Not sure you want to have a baby. Don't have reproductive sex during the 48 hours each month you are ovulating and capable of conception. Simple.
10
This is the sickness of western society; more and more people put "I" above everything else. "I don't know if I want to get married" and waste the partner years of time. "I just want to find out" and cheated and torn out someone's heart. "I decided marriage isn't for me" and divorce your spouse for 20 years. "I wasn't sure I want a baby" and some babies are dead or born to abusive parents.
If you cannot make up your mind, the answer is "no", the original state. You don't waste others' time, emotion, money, life to try and find out if you like something or not. If you aren't ready to have a relationship, don't start dating and drag someone along. If you aren't ready to get married, don't get into serious relationship with a partner intended to get married. If you aren't ready to have kids, don't count on abortion/infanticide as birth control
8
I find the outrage about the fact that a woman can be ambivalent about becoming a mother fascinating. If you are really that concerned your mother didn't want you I might suggest therapy.
25
When on the fence, don't do it. It's another human being.
16
What is self-centered person is Kristen Jennings is saying that she’s unique in her ambivalence. Eye roll. Many of us were also ambivalent but also respect the sanctity of human life. Once we’ve created it, we step up. Glad she did.
I think there should be more investment in mental health and teaching of critical thinking in college. Everyone believes they have free will but when you actually exam it, what one can do is limited by technology, laws of physics, social pressure, health and wealth. The only freedom we have is choice. If you cannot even make a decision, then you have no free will and your entire existence is just existing from birth till shutdown.
1
I hope doctors take this article to heart and start rethinking how pushy they can be on contraceptives. It has amazed me how many of my healthcare providers push contraception on me over the years the moment I say I'm not actively trying to get pregnant.
Over the years, myself and many of my friends have found themselves in situations where the timing wasn't quite perfect for pregnancy, or waffling with the decision about whether to have another kid. If you're in a stable and happy relationship, financially secure, and overall ok with the idea of parenthood, an unplanned pregnancy isn't the worst thing that can happen.
Some us don't like the side effects of hormonal birth control; some of us don't want the expense or hassle of an IUD when we think we might want to get pregnant in the near future, just not yet. We're ok with the risks of less reliable birth control methods, and are willing and able to raise a kid that might result from those decisions.
I have several friends in stable relationships who accidentally got pregnant earlier than they had planned, or had a "bonus" kid at the end. They may have been ambivalent about the pregnancy, but it was by no means a bad thing in the end.
Still, doctors are SO insistent that women be on birth control as a default. Annoying.
7
There's nothing like being nine months pregnant to make you want a baby.
14
I guess it wan't easy for policymakers and researchers to understand my womb my choice.
16
Sure, “your womb, your choice”. New human life created (not your womb or your body), therefore, not your choice.
So let me get this straight, it took actual research to determine that women take their time with the nuanced decision to bring life into this world? What idiot (possibly male dominated) society found this surprising? This article is as insightful as a Breitbart article revealing that people with different skin colors can get along. Shock! Horror! Women contemplate! What will Americans do now?!?
15
Either the study in question is completely idiotic or the reporting of it is. Demographers have known for over a century that women make decisions about their fertility. Social scientists known well that women face many obstacles to motherhood.
5
Ask women of the 3rd world - the ones who live in squalor .. they have 4 -5 kids and they seem to be doing just fine..
1
"Seem" to be fine is quite "right."
7
This is not news. This is reality.
12
Too bad Donald's mother went through with it.
22
So sick of all this breeder navel-gazing. They are destroying the planet and expect praise for it.
Refrain!
21
If you put your so called career over having a child, then you should not have a child. The day comes when you hit 40, you realize your not going anywhere with your job, you now want a child, you have to now depend on in-vitro, and you become one of the insane wannabe parents calling the doctor telling him or her that you are ovulating and are willing to take a flight to his clinic at 4:00 p.m. Xmas eve. It's not worth it. Think about it, when you leave your career, nobody and I mean nobody will remember you. A child is forever.
6
Yes, and sometimes men are also not sure if they want to have children. And sometimes parents, after having children, are not sure they made the right choice and not sure they are cut out to be parents. It's called being human beings, who are not 'binary' creatures.
Remarkable that the NY Times and/or the "medical establishment" is just figuring this out.
16
Why don't you ask MEN what they think of not having children or ambivalence of being fathers? Oh, that's right, men are the default humans and aren't defined solely as relationships to others. Women are nothing but babymakers, sex toys, and domestic servants. The "career" (most women don't have the so-called "glamorous" male-dominated jobs that are paid more only because they male-dominated) doesn't really matter because all that counts is women pop out kids.
I get sick of this shaming women who don't fit in with the 1950s prescribed sex roles. Time for the Times to grow up and recognize women are human beings.
20
Well if your single and going to school , working and taking care of your parents . I think your choices would be limited. In the decades of stagnant wage growth no matter your education your choices are limited. If your married with student debt it might be a challenge to make ends meet with a baby working two jobs.
Right now corporations are so rich and out of touch with the real world. Wages are not going to increase unless we take our democracy back. Last week we proved that Amazon may not agree with what they hear but people have rights and the politicians hear the message loud and clear also.
No one really wants to bring a baby into an America where people are not valued and the medical community has a high price tag associated with the birth of a child.
We all want the very best for our babies and that means being financially secure and right now that is a reality that is unavailable to many people who want to start a family
10
Ambivalence because you are a homeless, single, impoverished teenager is different than ambivalence because you are pursuing a career that will most certainly be somewhat derailed by becoming a mother. Both might be mitigated by better social support, but the first person still shouldn't be having a baby.
24
@RE When a conversation about women's reproductive decisions is raised, judgments are sure to follow (see the above, along with many other comments below.) She 'should', she 'shouldn't...' What does it say about us when we so readily presume to know what others (especially women, when it comes to childbearing) should or shouldn't do?
6
I thinks it's okay to presume there will be costs - that's not presumption, it's a reality.
So is social mobility or lack there of, and the real cost of education and what world you are birthing this child into is real. So knowing what someone is in for is helpful.
1
@RE Except the person that you are judging seems to be figuring her life out because of wanting to do well for that baby. So how about you let her make her own choices.
2
You have GOT to be kidding. If you don't know if you want to have a baby or not, THEN YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE ONE. Good grief. That's otherwise known as COMMON SENSE.
22
@Nadia- ambivalence is the state of emotional maturity that people reach when they can hold two emotions in their hearts/minds at the same time. It's not a lack of certainty, it's literally mixed feelings, which all may be strong. Do you have children? I don't know anyone who does, who doesn't have moments, many, of ambivalence.
30
@Nadia Anyone with a brain (and a heart) knows that parenthood comes with a mess of both positive and negative consequences. "I wasn't sure what I wanted" is an honest answer to a brutally complicated question.
8
@RE
I've never had any ambivalence about my children.
2
The world has too many people. We are killing the host. You see the poorest families with the most children. And at the park, you see mothers, or all stripes being horrid to their children.
I think a one child policy might be the only way to save us all.
19
@scientella - I would go for that, 1000%.
As a British friend of mine noted, we Americans are consuming ourselves to death. It's not that we want 'a' car or 'a' house, it has to be 'the' biggest car or house, and 'the' largest portions sizes at restaurants. Now trendy are families who are proud of their ability to have (and afford) four or six children.
It's madness.
7
Well don’t you kind of have to have someone to raise your baby, like your mom or mother in law, if you can’t afford a nanny? Or a rich hubby that allows you to be a stay at home mom? Those are tight options for a middle class family these days struggling to make ends meet.
9
@Patrick. when there is gender-pay-equity, another option is a dedicated husband/father to be a stay-at-home Dad. Well, maybe not possible in NYC... but here in Canada, I have known a number of women-physicians married to stay-at-home Dads (and, note also New Zealand Prime Minister’s family)
5
"Do You Want to Be Pregnant? It’s Not Always a Yes-or-No Answer"
Where would any of us be without being told what we should want by this publication.
6
@polymath
How does this article tell anyone what they should want?
5
@polymath — The fault is this publication writing headlines addressed in the second person, in order to make them more "relatable".
2
In the west we live in pronatalist societies which for thousands of years has been centered around the importance of having children. This now must change if the planet is to survive. There is a new documentary out this summer whose aim it to help people try to work out their own procreation decision, and whether it is for them or not www.tokidornottokid.com
8
Ambivalence to any serious life change is natural.
You could replace “pregnancy” with “marriage” or “career change” and you would have the same meaningless article.
Stop trying to make a story where none exists - we know you need to sell clicks and copies, but this is the NYT, please do better.
7
@James Ozark
Look again -- the article's point is that physicians tend to assume that there are just two possibilities, and to give (for example) contraceptive advice accordingly.
8
Someone needed to do research to figure this out? What, was this a bunch of twelve year olds? Or men? Of course women have mixed feelings about being pregnant and having children! I frequently felt ambivalent about mine until they were, oh, about 25 years old. After that I usually felt glad I had them. Duh.
Anyone who feels this is a matter for research or debate should just try having an alien implanted in them that kicks their bladder and their ribs, shoves their digesting food back up their throat, destroys the supportive tissue holding up their bladder and rectum forever, blows up their entire body until it seems their naval will explode, and then forces its way out of an aperture - well, let's just say not generally intended for something the size of a baby to exit.
Then have your spare time, free time, down time, all of your time taken away forever, as well as your peace of mind, oh, and all of your disposable income for at least the next 30 years. And then graft a never-ending sense of guilt and inadequacy onto your brain and soul forever. Then see if you need to go research on whether women feel ambivalent about pregnancy.
And I adore both my kids, planned them, and am extremely happy I had them.
37
This is news?
6
Well, duh!
5
I can’t imagine why women would be ambivalent to being uncomfortable for nine months, have a child that takes away all of your free time and sleep for the first few years of its life, costs a fortune, and will more than likely slow your career path. And I have a toddler and am trying for a second! The truth is, if you’re not ambivalent, one way or another, you probably don’t have a very good idea of what being a parent is. It’s the highest of the high and the lowest of the lows and having a bit of hesitation about taking it on is sensible.
38
I totally understand this. I was 22 when I found out I was pregnant unexpectedly. My birth control had failed. My sons dad didn't really know what he wanted either. We made the decision to have him. I don't regret having him but I often wonder what my life would have been like and proceeded to be if I hadn't had him. He's 22 now and won't ever have natural kids of his own (lgbt kid). People ask if I will miss being a grandparent. Nope. I was an ok mom but I didn't enjoy it as much as society would like you to think they do. I also raised him by myself as his dad died when he was 8. It was all tough. I really wish people could freely say that more.
17
I've always known that I didn't want children. But when I was a 30-something, I got an incredible amount of pressure from family, friends and coworkers to get married and start a family. One (younger) colleague even told me that I should have kids even if I didn't want them because if I changed my mind when I was 50, it would be too late and I'd hate myself. Well, I'm 50 now, still don't want children, and I don't hate myself at all.
