Should We Raisea Child?
Many of the people we interviewed early in their adulthood decided to have children, thereby replicating the standard family-oriented social structures of our society. In most cases, these men and women gave birth to one or more children through an intimate relationship with their life partner. Others decided to have children through adoption or in-veto fertilization; these people clearly moved outside the standard social norms and structures. In some instances, couples cannot give birth to children themselves. Others decide not to have children, either because they have their own careers to pursue or because they simply don’t want the awesome responsibility of raising children. In other cases, young adults live in areas where it is very difficult or impossible to adopt children. Or they have decided that the available avenues for having children (adoption, surrogates, artificial insemination, etc.) are too problematic or emotionally disturbing to pursue.
Raising Children in a Changing World
The decision about having a child is often of central concern to contemporary couples, for child-rearing is no longer an automatic requirement of marriage or other long-term relationships. Given the liberalization of adoption and in-veto fertilization rules and regulations, gay and lesbian couples and heterosexual partners who are not married are not freed from the decision about whether to raise children.
Many young adults and couples also confront the issue as to whether they wish independently or jointly to conduct some long-term (even lifelong) project. This might be starting a business or participating extensively in an avocation, hobby, or recreational activity. In some of instances, the men and women we interviewed decided to begin a joint project in lieu of having children; In essence, they turned to “rearing” a mutual project and investing it with the emotional commitment and caring that is usually associated with child raising. In other cases, the decision to begin a project had little to do with the decision about raising children; these young adults either decided on a project in addition to raising children or started their project prior to child-rearing.
The decision of whether to have children often is complex. It is expensive to raise children, and couples having dual careers may have little time or energy for child-raising. Here is an example: Like the fabled couples of old, Glenda and Kurt were “childhood sweethearts” who came together as a couple when they were both fifteen years old. They spent all their early married years living near their parents. In this respect, they are very traditional; one might almost call them “quaint.” When it came to a decision about having children, however, Glenda and Kurt were much more closely attuned to contemporary values and concerns.
Like many young couples who are faced with major financial challenges (for example, the high cost of home ownership), Glenda and Kurt were ambivalent about having children, and they weighed the impact that children would have on their carefree and mutually gratifying lifestyle. They were married eleven years prior to having their first and only child. Glenda and Kurt’s joint decision was also impacted by their observing the child-reading styles by other couples they knew. If they were going to have children, they wanted it to be different from other young parents who seemed to give up everything so that they might have children.
First order generativity is in part about “doing it better” than other parents, including one’s own parents.
