1. How to discover secret resources for decision-making: feelings about children and life goals. Exercises designed especially for this book use fantasy, visual imagery, and other techniques to stimulate new insights.
2. How to make allies of emotion and logic. Often mistaken for enemies, emotion and logic form an amiable partnership in the best of all possible decisions. The Baby Decision offers steps to a rational choice based on emotional awareness.
3. How to use the new emotional awareness as a guidepost to growth. This book offers many examples of how people have grown from their decisions. It shows you how to reap similar benefits from your decision.
4. How to focus on potential happiness. I help you ask yourself, “Which choice offers me (and us) the most satisfaction?” I examine the ways that each lifestyle both helps and hinders personal and marital fulfillment.
5. How to overcome a dangerous blind spot. The “children are heaven” illusion has been replaced, in the swing of a pendulum, by a “children are hell” illusion. But who can base a wise decision on a foolish distortion? The Baby Decision splashes a bucket of cold reality over the new soap opera fantasy. It also challenges other illusions that prevent good decision-making.
Once you’ve learned how to tap into the right information, those seemingly fruitless discussions will yield a surprising number of insights. These insights will get you unstuck and moving toward a good decision.
Safety or Growth—It’s Your Choice
The word “decide” comes from a Latin root meaning “to cut away from.” Thus, decision-making, by its very nature, involves loss; we have to give up one or more options while at the same time grasping another. When we decide to have a child, we cut ourselves off from the freedom and other satisfactions of childfree living. Similarly, the decision to remain childfree means that we must give up the intimacy and joys of parenting. By not deciding, we hold onto the illusion that we can have it both ways—that we don’t have to give up anything. Nor do we have to face the risk of discovering that we’ve made the wrong decision.
But we pay a price when we try to hang onto this illusion—emotional turmoil and feelings of frustration and ambivalence. And, in many instances, that price is too high. Our fears notwithstanding, when we face the issues of loss and risk squarely, we force ourselves to come to terms with our ambivalence and, in the process, we grow.
In Toward a Psychology of Being, the late humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow distinguished between two kinds of motivation— growth motivation and deficiency motivation. When a person is motivated by deficiency or safety needs, he or she acts out of a desire to decrease anxiety. Any kind of change seems too risky, and therefore frightening, to undertake. On the other hand, when a person is motivated by growth needs, his or her actions reflect a desire for greater fulfillment. The risks seem less important than the possibility of improving one’s life.
This distinction between growth and safety needs applies equally well to the decision-making process in general and to the baby decision in particular. There are, in fact, six possible baby decisions, three of which are growth decisions and three of which are safety decisions.
The three growth decisions are:
1. The decision to become a parent. You are taking the leap to make the best possible decision despite the lack of guarantees that you will be happy with the outcome. You have looked carefully, and despite doubt and fear, despite the attractions of remaining childfree, you are moving forward.
2. The decision to remain childfree. Like the decision to become a parent, you have found the courage to choose the life you think will be best, without guarantees. You are willing to fight against pronatalist pressure to live by your values.
3. The decision to postpone the decision but with definite goals for the postponement period and a target date for reevaluation. You are being clear-eyed and strategic. You will not let yourself drift endlessly in indecision. You set goals and plan a time to take stock. For example, “Between now and January 1st, we will see a financial planner, interview childfree and parenting friends about their lives and choices, and see doctors for basic fertility information. Once a month, we’ll spend an hour on a Sunday night to take stock of our findings and feelings.”
Why are these “growth decisions”? Because when you make them you:
Take responsibility for yourself.
Take a risk.
Make a commitment.
Learn something about yourself (and your partner).
Have an opportunity to use all of the above, responsibility, risk-taking, commitment, and learning to develop and grow.
In contrast, the three safety decisions are:
1. The non-decision to have a baby (also known as the “non-accidental accident”). After perhaps five years of marriage with no previous “accidents,” a couple struggling with the baby decision suddenly has an “accident.” It may be unconscious (such as forgetting to take the pill), or conscious (“Let’s not bother with a condom tonight”); it may be a joint accident or the result of one partner’s actions. However it happens, the result of such a non-decision (besides the baby) is that the couple is taken off the hook. They declare that nature or fate made the decision. They avoid having to answer to anybody—including themselves—for their “decision.”
2. The non-decision to remain childfree. In this situation, a couple tells themselves and others that they don’t know whether they want children. Maybe later on, they say. So they simply drift without ever making a conscious commitment to the childfree lifestyle. And, in the process, they don’t have to admit their desire to remain childfree or deal with disapproval from others or their own fear of regrets. They also miss the chance to be thoughtful and strategic in creating the childfree life that takes their specific needs and goals into account.