28
There is a difference between having children and being ambivalent about it and a surprise or accidental pregnancy. I fully understand doing something while being ambivalent. The surprise or accidental pregnancy is where I am stumped.
Unless there is a birth control failure, which all methods even when properly used have, I don't understand where the surprise or accident aspect fits in. Are these woman surprised by the fact that unprotected sex can lead to conception or is there a significant group of people who believe they are not fertile and are surprised to find out they are.
While this article offered important information regarding the reproductive guidance that women, depending upon their goals in terms of childbearing, should get from providers, I still fail to see how beyond birth control failure, ignorance or immaculate conception so many can be surprised.
4
@Joan Greenberg. You mention birth-control failure, but are then insulting about it. BC-failure is the source of a good percentage of the “miss-timed” pregnancies, women who want a child, but not that year (from my experience as a 30-year Canadian MD). I have a couple (twins!) of such children myself —and to me, abortion was not an option for two “wanted” children who just arrived to the party too early. My kids were raised in modest circumstances, on lots of borrowed money, with a mom they called “our mom is a learning-to-be-a-doctor person”... they are now blessed with a young Grandma for their kids. Please note that every story of “ambivalence” is unique and complicated.
5
No, sorry, this IS a binary choice. If you are sexually active and not regularly and correctly using an effective method of birth control, odds are about 90% (depending on age and other factors, citing various fertility guides) that you will become pregnant within a year. You may be ambivalent about wanting a baby, but you will end up with one unless you use contraceptives. By default, by not using contraceptives, you are choosing to have a child. This is no way to make a major life decision - by deciding not to decide. If you are not sure you want a child, don’t have a child.
8
@Baltimore 16 Uh, no, birth-control failure IS a thing. Please look up the “cumulative failure rate of birth control pills, used over 10 years”. People like you think they are 96% effective... but, that is just the first year. Consider 4/100 + 4/100 + 4/100, etc. This from the perspective of a 30-year MD, in Canada. 1/2 of all conceptions are “unplanned”, but lots of those are not the way you think. Sterilization is the only absolute choice; and men need to be more responsible.
6
Wait a second - you're missing something. You're not ambivalent about being pregnant. You're trying to figure out how you will handle the responsibilities going forward. We live in a country with no guaranteed maternity leave. Daycare is expensive. Mothers are discriminated in the workplace. Is that ambivalence or just going into the future with eyes wide open?
16
Exactly. This issue is cultural and structural - no support - no sympathy - just "that's what woman do". If you are not ambivalent - even if your children are planned or wanted, you are not awake or seeing how woman especially mothers are made second class citizens in this country.....and then just wait till you need to go to Family Court to resolve finances to raise your children. It takes more than luck.
4
I’m more surprised that today is Friday than by the finding that women can be ambivalent about being pregnant.
11
The problem with such an article is that it may be used to justify taking abortion rights from women. Women forced to carry and keep their pregnancies will be justified on the grounds that they will learn to love it.
4
I seriously don't think that's the intent of this article or research.
1
It is too bad that we, as a society, don't really take a stab at providing "informed consent" for childbearing and parenting. It is all so wrapped up in romanticizing pregnancy and having children, and doesn't look at the long-term of being a parent, something that will make certain men and women miserable, and result in children who have a hardship growing up.
We see the same thing in people who happily adopt puppies and kittens, not knowing that it involves a lot, and do not carry through with the task. We don't even successfully educate regarding that.
We just keep romanticizing about those cute little animals.
5
The patriarchal society influence slowly ebbing, but isn't this another example of how little women's feelings/attitudes/ fear and trepidation about the unknown have matter for eons?
That a survey (!) finally has an option (I wasn't sure) which should have been there from the beginning of speaks volumes to the disregard for women in general.
2
@c
My suspicion is that, in this politically sensitive field, researchers were afraid of what this said about women. They've just been trying to make it easier to gain access to contraception and to control pregnancy. It's been incredibly hard to make any progress. Until now, the idea that research could accurately represent the feelings and thoughts of people has been a bridge too far.
1
An important issue, obviously, but meanwhile ordinary men--ignored--continue to live in a pre-Roe v Wade twilight, wholly lacking any reproductive rights at all, routinely unable to enforce even rudimentary visitation rights, and forced into parenthood in a manner we would abhor were women similarly compelled; and then we routinely jail men for the crime of simple poverty.
200,000 unique men are imprisoned each year for the inability to pay court-mandated support, typically for children whose conception they had no knowledge of and had no say in. These men have an average annual income of $11,000, are too poor to pay mandated support, and we address the problem by feeding these men, poor, often mentally ill, addicted or alcoholic, into the prison industrial complex where their labor is handed over to the prison industry, not their children.
It's sad to hear complaints that "you're distracting from the problems of women here." How is it a distraction when we never trouble to notice the comparable problems of men? When else am I supposed to raise this issue, given The Times rarely if ever discusses this, except in the context of how some men's inability to pay support affects women?
It's well and good, and necessary, to talk about ambivalence, uncertainty, reproductive rights, and reproductive equality, but when we do let's talk about actual reproductive equality for all people. Let's stop pretending only women are involved and only women are affected.
4
@Blair M Schirmer These men may have problems, but they are definitely not comparable to those of women. We should absolutely treat all parents with respect, but historically women have had less respect than men, fewer rights, and more criticism, blame, condescension and poverty.
5
@Blair M Schirmer ; “children whose conception they had no knowledge of”, ...come on! What is needed is more education amongst boys of their birth-control responsibilities, and the consequences of irresponsible ejaculation.
8
The irony is the thoughtful people who carefully consider if they should have children and decide against it are the ones who would make the best parents.
5
@Pandora
Yes, in the USA today, that could be very true....similar to the dearth of Philosopher-Kings.
So, women (and their partner) don’t think through implications of unprotected sex. They should, right? I’ll focus on the woman because It’s their body, but not important enough to worry/plan in advance. I guess the abortion option has widened the window for permanent decision. I understand all the issues, very clearly cited by Cee Williams and others, but those decision criterion existed before the act and did not appear later. It would, should, be appropriate to consider the issues before the act to avoid the negative consequences.
Kathy Edin's book _Promises I can Keep_ provides a deeper exploration of this ambivalence about pregnancy.
1
19, homeless, living on friends’ couches. I guess I’m old fashioned but I don’t see any ambiguity here.
8
Pregnancy is like anything else in life. When in doubt, don’t do it. When confident of your feelings follow through.
4
Motherhood remains a good topic: might as well throw in the idea of ambivalence too.
Most shouldn't ever have children.
2
To have a child is like deciding to permanently move to another country you've seen thus far only through the eyes of friends who live there and send back reports. Will it be fun? Could you do more good in the world by staying where you are? Can you afford the higher cost of living in this new place? Will you miss your old life? There's no way to know, but you must decide if you will take up permanent residence in this new country before you even visit, because there are no return flights. It's a leap of faith. No wonder women are ambivalent.
13
Missing from the survey, the medical approach and from the obvious real-life experience is the opinion of the father. Pregnancy is the biological perquisite to procreation and procreation is the right and responsibility of both man and woman.
The brief reference to questioning a patient about any relationship problems treats the man as a non-person (much like the fetus).
At least there should be an attempt to learn what the husband/partner feels about procreation. Does he want a child? What does he feel about abortion? The feminist “woman only” approach creates more problems than it solves.
Better policy would allow a man to refuse consent to the abortion of his unborn child. The policy would encourage timely discussions and minimize female ambiguity and surprise,
3
@Eugene Patrick Devany - Men make their decision when they decide to sow their seed indiscriminately, with someone they don't know well enough to know what she'd decide in the event of an unintended pregnancy. Until medical science can transplant the embryo into YOUR body so you're the one who's risking your life and health and future, then you don't get to make the final decision.
9
Get back to us with your opinion when you find yourself pregnant.
8
When men pay the real, actual cost of raising a child to adulthood not some mandatory minimum child support payment then sure...jump into the responsibility.
5
No surprises here. When I was in my late 20s and early 30s I really wanted a baby. Or my body did. I wanted that pregnancy experience. Crazy, because I hated babysitting and didn’t even enjoy being around my friends’ kids. Luckily I never got pregnant. The drives of the body are powerful.
6
It may not be a yes/no answer, but it is a yes/no certainty.
What a ridiculous "discovery."
Both women and men are ambivalent about having children - at various times before, during and after pregnancy. How is this not automatically understood? It's human nature.
Truth be told it's scary to feel potentially "stuck" with a situation that appears "permanent" - that limits freedoms of movement and demands changes to a life.
Wanting to be pregnant doesn't mean not also being unsure.
2
"The research confirms that many unplanned pregnancies can nevertheless become wanted as women’s feelings about pregnancy evolve."
.. Amen
"Sociologists have known from decades of field work that women’s attitudes toward pregnancy and motherhood can be a jumble."
what about men?
“Thinking back to just before [your partner] got pregnant with [your] new baby, how did you feel about [her] becoming pregnant?”
I wanted [her] to be pregnant then
I wanted [her] to be pregnant later
I wanted [her] to be pregnant sooner
I wasn’t sure what I wanted
I didn’t want [her] to be pregnant then or at any time in the future
...
"...doctors can offer long-acting forms of [reversible] contraception that are more effective than [progestin] pills or condoms and that take a doctor’s visit [to implant and] to remove....When women say they’re unsure, Dr. Rodriguez talks to them about things like taking folic acid for fetal health, just in case, and about options for emergency contraception or abortion."
but not talk to them about IUDs and implants? it's not emergency contraction and certainly not abortion. the article omits this information that most directly addresses the issue at hand. it does not even mention IUDs and implants.
...
to maintain one's sanity and level-headedness, always remember that sex, procreation, pregnancy and child bearing involve different attitudes, thinking, skills and abilities. also remember that what people say is not always consistent with how we "feel" or what we do.
1
@thomas bishop; I’m an MD. “Long-acting reversible contraception”, referred to as “LARC” in our literature, IS the designation of the newer IUD’s and implants. Yes, they have very high success but are not medically-suitable for everyone.
6
Jade's mother should be held to account for leaving round candies on desk while she is distracted on the phone. baby could grab one and try to swallow thus possibly choking. hope mother is told about situation. bringing baby to work may not be such a great idea if it results in the death of the infant.
With so many unwanted children in this world, it seems tragic that some are born to people who "aren't sure."
4
I am the demographic! Late 30s “nearing end of fertility” with 2 YOUNG children.The hypothetical distant future of a 3rd child seems great but... don’t want to go through pregnancy again, recover from a 3rd C-Sec, bf for a year, re-do all the baby stuff again. Raising kids in this society is really hard! Finally I can enjoy (mostly) REM sleep, my almost 3yo just started sleeping through the night in her own bed. And really it’s true about climate/change being a potentially catastrophic world for them to be adults in. That’s me the ambivalent mom who wants a 3rd but doesn’t.
