It seems like all of the newly-married (and not-so newly-married) couples I know are having babies. While I am so happy and excited for them all, and I am really looking forward to having a family as well, I also wonder why they rush in to having kids. One of my friends from high school was engaged in February 2009, married in October 2009, and his wife had a baby about a week ago. I just don't understand the hurry to go from a two person family to a three, four, five, etc person family. Don't you want to spend any time getting to know your new spouse? How can you create a good family environment if you really had no time to be a family before the kids come along? You wouldn't even know each other as two people, because if you get pregnant right away you're not really ever only two people, you'll always be thinking about the baby + wife instead of just your wife. You're parents from day one. Also, how do you even afford kids when you've only been married for 9 or 10 months?
Keegan and I would still like to be young parents, but maybe after 2.5-3 years of marriage rather than right now. And even being married for that amount of time may still seem like we jumped in to having kids; we'd like to have our first child while I'm in grad school, since we'd like to have a big family but I don't want to be 35, 40 and still having kids. And the hours are a lot more flexible. Maybe I'll be like one of my other friends and have many kids in a short time span (3 in 3 years)... only try space them ~2 years apart or something. Who knows.
So anyway, kids are wonderful, but what's the hurry?
1 comment:
I don't get it either, but I actually don't know anyone who's having babies shortly after getting married. I understand rushing if you get married when you're older and don't think you have many fertile years left but it's not ideal. I learned in my Psychology of Close Relationships class in college that relationship satisfaction decreases every year of marriage but plummets after you have a kid. It's better to build up your "relationship capital" for several years before you have a kid and start depleting it.
My husband wants to have kids in maybe 3 or 4 years but I'd rather wait 5 or so. Upcoming "discussions" on that, probably!
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