3. The non-decision to agonize. This is the antithesis of the growth decision to postpone. In the latter case, a couple postpones the decision for specified reasons and a finite period of time in order to meet specific goals. However, in this type of non-decision, a couple sets no goals; rather, they circle the issue frantically, full of doubt and confusion. Although they claim they would love nothing better than resolution, they actually get a payoff—in the form of unhealthy satisfaction generated by their painful soul-searching.
Although all three of the safety decisions appear to be emotionally cheaper in the short run, they are costlier in the long run. Non-decision-makers are bound to feel like victims rather than masters of their own fate. While they may avoid the momentary agony of making difficult choices, they are actually condemning themselves to chronic pain. By clinging to a safety decision, they miss an opportunity to take stock and use what they learn about themselves. We could even label safety decisions as “danger decisions” because they are detrimental to your development. If you make a non-decision, you won’t have to deal with your pain directly, but you’ll never really get rid of it, either.
In direct contrast, the three growth decisions allow you to get to know yourself and all your strengths and weaknesses. You may not like everything you find, but if you know what’s there, at least you can make the best of it. With the help of this book you’ll be able to make one of these three growth decisions—if you’re willing to take the risks involved.
Hard as this decision may seem, it is undoubtedly one of the most important you’ll make in your life. And it should not be made lightly, by default, or by blind adherence to custom. In fact, you’re extremely lucky to be able to make a real decision about childbearing although in the midst of grappling with the issue you may feel less than fortunate. When your grandparents and great-grandparents had children, they didn’t have to struggle with your dilemma. Men and women married and had children without ever making a conscious decision. It was, after all, the natural order of life, what their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had done. And many discovered, too late, that parenting was not as easy, natural, or rewarding as they had expected.
A talk show host once asked me whether it was a sign of sickness in our society that couples like Laura and Michael were questioning whether or not to have children. “Absolutely not,” I replied. “It’s very healthy for couples to decide carefully, rather than simply having children because ‘that’s what people do.’”
Certainly, not everyone is suited, by temperament, circumstance, or desire, to become a parent. And when couples have children without considering the issue carefully, they may find themselves trapped in a situation they did not anticipate and may not want. The result is a great deal of unhappiness for the parents, the child, and for society. Two happy, productive childfree people can contribute more to society than two unwilling parents and their unhappy child
John Stuart Mill said, “He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice.” Choice is the foundation of happiness and mental health. When we make a conscious decision about parenthood we can, if we so choose, embrace parenting wholeheartedly and joyfully, fully aware of all its responsibilities and ramifications. Similarly, if we choose to remain childfree, we can enjoy rich, productive lives without guilt or self-doubt. Only if we consider the childfree lifestyle a valid option can we be certain that a parenthood decision is a valid decision.
The decision-making process is both healthy and necessary, and there is no universal right decision. Whether you ultimately choose to become a parent or remain childfree depends entirely on the unique qualities of your personality and your relationship.
The Decision Maker’s Bill of Rights
You are entitled to:
Make a decision that is right for you and your partner.
Take into consideration your needs, values, goals, and personality before making a decision.
Base your decision on your potential happiness rather than a sense of obligation.
Take time, if you need it, before making the decision.
Be an active partner in the choice rather than acquiescing to your partner’s demands.
Make the decision that is right for you even if others disapprove.
Put a stop to others’ attempts to shame or intimidate you into making either choice.
Be your own judge of your reasons for your choice: to be childfree without being accused of selfishness, immaturity, or neurosis; to be a parent without being accused of selfishness, immaturity, or neurosis.
Be a parent regardless of your marital status, gender, or sexual orientation.
Change your mind in the future, if you originally planned to have a child but now realize you don’t want one; you once made a commitment to childfree living but now want to have a child.
How to Use This Book
Even if you think you’ve already made your decision, I urge you to read the first few chapters. If you don’t, you may never know whether your first decision really was your best decision. The process won’t sway you if your chosen decision is right for you. Your added confidence as a result of your reading will allow you to get the most of the book and your life choice.
Similarly, if you and your partner are in conflict over the decision, you may be tempted to go straight to Chapter 6, “Tug-of-War.” Please don’t. Only if you both carefully examine your own needs and wishes will you be sure that you are talking about and negotiating the right issues.
The exercises in Chapter 2, “Secret Doors” will extricate you from tangled, distracting thoughts so you can make a clear decision. The following guidelines will increase the effectiveness of the exercises.
1. Put yourself into the exercises. Bear in mind that there are no right or wrong answers. They do not test your parenting skills or mental health. You won’t score them. They are included solely to help you in the same way that ancient Greeks consulted the Delphic oracle. In The Courage to Create, existential psychologist Rollo May describes the oracle’s work in this way:
The sayings of the shrine, like dreams, were not to be received passively; the recipients had to live themselves into the message. . . . The counsels of Delphi were not advice in the strictest sense, but rather were stimulants to look inward, to consult their own intuition and wisdom.