5
"For decades, researchers and physicians tended to think about pregnancies as either planned or unplanned."
Oh, New York Times, you're adorable. Who is this researcher or physician? Where is the woman who is *not* ambivalent in the least about being pregnant? I'm dying.
2
THIS IS NEWS????
And why is there absolutely ZERO mention in this article about of the feelings, opinions, wishes and fears of MEN, except for a passing reference to one survey that targeted both women and men?
It takes two to make a baby, unless a woman chooses to use donor sperm -- and in that case, one can assume she is highly motivated, and does indeed positively want to be pregnant. But in the rest of life, it is in-your-face obvious that many -- perhaps most -- of the decisions and non-decisions that lead to not-exactly-planned pregnancies are made or conditioned by men. As Gabrielle Blair, the Mormon mother-of-six, so eloquently explained in her twitter thread last year. (Google her if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
Money quote: "Men regularly choose to put women at massive risk by having non-condom sex, in order to experience a few minutes of slightly more pleasure. ... So men are willing to risk the life, health and well-being of women, in order to experience a tiny bit more pleasure for like 5 seconds during orgasm. It’s mind-boggling and disturbing when you realize that’s the choice men are making. And honestly, I’m not as mad as I should be about this, because we’ve trained men from birth that their pleasure is of utmost importance in the world. (And to dis-associate sex and pregnancy.)"
And lo! the writer of this piece is falling right into the trap.
4
I look forward to the follow-up research that interviews doctors and researchers to ask why they so long believed this false dichotmoy of planned versus unwanted pregnancies. Were they taught this binary in school? Why did they repeat the binary when their patients or research subjects expressed some ambivalence that did not fit the binary? Did they ignore the ambivalence due to a lack of language to express the complexities of real life? What remedial counseling has been most effective in helping them see outside the false binary?
3
Carly is going to need ongoing assistance throughout the childhood and teen years of her daughter. Lacking a partner, a high school diploma, healthcare, food, family and shelter make parenthood extremely difficult and their future will be precarious. This is a huge problem for society as well, society easily condemns her for her wantonness and is neglectful to continue support after birth. For many individuals like Carly an abortion or adoption might have been a better option.
7
This so describes me in my late thirties. My husband and I had struggled with infertility in our twenties and finally had two children. We had always envisioned three children, but a decade later finances and time were still tight. We started using withdrawal (and occasionally condoms), ostensibly because of my problems tolerating the Pill — but, at least partly, I think, because we just couldn’t really decide.
During that time there were months when my period was late and I hoped I was pregnant. There was another time though that the condom broke and I took the morning after pill. I guess we varied in what we wanted over those years.
Finally, at 42 I decided that the possibility of pregnancy at my age seemed too risky (and, too, perhaps it seemed that stage of life had passed). My husband had a vasectomy, closing the door forever.
But I’m still surprised by how fluid the desire for a possible third pregnancy was.
7
I had my IUD removed in November. I was 34, married, and I suppose some clock was ticking. I didn’t necessarily know if I wanted children, I just didn’t want regret.
I have mixed feelings about planning for a human being to be created, so I just thought I’d leave it up to biology and be content with whatever happened. I am okay never having children, but I’m also okay if I have one.
What I didn’t expect was the doctor’s insistence I begin birth control after having my IUD removed. He kept making it sound like getting pregnant was a terrible thing. I couldn’t say. “I want to be pregnant,” because that wasn’t true; but it was also appalling to listen to this guy dictate my reproductive course without even asking my opinion. So yes, some doctors should definitely be more tuned to the ambivalent approach.
14
@CPeal I totally agree! I've been surprised about how pushy some of my doctors have been about being on birth control. Hubby and I sometimes waffled on the timing of when (not if) to have our 2nd, and also went back on forth on having a 3rd. Doctors seemed so uncomfortable will our "less effective" birth control methods during this time and really pushed for either the pill or IUDs.
But I remember thinking, it's not like it would be the worse thing in the world if we accidentally got pregnant. Happy marriage, happy family, I daresay we are good parents, can afford more kids...it just came down to timing and what we wanted out of the rest of our lives. I would get really annoyed with how pushy they would be, like I wasn't an educated adult who had already weighed the pros and cons of our approach.
1
I've had many friends who were surprised by their pregnancies. Most chose to keep them; one of my friends liked to say it was her "love child," because she was in her 40s.
My youngest sister was a surprise, one year earlier than my parents had planned. Well, that's how it goes. She was welcome.
My middle sister liked to tease her as OLM, our little mistake, and I told her over and over, Mom and Dad wanted you. You just came early.
4
I have three (grown) children. I certainly don't regret having them but I experienced ambivalence at times, even when the pregnancy was planned. It surprises me that this is news to researchers. It isn't news to most women.
54
My mother had four children and didn't cope well. I always wanted a child if only to prove that I could do a better job of mothering than my mother. But I wanted to establish a career first. I had my daughter after nine years of marriage. I found motherhood challenging and continued to work. I never wanted to be pregnant again. But I enjoyed parenting my child and today she is a successful woman with two children and a successful career.
8
I relate a lot to this article. My husband and I have been talking for years about having kids and our answer is still "We're not sure". How could we? In the current political and economical climate the only certainty we can have is that we'll have an uncertain future. Yes, we are currently both employed, make decent salaries and attempt to have emergency savings, but that is partially dependent on long work hours and can all go away in an instant. Parenting nowadays requires so much time and effort, it's hard for us to see how we can do it right and still have successful careers without killing ourselves. Family is not around to help, so any small urgency could become a major problem. We love kids, volunteer with them and are probably some of the best aunt/uncle our nieces and nephews have. Are we ready to take that big leap into uncertainty? I'm not sure
17
@MariaMulata, I remember my mother telling me how frightened many in her generation were at the thought of bringing children into the world when Hitler was in power.
2
I didn’t grow up in what I would describe as a loving home, so I never had a burning desire to have children. I’ve always felt that having children is something that should be carefully considered and am surprised at how automatic it seems for most people.
I asked myself serious questions: could I handle having a sick child, one with behavioral problems, and did I have my act together enough to be a good mother period. The answer was no. I don’t regret my decision, although now at 49 after years of therapy and personal growth, I think I could have been a good mother. There is some satisfaction in knowing that even though I’m not a mother myself.
28
It is interesting that while ambivalent, all of the cited moms seem to be happy about having their children. I fear some pro-choice activists would prey on this natural ambivalence at a major life decision and leave mothers regretting the choice they might be pressured into.
4
Ironic, because it’s actually the “anti-choice activists” that eagerly prey on vulnerable ambivalent women with their well-organized, well-funded networks of often religiously-affiliated “crisis pregnancy centers” (aka “anti-choice clinics” that often masquerade as full-service women’s health centers.
In towns with a single abortion clinic, there may sometimes be multiple competing (& intentionally misleading) “decoy” clinics.
On the contrary, “pro-choice” rarely is analogous to “pro-abortion” in the way “anti-choice” typically corresponds to vehement “anti-abortion” position.
Pro-choice “activists,” healthcare providers, etc. rarely seek to encourage women to have abortions, let alone women that are ambivalent. Instead, they seek to factually educate women on ALL their options, so they can freely make informed choices for themselves.
Billboards. Online searches for abortion providers that lead to anti-choice clinics that won’t even admit over the phone that they don’t do abortions.
Conveniently, they’re often located adjacent to true abortion providers & have also used additional devious means to lure women to these decoy clinics in error.
There, ambivalent women are subject to a singular anti-abortion mission. Fake data re: abortion risks. “Pro-life type ultrasounds.” Even false reassurances that there’s “plenty of time left” to seek an abortion if she insists. And a victory for the mission when she easily misses the cutoff for a legal abortion in the state.
8
Do you really think pro-choice people run around looking for women to talk into an abortion? Choice is right there in the name. Make the choice you feel is right for you.
3
@Raytina Maritza True. I think it's a dirty secret that some women just don't enjoy motherhood. They love their kids of course, so it's hard to say they regret them....on the other hand, I know some women who will cautiously admit they'd probably be happier without them.
"As many as one-fifth of women who become pregnant aren’t sure whether they want a baby." Seriously? That is, I would say, a very low figure. Many more are ambivalent, I can assure you. And thus it has been so, well, forever. Whoever thought there was some kind of binary situation on this and threw it all into only two baskets, one marked "yes" and one marked "no"? Life is a lot more messy than that.
41
There are many reasons to be ambivalent about almost everything, given a choice. Why not use contraception unless one is certain about wanting the child? Why stress our bodies with pregnancy and abortion? Are there health benefits of getting pregnant and going through the abortion procedures? Pregnancy is emotionally loaded in addition to physical demands. It is different from shopping in the mall.
15
My children are adopted, and though completely planned, once home, my ambivalence surfaced. It doesn't matter if they are planned or accidental - becoming a parent, in any normal human being, would provoke feelings of uncertainty, Why is this surprising?
37
Adoptive mom of one son. No ambivalence, only not and gratitude.
Just please don't medicalize pregnancy ambivalence, especially Big Pharma.
I feel like for my whole generation of women ambivalence was simply a way of life. Sometimes things worked out, sometimes they didn't, but always interesting and sometimes comical--though often in hindsight rather than in the moment.
Play the hand that's dealt, and see what happens next.
12
But isn't that the issue, one does not need to be dealt a hand to play. or in fact "play the hand" at all. One can choose... And childen are raised better for that.
Why wouldn’t women feel ambivalent about pregnancy? It completely changes us. Our identities are transformed. Men don’t have the same reaction and subsequent identity change.
My spouse and I are expecting our first child and though we are now excited, there are nerves and apprehension especially since this wasn’t exactly a planned pregnancy. It makes complete sense to me that women are more ambivalent and don’t have binary reactions. It’s more strange that people expect us women to have binary reactions.
85
@KAO
"Why wouldn’t women feel ambivalent about pregnancy? It completely changes us. Our identities are transformed."
Well KAO- after that tirade I can guarantee you won't have husband in 2 more years, so enjoy the family time now and get ready to become a single mom- that guy is going to drop you like a sack of rocks.
@Aaron
How would you know anything about their marriage? Male hubris if I ever have seen it.
10
@Aaron Biologically, medically, genetically: pregnancy and birth does indeed completely change a woman. From 11 weeks, we know now and some prenatal Tests are based on this: there is fetal DNA swimming around in the mother’s bloodstream. (I’m an MD, I know this stuff) Yes, it is transformational; it is not just her opinion. Her husband should be expected to abandon her, because of a change which he wrought? Men as incapable of empathy as you are, are the main reason families dissolve.
13
I remember completing a survey from the state of California after I had my child. One question asked if I had intended to become pregnant when I did. I answered no. But it was a very badly worded question. No, I did not “intend” to become pregnant when I did. But I had “intended” to become pregnant for three months before that, with no luck.
