This question might seem a little odd, but it’s worth asking. The answers will greatly impact your family's happiness and child's life.
It’s standard practice for your doctor to ask if your pregnancy was planned and if you want to have the baby. A simple “yes” typically ends the conversation. We also tend to make the assumption that if both parents want to have the baby, you’re on the same page. The truth is a little more complicated, because different motivations for starting a family can end up creating conflict between spouses.
Why do we need to talk about our true desires behind having a baby?
It’s important for each parent to reflect on why they want to have a baby. If your reasons are very different, at odds, or unacceptable to each other, it can lead to relationship strife in many directions.
This is a difficult conversation to have because many of us are unaware of our true motives and have a hard time digging them out. We choose and repeat the “good answers” instead of sifting through our values, passions, and baggage. So unless you are willing to do some soul-searching and have hard conversations with your partner, you may have no idea why you really want to have a baby.
What are some problematic motivations for becoming a parent?
For many women, having a baby makes them feel like they’ve lived up to their social obligation, or like they’ve earned a spot with the women they perceive as successful or high status. Some women (and men) are simply responding to pressure from others, like their own parents or their friends with kids [1].
Some couples also believe having a baby will solve relationship problems, or strengthen or validate their marriage. Historically, it’s not uncommon for a woman to have a baby to keep her partner who she fears is drifting away [1].
Further, some women also believe motherhood will give them an identity or raise their self-esteem. A child is someone who has to love and need them. Some parents who are unhappy desire to become happy through raising a happy child [1].
Why are these problematic?
These reasons have nothing to do with the well-being of your baby. A vulnerable newborn becomes a small child who depends on you; this child cannot be tasked with resolving your internal conflicts . In fact, the opposite should be true: you are tasked with being your child’s support system.
When a baby doesn’t fix her parents’ marriage, self-image, or lack of direction, it leads to disappointment, anxiety , and even to the deterioration of the relationship. And research shows that the pain inflicted by a parent, even unintentionally, leaves more of an impression than the good [1].
What is the right way to see parenthood?
Ideally, you should want to parent from a place of selfless love. A baby grows into an independent person. This person does not exist to meet someone else’s expectations or needs, even those of his parents or closest family.
Now, there are no saints among us, and everyone likely has mixed motives for having a baby (especially motives hidden from themselves!). But it is very possible to approach parenthood with more awareness and honesty. If you find that you have latent desires for identity or happiness through your child, challenge those desires. Reason through those thoughts to deal more effectively with the unhelpful or unrealistic motivations behind them.
As Peg Streep writes for Psychology Today: “The good news, of course, is that your original motivation for having a child need not dictate how you parent if you are willing to be honest with yourself and work hard at seeing how your unconscious, unarticulated, and unacknowledged needs—not your child’s—are influencing your behavior” [1].
Does this mean parenting isn’t about me at all?
That’s not entirely true. It’s natural and wonderful to dream of a family and to want to bring a child into the world that has some of your and your partner’s features. Raising a child with your partner is a beautiful aspiration and can be very rewarding. It’s simply important to remember your baby does not exist for your own happiness and fulfillment; she is a person, and giving her a happy life is an honorable and mature desire.
As it becomes more culturally acceptable for people to choose not to have children, it frees everyone to choose what is best for them.
