On the fence about parenthood? Listen to this

Each story you hear on Planet Money starts with a question. What happens if we refund tariffs? Why are groceries so expensive? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious, because the forces shaping our world can be hard to see. Follow NPR's Planet Money wherever you get your podcasts, and start seeing how the economy really works. You're listening to LifeKit from NPR. Hey, it's Marielle. You know, I feel lucky to live in a time in which becoming a parent is increasingly a choice, right? Not just the default setting for your life path, or the next natural step. It's a big deal to bring another life into the world, and deciding if you want to do that is a question that's bound to raise a bunch more. The baby decision is never just about baby or no baby. It is who am I, who is my partner, who are we as a couple, and what hasn't happened yet that we want to have happen before we die? Merle Bombardieri is a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and author of a book called The Baby Decision. She's been coaching people through this choice about whether to have a child since she was 29. So it's almost 50 years I've been doing this, and I love doing it. Merle started down this path after facing her own baby decision when her then-boyfriend proposed to her. She told him no at first, because she knew he absolutely wanted kids, and she was pretty sure she didn't. And he just said, well, you know, you'll change your mind, you know, our love will continue at some point. You'll just want to have a child. And I said, oh, we can't be sure of that. So they talked about it over several months, what the future could look like with a child and without one, what they each wanted for themselves, and where they might be able to compromise. And here's a pro tip. The really important thing in my being able to make the decision is that I found role models. In her case, she talked to the mothers coming in and out of the University Day Care Center where she worked. Many of them were faculty or grad students. They said, life is really, really busy right now. It's really, really hard these first few years. But we love both. We love both lives. And, you know, we know that parenting is going to get easier. So, yes, we are feminist and, you know, very adamant to continue our careers. And we're all some mothers. Merle has two daughters now. That was her choice. Yours might be different. She says there's no right or wrong as long as you make a choice intentionally, rather than letting time or fate decide for you. Because she's found that's how regret and resentment can creep in. I really believe that child-free should be the default. We should assume that everyone is going to be child-free unless they actively choose to have a child because they value that they want to add a child to their lives. On this episode of Life Kit, how to decide whether to become a parent. Life Kit reporter Andy Tagle is going to talk to Merle about minimizing regret, about the myth of the lonely, only child, and about how to deal when your partner wants something completely different from you. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive an up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. Tease and seize, apply. So much of the hand-wringing about the baby decision, it seems, comes down to regret, just plain and simple. Is it possible, Merle, not to have regrets, to be totally certain about being a parent or being child-free? I would say no. The word decide comes from Latin root meaning to cut away from. So every decision involves loss. We've decided to have a child. You're giving up all the control and the freedom and the excitement and the ability to have a really undiluted relationship with your partner if you're in a relationship and so on. If you decide to be child-free, you're giving up, experiencing a baby, maybe seeing what the genes and the appearance and the talents of you and your partner will be like, who's going to be around your table when you're 60. So what I say is don't ask, will I regret my decision? Ask which decision will I regret least? And what makes this decision work so hard is that because people are trying to make the decision and they want to make the right decision and they're terrified they won't. They have a very unrealistic picture of how they're going to spend the rest of their life. Regret might be a little twinge, a little awareness here and there, but once they start enjoying and living their life, they're not going to be thinking about regrets all the time. And when there are twinges, they can say, well, that's normal, that's human, and we made a good choice and we're enjoying our lives. But when people think they have to make the perfect choice, they really paint themselves into a corner. You're holding back without knowing it because of that daycare that you might need to be saving for because of XYZ. Exactly. And when people make decisions actively, they feel in control. They feel like they made a wise choice together. So when the problems come up, they put them in that context. Whereas people who have an accidental pregnancy or just adrift into being child-free never really have a finite decision. And that energy of not making the decision is actually exhausting. So the conscious decision allows people to know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and make the most of whichever life they choose. Take away one. Either side of this decision is going to come with regrets, at least down then. So there's no perfect choice. There's just the right choice for you. That said, I did ask Merle if there was any way to have both worlds. And to my surprise, she said yes. Actually, in a way, there is. The answer, if it makes sense, wait to have a baby until you're 38. 