For the eight months before my husband and I started trying to become pregnant, we were trying not to become pregnant because I had just moved to a new city, was looking for a job, or had just started a job.
9
We have known for years and years that most of us are alive because of an accident. We just arrived; we were not planned or wanted or unwanted. We all adjust to a baby after it is born. It has always been this way and always will be. The correlates of birth rates are economic, not psychological. There is no ethnic demography of birth.
12
@George
With poorer people having more kids and hardly any forethought and anxiety that the western/middle class mind in many of these comments has.
Don't people get it? Plan it. Don't plan it. Agonize over it. Don't even think about it for a second. Eat Sushi. Don't eat Deli meat. Etc Etc,
The kids WILL come. You will adapt. Some kids in the best of circumstances will turn out terrible and some kids in the worst of circumstances will turn out great.
And you will NEARLY NEVER hear any parent in any category or situation ever say "I wish I didn't have my kids".
1
@Ignatius J. Reilly. If you asked parents in an anonymous survey whether if they could go back in time, would they still have kids - you might be surprised at the answer.
Ann Landers conducted such a survey and 70% said if they had a do over, they wouldn't have had children.
4
@Cal - One day many years ago a group of co-workers and I had a discussion over lunch about which of us would have had children if we had it to do over. It happened that all of us were parents of teenagers. All but one of us answered that if we could do it over we wouldn't have had kids. The one guy who said of course he'd still choose to have kids was the one person in the group who was divorced and rarely saw his kids.
Of course, I imagine most of the people in the group changed their minds once the teens grew up, and especially once grandchildren came along.
1
yes, the focus here is on female health and health care practices ... but how do the men in these relationships feel about the pregnancies that they create, with or without the consent of the woman? (i'm assuming most pregnancies come out of a consensual relationship rather than random encounters or rape.)
"stressors related to relationship problems" is a very clumsy way to gloss over economic and emotional challenges that impinge on both people in a relationship and in which the man has both a role and a responsibility.
and men need to take careful note, if it is really true that the female is the entire decider on this issue and the man's feelings have no weight.
13
@drollere Well said. We need to teach especially young men that they have no reproductive rights whatever. All the talk about "reproductive rights" and "reproductive equality" conceals a central fact: That ordinary men have none of either.
In addition, they need to be reminded of two key factors. First, if they have multiple sex partners and one becomes pregnant, it's very likely the least well-equpped of these and the most casual of these who will do so, and will be the one choosing motherhood should she become pregnant. It's also quite possible that if he gives over the supervision and use of contraception to her, any pregnancy will have resulted from her being deceptive or careless.
Second, all manner of consequences follow from being compelled to pay child support (in NYS, where abortion is widely available, that's really "support for a woman's decision to have a child"). In NY state the award is routinely 17% of gross income, or 25% of his net income, after taxes.
For most blue collar men this will make it very difficult or impossible to have a family of his own choosing at the time of his choosing with a woman he loves. It's also the case that he will often be jailed should he fall more than 4 months behind, and that it is hardly the norm for family court to seriously consider or care about his circumstances.
When's the last time we heard this publically discussed, let alone as instruction and advice for young men, who are often incredibly naive and uninformed?
1
@Blair M Schirmer - We need to teach young men that if they choose to sow their seed indiscriminately, with a woman he doesn't know well enough to know what she'd decide about an unintended pregnancy, they're running grave risks.
5
All the more reason for any man who does not want to support any children he has with a casual partner to use a condom.
2
I love raising kids in flyover country. More individuals would welcome children if they didn't have crushing student loan debt. It's also helpful to have a mature partner to raise kids with and reasonable expectations about what being a parent means. Parenting and children are both works in progress and rewarding. Being a parent doesn't have to mean one has no identity apart from being a parent. Nor is there a requirement that every moment of parenting be a joy. I have talked to individuals who have enjoyed their children better after they reach two years of age, and yet as their children grow they have been good parents at all stages, and they're happy they are parents.
15
@Charlie. I plan to remain in Southern California near the beach, and childfree. I would have to move and give up travel to have children...and made the decision not to.
To each his own!
3
Women are considering opportunity costs.
This is a behavioral economics question ripe for study, given the importance of changing fertility rates to the present shape and future of societies.
11
@CT. Yes! Not only a Behavioural Economics question, but a complete reshaping of Evolutionary Genetics. We have almost totally eliminated the predators, plagues, and famines that we’re “selective pressures” on the human race, and so with declining fertility-rates (in half of all countries, there is now less than 2.2 children born per woman), it is the distribution of women’s ambivalence versus “who chooses to have children”, which will shape humankind’s future.
1
When I was 15, a doctor told my mother, in front of me, that I would probably not be able to have children because of my scoliosis. When I became active, I used birth control anyway. When my husband and I decided that I would stop the pill and we would switch to condoms in preparation for maybe going without birth control altogether, we were both assuming that since it had been years, with not one scare, that I would not ever conceive. We stopped condoms for just one cycle and I got pregnant. Neither of us was sure we wanted a child, but a child was on the way. It worked out fine. We love both our kids, but neither of us were deeply excited about parenthood, all the way through to now, when our kids are in their 20s. It felt dutiful. As oldest children, both of us, we did what was dutiful. I love my children dearly, but I can certainly imagine life if I had never had them.
53
@Chip If you were apprehensive about having kids, why on Earth did you stop using the pill?!
1
I think what is new is that we are finally asking the question (ie. ambivalence is an option), perhaps made necessary by ever increasing anxiety, social and economic instability and an acceptance that childbearing is not for everyone. But I am not sure conflicted feelings about having children is new. I was unexpectedly conceived almost immediately after my parents married. She was considered an old newlywed for her time (late 70s), an established career woman who held feminist ideals. She told me recently that although she was in 'a good place' and financially ready, she was in a maelstrom of anxiety ranging from concerns about her maternal ability to discontent with not having time to enjoy her new marriage (childfree). She did not rule out an abortion. Obviously my parents decided one way, but my mom did say that among her peers, her feelings were not unique.
33
I got pregnant while using The Sponge because I couldn’t use the Pill due to blood clots (remember the Sponge-worthy thing in Seinfeld? It was rubbish) and in the midst of a very troubled relationship. We were broke and unhappy. I wasn’t remotely ambivalent.
My two wonderful children were conceived when I was happy, solvent, and in a good partnership that continues on. I wasn’t ambivalent about those pregnancies, either - we’d decided to stop using contraception. I WAS, however, frightened, nervous, and (due to really terrible parents) concerned that I wouldn’t be a good mom. I can imagine almost any child of a bad relationship, or even a good relationship, being worried about what kind of a parent they might be, worrying about money, worrying about so many things.
I was, though, very well able to distinguish between knowing that an early pregnancy was a very bad idea and my later worries about parenting.
31
A pregnancy can be planned and unplanned at the same time, 40-45 % of the births in US are to single mothers. At the time of the child birth, the mother is usually dating or living with the father of the child. The men are content to have a live-in girlfriend with all the benefits of a wife but without any commitment. The woman sees the live-in relationship as a path to having a family and eventually marriage. Getting pregnant is her way of forcing the issue. If her boyfriend or a researcher asks her, she is just going to claim it was an accident and not part of any plan, but when you see such a widespread phenomenon, you have to wonder if these accidental pregnancies are really all that accidental and not part of a cynical plan by which the two sexes deal with each other.
24
First flaw in this argument, while some men do ultimately marry the partners they impregnate, many do not. And sorry to let you down, but its not always the man that objects to and/or rejects a marriage between them despite a pregnancy that was a complete mistake or “secretly hoped for” by the woman.
Additionally, what stops men from doing everything they can to make sure that no pregnancy occurs?
“Oh, the woman said she was on the pill or whatever” isn’t really much of an excuse, unless the
Men that REALLY don’t want a pregnancy (for whatever reason) don’t count on whatever form of birth control the woman is using (or claiming to use, in certain cases) to work. They ALWAYS use condoms as backup.
Some guys don’t really care at all, live-in or not. You’d might be surprised at how many men actually want to become fathers & “settle down.” Getting a woman pregnant might help solve this problem for them,
This is an unusual situation, but I knew a guy that was literally obsessed with becoming a father (but without the “baggage” of a serious relationship/commitment).
He finally got what he wanted & had the resources, etc. to make the shared custody thing work out financially for both of them.
It’s not always quite as cynical as one thinks. Some women would rather avoid the often dysfunctional dynamics of a “forced fatherhood” no matter what else she feels about the man & the relationship. Wise women frequently know how it will likely turn out in the end.
3
@Rahul
Yep. Spot on.
Do they have a box to check for "Rational Mind saying one thing and Overbearing Biological Impulses saying another - leading to "subconscious accidents" and automatic entrapment of partner?
Most of pregnancies I see around me are single women dating men and then....
I've always wanted it to be consensual for my partner and myself.
@RahulI Your statistic that 40 to 45% of women getting pregnant in the US today are single brings up many questions. First, is it only the Mothers that are single? Why do these men get pregnant with single women? How come they didn't marry the women before he got her pregnant? How many men ask their sexual partner EVERY time if birth control is being used as prescribed and following the instructions on the pharmaceutical? How many men complete sex even when they know birth control is not being used as prescribed and/or instructed that don't want a pregnancy? Should it be illegal for a man to have sex with single women without convincing evidence that adequate birth control is being used?
5
I loved my active life but was also nearing the end of my reproductive years.Every time I menstruated it was a powerful physical & visual reminder of my biological clock. My body did this for years and years and then it would not and I had no idea when it would not.This is a profound difference between men and women.I did not know if I wanted to shut the door on what my body was capable of doing, shutting the door forever to never having a child.I started to look at women’s faces at work to determine who seemed the happiest.I found the happiest women were the ones who had children.I still couldn't make up my mind because I knew I would have to give up my lifelong tools for emotional survival - being active outside.I grew up in a divorced family where my mother deeply loved us but also made it clear that she would have had a great life if not for us (her attitude changed completely.)I am not a religious person but went to the St. Anne de Beaupre Cathedral while in Quebec to ski and asked God to make the decision for me because I was unable to.The next time I ovulated I could not turn away because it could be the last time.I became pregnant immediately.I was depressed during & after pregnancy. BUT having a baby was the best decision I ever made. I love our child more than anything.My husband at the time would have gone either way but I know now it would have been terrible to deny him.He loves our child more than anything.A Baby Jogger also saved my life - with it we could hike
17
Mother of three grown children, I don't see how this is surprising. What always surprised me when I was pregnant and had babies were the mom friends I encountered who seemed NOT to express any ambivalence. Most were deeply ambivalent about getting pregnant, the experience of pregnancy, the choices around staying home or going back to work, all of it. Honestly, the way we do it here, in these little isolated nuclear families, is unnatural and difficult, and adds to the ambivalence. Imagine raising babies and children in a truly communal setting where there is always someone happy and willing to care for them when you need a break.
82
What a beautiful wish!
