Connecting Ideas

There is a connection that I didn’t quite make in my last post.  It’s the connection between my fears about having children and why I feel that way.  The thing is I really do like kids.  I nannied throughout uni and loved it because I enjoyed the company of the children I was minding.  But that gave me the confidence to know that I understand the reality of having kids and I’m sure I don’t want that any time soon.

Here’s the scary part: my boyfriend is 10 years older than I am.  Im fine with that.  It has never ever felt like a gaping hole in our relationship in which we can’t relate to each other on certain levels.  We have always agreed that the different perspectives brought about by our age difference has enriched us, just like any differences in a relationship.  I think that we could’ve come from different countries, different family situations, different socio-economic circumstances and we would still be bringing differences to the table.

A little while ago I was at work (in a meeting for christ sake!) and everyone in the meeting was asked what their material goals are.  I said “ummm, I wouldn’t mind an Audi A3…” but the boy across from me who is a couple of years older than I am said, “I guess I’d like to be in a financial position to have kids.”  People jumped at this comment exclaiming “Really?” and “Wow, I would never have thought to plan for sending my kids to a good school” but BF said “I think that’s a reasonable goal.  I’d like to have kids within the next 5 years.” HE SAID IT IN A MEETING AND IT WASN’T EVEN HIS TURN TO COMMENT!

I stayed quiet (frozen and in shock but at least I gave the exterior impression of having barely noticed the comment).  I went downstairs after the meeting, back to my desk, and formulated a plan.  I was just going to come right out and ask him to clarify exactly how much he meant what he said.  So I emailed him with this request:

‘Shall we go to dinner tonight.  We need to get in all of ‘us time’ we can before I apparently start popping out children.’

Not my most mature moment but the effect I was going for was to let him know that I was thinking about this issue and would like to discuss it at dinner. He replied “Sure.”

At dinner that night I decided to have half a bottle of wine (I’m small so that’s actually quite a bit of alcohol for me) while asking him about his comment.  This is how our conversation went:

I blurted “I don’t want to have kids in 5 years!”

“You don’t know how you’ll feel in the future plus I didn’t mean 5 years, it could be 2 years or it could be 5.”

“Ummm I know you can’t judge how you’ll feel in the future but I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I WONT BE HAVING KIDS IN 2 YEARS.”

Another glass of wine.

I explained to him that he can’t bank on me changing my mind and suddenly feeling like I want kids in two years.  I asked him if he wants to spend those two years finding and building a relationship with someone who has the same plan as he does.  He said no.  I asked him if he’s happy staying with me with this knowledge? And he said yes, he is.  I didn’t know what to say after that so I cried and then had a bit more wine.

At that time it felt like the knowledge that we’re at different places on the baby issue would always be the elephant in the room.  I cried because I believed that things were ruined between us.  I felt that although we had both laid our feelings on the table and thought we could push past it, it would stay with us and make us both feel that anything that came after that conversation would be fruitless.  It would make me feel like every experience we had after that conversation would be numbered and I would be very aware of that.

The knowledge that he wants to have kids sooner than I do actually was an elephant in the room for a few days afterwards.  I was a bit on edge and I found a way to work the baby issue into every conversation we had (both jokingly and in seriousness). Then we got over it.  We couldn’t help but focus on how great things were between us and we seemed to have forgotten our make or break conversation.  The most important thing was, and still is, to be together for a long, long time and not to focus on things that have the potential to break us up.

That was about two months ago and I thought it had stopped affecting me.  Things had returned to normal and I had stopped thinking about that incident.  I had thought about it briefly when I was writing my last post but I really did think that the post was more about the different ways my friends see childbearing.  What I have now realised is the point I was trying to make in my last post, the connection I didn’t quite understand at the time, was that my baby fears are hugely connected to my fears about being with BF.

Things are amazing between us.  They really are.  But lately I’ve learned that my greatest fear, even greater than the ‘baby fears’ I described in my last post, is having to end this relationship because I don’t want to have babies and he does.  It is something that you absolutely can’t compromise on and that’s one of the most serious things about having children.  You and your partner need to be in exactly the same place.  I believe you need to both be at the same level of readiness and have the same expectations and ideas of raising children.  Otherwise things will fall apart.  I can’t have kids before I’m 100% ready and he can’t really keep waiting for that.

So I guess my real fear about babies is about losing someone I care very much about.  We both now believe we want to and will stay with each other for a long, long time and have no intention of breaking up.  So our conversation about children that was so out of alignment with what we both want, really shook me and maybe I’m taking that out on my hypothetical children.