38 is great. I have to caution because if you have reasons to expect fertility problems and you're 30, I would not suggest you wait until you're 38 or you're 39. But actually, a lot of the people that we work with start having a child at 38 or 39. You were 18 when you first became an adult. You've had 20 years to travel, get established in your career, get to know your partner, your desires, your commitments, what you care about, and so on. And you're much more ready to be a parent. You're able to have a smaller world that feels big inside because you love your child, for instance. So people who do have a child around 38 have a way in which they have both lives. Now, if that magic number doesn't feel like the answer, takeaway two is it's okay to feel stuck. Yes, there are some people out there who always knew they wanted to be a daddy or that they never ever wanted to go through pregnancy. But Morrell says many, many others are just right in the middle or maybe leaning slightly in one direction, say 60, 40. And if that's your split, she says that's a good start because that's the beginning of a decision. And in her experience, she's found that 80-20 is about as solid as it gets for a lot of people. Just something to keep in mind as you move forward. Let's talk about a few ways to get a little closer to the decision that you will regret the least. I know there's a lot of great exercises that you offer people. I wonder if you have a favorite one that you like to start with. One that I like to start with is the chair dialogue. You don't do it with your partner, you don't do it with an audience. You put two chairs facing each other and you sit in one chair and say, of course I'm going to have a baby, I've longed for this all my life and I want my parents to have grandchildren and it's going to be fun, it's going to be great. And then go sit in the other chair and say, I'm terrified of pregnancy. I don't like children. And let those two voices argue it out. I really emphasize you're not making a list of pros and cons. You're trying to listen to the body language. You sit in one chair, you feel more alert, you feel more animated. One side is angry, one side is pleading. And so you get a lot of information. And people usually just know when the energy has changed. And what I love about this is so many people will just be so surprised. They'll say, I thought I really was 50-50 and my child voice is so much stronger than I thought. Or my child free voice is so much stronger because I thought having kids is what people do and because my partner and my parents wanted it, of course I was going to have a child. And until I heard this voice, I didn't realize that maybe my truest self and my happiest self would be a child-free person. So this can get you clear on your own values about the two sides. And that's why you want to do it by yourself. And then you can bring those values to a conversation with a partner if you have one. Yes, exactly. Next one I had here is the knapsack exercise. So imagine you have a very, very large knapsack on your back and you're going on a hike that you're really enjoying. And all of a sudden your baby is there and your baby kicks a hull in the knapsack and everything starts to fall out. What's falling out? And you can think of that symbolically. It could be a tennis racket. You know, it could be a typewriter if you're a writer. It could be a lab beaker if you're a biochemist. It can be imagining being able to wake up late on Sunday morning with your partner and not having to talk to anyone or do anything. So looking, thinking about what's falling out, one question is how do you feel about that? And it could be that's horrible. I would never do that. I'm going to be child-free. But for people who choose to be parents, it's really a great invitation to creative thinking. Well, what if we had a child? How would I play tennis? How would I write my novel? How can we have great couple time, etc. So very, very rich things come out of that. That visual is just so striking. Just kicking it out and letting everything spill out. Okay. And then the final one, Swedish Family Hotel. The idea of Swedish Family Hotel is some parents in Europe have wonderful opportunities to raise their kids without doing it all alone. They might live in a community where their child can walk to school, where the daycare center is next door, where they have their separate family apartments, but there's a big common room where people share meals and there's a lot of parental leave. And so in this kind of setup, you're not driving kids 10 miles to get to daycare. So whatever direction we can go in for us all to raise kids together will make it a lot easier. All right. This sounds wonderful. And that leads pretty far away from the reality of how most parents live here in the U.S. Is the idea of this exercise to be more aware of what it means to be a parent and think about what kind of support they'd actually need to raise a family? Well, you read about how it's set up. And if you are 100% child-free, you would say, even with that, I would still not want to have a child. And that that exercise really helps me realize I don't want to be a parent. Whereas other people will say, wow, if I could do this, I would definitely have a child, maybe two children. And so it raises their awareness. Maybe they really have decided to be a parent, but they need to decide, is parent a possible for me and for us with these circumstances? So take a pause, take a little time, maybe about a few chairs and see what comes to the surface. You might surprise yourself. Then when we come back from the break, Marl will talk about some of the common fears that hold people back from choosing to have kids or be child-free. You're listening to LifeKid and it's time for Takeaway 3. For better or worse, the future holds no guarantees. Only you can decide how much fear, discomfort or uncertainty you can handle with the information you have to work with. A big one for a lot of people, for example, is climate change. Or, you know, the general state of the world and the planet. Marl says, even for her, this one is difficult. I'm scared too. You know, I'm used to being the professional who can sort of help people deal with their emotions. I can give them the intellectual framework, etc. But I don't know what our world is going to be like, you know, in 20 years or 30 years or 200 years. It's very confusing. And the thing is, with any worry, say, the pain of childbirth or the fear of loneliness in old age, if you're leaning child-free, because you can't know for certain how things will shake out, it really all comes down to perspective. Like with the environment. Marl says, she's had a client who say, I just can't bring a child into this world. But on the other side of the coin, she cited this perspective from a book called, The Beginning Comes After At The End. And the idea is just