1
Most of my peers have been ambivalent about more kids after having 1 or 2 already. Usually they envisioned having a larger family, but once they had kids, the reality set in about how difficult and expensive it is to raise kids. It’s sometimes hard to reconcile the desire for a larger family with the reality of the challenges.
30
It is possible to be ambivalent about pregnancy and then become an adoring, enthusiastic, even exemplary parent. Conversely, it is possible to want a pregnancy above all else and subsequently fail to embrace the child and the task of parenting to the same degree.
59
I always thought that if I found a man who would really help raise the kid -- take it to appointments, make dinner and clean the house, I'd possibly - just possibly - have kids. But I never found that guy and I'm really happy I'm child-free.
98
I never found that guy either, but I had my two girls via anonymous sperm donation. They're great kids, the very best parts of my life. Sure, I have to do all of the appointment "management," but I don't mind. And thankfully, the time when kids are unable to help clean and prepare meals is pretty small (a couple of years). My girls are 3 and almost 10 and they do their chores!!! :)
13
I’m still recovering from a very difficult divorce that involved two kids and an egocentric maniac. If that partner isn’t perfectly reliable, don’t bet the proverbial house by having kids with him/her. Words cannot describe to terror and horror of having someone with money, power and violence threatening to take your kids so you’ll never see them again. Post-divorce, the constant negotiations, inescapable bullying and manipulations continued while we put a good face on co-parenting. I know the dirty disgust of an occupied nation. It has been a raw and constant wound to pretend the rape and violence didn’t happen. Even with the kids in their 20’s, the compromising situations in which one has to pretend everything is fine, still occur. I wish him dead in my heart, but have PTA pleasant on my face.
If you really want a child, just make sure no one you have even a shred of doubt about has a legal claim to them. Whatever behavior you see now, even if currently aimed at others, will eventually be turned on you. It is far better to do it on your own terms than be tied to a monster for 25 years.
6
Honest, and true.
2
This is interesting to me. My doctoral research was on reproductive choice, on women deciding whether or not to have children. So often the interviews revealed that there was no decision. Either the time/opportunity for having babies has passed or it just never happened. Or it happened "accidentally". Having made a conscious choice myself not to have children, I was a bit surprised. I guess I should not have been!
29
re: 'For decades, researchers and physicians tended to think about pregnancies as either planned or unplanned. But new data reveals that for a significant group of women, their feelings don’t neatly fit into one category or another. "
Another major "DUH" moment in the annals of science.
84
I've never wanted kids. And I never had them. I have no regrets. I'm an 'aunt' to my friends kids and it's win-win-win. I get kid time (which I enjoy when limited); parents get a break; and the kid has an additional safe loving adult in their life. And I've had several female friends say, "I love my kids, but if I had to do it over again I might make different choices." This said, I do think that ambivalence is the more 'normal' experience for both men and women though when it comes to parenthood--both before and after pregnancy--and that there should be more honest discussion about it.
47
I am wondering how much of this ambivalence is caused by smart women who understand how difficult it is in this country to raise a child. It is expensive, and there are no supports like there are in other wealthy western countries. Having a child almost always has a profound negative impact on a woman’s career. It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Denmark: we should learn from them. Then perhaps we won’t have this kind of ambivalence.
110
In my social circles, most of us married later in life (mid to late 30s). Ambivalence among my friends over having children ran the gamut from "I am not yet secure financially/career-wise" to "I haven't found a life partner" to "a baby will change my current lifestyle, which I love." Some of us over-analyzed the impetus to have kids: "Is this something I really want for myself vs. something I think I want because it's what is expected of me by family/society?"
Many of us waffled over this decision for years but at the end, biology itself forced us to choose regardless of readiness since our window of fertility began closing after 35 years old. Some of us decided to try and get pregnant despite the ambivalence and later rejoiced over being able to conceive. Others tried and were heartbroken to discover they couldn't get pregnant. Still others simply accepted that their window of opportunity has closed and moved on with their lives.
My demographic (Gen X, educated, professionals) were fortunate enough to benefit from having access to birth control and educational/career opportunities opened for us by women who preceded us. This blessing gave us a choice regarding if/when to have children- a choice we didn't/don't make lightly since as mature adults we consider the interplay of different factors (economy, career, biology, personal fulfillment, etc.) in making this decision. It's not a surprise therefore that the question does not yield a simple yes or no answer.
92
I am more interested in the range whys a woman is ambivalent. So many external, internal, and fuzzy situations contribute to getting pregnant, consciously planned or some other variable. Considerations are not weighted equally. If "no one is ever really ready" (perfect or at least decisive), then the range of feelings is substantial. Big gap between cannot afford a child now to nearly died at last birth.
On the opposite extreme, I always wonder about the women (or men with the baseball glove image) who have such a fantasy about a baby (all cloths, decorating, and pink perfect) that they fall apart at poop, costs, and "not the kid they expected". Postpartum ambivalence.
4
Male doctors and a lot of men seem to think that just because you’re a woman you either want to be pregnant or a mother- whether by choice or force doesn’t seem to matter to them. Men have two kidneys, they only need one, so why don’t they donate one whether by choice or force shouldn’t matter- right? No one should be forced to carry through with something unwanted.
30
@Sw
And no man should be compelled to support an unwanted "accidental" birth. Your body, agency, controlling choice.
1
@Sean - You made your decision when you chose to have sex with a woman you didn't know well enough to know what she'd decide about an unintended pregnancy.
6
@Sean Men are responsible for all pregnancies. Men who never, ever want the responsibility of a child, should get a vasectomy or be celibate. Men who don’t want their sexual partner to get pregnant at this time, should use condoms. And men who can’t imagine that they would ever want a baby with “that woman”, should not have sex with that woman! Otherwise, men should be responsible for their offspring. Women are endlessly criticized for “irresponsibility opening their legs” (even though sex can happen without that), when it is equally the irresponsible ejaculations of men which start all conceptions.
4
As I reached my mid to late 30s, I was asked if I wanted children. My response -- "I don't know" -- was met with, "well if you want them, you'd better hurry up."
I was a reporter in Bosnia. It was exciting, scary, and I was living through an experience that most people my age wouldn't get. So I let it slide.
So I guess that was my choice. Do I have regrets? Yes. Did I want to struggle with a kid, a husband, a job, and a house in the suburbs? No.
I should have thought outside the box. Oh well.
24
I’m amazed that this finding surprised anyone. When I had my first gynecological exam, my doctor warned me that my body wanted to be pregnant. Biology is powerful and the urge to procreate is strong. It is, after all, what our selfish genes “want.” There were many years when I “knew” I didn’t want another child (after having a boy and a girl) but I ached for another pregnancy. If anyone had asked, I would said, definitely not. But if I had gotten pregnant, I would have been very conflicted.
17
@Nancy Steele “but I ached for another pregnancy” reminded me. We decided to stop after three and I was fine until I saw little kids at the bus stop. I eventually realized I did not want ANOTHER child; I wanted my own babies back as babies.
4
@Mrs.B - I didn't find being a stay-at-home mom to my two children to be enjoyable or easy because we had so little money and my husband was rarely home. When he was home, taking care of the children was still entirely my job.
By the time our two teens graduated college and were out on their own, we were truly grateful for the break from active parenting. We had just enough of a break so that when the first grandchildren came along, were were delighted to provide full time childcare, and this time my husband tried to help. We considered those some of the best years of our lives.
Years later, my husband died and I found a new partner who is a relatively new grandparent. We're now providing part time child care for his two young grandchildren, and for me it's a chance to relive those cherished moments with my own grandkids.
5
Individual pregnancy ambivalence hasn't had the research, clinical or practice based focus it requires because this would beget our politicians, law makers, health providers, crusaders and religious affiliates to recognise the complexity reproductive decision making involves. Instead the issue is lambasted into the public sphere to divide for political over personal gain. When this question stops exisiting as a binary exercise of societal rights over wrongs then women may feel they can ask themselves what do 'I want', rather than 'what should I do'.
Before getting to 'what do i want', a woman needs to peel back; political considerations, religious considerations, respectful partner's desires (understandable and encouraged) or a controlling partner's assertions, societal expectations, familial /friend's expectations and professional/financial impacts. The question' what do I want' is a vapour trail by this stage, largely informed and influenced by polarising politics and societal norms.
The most important question a woman can ever ask herself has long been manipulated, highjacked and cloaked to serve others. What 'do I want' is the exception question, not the rule.
44
I love it when the pundit's designs to pigeonhole people don't work out. Which is pretty much all the time.
7
Millennial here- I want to have kids. For sure. However, the way things are going right now in the US, I probably will never be able to afford it, not to mention the fact that they would be dealing with the worst of climate change if nothing is done soon.
111
If you aren't sure about having a child, why have one?
Seems like a pretty important thing to consider.
If you've researched your next car or house more than the prospects of what life would be like with a child, you're doing something wrong.
26
@Nick
But Nick, life can be strange. Sometimes what we think we don't want turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. And vice-versa. The only thing I am sure about at my advanced age is that we know nothing.
25
@Nick agree that’s why we made the film as we didn’t feels feel it was deemed a choice to make a decision about
@Nick A child isn't a consumer good you can research and pretty much know what you're going to get. A child is a being with free will and its own destiny and it's not a matter of what you want (condo or bungalow? Audi or Toyota?) but how much space you can make in your life for whoever this new person turns out to be. It takes self-knowledge to look honestly at your circumstances and measure the good parts of having a child (cute smiles! continuing the family line! connection to the future of humanity!) against the bad (possibility of a sick child or a losing a child or simple incompatibility leading to a miserable relationship) and be ready to accept what you get with some degree of peace. Ambivalence in my view is a very rational response.
6
There are many many things it's ok to be ambivalent about in this life; if you prefer paper or plastic for your groceries, choice of music, favorite french fries...raising a human being to be a contributing and healthy member of society is not one of these things.
If you're ambivalent about having a child, for their sake and your own, please don't have one.
38
I have a friend who freely admits that she mainly had kids because her husband wanted them. Once they were born she was a devoted and very loving mother who has raised several of the best kids I know. It’s not that black and white - which is the whole point of this too-long article.
26
@Nick - women are totally going to listen to a man's opinion on this one, thanks.
7
@Nick I concur
There's another category of women who get pregnant accidentally on purpose with the hope that it will compel her male partner to make a commitment and settle down. The baby is a means to an end. These are the children meant to patch broken relationships.
16
@msd some isn't just to settle down but to "repair" a marriage, etc. This is never a good idea yet....
3
What I'd like to see end is the "maybe someday but not now" I hear from women already in their early thirties. They tell me "I've got plenty of time." I try to tell them no they don't. Fertility peaks at age 27 and by age 35 it can get hard to conceive. I know this first-hand. They're not telling me they can't afford it or are building a career - just shrugging the whole thing off as "eh, I don't need to think about this right now." No, actually you do.
