To have a child when I have zero interest in caring for a baby?

[Undecided84]

I am a long time lurker trying to get an insight into what my life might be like if I do jump off the fence and have a kid.

I am 34, married to DH 40 (we have been together for over a decade, but we got married more recently and just bought our own house). Until recently I was firmly childfree. However, I am now more of a fence sitter.

DH really wants at least one kid. I always made it clear to him that I couldn’t guarantee that I would change my mind so that if it was a be all and end all thing for him, then he should find someone else. He has always replied to this by saying that he’d rather not have them at all than have them with anyone but me. In some ways, this is a nice thing to say, but it puts a huge amount of pressure on me as I feel like I hold the whole responsibility for whether he becomes a father.

More recently, I have come to realise that it’s not the idea of parenthood in general that puts me off, but the idea of taking maternity leave, breastfeeding and being stuck at home caring for a baby or toddler. I have a very interesting and demanding job, which I do not want to step back from in any way, as does DH, so neither of us would be willing or want to go part-time if we had a child. However, we do both have a certain amount of flexibility and both work from home a couple of days a week.

I have been thinking that if I could take the minimum amount of maternity leave necessary, put the child in a nursery full time once he/she is 3 months old, and then go back to work full time, then, just maybe, I could probably cope with having just one child and I wouldn’t resent and hate parenthood.

However, is this all just a sign that I shouldn’t be contemplating having a child at all, even if my DH really wants one? I am interested to hear from other people who simply endured the baby stage, and went into parenthood knowing from the outset that they were not even remotely interested in babies and toddlers?

I have been thinking that if I could take the minimum amount of maternity leave necessary, put the child in a nursery full time once he/she is 3 months old, and then go back to work full time, then, just maybe, I could probably cope with having just one child and I wouldn’t resent and hate parenthood

All good in theory....but what happens if the child has complex medical/learning/behavioral needs?
You can't screen for everything and life itself is unpredictable.
A moment too long of lack of oxygen during birth, an accident whilst growing up....anything like this could tear your theory apart forever.

There's also the risk of longlasting/permanent physical changes to your body (and the effect on your relationship) as a result of pregnancy/childbirth.

If we did have a kid, then he fully expects to be the one responsible for drop offs etc
What about medical appointments/sick days/school events/play-dates/after school activities/school holidays etc?
Would his employer be happy to give him all that time off/flexibility?
There's a reason why the default parent usually ends up being the mother and why her career/earnings suffer as a result.

Also, don't think a child won't pick up on your lack of real interest in them - or the fact that your career is more important and comes before them.
Your career and lifestyle should fit around your child - not the other way round.

Neither of you - you especially - have any proper insight into what being a parent means or involves.

A nanny would be a much healthier option than nursery for a baby. And if you don't have room in your home for a nanny a childminder is a better option than nursery. A baby really needs a primary caregiver imo.

Get him a Tamagotchi instead. That way, when you both get bored, you can dump it in the bin.

3 months is "very" early?

We're very lucky in the UK to have good maternity leave. But plenty of women in other countries go back within a month or two. By all means take advantage of our good legislation and stay off - I did myself - but don't use it as a stick to beat other women who decide not to take 12 or more months off.

Indeed, Thurlow.

OP, I don’t think ambivalence or considering the impact on your work life suggests you will be a poor parent. I never planned to have children, eventually had one at 40, loathed the baby stage, and maternity leave was the most miserable time of my life. However, I went back to work early — and I did actually write my first novel on mat. leave! — and have a six year old whom I adore, and who is fabulous. And I’m more productive, rather than less.

God some people are missing the point. This is so obviously not just about how to advise op on logistics during the early months. She's struggling with ambivalence on being a mother

Seriously. To me this is one of those deals where the person isn't so much asking what other people think of their own children, but is asking for permission not to have any.

Having children is the default position. Every woman is supposed to lurve popping out babies and caring for them. Every woman is unconsciously assumed to be defective/crazy/mistaken if she indicates in any way that she's not sold on the idea. Every woman is told she'll change her mind, that a well spring of maternal love will spontaneously erupt, that she'll deeply regret it if she doesn't. My god, this crap goes on forever.

Encouraging other women to have children is the default position.

So for me, if a woman were to ask on a forum primary for mothers!! if it's okay for her to decline children, dear god let her say no.

Gosh, judging but some of the comments on this thread I’m an awful mother for being back at work with a 19 week old (I’ve been back 6 weeks).

Some of us aren’t in a lucky enough position to be able to take 9/12 or for me even 6 months off.

Think before you make your comments. I love my daughter more than she will ever know and is well cared for, just because I have to work doesn’t hinder our relationship.