that there are so many different kinds of people around the world that are energized about wanting to make change right now, that it's bound to happen. Some people decide to be child-free, say, I'm going to use my time that I would be putting into children to really work on environmental change. Parents, you might think, oh, if they're going to decide to have a child, they're just going to put their head in the sand. But no, it's how do we raise our children so that they appreciate the planet and help solve the problem? Another example, Marl says, with the advent of TikTok, she's found our current generation is more terrified of childbirth than ever before. Now, if you look at maternal mortality rates or recent research on early prenatal care, maybe that's enough to ease your worry. Maybe finding some relaxation techniques and a birthing team you really like could help even more. But maybe not. And there's nothing wrong with that. We would never encourage anyone who is terrified of that to push themselves over the edge and say yes to parenthood. And they deserve our respect. You know, we shouldn't say, oh, you're cowards because you didn't go ahead. Everybody's needs and feelings are different, and they have a right to say no to parenthood. Even if in many ways I'd like to be a parent, they can make their own choice and we need to respect that. And on the other side, you never know what your child will go through. You never know what your child will be like. You never know the disposition of your child. You never know the ailments your child will have or the hardships they'll go through. Thoughts on that? Well, what I hear when I'm listening to our own clients is we want to be parents enough that even though we hope this doesn't happen, we still think it would be worth it. Not everybody decides that, but a lot of people do. One example I'll give is people who have grown up with a sibling who was very sick or had a disability, where a lot of the family resources, the parents' attention, time, money went into the other child. For understandable reasons, they are more terrified of having a child that might be very difficult to raise and a child that might suffer. So for them to make the decision to have a child is much, much more difficult. And so for people who are ambivalent about that, sometimes the best thing to do is to decide not to have a child. Takeaway 4 The baby decision might not be as black and white, all or nothing, as you think it is. So if you have a partner who seems to be on the opposite side of the spectrum, don't panic. Challenge your assumptions. Get creative. Look for the middle ground. Yes, there is middle ground here. For example, maybe you would really love a family, but you're really worried about your finances. Have you considered having just one child? I mean, the question is usually, so you're going to have kids? The plural is assumed, right? The first one's got to have a buddy or else. But why do you feel that way? Exactly. So there's the myth of a lonely, only child, but actually only children are voted most popular in their class. They're very mentally healthy. They get along really well with other people. And they often enjoy, as their parents do, a more undiluted relationship, especially if people have either parent has an illness, or if they have ADHD or another cognitive and neurodivergent disorder, they may manage to have one child and have it work. That they're enjoying the child. The child's enjoying life. They're doing their work. They have the relationship. But if they add another child to the pile, it is just going to be impossible. And a lot of times people are pressured, oh, your child needs a sibling. Absolutely not true. So I believe that the one child family is an excellent solution for many couples and also single people who want the pleasure of a child, but don't want to be overwhelmed by the obligation for many children. Another big part of this is when two people want different things. Very often the assumption is this is a zero sum game, right? Either yes, we're doing this, no, we're not. And if we can't decide, we have to break up. Can we talk a little bit about what that process is, if that's true or not? Well, some people do break up and that that can be the answer. So if you think of the decision as being a scale from zero to 10, an 11 point scale, and if you absolutely know that you would never have a child, you would be the zero. This is no criticism of child-free. It's because you want zero children. And if 10 is I was put on the earth to have a child and I will have to divorce my partner if they say no. Most people are somewhere in between. So a lot of times people actually can find a solution that will work for both of them. And again, we're looking at myths. So sometimes people have very unrealistic ideas about how lonely being child-free would be or how hard parenting is going to be. And when they get more information, they're actually able to say, well, maybe this could work. And so what's really important is that the couple listen to each other. They describe what they are envisioning of the life, why they think their partner would enjoy it, and they really listen to their partner's desire. And when they do that and they get more information about good things about child-free, good things about parenting that they didn't know, sometimes they're able to come to the center. So if one person wants to be child-free and there are four and the other person wants a child, but they're an eight, they have the capacity in listening to each other and figuring out what would be the best life for them as a couple to decide to be child-free or to have a child. Let's get more specific about that. And for example, in that four and eight scenario, maybe that four person who's child-free says, I'm leaning towards child-free because I want to travel some more. You know, I've never seen Spain. I've never seen Asia. And the person says, I've always seen myself as a mother. What could a compromise look like there? Okay, well, one thing I'm going to be discussed is, okay, name some countries you want to go to. Let's talk about how we could go to them and start a family in three years. Another compromise is I want three kids. You want zero. If we really talk about this, could you imagine that one child might work? There are a lot of people who