20
@C. According to a recent study a woman's career (if she has a career and not just a 'job') will suffer if she has children when she is over 25 and under 35.
@Cal - a woman's career will also suffer if she has to leave the office frequently for fertility treatments, which have to be timed very precisely. Again, I know this first-hand. So either way a woman can't win.
2
@C
For some, yes. But many women are able to conceive after 35 and even 40. There's an Adam Ruins Everything about this very topic. I know this firsthand, as well.
1
Humans are not rational beings; they are rationalizing beings. The fact that 42% say they had a pregnancy at the time they wanted seems like another form of painting the target around the arrow in the wall.
The good news is that life becomes a lot easier and freer once you start realizing that it's okay not to have been in control of every choice in your life.
9
@Ted Flunderson
Umm, no, Ted. Life becomes freer and easier only when women are in control specifically over their reproduction. Since my abortion in my teens and the ongoing resolute decision to firmly control my reproductive destiny, my life has been incredibly free though not always easier but that’s life and does not anything to do with my biology.
Leave it to a man to so facilely declare that it’s “okay” to not be in total control of my choice to be a mother or not. No, Ted, pregnant at 18 while still trapped in a radically fundamentalist, evangelical Baptist school would have NOT been easier, freer, or okay.
7
To me this is just another nothing study. Some people know what they want; kids or no kids, some people are not sure and some change their minds. Seems this is the way for all human actions.
14
@TED338 To me, this article is pretty messed up. Since when are birth control pills not effective? Since NEVER. 99.9% is basically effective. And without any quasi-surgical procedures. Ick.
@Nadia Only the newer IUDs and implants are that effective. I’m an MD, treated women for 30 years. The Pills work perfectly in some people, but average failure is 3%, per year... over 10 years, it amounts to: nearly 1:4 to 1:3 chance of being pregnant once. Look up “cumulative failure rate of oral contraceptives”. In Canada, we have abortion rights, but women with those pill-failures make many different choices. Ambivalence is real.
2
First prenatal appointment with my third I had a general practice doctor I hadn’t met before (my regular was booked). The first words out of her mouth were “Was this a planned pregnancy?” I said “Sort of” and she looked at me like I had two heads.
I had to explain that we’d decided we would welcome another child but would not go out of our way to conceive. And yes, my doctor knew this and no, she did not counsel me to act pregnant just in case for years on end.
Apparently this is rare, or at least it is among her patient demographic. Who knew?
3
If you are having intercourse without any contraception and you could be fertile, then you should plan to be pregnant in any given month.
Decades and five abortions later, I'm still ecstatic about never having parented any offspring. To the credit of any/all physicians I've seen in my lifetime, no one asked me if I ever "wanted children" or doubted my choices.
23
@Xtine that’s fantastic that no one doubted your decision, we keep hearing in the research of our film that the decision to be childfree hasn’t been respected
1
@Xtine
Hear, hear. Same here. Thank you for proclaiming and celebrating your choices!
The movement is only beginning but once women finally cast off this religiously-inspired toxic shame regarding our choices, society can stop controlling our sexuality and start focusing on what truly matters: caring for and supporting those who do choose to procreate and their offspring. All that maniacal energy and money spent on legislating morality would be so much better spent on family leave policies, health care, child care, and children’s education.
1
@Xtine
Jeeez! Five abortions? I'm also ecstatic that you never parented. My husband, who is a physician, has told me about patients who can't seem to figure out birth control and use abortion in place of it. He's never had one with five though. It's seems like a record.
1
According to the survey, only slightly more than half of the pregnant women polled were happy they got pregnant when they did. Wow.
8
@Jen not everyone has this great worry-free life to go along with having a baby. Women are 37 percent more likely than men to live at or below the federal poverty line and 35 percent of single women with at least one child are that poor. Add the children of single women and that is 70 percent of Americans living in poverty! Women also make up 60 percent of the nation's lowest paid workers. With these numbers, there is no Wow about it. https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Poverty-Snapshot-Factsheet-2017.pdf
https://www.legalmomentum.org/women-and-poverty-america
1
Having a baby is a big job.
Have a baby ONLY IF YOU REALLY REALLY WANT ONE and if:
You have a stable economic situation: savings.
You have health insurance.
You have a stable emotional situation.
You are healthy and energetic.
You have a safe place to live.
Read a book: "The Deepest Well" about physical and emotional consequences of "adverse childhood events". Children suffer.
28
@memosyne
Whatever. In a perfect world.
All this "forethought" is nothing.
Babies come into the world EVERY DAY to people that have NONE of these things and to people who swear they would have these things first. The babies are then here. And life goes on. Has happened for forever.
Guess what 99% of the time the parents (Especially. Mothers) will swear up and down they could never imagine life without their kids. Even choosing kids over a partner all the time. "Hate my ex. Could never live without the kids."
You'll never hear otherwise no matter how many"obstacles" someone has.
2
@memosyne
I am sure you did not mean to suggest that only affluent white people should have children, but the vast majority of the people you've described as worthy parents are exactly that, at least in the U.S.
1
Unfortunately There are plenty of men and women who regret having kids. They are just not allowed to admit it.
4
We need to promote reversible vasectomies so that men will only be able to inseminate when they are clear they have the time, finances, energy, committment and desire to have a child.
Too many women are doing too much of the childraising work. Too many women are doing the fertility modifications. Too many men are simply unconscious of those two realms. Changing, but we are not there yet.
110
@garlic11 — Vasectomies aren't reversible. A procedure restores fertility in 45–60% of cases.
2
Pregnancy is an all or none situation - There is no such thing as being "a little bit" pregnant.
3
@turbot - and this applies to what exactly?
1
I get it. It’s complicated.
The first time I got pregnant at 31, I looked at the stick and said “oh $&$”. Then I miscarried. I think I stained my pillow with the amount of mascara from my tears. So many years later, that’s the detail that sticks in my mind: the blackened stains on my pillowcase. The pillowcase was Egyptian cotton with high count thread abs a designer name: a wedding gift. Maybe that’s why it sticks in my mind: the metaphor of our ruined innocence that life was all lace and bubbly champagne and wedding gifts.
We didn’t get pregnant again for five years. We found out, once again with a stick, and this time we both cried. Happy, happy tears. Relieved tears. Lucky tears because we had what many don’t: the means and wisdom to accept this monumental change of life. A change that I was probably not ready for when I said “oh $&$” that first time.
The product from that second pregnancy are two teenagers, both of whom were too busy to come home after school today. I’m writing a comment in the NYT because I can. Too much time on my hands. That’s life, too.
But that last piece is irrelevant. The point is the one I made with my first sentence. It’s complicated and the best descriptors of that complication are the people who pay for these changes physically and emotionally: us, we women.
Let’s always listen to the women....
.... and let’s never again bury the fact that ambivalence is the only sane response in the face of an awesome and life changing responsibility.
163
@Gwe--Beautiful!
3
Yes "unwanted" pregnancies and make for loved and wanted children. But why do we continue to push people to have more children. Don't we see that smaller families are good for the planet and good for the life many of us live these days. multi tasking and running from here to there. I was fortunate to grow up in a time when Mom's mostly stayed at home - and always knew that home was a safe place to land - and we were a large family- 4 girls - my Did desperately anted a boy and when my Mom got pregnant for the 5th time - it was a not a wrenching decision but a painful one for her to have an abortion in a time when they were not legal in the US . I think we should teach each woman that she is wonderful just as she is and that the decision to have children must be based on the ability to provide time ,energy ,money and love to that growing entity. The earth has wonderful but limited resources so we must also think to honor the earth- limit our families - it is good for the Climate and good for us!
33
I understand this completely. I too was raised by a mom who stayed home which was a a choice they didn't really have. I was unplanned at 19 when my mom was about to go to college. They sacrificed for me and my slightly younger sister for years. So much so that I actually remember when my mom got new clothes, I was in high school. We went to private schools and had the best they could provide always. They also both finished their PhD programs and had successful careers; my mom waited until we were in college to start her career. They now retired college professors who dote on my nephews. My point is that I never doubted who had my back or whether she was going to be home. It's a security that my sister and recognize as priceless. We saw the difference growing up and it cemented in our minds during college. The differences in our friends who didn't experience that was noticeable. My sister chose to wait until she was finished with school and was married to have her two sons and stay home with them. I chose not to have any. I think we both made the right decisions.
18
Before my first and second pregnancies, I knew I wanted to get pregnant. My second pregnancy was a traumatic experience and after that I was ambivalent about another pregnancy; I just wasn’t sure I wanted to go through it again. It was such a stark contrast to my previous feelings towards becoming pregnant. I’d tell the doctor that we weren’t really trying but not preventing and we would see what happens.
4
In my thirties, I cant even count how many conversations with girlfriends went something like this, “I guess its now or never so my husband and I are going off birth control to see what happens.”
I always laughed a little to myself since we all knew what was going to happen. There has always been room for “whatever happens happens”.
9
@Julie
Not true. To the great anguish and distress of many couples, what often happens is nothing at all, as the "see what happens" becomes the timed and programmed sex and then the fertility interventions -- painful, exhausting, invasive, and emotionally lacerating if they too don't work. And often hugely expensive.
Or what sometimes happens is miscarriage or stillbirth.
If only it were as simple as so many people think it will be.
1
The smug remarks and ad hominems leveled against medical professionals in the comments here seem completely misplaced and a bit appalling to be honest. It's a research article investigating a very specific topic with specific parameters. You say the doctors don't have enough emotional training, but honestly I wouldn't want any of these smug and bitter commentators to be my doctor.
11
Why should ambivalence be a surprise? Seldom do major life events happen in black/white want or don't want?
18
“Not sure” sounds like a topic in probability.
1
News Flash! Research discovers what women have known all along. Baby? Maybe.
17
There is so much written about the plight of the women who have struggled to get pregnant that it led me to believe there would be some time to think about the whole situation.
For me there was very little time to think, it was within a month. Ambivalent no more!
4
The article starts by noting that researchers and physicians have long divided pregnancies according to whether they were PLANNED, and then proceeds to discuss ambiguities in classifying whether pregnancies are WANTED. Those are different things! The conflation of planned with wanted and unplanned with unwanted is sloppy and calls into question whether any kind of sea change has actually taken place. I think there have always been lots of women who weren't trying to get pregnant who then did and were fine with or happy about it. That women who weren't planning to get pregnant and ultimately carried their unplanned pregnancies to term love their children and are glad they had them isn't really a revelation, either.