For what it’s worth op, I was on the fence, didn’t care much for babies until I had my own. Having her is the best thing I’ve ever done.

Enjoy the life you want. Dont do it! Children deserve to be wanted and nurtured. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being childfree, exhalt it! But don't parent half arsed.

I have a very interesting and demanding job, which I do not want to step back from in any way, as does DH, so neither of us would be willing or want to go part-time if we had a child.

I imagine I'm bucking against the majority opinion here.....but......when I was thinking about having DC, I would have said exactly that. We have 3 DC, born in a 5 year period. We both still do our jobs (different ones now but equally interesting and demanding) and neither of us have ever worked part time. It was completely possible to combine work and family life using a day nursery and after school clubs (no nanny, no extra hours in nursery). DC are now teens. It has all been fine. They haven't been neglected or suffered in any way.

The only significant difference between me and OP is that I wanted DC in the first place.

@KAT0779 and Nettled thank you for your understanding responses. I think you both actually correctly picked up that going from "never" to ambivalent, was a big change on my part.

Just a couple of years ago I wouldn't have even considered logistics or how it might work hypothetically, as I was so very certain that I never wanted to be be a parent.

You can totally throw money at the baby phase and get through it if it’s not your thing. Nor do you necessarily have to work part time. My DH and I both work full time and it’s fine. Busy but fine.

However almost all of our disposable time is taken up by our children. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that’s how it is.

So you need to think very carefully about what kind of lifestyle you want for the next 20 years. Because whilst you can get a nanny and go back to work even at 3 months that is really just window dressing.

If you have children your lifestyle will (and should) change fundamentally. If you’re not prepared for that then best think twice.

Loads of people dont like babies but only find out when they have them. Then they struggle through and love their children. I don't think you are wrong to be considering it, it isn't a question that's all aobut whether you will be emotionally fulfilled by spending 24 hours a day attachment parenting a baby in a sling and telling everyone about what its poo is like. We all do things we don't like as part of the process of being able to do the things we do like.

• children are better than babies
• your H can take parental leave to, and should if neither of you is looking forward to it
• you don't have to have a child
• you can have one without being either cruel or besotted with the milky pukey years

But obviously ohello is also right. Not having a child is also a good decision. I adore my son, but recognise that my life would be different, but just as valid and interesting, if I had not had him. Having a child should be a freely-chosen option, not a socially-coerced default.

Your baby needs the opportunity to attach to at least one primary carer. They need at least one person (2 or 3 is fine also) to love them, care for them, talk, sing and play with them. You have to love them enough to give them weekends, evenings and very often most of the night, even if you use childcare during the day (a nanny or childminder preferably for reasons of attachment at this age). You can’t do this if you don’t want them, or at least want the child they will be when older. If your DH can’t do it either then don’t have a baby.

What if

• you have a medically complex pregnancy requiring extensive time off work, plus hospital appointments (and ‘one’ appointment often necessitates a whole day off, if you’re queuing up for consultant and scan and bloods and you are delayed seeing them ALL like I always bloody was)

• you have a disabled child who is unbelievably distressed to be parted from you as a baby (my eldest I couldn’t leave with anyone else until he was TWO, even with his dad I could only snatch half an hour or so)

• you are left with fairly extensive birth injuries, taking longer than three months to heal and get back to feeling fit enough to work? I was still bleeding three months post my first, my womb didn’t heal properly I had repeated hemorraghes more antibiotics than you can shake a stick at. I couldn’t have worked

This is why you have to really want a baby. Shit can happen. And it does. People don’t talk about it because women just disappear from the work place and everyone throws shade about their ‘baby holiday’ or choosing a lady who lunches SAHM lifestyle. In reality, a awful lot of us have ended up SAHM through circumstance more than choice. This is where knowing you wanted that child gets you through the hard lonely years of doing the majority of the childcare before you can go back to work.

If you are loaded, a live in nanny could work perfectly. I think having that one to one care pretty much from birth should cover most eventualities. But if you can’t afford a live in nanny...well, it’s a big risk to gamble on everything being straightforward and the child being happy in nursery.

OP, i was very similar to you. My partner and I sat on the fence for years and eventually took the plunge.

My baby is 4.5 months now and I've surprised myself with how much I'm enjoying it. It's not as hard as I thought it would be. This might be due to the fact my baby is formula fed so my partner does a lot of the feeds which helps a lot.

Re your example of looking after the two year old: remember you won't wake up one morning with a random two year old! You'll take each day as it comes and learn a little bit each day about your baby and what to do with him/her.

