Wondering About Having Children?

Philip Steury

Contemplating the idea of starting a family is a significant decision that requires commitment on various fronts. Embarking on parenthood requires careful consideration: Parenthood requires dedicating time, emotions, financial resources, and more.

To navigate this pivotal juncture, here are a few questions you might ponder individually or discuss with your partner to facilitate a thoughtful conversation.

Why do you want children?

• What are your fantasies about having children? When you think about children, what ages do you see them as? What are your fantasies about what they’ll be like in the future?
• How many children are you considering…and why?
• How do your family members and friends think about children?

If there is a partner: How about discussing these issues about having children with your partner?

• Can you communicate well together?
• What were your childhoods and growing up like?
• Do you share similar or different fantasies and directions?

How about reflecting on your own childhood?

• How did your parents treat you?
• How did they deal with your interests, emotions, playing, teaching, discipline, time with them?

What advice would you have given your parents?

• What did they do well—what was helpful, short term and long term?
• What would you have had them do differently?
• How will you try to do things differently from what they did?

In addition, exploring human development can offer valuable insights into how you approach these questions. How about when you have a child? Babies and young children are much smarter and more capable than we ever thought. Their capacities help us to enhance potential and prevent problems. Three areas are particularly important. Here is a start:

Feelings (our earliest feelings—technically called affects)

Humans are born with a system to respond to stimuli from the outside and inside. This system consists of approximately nine feelings. (See Tomkins, 1991).

• Interest and enjoyment are called positive affects.
• Surprise resets the system.
• Distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust (reaction to bad tastes), and dissmell (reaction to bad smells) are negative affects.

Cognition

Infants and young children are much smarter than we used to think. For instance, young children use statistical evidence, probabilities, and experiments to determine cause and effect. (Explore Alison Gopnik’s remarkable studies, 1999 and 2010).

Language

Babies and young children can understand words and language long before they can speak. Patricia Kuhl shows that a youngster’s brain is most open to learning the sounds of a native tongue beginning at six months for vowels and nine months for consonants. (Read Patricia Kuhl’s studies, 2015).

And especially:

Try to include curiosity and play and fun in your interactions with your child/children.