This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at C of C chapter.
Children are complicated. They are fragile and sensitive and easily influenced. Having one is a serious decision and one that needs to be taken seriously unless you want your child to spend their golden years seeking our therapy to try to recover from their childhood.
I was watching an episode of Scrubs today, and Carla and Turk were seeking out marriage counseling because the first year of their marriage had not been as successful and easy as they thought it would have been. Immediately after they thought they had reached a better place in their marriage, Carla suggests they have a baby. What?
This was so weird to me. Why on earth would you want to make this life changing decision while your marriage is in a rough spot? Why do people think that children are the answer that will make everything better? Newflash: nine times out of ten, children make things worse. Having a baby is not going to strengthen your relationship. Instead you’re both going to be exhausted and frustrated all the time and you’re going to take it out on each other. I’m not trying to bash having children. It’s just that a lot of times people have them for the wrong reasons and then the children end up suffering because of it.
If you’re marriage isn’t strong, or if you aren’t married and your relationship isn’t strong, or if you’re single and want to raise a child by yourself and you don’t have your own life together then your child is going to suffer because of this. Children are so incredibly fragile and everything you do while they’re growing up is going to affect them. If you and your partner fight a lot, the child is going to think that’s how relationships work. If you and your partner don’t love each other anymore and are just staying together for the kid(s) (which a lot of people do and I really do believe that this is actually one of the worst things that you can do for your children), then that child is going to grow up never seeing two people really love each other, and then how are they going to react when someone tries to love them, when they don’t understand it themselves because they didn’t have role models who loved each other growing up? Sure, people have other couples in their family where they can see that love and affection, and everyone can see it in moves and on television, but experiencing first hand from your parents is really important, and a lot of people don’t realize that. If you’re young and aren’t even mature enough to take care of yourself yet, then what makes you think you can take care of another person? Most likely, that person isn’t going to receive the adequate attention and care that it needs.
Here’s an example: my parents marriage fell apart the second they had me. Had they never had children, who knows, maybe there was a chance they would still be together. They were trying to raise a child together while their relationship wasn’t solid, and guess who suffered from it? Me.
I grew up in a home where I have no recollection of my parents ever showing affection towards each other. They slept in separate bedrooms for six years, and I grew up thinking that was totally normal. It didn’t even phase me that maybe it wasn’t normal that my dad slept on the couch downstairs and didn’t sleep in bed with my mom. I do not have a single memory of my parents kissing, hugging or even sharing a romantic moment. And so, here I am entering my early adulthood having never been in a serious or intimate relationship with someone and battling a crippling fear of commitment and emotional intimacy. What a perfect thing to mention on a first date.
In brief, I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to create childhoods that our children will not have to recover from. Sure, most people’s parents on average will do their fair share of emotional damage, but a significant amount of that could be decreased. We really need to make sure that our lives and ourselves are in the right place to have kids and not to have them to make a relationship stronger or because you get pregnant on accident and think that having that baby is the selfless, right thing to do (if you’re bringing a child into the world when you aren’t ready to provide sufficient care for it, then having that child is actually pretty selfish).
Babies and children really are wonderful and can change your life for the better, but those babies grow up into adults. We can only hope they’ll grow into stable and happy adults with as little emotional damage as possible.