29
I've often said that the decision to have children is likely the most serious decision anyone will ever make in their life, and certainly nothing to be taken lightly. It's like deciding to climb Mt. Everest or run an ultra-marathon--you probably should only do it if you really, *really* want to, and feel somewhat qualified to do it. Second, if a person isn't taking precautions to*not* become pregnant...then they're pretty much playing Russian Roulette. Repeated sexual activity without using any type of contraception has a high chance of resulting in pregnancy. Lastly, I think there's 2 really important questions for any woman or man to ask themselves before deciding to bring a new life into the world 1) Would I be an exceptionally good parent, because I've experienced or witnessed great parenting, or have at least leaned what *not* to do from watching people who weren't great parents? and 2) Am I emotionally and economically prepared at this point in my life to provide this child with a shot at having a happy and stable life? These questions are crucial because there is literally a life at stake; a life that will go forward and affect dozens of other lives. It can't simply be a case of, "I want one because they're just so gosh-darn cute." The cuteness will fade, but the responsibility lasts a lifetime.
61
Completely agree. And that’s why—as a woman who had agonized over the decision and ultimately decided the answer to both questions above was a “no”—I was always puzzled and slightly irritated by people who would ask “have you really thought about it?” upon learning I was not going to have children. Um, yeah, I probably thought about it more than many women with kids....
44
@LisaLisa
When sharing that I had decided (even at a young age) that I would not have kids, no one ever asked me if I had really thought about it. Rather, I was told by quite a few folks that "you'll change your mind." Like you, I had thought deeply about what I wanted in life and would be able to offer a child. Now, almost at the end of my childbearing years, I am still convinced that my decision was the right one for me. Thankfully, the spouse agrees!
25
@Robert D
And yet, some of the very finest people I've ever known had parents who would have had to answer "no" to both questions.
And even if a person could answer "yes," there is no guarantee that they will live the twenty odd years needed to bring up the child.
Life is more mysterious than we know. If a person does not understand that not everything can be controlled, they may suffer inordinately by having children.
I think the pressure to control everything, and the knowledge that tragedies so often bring social exclusion or condemnation, lead to ambivalence about nearly every important decision in life.
4
Sorry, I don't "get" this. If one is unsure about wanting a baby, one should use very good contraception until they are sure. When one stops using contraceptives, one may not be "trying" to have a baby, but one is certainly NOT trying to avoid doing so.
When I was in my reproductive years (when dinosaurs roamed the earth!), if one wanted a baby, one quit using contraceptives and hoped each month that a pregnancy resulted. If it wasn't a good time or no more were wanted, we used contraceptives or perhaps our husbands had a vasectomy as we did not want a "whoops" baby.
I truly do not understand all this ambivalence about motherhood and so many young women not particularly liking being a mother, but swearing they love their children. We wanted children. Yes, we knew they were going to be expensive, exhaust us, limit what we could/could not do. In other words, we were ADULTS making a very adult decision to procreate. None of these things were a big surprise to us when they happened - yes we lost the baby weight but our bodies were no longer shaped quite the same.
Somedays I feel as if the young today live in some parallel universe. I do not identify with them in any way, and no, I have not just "forgotten".
Just as one cannot be a "little bit pregnant", one best get over all this indecisiveness. Even better, try growing up!
25
@India Hi India, I don't think the ambivalence you're describing is limited to young people. It happened to my own mother in her fifties, to my older sister in her near forites, to me in my late twenties. All of our fertility was in question at various points in our lives, and with the costs of living continuing to rise (at least where we live) we were scared that we wouldn't be able to do it well. That fear doesn't mean that we did not want our kids, or that we weren't capable of making adult decisions. Seems like a big generalization to throw up your hands and say, "Millennials! They just can't decide!"
28
@N I fully understand about worrying about the cost of children etc, but what I don't understand is why anyone would not be danged sure they didn't get pregnant until they had worked this out for themselves.
I had two children in my first marriage, which ended in divorce. I married a man the 2nd time who had not been married before and had no children. He promised me two more children. When we had been married long enough to consider actually doing this, he was ambivalent as was I - could we afford this? Did I want a child with him that might end up being an "only child" as my children were then 8 and 10? But while we were working this out (we decided no more children - a good decision for all concerned), we made sure the decision was not made for us by me becoming pregnant.
There is a HUGE decision in this and someone getting pregnant and then being ambivalent about whether they want to be pregnant. To me, a pregnancy is either planned or unplanned. But whether one wants a child? I do understand that ambivalence. That's just not how the article was written - it was about women who were pregnant and not sure how they felt about it. I think they needed to decide that BEFORE becoming pregnant.
8
@India
I’m glad you were clear about what you wanted and needed and felt confident enough to move forward with those decisions. I, unfortunately, got pregnant TWICE, while on the Pill (yes, it’s medically possible) and am generally ambivalent about the ethical implications of bringing another human being into a world rife with environmental and social travesties. These concerns are complicated and reflect an adults understanding of the notion that choices have repurcutions.
I know my favorite aunt, who I am imagining is closer to your agethan I am, was ambivalent about having her daughter as she wanted to pursue a career as a doctor and felt she would not be able to do both successfully (this was in the mid-70#).
Reading your comment about getting one’s pre-baby body back suggests that you suspect that women’s ambivalence surrounding motherhood lays in superficial reasons. I’m glad you have never had to make the choice about whether or not the time was right for you to have a child. In my experience and the experience of my peers, its rarely a superficial consideration. I’m also glad that I live in a world that is open to me making that choice without your input.
15
I think the wording of the question is extremely important to the response.
“Thinking back to just BEFORE you got pregnant with your new baby, how did you feel about becoming pregnant?” [emphasis added]
I can't imagine a mother who wouldn't experience self-doubt when that positive sign comes up. However, what were their expectations when they stopped using contraception? Assuming they ever used contraception. That's what the question is really asking.
I'm surprised the figure for indecision isn't a lot higher. I wonder what number of respondents are reading the question as if the "before" part wasn't there. They are answering from a place where they already know they are pregnant. Their knowledge alters the response, even if unintentionally.
Consider a mother who was conflicted but is now committed to the pregnancy and the child. I feel as though there's a bias to respond positively regardless of how the mother felt before becoming pregnant. The opposite is also true. An aborted pregnancy would encourage more negative responses.
Not to contradict respected doctors. However, I feel like there's a better way to ask what we actually want to know.
8
@Andy Sometimes well used and planned contraception fails. Sometimes a couple is planning for a baby for next year, or after we get settled from this move, or this new job, or the running back and forth with an ill elderly relative, or we are so exhausted from all of the above that the already irregular cycles get more irregular and surprise! Not not-wanted, but maybe just not now? Not not-loved, just maybe a little overwhelming? I understand this as a woman, maybe for you it is a stretch.
5
This is not at all surprising to me. When aren't we ambivalent about a major life decision and a huge life-long commitment? Marriage, home ownership, starting a new business or a new career, moving to a new city, having a new child--all daunting, scary, exciting, fulfilling, and demanding. It's the human condition!
114
@Josiah
Exactly! Life is uncertain. We want certainty. Life can be scary. We don't like to be scared. This isn't about bearing children. It's about being a person.
20
Having a new child is permanent. The other things you mention don’t have to be.
1
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I would have felt less alone if I knew a significant number of other women were ambivalent about having children. I know it seems like “duh!” But not everyone has an empathic Heath care provider. I never had a doctor ask me why I wasn’t having children. I only knew women who were eager to have children or happy to be mothers. I felt pressured to have children by family, friends, co-workers, and myself. What was wrong with me that I didn’t think I wanted children? It may seem silly to some readers that a woman could feel a great deal of anxiety of feeling alone in this decision, but it was very real to me. I once implied to co-worker I wasn’t able to have children because of his constant, well-meaning but unwelcome, questioning. In the end I decided not to have children, and I’ve been satisfied with the decision. However, not being a mother makes you significantly different than your friends. I’ve clutched something my therapist told me during those years, “You don’t have to be a mother to have children in your life.”
Please consider that not everyone knows what you do now or did at the time. Getting studied like this in the research and public eye opens up conversations and minds.
65
For many years, I absolutely did not want children, mostly because I refused to comply with the gender roles of the era. I was smart and wanted to work, not stay at home, which was what my bosses told me I should have been doing.
Later, as society changed, I desperately wanted children. I did have them, without intervention or problem. Lucky. But if anything at all had come up during pregnancy that would have threatened existing children having a mother, I would have ended pregnancy immediately out of duty to my children.
16
Well....it would be interesting what the men who were instrumental in these pregnancies think and have to say. I'm afraid if you don't include them in the conversation and require personal responsibility they will never or infrequently take on that mantle...
23
@KFAMD
Actually, the fact that it was assumed in such a binary fashion for decades, even centuries now, that women either wanted to be pregnant or not is because it was always only men who did the asking, assuming, decision-making, and controlling of women’s reproductive fates. They’ve been in control of women’s bodies for way too long and really have nothing more to add to the greater sociological conversation between women and the health care system.
You’re welcome to take up what affects you personally with your partner but with regard to the greater conversation of what women want, sit down and let the women control the discourse for once.
20
@left coast finch
This is not what the research says.
Couples who use contraception tend to start with condoms but, over time, switch to more reliable hormonal forms controlled by women. Gaps in the use of oral contraception are somewhat linked to the unsteady pregnancy intentions of women.
Men tend to pressure women for sex, which is a problem for many women. But that's different from control over contraception. Women do tend to control contraception in our society.
The ambivalence comes first with the attitude towards contraceptives, not the pregnancy.
Contraception has gotten so reliable and routine, maybe we take it for granted as protection against pregnancy. Its very interesting, that a very similar issue is now happening with vaccinations. If you dont vaccinate, you will get measles. If you dont use contraception, you will (90% of healthy couples to be statistically exact), ambivalence or not, get pregnant.
I think we have been using reliable contraception for so long we lose sight of that fact.
16
@megachulo
I think you are speaking from an assumption that birth control is readily available and affordable to all who want it and that every woman (young and old) knows what is available to her.
18
The article points out that ambivalence occurs more often with Black women. Beyond the social & economic realities of hardships of living in a society that disrespects mothers, we need to consider the dangers involved in carrying to term, particularly for Black women.
I'm a 41-year old Black woman. I would love to have a child. But I am disabled. Though my reproductive system works, I have a neurological condition that would make pregnancy dangerous for me and potentially, my unborn child.
I have Medicare as an insurer and Medicare DOES NOT cover any form of contraception. Not even a conversation with a primary care physician about a referral to a reproductive specialist. That puts folks like me in a deeply precarious position. It's either an extended involuntary period of abstinence (as is in my case) or using methods that require steep out of pocket costs (too expensive for those on fixed incomes) or are less effective (like condoms. Which must be negotiated. And disabled women are more likely to experience intimate partner and sexual violence than any demographic. Thus, negotiation is not an option for all).
No, it's never been as simple as pregnancy or no pregnancy, not in 1919 or 2019. I even won't lecture anyone today about reproductive abuses against enslaved or colonized women. That's for another day.
181
@Cee Williams
Thank you for sharing. Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed that I did not know Medicare does not cover contraception. That seems like a grossly negligent oversight at best, or a intentional punishment to those on Medicare at its worst.
I agree that it’s never been as simple as pregnancy or no pregnancy. It’s a loaded decision in the first place, only made worse if that decision is taken away from us.
