A baby will bring us closer together.
Not necessarily. In fact, not quite often, not at all. And not according to this article, which I came across on Childfree News. In a study done recently it was found that “half of all Australian couples report a significant decline in satisfaction in their relationships after they have a child.”
As Vinny on Childfree News says, it isn’t particularly shocking news to childfree folk. After all, the quality of their relationship with each other is a big reason childfree couples decide to be and remain childfree. I would suspect it isn’t really a surprise to childed folk either, just not talked about. But it is nice to see it actually in print for a change and announced for people to see it. When people say they had a baby to bring them closer together, I often wonder if it means that the relationship was already in trouble and was just looking for a sticking plaster solution. Hello? Babies are not the glue for your shaky relationship. If anything they will probably hasten its demise.
One of the wonderful things my husband and I love about being childfree, and never take for granted I (and one of the key reasons we decided we weren’t going to have children) is the quality of our relationship. Because we have the time to focus on it and each other, our relationship satisfaction quotient is very high.
We have that most precious of resources – Time. Time for each other which we value highly. We have privacy, which we also value highly. We have more money to do the things we want to do as a couple, whether this is go out to dinner, go for weekends away, stay in and watch movies, stay in and listen to music, read, play or simply just talk about anything and everything. Most importantly, we can do all these things without kids nagging us for attention and without feeling guilty that we should be focusing on the kids instead of, well, each other. Let’s face it, children demand every ounce of your attention and energy, and that leaves very little left over for the relationship.
Several parents I know with younger kids have told me that since the children came they can’t remember the last time they went to the cinema together. Or went out to dinner together. And time to themselves? They laugh outright at me and tell me I’m lucky. Those parents lucky enough to be able to grab some time to themselves, can never be too far away from the mobile phone, so they can “check that the kids are okay.”
When I hear these stories I do listen. I don’t, however, think it’s a question of my being lucky, more that we gave a lot more thought to what we’d need to give up if we decided to have kids and made an alternative choice. I think there, but for the grace of God go I, on the heels of which I also think: well, it was your choice to have children. Didn’t you know that your previous life goes out of the window when you have kids? Or did you buy into the crap women are usually sold – that it’s all worth it and that babies are just the greatest glue for your relationship and make it perfect and complete?
Without time, privacy, energy and space to support the hard work a relationship needs, of course the quality is going to deteriorate. To me it’s a given. A no brainer. Kids mean a distinct shortage of time, energy,money and privacy, so their arrival often means the relationship is doomed – at least without help or a few million $$. It definitely means the relationship changes, including how the couple view each other. Your sex life is one of the first things to either go on hiatus, or simply go completely. Well, who wants to make love feeling like a wrung out dish rag half the time? Is that sexy? I don’t think so. Add to that if one of the couple doesn’t want kids or is ambivalent, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Which makes me wonder why we don’t hear more of this conversation. Why do we only hear of it when the couple’s relationship is on the slippery slope down, or when it’s over?
When my husband and I were talking about whether or not we wanted to have kids, we thought of and discussed all the above, at some length. The most important reason we married was to commit to each other and the relationship we had decided to build together. Though at that time I hadn’t completely made the childfree choice, it was fairly obvious to me that the arrival of children would change the expectations of the relationship, in that we’d have to set new ones. While people were telling me that “ babies will bring us even closer,” or that “ a baby would be the cement for our marriage” I was never completely sold, because I could see that children came at a price (even though people pretended otherwise) and quite likely that price would be our relationship. I could see that, at least initially, it was inevitable my husband would probably have to take second place. The child would have to come first and I’d be hard pressed to find the energy to do otherwise, even if I felt guilty about it.
The urge to have children would need to have been strong enough to override the importance I placed on our relationship. It never was, and it never did. This, and more thinking over time brought me to my childfree choice.
Some women have difficulty being logical about the potential impact of children on a relationship and can’t understand anyone who is logical about it. What matters to them is that they want a baby, and that drives everything on a totally emotional level. I find that men are more logical about it, less emotional and are far more likely to weigh up the pros and cons with a long term view.
To some people, because they want them, having kids may be worth the toll it takes on their relationship. Maybe though, they never really consider it at all. Until the kids have arrived and it’s hard to ignore.
By then, of course, it’s too late.
Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.
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Thanks for bringing forward this fascinating article that did not surprise me one little bit. I have witnessed couples whose marriage was destroyed by having children.
When it comes to building homes we are always cautious about having top notch site preparation done by experts. Then we have firm foundations put in place and the frame structure goes in next. If we build cautiously and with quality materials throughout we can expect the house to stand for generations.
Well IMO marriages need the same attention. Only a fool would erect a flimsy structure on a poor foundation and then expect it to weather hurricanes. Unless and until both partners have worked together to build a firm foundation, a relationship that will stand the test of time. It makes absolutely no sense to tack on a nursery to the side of a tacky relationship. And even if the foundation is a good one as the study shows having children can cause the bough to break.