Good luck with your decision

OP, I think you have had a lot of very harsh responses on this thread. I think you should ignore both extremes (ie those who claim to know motherhood is not for you, but equally those who are sure you would instantly love motherhood if you did have a baby). I would also ignore posters who think that working full-time or going back to work after a few months will damage the child. It's only relatively recently that year long maternity leaves have become normal in the UK, and as other posters have said, in some countries it would still be normal to go back to work much earlier.

However, your post does read as if you are in denial about what a huge change having a baby would make to your life. If you choose to have a baby, I think you do have to be realistic that that is a huge change. It may turn out to be a huge positive change, but you have to be realistic that whatever happens, it won't be "business as usual, but with a baby".

I don't think you should make the decision by reference to whether you enjoy looking after other people's children, as that is so completely different. With your own child, you will know him or her so much better that you will have a better idea how to handle situations (once you get beyond the tiny baby stage).

I do think you should have a realistic think about how your DH will actually behave if you both have a key work meeting on a day that your child is poorly and needs to see a doctor. Could you see your DH being adamant with his colleagues that he can't be in work because he has to prioritise his child? Or is the reality in that situation going to be that your DH will resent you if you don't take on the "traditional" mum role and be the one who cancels your meeting? If the reality of the DH you know is that he won't compromise on his work, are you prepared to compromise on yours? If neither of you are prepared to make compromises in relation to work then having a baby could actually be disastrous for your relationship with your DH.

Just saw your post, Undecided. Absolutely, going from ‘definitely not’ to ‘curious but deeply ambivalent’ was a sea-change for me too. Go easy on yourself and take your time.

But don’t be swayed by ‘if you’re asking these questions, you’re definitely not fit to be a mother’ comments, and you are entirely correct to have concrete detailed conversations about shared maternity\paternity leave, childcare etc with your partner before deciding to ttc.

You don't have to breastfeed if you don't want to.
You dont have to take much maternity leave if you don't want to. You can share it now. Would your husband take more of it if he is pushing for a baby? 3 months is very young to go to nursery so just double check what the lower age limit is for the ones near you (it's orobabbly around 3 months I think)

If you are really into your career and don't want to take loads of time off there is no reason your job shouldn't be as interesting afterwards

Small children are incredibly boring and frustrating. But also funny and loving. You may find there are some good things about it. Or you may not and that's fine too. I found I got more pleasure than I thought in watching them learn to do stuff. If a friend tells you their baby has rolled over you think 'and...!?!' But when it's yours and you have seen them from not being able to move their head, to moving their head then neck then arms then whole body it's kind of fascinating.

Anyway I digress. If your husband really wants a kid then I would get agreement that he will be willing to do the bulk of shared parental leave, and when you go back to work - the drop off and pick up and days off when they're sick. Or whatever else you think is going to be the shit parts for you (for me it was early mornings and clearing up sick - they were a big no)

I’ve no idea whether you should or shouldn’t have a baby, but the whole not knowing what to do with your friend’s kid at the supermarket thing... IMO it’s because it’s not your own kid. You’re not just handed some random 2 year old as a mother. By the time your kid is 2 you know him/her, you’ve raised them this far and know what to do with them. I have 2 kids myself and even now I still don’t know what to do with other people’s kids.

Have you considered adoption?

@Batteriesallgone it would probably not come as a surprise to anyone that if DH and I did have a child, then I would not want a natural birth. As the whole maternal request CS on the NHS seems to not happen in practice, I have told DH that I the only way I would consider having a child is a private ELCS. We are by no means loaded, so that would be a substantial expense.

Yeah, right, Just. An OP who is deeply ambivalent about having a child at all should consider adopting a child who will certainly have had a traumatised or neglected past, possibly in combination with pre-natal exposure to drugs or alcohol, and will almost certainly have some form of unpredictable additional needs requiring extra-intensive parenting.

Frankly I wish more people would ask themselves the same questions as you OP, before having kids.

I know my desire to have children was a biological urge that I had no control over so I had kids and damn the consequences (thankfully there haven't been any), but my babies were in full time day care for a very young age, I had a full time helper and I have a career that I love.

My kids are adored, given affection, I spend time with them and do the best for them but fuck me, if I didn't actually want to be a parent I would find it tedious beyond belief.

I don't know what to tell you but at least you're asking the right questions of yourself.

The baby phase is short so I think you would find a way to get through it/make it work. My sister-in-law didn't enjoy it but she seems to love being a mum now her daughter is a bit older.

You may enjoy the baby phase more than you think, but if you don't I think you'll be able to come up with a plan of action.
Generally I think if there's a couple and one side has strong feelings about something and the other is on the fence you should go for the side with the strong feelings. If that makes sense.