So try to live yourself into these exercises. If you do, you’ll return from your journey with a decision you can live with.
2. Try to be as honest with yourself as possible. Your answers are not fortune-tellers. You can’t stand to hear a baby cry? You can still be a parent if you want to; you can get used to tears and learn to cope with your tension. Do you have a weakness for freckle-faced three-year-olds? You can still be childfree if you want to. You can “borrow” a freckled sprite on Saturday afternoons. What you cannot do, however, is exercise freedom of choice unless you consider both options thoroughly. Conflicting feelings don’t mean you’re hopelessly confused. They mean you’re human.
3. Consider yourself. Do the exercises alone first. If you have a partner, you can compare notes later. You each need to take your own thorough reading before you compare notes.
4. Read each exercise all the way through before starting it. Then, close your eyes to help yourself turn inward. Perhaps you are feeling some stirrings of curiosity and readiness to focus. Remember, hard as the decision-making process may seem at times, the rewards you’ll reap are enormous. And you may even discover that the journey is more fun than you’d ever imagined. You’re going to learn a lot about yourself, your partner, and your relationship by the time you arrive at your decision.
A word about the title and subtitle. I realize that calling the book The Baby Decision could make it appear that I advocate choosing a child over being childfree. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Since the first edition came out in 1981, readers, mental health professionals and book critics write that they have found the book unbiased. I take pride in being a pioneer in the early eighties of advocating for childfree people at a time when professionals, the media and the public disapproved. I chose the title because readers tell me that even if they are leaning toward being childfree, the word baby, accompanied by a mental image of an infant, grabs their attention. This mental picture is a useful reminder of the unfinished business involved in definitively ruling out parenthood so they can get on with their lives.
Now, for the subtitle: My younger daughter, who is currently childfree, commented on the book’s subtitle, How to Make the Most Important Choice of Your Life. She took issue with the phrase “Most Important” because for those who don’t want to have a child, deciding not to have a child is not what is most important; it is the decision to go with something else in their life that is most important. She feels that our baby-centric culture puts more emphasis on the decision to have children than all the myriad reasons that one may not, including personal preference, lifestyle, finances, creative projects and other life goals, all of which may be an individual’s “most important choice.”
So one way of looking at deciding to be childfree is to consider that ruling out parenthood is an important choice that frees your energy, time, and money for what matters most to you.
Choosing to become a parent is not easy in these tough times. I want to acknowledge issues that may be foremost in your mind as you read the book, issues which this book cannot thoroughly address.
For instance, you may want to have a child, but due to job insecurity, college loans or other debt, you worry you won’t be able to make ends meet. This brings up the unfairness that wealthy people, no matter their actual capacity to be good parents, can afford fertility treatments, alternatives such as adoption, as well as day care and other costs of raising a child.
In regard to paying for fertility treatment, your state may mandate coverage for infertility treatment. Also the websites creatingafamily. org and resolve.org have information about grants or sliding scales for adoption or medical treatment. Your clinic may have grants or scholarships.
You may be questioning whether to bring a child into a world of economic insecurity, racism, sexism, homophobia, war, terrorism, global warming, and other threats t
o our planet. It may help to talk to friends who have decided to have a child anyway, and how they arrived at their decision in light of the above concerns. You will find readings and resources addressing these issues in the appendices of this book. For instance, Conceivable Future is an exciting organization bringing attention to the environment’s effect on reproduction and reproductive decisions.
I want readers to know that I am keeping these issues in mind, and not addressing only upper middle-class, married, straight white people, but any reader who wants to make a decision.
Related to this, I have tried to use inclusive language such as “partner,” or “couple” to accommodate gay readers and unmarried straight couples. I have also tried to address single people, either directly or by adding (“if you have a partner”) or by suggesting a good friend as a substitute sounding board for some couple exercises. However, there are unique dynamics between men and women in traditional families who are raising children. So in cases where my vignette is based on a husband and wife, or I am addressing nonsexist shared parenting issues, I do use the words “husband and wife.” I also want to acknowledge that gay couples have described to me shared parenting dynamics based on one partner being primarily the parent, the other the primary breadwinner. I hope you will agree that I have managed reasonably well to be inclusive.
There are two language problems with the word “childfree.” Ideally there would be no need to mention that someone doesn’t have a child. Ideally there would be a word that didn’t have “child” in it. Also, some people who decide to remain childfree after infertility prefer the word “childless,” as more reflective of their sense of loss. Also some people who are childfree by choice enjoy children and have a life quite full of them. They feel the word “childfree” suggests that they are anti-child. Clearly language hasn’t caught up to the culture.
The Baby Decision Page 2