Random, sloppy thoughts in no particular order, some of which came up when reading the above, some I've been thinking about since that New York mag story, some even before:
1. Having a kid does not mean being shackled to your apartment or sentenced to Chuck E. Cheese. True, you don't go out to nice restaurants as often as you used to, or to bars, or to see bands. But did you know that having a kid means you MUST get out of the house or else? Kids don't like being cooped up at home. So you DO THINGS. My weekends are far more active now than they used to be, and it's not because we are on some hamster wheel of birthday parties and playdates. We do fun things! With friends! And we see parts of the city I otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten my lazy childless ass up off the couch to see. Governor's Island! Also, doing things with your kid often makes old experiences new again. Like every day stuff, that once was fun to you but now is routine becomes fun again, because you get to experience it with (a) someone new, and (b) someone new who gets really really excited, reminding you that the beach/park/swimming pool/baseball game/ice cream truck/Air and Space Museum/GROCERY STORE is actually pretty neat. You may not be rushing off to do all sorts of cosmopolitan shit, but I am telling you that the mundane becomes less so with a wide-eyed toddler.
2. Why do all these articles and blog posts say that parents shouldn't expect their kids to make them happy? It's OK for your kids to fulfill you! Why that would ever be a bad thing is beyond me. No, having kids isn't going to fix you, but it certainly does SOMETHING to you, and in my experience that something is pretty profound. Brief digression, which I promise is not just me over-sharing but also has a point: I was pretty unhappy in my early-20s in New York. Depressed and mainly fucking hungry cause I wouldn't let myself eat. Then I met my current husband. And slowly slowly I started to be less unhappy, and then actually happy. I ate a piece of pizza for the first time in six years, etc. Things were getting better in my life. And I very clearly remember saying to my therapist one day: "So all these years of therapy and then I meet a guy and all of a sudden I'm happy and eating? Am I really that shallow???" And back at me came this look of total surprise, as though he was shocked that there was this very basic thing about life that I didn't know. And he said in the most matter-of-fact manner possible: "That's not shallow. That's love." Roll your eyes all you want but really he was right. I mean, people come into our lives and make a difference. My then-boyfriend/now-husband didn't fix me like I was some kind of leaky faucet, but the experience of being with him, and of him being with me, made me happy. Thank god! That's a great thing about life! And same goes for having a kid. No, a child isn't going to save a broken marriage or cure your disease, but that kid is going to make a difference. Being a mother to my son has made me a far less self-absorbed (current blog comment notwithstanding), far more confident human being. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a very good thing.
3. I've only been married for seven years, and my kid is just a toddler - we've got another one on the way - so I can't speak from experience about what having kids does to a marriage over the long haul. But I do know that marriages survive and fail for a bazillion, often-unidentifiable reasons. Whatever New York mag and all those Scandinavian surveys say, I don't care. You can't isolate out kids and say: THERE! THAT'S WHAT'S MAKING OUR MARRIAGE SO SHITTY. My parents are not the model, but they are my model, and from observing their 40-plus year marriage I know a few things: It's going to get rocky, perhaps for long long periods of time, but that doesn't mean my marriage is bad. (My parents actually got separated for a year when I was young. And then got back together and are currently living happily ever after, no joke. Which taught me that you can go through some really crap times but that doesn't necessarily mean divorce.) Kids are going to change the relationship, but so would 18 years of childlessness, don't you think? I mean, even the best partners get sick of each other, run out of things to talk about, get headaches at bedtime. Kids might exacerbate some of those things, but they are also a fairly productive and worthwhile distraction along the way, and they are a constantly evolving thing that you and your partner share. And then they turn 18 and hopefully go off on their own and guess what? All those terribly important things you had to give up to have kids? You can have them back! And now you really appreciate them cause they've been missing for so long. Sometimes I resent my mother when I call to talk about myself and she instead starts talking about HER life, frothing at the mouth excited to tell me about her weekend of movies and lectures and museums and interesting dinner partners. But then I think: Awesome. At 60something, she is having a lot of fun! And a lot of fun with my dad. There's time for everything. Fun before kids, fun with kids, fun after kids, marriage in all different forms, there's time.
4. None of this can properly be articulated. Not by me. Not by all the smart authors who have written so much on the topic. Not by sociologists and not by data. Definitely not by Jennifer Senior. It's just not something you can put into words. (Same goes, I would imagine, for why not to have kids. Despite all the comments here and elsewhere from the no-kids-no-way crowd, people who choose not to have kids aren't just doing so because they don't want to miss out on restaurant openings or because they don't find other people's babies cute.)
