Note: This email has been revised to protect the identify of the person who submitted it.
Dear Missy,
I need to have a baby. Don’t read that as I want to have a baby, or maybe someday I should have a baby, read it as “I need to have a baby.” I feel that it is my time, that it’s my purpose to have a baby right now and I have (almost) everything I need to do it. I have a full-time job, health insurance, a roof over my head, supportive parents, and friends who I know would babysit in a heartbeat. I even have a serious boyfriend of two years.
But here’s where the problem is. My partner is not anywhere near ready to have a baby, or so he says. We’ve talked about it, with me taking a careful approach to gauge his preparedness. I’m not even harping on him to marry me or be more committed than he now (we live together.) I just want to have a baby with him. In all other ways, we’re on the same page except for this one thing.
The times that I’ve brought it up or shared my enthusiasm to bring a child into the world, he brushes it off. He says he’s nowhere near ready to have children and laughs. I press on the timeline (gently) and he says he doesn’t even know, because it’s not something he’s prioritizing right now. Although I don’t doubt his commitment to me, this is starting to feel like a deal breaker to me. It makes me feel selfish and anxious. I’m already in my late thirties, and I feel that if I wait any longer, I’m going to be betraying what I really want in the world.
Is this the part of the letter where you tell me to be aggressive with what I want, or you tell me to back off? In a perfect world, he would see my side of it and we could move forward with this one thing I feel so passionate about.
What now?
Mother Without A Child
P.S. I know this isn’t really your thing, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Dear Mother,
First off, this is absolutely my thing, because it’s about your dreams. And even though your dream is different than mine, it is what you feel you are on this planet to do. Let’s start there. I may have historically scoffed at the idea of being a mother as a dream, but I am older and wiser and understand that not every dream looks like mine do.
Now, on to the advice part. I’m not going to tell you to be aggressive or to back off. I’m going to ask you to refine your goal a little. Do you want to have a baby or do you want to have a baby with your boyfriend? There is a difference. If you want to have a baby, you can do that. If you want to have a baby with your boyfriend, you may need to adjust your expectations or reconsider your compatibility with him.
Let’s start with the former. If you feel your mission is to be a mother (and that it does not need to be with your partner), I would say full steam ahead. I understand that ideally, you would want to do this with a partner, but (and I can attest to this), when we strive to accomplish dreams with others, we risk disappointment when that ideal partner does not materialize.
I know it’s not motherhood, but I convinced myself for a long time that in order to “do” Driftyland, I would need a significant other to do it with. I envied all of the travel writing, globe-hopping partners who took grinning scuba diving selfies and Instagram-worthy photos of their SUVs. Eventually, I realized that waiting for this person to show up was making me miserable.
So I took a step back and started to question why I felt I couldn’t do it alone. And there wasn’t really a good reason why. There were simply skills I thought that a travel partner would bring to the table that I did not have, such as photography, coding, athleticism, and the such. I realized that all of those skills are also things I believe, deep down, I will fail at.
You’re not a good enough photographer, I used to think.
I’m not smart or tech-savvy enough to code, I would agree.
When I uncovered the trap door underneath those fears, I began to understand that I only assigned those skills to a “partner” because they were things I was truly interested in and wanted to do for myself.
With that in mind, ask yourself the same question and really evaluate the answers.
Why do you need a partner?
Do you believe you will not be able to financially support a child?
Do you believe that your child will miss out if they do not have a father?
Are you afraid of doing it alone?
Now, challenge those answers with some more questions. What would it take to financially support a child on your own? In a perfect world, how much would you have to make?
What about the father aspect? What would your child miss out on? What’s the worst thing that will happen if you go it alone?
This work is important, because this is important to you. Besides the thoughts in your head, there is absolutely nothing happening to get closer to it, thus, your anxiety. But when you begin to take this seriously and consider every option, I bet you will (at least) feel a little freer and confident about what you want.
Now, the latter – let’s say that you want to have a baby with your partner. If this is the case, you may either need to readjust your timeline or have a serious talk with him (probably both.)
If it’s worth having a baby with him, it’s worth waiting until he’s a little more prepared. In time, this could become more important to him, but right now, it’s not. If you continue to hold him to an expectation he is not fit to meet, you will feel more and more discouraged.
I’m not privy to your discussions with him, but if it went like most talks about commitment go when one person is more ready than the other, it probably sounded something like:
You: “So when do you want to have kids?”
He looks up from phone.
Him: “Um, I don’t know, like ten years from now?”
You: “Sounds good!” (sobs quietly)
Girl, he isn’t even in the same year as you. You’re living in a time where he has all of his shit figured out and is prepared to commit to something life-changing. He’s living in where he’s at right now, which is not ready to commit to a baby.
AND YES, A BABY IS A COMMITMENT! MUCH BIGGER THAN MARRIAGE!
You need to talk to him and have no shame about your goal. You need to be straight-forward and even if you’re scared of losing him, tell him that this feels like your time and the thing you really need to do right now. You need to tell him that this is your goal, just like if you were working towards a promotion or wanting to move to France.
This is your goal. This is what you want. This is what you want to be working towards and actively doing. Notice I said actively. Sometimes, when someone feels pressured or guilty, they will agree to anything you say just to feel like they can breathe.
So when you have this conversation, don’t take “we are moving towards it” as the solution. You need to see the steps that get you closer to baby town.
I can’t be certain and no promises because I don’t know your significant other, but I suspect this will go one of two ways.
You will either have a serious conversation about you both are and come up with a compromise that you both feel is fair, or he will tell you that he just doesn’t know when (or if) he’s going to be ready.
And if he tells you he doesn’t want to know, you will need to decide which is more important – having this baby with him (even if it takes five or ten years) or having a baby right now.
Honestly, I think your biggest problem right now is that you are not taking yourself seriously. This is what you want. I believe you. You need to respect your wants enough to prioritize and vocalize them to your partner. If you don’t, and you end up ten years from now without a baby, you will look back and resent yourself.
That resentment may even dress up as anger towards your significant other for taking your baby away from you.
(Resentment loves to do that, find a way to put the blame on someone else even though you let it happen.)
I’m not saying that anger won’t be justified (especially if you both agree to wait.) I’m just saying that you need to give this goal, this deep burning desire a chance to come to the surface and actually be a part of your life.
I don’t want to have a baby right now, but I do know what it feels like to want something that your partner doesn’t understand or prioritize. I understand what it’s like to wait for someone who will want your dream as much as you do, and because of it, put my dreams on hold.
But here’s the thing, Mother – this dream is yours, so it’s your responsibility to bring it to life. Your dream is important. You can do it, and if you want to, you can do it alone. I know as women, we’re taught that our dreams aren’t always as important as our partners, but that’s not true.
I know that it’s very likely, you’ve always felt you needed to wait for a SO to catch up with you when it comes to commitment and the future. A lot of women I know do that.
But don’t let that stand in the way of getting what you want. Don’t water down the baby. You want the baby. Not someday, not when you’re older. Not when he decides it’s time.
You decide. You decide when. And when you decide, talk about it honestly with your boyfriend, or risk continuing to wonder if this is ever going to happen for you.
Give yourself permission to live in a world where what you want matters, and don’t be ashamed of it ever again.
– Missy