are ambivalent. They're aware of what they're giving up by even winning their choice and they're aware of things that they would enjoy with their partner's choice. The one thing that I feel very strongly about is if someone is certain that they want to be child-free, they should never have a child to please their partner. That just does not work out. Whether it's going to be divorced or an unhappy family, it is just too much of a struggle. If you're a zero on that scale and you know it for sure, you should never agree to have a child to please your partner. Exactly. A lot of times people will decide, I love my partner. I do not want to give my partner up. Even though I would prefer the other life, I see enough attractions to their life that I'm going to say yes. One thing that's really important if you are going to agree to your partner's choice is you need to know that they have bent over backwards to figure out a way that it could work. Like saying, you know, more years of travel or, you know, I really need my, you know, once a year with my college roommates going off for a week to backpack or whatever. And asking, what could I do to make this choice more attractive to you? And that can be very useful too. I like that a lot. What about those couples that made an agreement when they first got together? You know, you said that you never wanted kids. You said that you were always wanted to be a mother. Let's say you've been married for 20 years, you know, you're 40 and it was 20 when you said, of course I'll be a parent or of course I'll be a child free. People change. People have a right to change their minds. And one can feel very betrayed. And one can understand the betrayal. But a part of life and a part of all the people you love, not just your partner, is understanding that they, like you, can have new needs, new desires, new things they want to try or experience. And that what made perfect sense to them at 20 is different now. Last step, take away five. You are allowed to change your mind. And if necessary, your path in life that might look like seeking a new relationship with a partner who shares your desire for a child free lifestyle or maybe becoming a parent without a partner. Any advice for someone who is single, who's still in the fence about having kids? What kind of questions should someone who's looking to be a single parent by choice consider? An important thing is having a support system. You don't want to do it all on your own. Who do you call in middle of the night if you're trying to decide whether to go to the hospital? Who's going to be patting your tummy when you're eight months pregnant? And one thing that's really interesting about single mothers by choice is we have a stereotype that single mothers are miserable. But if you have a happy life as an individual and you actively choose to add a baby to your life, again, you make an active decision. You're in control and it can be quite wonderful. Another thing that's really interesting about single motherhood is that when you're a single mother or a single father, everybody knows you need help. They know you can't do it all. So they'll offer to drive you to the grocery store or stay with your child while you do something else. They know to reach out to you. So there's a lot of great things happening with single people becoming parents. Hmm. More than such a pleasure. Do you have any last advice, final thoughts for anyone out there who's sitting on the fence in the need of encouragement? Well, I think one thing that's really important is that you're right to not know. A lot of times when people start working on this, they're saying, what's the matter with me or with my partner that we don't know? It's actually healthy to not know because it gives you the chance to figure out what you really want. And if you think about curiosity, like, you know, if you read a mystery and you found out who done it in the first chapter, you wouldn't want to read the rest of the book. Or think about going to a play and the curtain hasn't opened yet and that anticipation and curiosity, what's going to happen. So a lot of interesting things can happen on the way to finding out that are really wonderful for your personal growth if you're in a relationship also for couple growth. And even if you're single, the conversations you have with partners or family members and close friends and so on can be really, really rich and wonderful. Merle, thank you so much for your time. You're very welcome. Such an honor to be here. I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation. All right, let's recap. Take way one. Either side of this decision is going to come with regrets. There's no perfect choice. There's just the right choice for you. But if you want the best of both worlds, remember, 38 is great. Take away two. It's very normal to feel stuck about this decision. Merle says a lot of people she works with will only ever get to about 80% certainty about their choice. Take away three. Are you terrified of losing your identity? Worried about growing old without a full family dinner table? Worries are a natural part of the decision process. But remember, there are no guarantees. So seek out data, buy more models to help you make an informed decision. Take away four. Yes, you can compromise if one person in a relationship is leaning towards parenthood and the other is leaning towards child free. Talk about it and keep talking about it to see where you might meet in the middle instead of jumping right to breaking up. Take away five. You're allowed to change your mind and your path when necessary. Raise a little one on your own. Be child free with a spouse. Make the choice that is right for you and only you. That was reporter Andy Tagle. And that's our show. Hey, by the way, if you love LifeKit and you want it to be even easier to listen to with curated playlists on popular LifeKit topics like sleep and personal finances, sign up for LifeKit Plus. You can find out more at plus.npr.org slash LifeKit. This episode of LifeKit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our digital editor is Mallika Gareeb and our visuals editor is CJ Riegelan. Megan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Claire Marie Schneider and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Nisha Heinis. I'm Mary El Cigarra. Thanks for listening.