our family, party of two

There has always been a societal pressure for my husband and I to procreate. When we say we are not ready, the responses range from "you will be soon" to "no one ever is, you just do it anyway."

But what if we aren't ready because we aren't going to get ready?

As an adolescent, my mother regularly left me to tend to the younger children (to the extreme amount). I fed them, bathed them, watched them learn to crawl and walk, listened to their first words, taught them my name was 'sis' and not 'mom,' taught them to read and play games. My mother crowed about how she was teaching me responsibility and that "babysitting is the best form of birth control."

Well maybe it was. 

Here I am, about to turn thirty, without even a whisper of plans for children. 

Occasional we are reminded that we will regret it if we don't have kids. For instance, who will care for us when we are older? And isn't it important to us to keep the family name and bloodline going?

It is not the job of the children to take care of us when we are old! We should be making plans for that regardless of children. I'm not even going to address the bloodline issue.

Sure, if we get accidentally pregnant, we will love the changes in our family and embrace the journey and all that. But, as of our feelings now, we will never choose that. 

We have found solace in our peaceful life, our routines, and, for me, the surety of our relationship. 

Our friends are struggling to keep up, always exhausted, feeling overwhelmed - and their children require more attention than they have to offer. You can pour from an empty glass; I see mothers of newborns do it all the time. 

"But it will be different when it's your own."

No, it won't. Sure, we might not mind the chaos as much when the children are ours, but the chaos will be there and it will look like it does on everyone else. 

"But you are just putting it off and you don't want to wait too long, because then it will be more difficult."

We aren't putting it off. We are actively deciding not to have children. Neither of us long for children. Neither of us wants to be a stay-at-home parent. Neither of us feel like we are missing out. Neither of us are working towards a life that would be conducive to raising children.

One useful thing they say is that it takes a village to raise a child. Now that I can do. I can make you meals after you give birth to your child. I can clean your house. I can babysit so you can go on a date. I can read books, tell stories, paint pictures, and imagine worlds. I can sit with you while you cry or I can sit with your child they cry. I can do laundry so you can be the one to engage with playtime. I can pick up groceries on the way to your house. 

I can partake in the raising of children and the upbringing of the next generation, without having my own.

I do not feel like I am disobeying God or failing to obey his commands by not adding more children to the world. If I were not married, my life would not be less complete. If I were unable to have children, my life would not be less complete. My choice to not have children does not make my life less complete. 

However, I do acknowledge my emotional baggage attached to having children. As mentioned in previous posts, every grandparent, every aunt and uncle, and, at this point, all but a couple of cousins a are divorced, on both sides of the family. I see so many people struggle to maintain healthy relationships with their spouse, and then they bring children into the picture. And then they struggle to build a sturdy home. To build safe places. To have good relationships with their children. I watch the children struggle with understanding, with guilt, and to view families as anything but a broken mess. 

I would rather regret not having children.

I know that implying that I wouldn't risk my marriage on children is illogical. The children are never responsible for their parent's marriage. Children would be another one of the many things that my husband and I do together, if it were to happen. But sometimes it feels like that. Like we are happy with the life we made and there are so few on earth who do large families well that maybe we would rather play it safe and stay with our small family. 

And that's another comment I get: "Don't you want to start a family?"

We did. We started a family when we said "I do."

We are a family.