither did he. I decided that I would be the one that would work less. I wanted to be a mom.
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There were other factors that I made a big deal out of then…that seem silly to me now. What if my husband didn’t love our kid as much? What if the kids didn’t like our kid? What if? What if? What if? Note to self: you were in your head too much. Shocker.
If you are trying to decide on having an “ours baby,” just remember YOU and YOUR PARTNER are the experts on your family. Just the two of you get to make the decision. There is no reason your in-laws get to have a say. Not the ex. Not your family. Not the kids. It’s YOUR life.
As ridiculous as this sounds, I feel like a “real” mom now that I have my own child. Your parenting is always judged when you don’t have your own kids. Interestingly enough, I parent the same way I was trying to (and now do) parent my step kids….and there is NO judgement. At all. Weird. *eye roll*
On the flip side, if you don’t want kids of your own, that’s perfectly fine. There’s this weird idea about “being a mom means you have your own kid”. Can we stop asking women when they are going to have kids? You don’t know their story. Maybe they don’t want them. Maybe they can’t. Maybe their partner can’t. Maybe they… have their own reasons. None of that needs to be explained to someone you don’t know.
What are your thoughts? Are you bombarded with questions? How do you handle them?
