Trouble in Paradise
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Okay, here's where I get judgy.
I'm late, and totally realize that I'm going to be judged, but that's ok. I'm offering my (long) opinion anyway.
FI and I started trying to get pregnant before we were engaged (we're getting married Dec 17th.) Basically the decision came down to: We were both ready to be parents, and I am completely confident that whether or not our romantic relationship is going to last forever he will be a fantastic father to my children and a fair partner in parenting (and vice versa). Is it ideal to be romantically and happily involved with the other parent of your kids? Sure. But when it comes to having children with a someone, I am much more concerned with whether I think he's going to be a steady and reliable father than I am about if we are going to have a satisfying sex life in 30 years, because in reality the two things are totally unrelated issues.
We are getting married now, not because I ended up getting pregnant, but because that is something that we want, at this time, unrelated to the baby issue. Honestly, if he never wanted to get married, I wouldn't have been hurt by that. We made a commitment to each other before he gave me a ring, and a piece of paper stamped by the state isn't going to strengthen or weaken that commitment. But he asked, and because I love him and am extremely confident in our relationship, I said yes.
So, in our case the two (getting married and having babies) ended up happening together, even if it wasn't in the order most of you would have approved of. Honestly, though, I don't see why you have to be married or considering getting married to be able to make a respectable decision to have a child with someone. Single women are artificially inseminated or adopt children without judgment all the time. How is that better than me deciding to have a child with someone who is actually going to be there to help me parent that child?
I, personally, don't think that the decision to become a parent needs to be tied to being in a relationship or being married, and if more people looked at it as a separate decision, we might not have so many people running off to get married, setting up unrealistic expectations for their relationship, popping out a few kids, and then getting a miserable divorce and torturing those kids through a custody battle all because what they really wanted in the first place wasn't the marriage but the kids.
When we were deciding to start trying to have a baby I looked at whether I thought FI would commit himself to a child, whether he would be able to financially and emotionally support a family, if I thought he could fairly parent and discipline a kid, and if I thought we could get along inside or outside of a romantic relationship in order to co-raise another human being. And I found him to be an ideal canidate
The decision to get married was based off of my love and respect for him, the love and respect he shows me, the future we see for ourselves, and the fact that I am so confident in how much I'll love parenting with him.
I'm lucky that I found a romantic partner and a parenting partner in the same person, but I'm not blind to the fact that a lot of people don't. What if I hadn't found someone I felt comfortable with committing myself to for a romantic relationship for life until I was 50? Would I have just had to forgo having children? I don't see anything wrong with choosing someone to parent with but being honest about the idea that you might not work out as a couple forever.
No, having a baby wont make your relationship more stable or make a man commit to you if he hasn't already, or any of the other things you guys mentioned. But neither will getting married turn someone into a good parent. So... maybe we need to start promoting having children as an important independent decision to be made from a logical standpoint instead of an emotional decision based on how much you think you love someone right now. The good parents I've known have been people who can look at individual situations objectively and make rational decisions based on the facts at hand. I don't see any reason why you can't look at marriage and having children as individual situations.
One of my friends told me she and her boyfriend and thinking of having a baby, even though marriage isn't in the cards until they are more financially stable. I love her, but I judge (and I told her I think it's a bad idea, as tactfully as I could).
July 3rd, 2012 ~ Hang in there sweetheart, we can't wait to meet you!
I can't imagine voluntarily going through pregnancy and the raising of a child without that support, personally.
I do agree with you that having children should be an independent decision and not a default once you're married, because there are still circumstances within marriage that can make procreation less than ideal.
July 3rd, 2012 ~ Hang in there sweetheart, we can't wait to meet you!