Having children is not a rational decision (I will die on this hill)

Before you come at me, keep on reading...

My husband and I fall into the rare category of couples who are and have always been pretty ambivalent about having children.

Now before you make a hurried call to social services, I have to reassure you that we love our daughter immensely and don’t for a second regret having her. But. BUT. Having her only confirmed our ambivalence instead of challenging it. Even now, as I find myself almost giddy with excitement about her return home from nursery, I can confidently say that I would have been just as fulfilled and just as content if we’d decided to remain childfree.

Don’t get me wrong. I may sound convincing now but this hasn’t been an easy perspective to come to terms with. In fact, for many years I used to wonder if there was something inherently wrong with me. You see, we live in a society that loves to put people into boxes. Take motherhood for example. There’s attachment parenting versus detachment parenting. Co-sleeping versus sleep training. An exclusively breastfed baby versus a formula fed baby. A stay-at-home mum versus a career mum. Pro-children versus childfree. You’re either one or the other. Society wants us to believe that there isn’t a middle ground (although of course, there is always a middle ground).

So, when I entered my late-twenties and friends and friends of friends started to talk about wanting or not wanting children, I found myself in entirely unknown territory. Unlike my increasingly broody peers whose heads started to turn the moment a baby entered a cafe. Unlike my defiantly childfree peers who rolled their eyes when said baby let out an ear-piercing scream. I felt nothing. Well not nothing. But not quite enough of anything to put myself firmly in either camp. And let me tell you, it sucks to be on the fence. It sucks that my ovaries have never fired into overdrive, that I have never felt biologically compelled to procreate. Because being on the fence was mentally exhausting. It meant overthinking everything, it meant months of therapy, it meant writing endless pros and cons lists yet being no closer to making a decision. It meant choosing between the seemingly impossible: making a irreversible decision I might later regret (and ruining my life, not to mention the life of an innocent child) and risking having the decision being unjustly taken from me.

So when I say that having children is not a rational decision, I speak from experience. As why would anyone in their rational mind willingly invite stress and chaos, relentless sleep-deprivation, a huge financial burden, permanent exhaustion, a loss of personal freedom, relationship strains into their lives? When I say that having children is not a rational decision, what I mean is that for the vast majority of people, there is very little rationale thought process behind it (please don’t gaslight yourself into thinking you’re having children to save the human race).

Choosing to have children is purely an emotional decision. A compulsion. A need. A purpose. A longing. A declaration of love. And while that may not be rationale, that is completely and unequivocally valid.

As for me, I will never know the reason for my ambivalence. Have I always been this way or was it a result of deeply entrenched trauma arising from the premature death of my mother? But what I do know is this. Having my daughter Blake, was a heart decision. My heart won over my head. And what a victory.