Childfree Abby - Any Hope?05 May 2005Message ID: 427a35d7_2@x-privat.org
Dear Advisors, My husband and I have been together for 21 years and married for 11 of them. We're both in our early forties. We have always agreed not to have children. I have several reasons that probably turned me off to having kids in the first place, but the point is, I have never had the mommy urge, and he agreed all along that he didn't want them, either. Until our friends started having them. Now he sees our friends raising their kids and told me he wants to have one! I don't know if it's a midlife crisis on his part or what, but he tearfully told me that it's been over a year that he has slowly changed his mind about being a dad. I'm shocked and sad. We have a great marriage in every other way. I don't want all we have together to be thrown away, and the husband says he doesn't, either. I'm hoping helping kids outside the home with after-school programs or little league or something might help keep this in check. We are going to go for counseling, but what can I expect, and can this be solved? -- True To My Word
Dear True, From the tone of your letter, I suspect that your husband has gotten a case of "Kodakitis". Overall, women are more usually prone to it, but men are not immune to it. This means that the person involved has fallen in love with the pretty trappings of parenthood, and lost touch with the reality of it. The Good News is that it is people can get over it. The Bad News is that he might not. I strongly suspect that many men who get bitten by the "Dad bug" at his age are blissfully unaware or have conveniently forgotten what parenting really entails. I think that what they mean when they say "I want a kid" is "You have this kid, care it, feed it, change the diapers, etc, and I will take it to ball games on the weekend when it is old enough." I further strongly suspect that your husband is utterly clueless as to the sacrifices, large and small, that will have to be made in order to raise a child to adulthood. Be that as it may, while having a child will change both your lives, it will change *your* life the most. After all, you are the one who must carry the child to term, you are the one who will likely be responsible for the primary child care, and it is your career that will likely go on hold. Yes, a counsellor is a good idea. However, you must make sure that you find an unbiased counsellor, who will listen and give credibility to both sides of this situation, and consider childfreedom a viable option. If you walk into the office and find it decorated with photographs of his/her kids - it would be a strong sign that your side in this situation will be given short shrift, if not dismissed outright. You may wish to remind your husband of the costs of child rearing - and not just the financial ones. Both of you will lose things that you may cherish in this relationship - such as spontaneity - in sex, in intimacy, or just the ability to sleep in late and take a late brunch at your favourite coffee shop. Also, neither one of you are spring chickens - at your age, conception may be difficult (how much do you want to spend on fertility treatments?), and your ova are creeping up on their "best before" date - therefore the risk of disabled child is much higher. Raising a healthy child is an enormous handful, and a disabled one hugely more so. You might want to spend time with, or find friends you are unencumbered with children. It seems this whole thing began when your friends started to reproduce and your husband seemed to feel that he is left out of this game. In the end, this decision is a deal breaker. No one should be made to have a child if he or she is in any way ambivalent about being a parent. A child should have two parents who want it, 'nuff said. If your husband feels that he cannot be complete without a child, then wish him well, and walk away.
Childfree Abby
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