On In Defense of Having Children
Random, sloppy thoughts in no particular order, some of which came up when reading the above, some I've been thinking about since that New York mag story, some even before:
1. Having a kid does not mean being shackled to your apartment or sentenced to Chuck E. Cheese. True, you don't go out to nice restaurants as often as you used to, or to bars, or to see bands. But did you know that having a kid means you MUST get out of the house or else? Kids don't like being cooped up at home. So you DO THINGS. My weekends are far more active now than they used to be, and it's not because we are on some hamster wheel of birthday parties and playdates. We do fun things! With friends! And we see parts of the city I otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten my lazy childless ass up off the couch to see. Governor's Island! Also, doing things with your kid often makes old experiences new again. Like every day stuff, that once was fun to you but now is routine becomes fun again, because you get to experience it with (a) someone new, and (b) someone new who gets really really excited, reminding you that the beach/park/swimming pool/baseball game/ice cream truck/Air and Space Museum/GROCERY STORE is actually pretty neat. You may not be rushing off to do all sorts of cosmopolitan shit, but I am telling you that the mundane becomes less so with a wide-eyed toddler.
2. Why do all these articles and blog posts say that parents shouldn't expect their kids to make them happy? It's OK for your kids to fulfill you! Why that would ever be a bad thing is beyond me. No, having kids isn't going to fix you, but it certainly does SOMETHING to you, and in my experience that something is pretty profound. Brief digression, which I promise is not just me over-sharing but also has a point: I was pretty unhappy in my early-20s in New York. Depressed and mainly fucking hungry cause I wouldn't let myself eat. Then I met my current husband. And slowly slowly I started to be less unhappy, and then actually happy. I ate a piece of pizza for the first time in six years, etc. Things were getting better in my life. And I very clearly remember saying to my therapist one day: "So all these years of therapy and then I meet a guy and all of a sudden I'm happy and eating? Am I really that shallow???" And back at me came this look of total surprise, as though he was shocked that there was this very basic thing about life that I didn't know. And he said in the most matter-of-fact manner possible: "That's not shallow. That's love." Roll your eyes all you want but really he was right. I mean, people come into our lives and make a difference. My then-boyfriend/now-husband didn't fix me like I was some kind of leaky faucet, but the experience of being with him, and of him being with me, made me happy. Thank god! That's a great thing about life! And same goes for having a kid. No, a child isn't going to save a broken marriage or cure your disease, but that kid is going to make a difference. Being a mother to my son has made me a far less self-absorbed (current blog comment notwithstanding), far more confident human being. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a very good thing.
3. I've only been married for seven years, and my kid is just a toddler - we've got another one on the way - so I can't speak from experience about what having kids does to a marriage over the long haul. But I do know that marriages survive and fail for a bazillion, often-unidentifiable reasons. Whatever New York mag and all those Scandinavian surveys say, I don't care. You can't isolate out kids and say: THERE! THAT'S WHAT'S MAKING OUR MARRIAGE SO SHITTY. My parents are not the model, but they are my model, and from observing their 40-plus year marriage I know a few things: It's going to get rocky, perhaps for long long periods of time, but that doesn't mean my marriage is bad. (My parents actually got separated for a year when I was young. And then got back together and are currently living happily ever after, no joke. Which taught me that you can go through some really crap times but that doesn't necessarily mean divorce.) Kids are going to change the relationship, but so would 18 years of childlessness, don't you think? I mean, even the best partners get sick of each other, run out of things to talk about, get headaches at bedtime. Kids might exacerbate some of those things, but they are also a fairly productive and worthwhile distraction along the way, and they are a constantly evolving thing that you and your partner share. And then they turn 18 and hopefully go off on their own and guess what? All those terribly important things you had to give up to have kids? You can have them back! And now you really appreciate them cause they've been missing for so long. Sometimes I resent my mother when I call to talk about myself and she instead starts talking about HER life, frothing at the mouth excited to tell me about her weekend of movies and lectures and museums and interesting dinner partners. But then I think: Awesome. At 60something, she is having a lot of fun! And a lot of fun with my dad. There's time for everything. Fun before kids, fun with kids, fun after kids, marriage in all different forms, there's time.
4. None of this can properly be articulated. Not by me. Not by all the smart authors who have written so much on the topic. Not by sociologists and not by data. Definitely not by Jennifer Senior. It's just not something you can put into words. (Same goes, I would imagine, for why not to have kids. Despite all the comments here and elsewhere from the no-kids-no-way crowd, people who choose not to have kids aren't just doing so because they don't want to miss out on restaurant openings or because they don't find other people's babies cute.)