Ask Amy: Do y’all want kids and if so when do you think you’ll start having children?
I have been getting this question before I even got married.
Well, maybe not the exact question but something of the sort: how many kids do you want, how will you raise them, have of thought of kid names? I’ll admit I’ve played MASH and circled how many kids I would have one day and even made lists of names in my teenage years. Now that I’m married and 30 I feel like this question is on the tips of peoples tongues whenever they speak to myself or Eddie.
I guess I need to give a little more of a back story.
Growing up I never had that maternal pull. I love children and am actually really good with loving and disciplining and playing with them; but I never had this huge desire to be a mom. All the girls around me did, my cousins always had their baby dolls and as I got older I felt the pressure to just have children. As a teenager I just accepted the fact that there wasn’t really a choice in it and that it’s my job to get married, get pregnant and have all the babies. I’m sure it’s across the board but there something about that southern culture that hypes up the pressure to get married and have babies young.
I had it all planned out.
I was going to get engaged at 21, married at 22, have 3 years with my husband, and then start having children at 25. WHELP that definitely didn’t happen (ha!). I met Eddie and we got married when I was 28. In the last two years we have been moving multiple times and his schedule is absolutely crazy due to his job (US Navy) so we don’t even see each other that much. Even if we were ready to go with having children the timing would just suck, and yes I realize that there is never a “right time” to have kids but we also realize there are “easier times” and that isn’t during sea duty.
So, like I said earlier, I never had the dream to be a mom.
ALL of my friends had that dream, they couldn’t wait to be a mother; and I felt like there was something wrong with me…like I wasn’t woman enough if I didn’t have those feelings. I’ve had family, friends, books, shows, articles tell me that my eggs are dying and that if I want to have children I better start now before it’s too late. I’ve been told it’s selfish to not bring children in to this world. I’ve been told that I’ll never know true love and that I’ll always feel like something is missing in my life if we don’t have children. It left me with a complex for a while and I felt a lot of anger. As I’ve gotten older those feelings haven’t weighed on me as much and I choosing to not let it define me.
When Eddie & I were dating I was VERY clear that I may never want children.
That if that was an absolute deal breaker for him then we shouldn’t carry on in our relationship. He told me, so sweetly, that he wasn’t going to marry me for my ability to have children but because he loved me and he was ok with that. We always have said that one day we would probably like to foster children so we knew that kids would be in our life at some point in time. We have plenty of family and friends with children and we know that throughout our lives we will always be around them (like we are right now with our friends here in San Diego!). Eddie loves kids, and is so, so SO good with them so I’ve always felt a little bit of this guilt that if we don’t have kids he will be disappointed. He tells me time and time again that he wouldn’t be, but that is a fear I still kind of hold on to.
As we’ve been growing in our marriage and I’m getting older my heart is softening to the idea of us having children. Of having those sweet weekend mornings cuddling with the kids, teaching them about life, pointing them to Jesus, playing board games, going on adventures . . . those things are all things I would love to have one day; but the pull still isn’t incredibly strong. Y’all this is such a hard question and I just want to encourage you that if you choose to ask it to others, ask it kindly and respectfully. There are many people who have the desire for children and are trying and it just isn’t coming to fruition. They may be on a infertility journey, or maybe they just don’t want kids. That is another thing that I’ve thought about, that maybe my heart changes and we decide to try and we will not be able to conceive. If that was the case we would definitely go the adoption route, because all children deserve to know they are loved.
So for now I’m praying about it and we’re praying about it.
I guess when people ask the question I’m just going to either point them to this blog post or respond with a ton of shrugging shoulders 🤷♀️🤷♀️.
I just don’t know and that is ok.