39
This is SUCH an important perspective. Thank you for sharing your experience. As an ARNP working with an ESRD/Transplant population (largely insured by Medicare) I find it a tragedy that Medicare does not cover contraception.
34
@Cee Williams--it's not just Medicare. Until recently many private health insurance plans would only cover contraception if it was for a medical reason. Preventing pregnancy wasn't a legitimate reason. Yes, of course they covered viagra.
9
A look at adoptive mothers' take on this could also be interesting. Arguably, one has to be all in to go through the adoption process, and as an adoptive parent myself I would have assumed this to be the case. But after reading this, who knows?
5
Shocking, truly, that anyone thought wanting or not wanting a child existed in binary. How little regard our culture has for women and mothers making these tough decisions.
I also find it fascinating that "only" 1/5 of pregnant women are unsure if they want a child. Women know deep down that number is much, much higher.
214
I agree that it's astonishing that anyone failed to ask or notice before now that pregnancy is an issue women can be ambivalent about. Has anyone tried listening? And that "studies show" that Black women or those who are poorer have more ambivalence than any other category is bunk. Most women, especially these days, consider a host of factors: financial, career, marital status, environmental - will the earth still be inhabitable and I live downstream from a steel plant for two -, and will I be a good parent. These are concerns many women wrestle with while making that decision.
78
I just love the picture of the mother and her baby at the office desk. It's heart warming and very beautiful.
16
As many as one-fifth of women who become pregnant aren’t sure whether they want a baby.
Ha!??
What’s the ratio of the men who helped???
58
I will never admit this to her, but when I found out I was pregnant (unexpectedly and with precautions) with my third, I was panic stricken. My husband took it better, but was also shocked. Fast forward 26 years, she is an awesome, smart and fearless young woman who made our family complete. She is adored by her sister and brother and everyone in our extended families. We have spoken many times about how much less our lives would be without her.
68
@Maureen I’m glad you never admitted it to her. Like many “baby-boom” children, I was in a family of 4 kids, and I knew many families of 4 to 6. My mother, however, was, and still is “too open” about never wanting her fourth pregnancy, and how depressed she was —we are all tired of hearing about it, particularly my younger sister: the most talented and most-dedicated to our parents of all 4 of us. She does not deserve this.
3
Well, duh! That many women are unsure whether they want a baby, whether they want to do that right now, whether it fits in with what they thought was going to happen next is surely obvious. The important point is that the either/or attitude makes it much harder to work through those feelings. We are encouraged to believe that we should unequivocally want a baby. If not, we should probably abort. We are encouraged to believe that our whole lives should be a series of conscious intents that result in our plans happening as we imagined. So, if we didn’t plan to get pregnant, we should do what we “want” and abort.
If your doctor, the social worker, the advice columns, and all your friends who don’t have children talk this way, it’s hard to realize that maybe you have just received a wonderful gift, though not the one you’d asked for.
18
@Kate the "want" you describe is exactly the binary the myth the article is trying to break. I don't think the first go-to for many women who didn't plan to get pregnant is an abortion; however, how many women have the financial ability or career ability to carry a child to term and give it away? I still maintain we're asking an awful lot of women to gestate a human being for 9 months and then give it away, like that's the easiest option. "Want" is a dismissive reductive for such a complex set of emotions and circumstances .
2
@jerseygirl
I see your point, but if you didn’t plan to become pregnant, working through your feelings could mean you place the child for adoption or that you raise the child or that you abort. My concern is that the people around you not assume that not planning the pregnancy should mean you should obviously not have the child. What you assumed you wanted before pregnancy can reasonably change when you find yourself pregnant.
1
There is a throw-away line about transgender men in this article. Did you mean transgender women?
The inclusion is appreciated. More discussion of non-cisgender women, and even some quotes, would have enriched the article and better reflected the different types of families in America.
7
I think trans men is what the author intended... people who were born with uteruses and have transitioned to living as men
35
@Kathleen Haddad I think the author meant transgender men, because they can become pregnant. Though it’s a little weird in a sentence that also mentions motherhood.
2
Scandinavia, The fairyland.....how many abortions a year and what is the rate between death and birth?
A country without growth, will die!! Look at Europe? look at USA, we are getting closer to Europe. Sure some groups in USA have so much more babies then others, Is that good?.
Having a baby is a choice, we all know how to prevent it, and if a "mistake" or tragedy happened, we know how to terminate it. There are so many moral and philosophical questions that have to be answered. Is it REALLY only the women, who is either married or in a relationship, decision if to terminate pregnancy? she did not!! go to bed alone or conceived alone. She could have use prevention on her own decision....
The government obligation! is to enable women who wish for children to have them. We need to support this. We need to guarantee our future. By medical and financial help to raise a child, we will all benefit. Let women who choose to have those benefits know! that money is one thing, but raising a baby is so much more then just the money........
2
@malka abrams "a country without growth" can provide homes to refugees who need them!
8
@malka abrams
Scandinavian countries - all of Western Europe - has less than 1/3 the number of abortions than the U.S. per capita. Their abortion rate is markedly lower. It's because there are fewer unintended pregnancies.
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@LL
Likely because there is socialized healthcare, and less Puritanical taboo against Women and (gasp!) sex in Scandinavia. So, the Baby Making Process, from contraception through postpartum care is supported by Society.
American Individualism is a Lonely State.
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I think too often people are in love with the idea of having children--not necessarily the reality. Those of us without children are frequently reminded of what we are missing--not what we gain in financial freedom and time.
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@ Randeep Chauhan
Amen.
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@Randeep Chauhan: There's a woman in my life who has a toddler. Every time we interact and her kid is present, she says, "Doesn't it just make you WANT one?" And I always say, "No." I think she wants me to be jealous of her life. I am not.
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@Anne It is interesting how [the number of children you want] is a thing you just know. I may not have known at first whether I wanted a child or not, but I sure did know when I was done. When I look at someone holding a baby now, I have no desire to get me one of those, or even to have grandkids. Before my first child, I felt the same. But after my first, I felt a longing for my second one when looking at others holding their infants. After my second and last, nope; no desire to have another.
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"But new data reveals that for a significant group of women, their feelings don’t neatly fit into one category or another."
Duh.
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Women having a hard time making up their minds? That's news to men.
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@vbering Thank you for elevating the discussion with a tired and extremely sexist stereotype.
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That is a sexist remark. There are lots of reasons for ambivalence regarding the desire to have kids, especially for women.
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@vbering
Please don't trivialize complex feelings about a major life event (of which, incidentally, men have no clue)
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We needed research to know this?
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This vaguely anti-abortion piece - "they shouldn't let me abort fertilized cells because I'm too flighty to know what to do!" - would benefit from describing how more cost-effective, widespread availability of contraceptives would help people support pregnancy in their own time. There will always be people who waffle on their decision- but contraceptives help plan the most important decisions you'll ever make.
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@common sense advocate
I saw nothing of the sort in the article and I have finely-attuned radar for such things from my own early unplanned pregnancy and subsequent abortion while still in an evangelical high school and a life-time of antipathy for all things evangelical. I sensed an enlightened effort to bring far more nuance to the conversation, finally after centuries of your once, very-true man-splination of “too flighty to know...”
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This is not new.
For instance:
Bachrach and Newcomer, Intended pregnancies and unintended pregnancies: distinct categories or opposite ends of a continuum? Family Planning Perspective, 1999
Joyce TJ, et al The stability of pregnancy intentions and pregnancy-related maternal behaviors. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2000
Trussell, James, et al, Are All Contraceptive Failures Unintended Pregnancies? Evidence from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. Family Planning Perspectives
Zabin L, Ambivalent feelings about parenthood may lead to inconsistent contraceptive use—and pregnancy. Family Planning Perspectives, 1999.
Frost, J et al, Factors Associated with Contraceptive Use and Nonuse, United States. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2007
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That this 'awareness' on the part of the medical community of the possible ambivalence of women toward their pregnancies should come via surveys or studies... who are these people working as doctors, and why are they often so emotionally and interpersonally stunted?
(I would bet good money that my surgeon OB/GYN, who missed my pre-eclampsia and end-stage thyroid disease while pregnant, is on the autism spectrum, with serious incapabilities to recognize suffering and a need for help, even blatantly stated.)
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@Rhiannon
The change is very slow in coming but only because men have held a vice-grip on power and control of the medical and scientific professions forever and it’s only after a generation of many more women flooding the fields that these changes are even happening. And the fact that only the highest academic test scores are considered for medical school acceptance rather than also equally mandating high emotional intelligence is the other overtly masculine and ultimately malign influence still lingering in medicine.
It is also blatant malpractice to allow an autistic man to enter any field that requires interacting with patients, especially women and children. I bet he’s brilliant on paper and that’s all that matters to most men. So typical. Direct him to research instead!
“For decades, researchers and physicians tended to think about pregnancies as either planned or unplanned”. I think you meant to say male researchers and physicians. Perhaps someone could have asked us.
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@Catherine Fast — It's not that simple. Most family physicians and OB/GYNs are women.
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@SE Not at all. Both my OBs were men, and I only had male OBs to choose from on my insurance plan both times. I finally have a female GYN and it’s a world of difference. I agree with Catherine that this issue is a bit of a “duh.”
Some women know for sure that they do or do not want to be pregnant, some have a really hard time with the choice, and most are at least a little freaked out by impending parenthood. I don’t know a single woman that doesn’t know this.
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I’m glad we have a survey statistic to convey how women feel instead of listening to them in the moment - we’re so tedious! I’ll make sure my husband, brother, father, male doctors, male friends, and male coworkers read the report so they don’t have to use any cognitive listening skills or empathy when they talk to me about furthering the human race. And yes, I’m being sarcastic.
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I know so many women who feel this way that I find it hard to believe it's mostly African-American women or financially-insecure women. In fact, I just had a conversation about this a few months ago with two women friends both of whom expressed deep ambivalence about having more children. Both are highly-educated -- one is even a professional philosopher (Ph.D.). Both are either upper middle class or on their way there. Both are married. One is around 30, the other around 40. Both are actively and intentionally not using birth control and just leaving it all up to fate. One has since become pregnant. I'm somewhat gobsmacked that researchers have just gotten around to asking the question.
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I wonder what the findings would be if you asked men about their feelings on this.
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Ambivalence about pregnancy, parenthood and most other life choices is common and should be expected. But we insist on thinking that these choices are binary and many are left to feel alone with their ambivalence. We’re not very good at acknowledging the complicated feelings that are involved with sexuality, relationships and procreation. In addition to the practical concerns discussed many people have strong emotional connections to the deeply personal human processes. A pregnancy might be desired, for example, to fill a feeling of emptiness but parenthood might not be desired because it’s not the child that is wanted but the feeling of wholeness. It would be helpful if doctors had more training in basic psychology so that they could be alert to the feelings, not just the actions of their patients.
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Thanks for this article. Interesting data and cases. And relevant today, especially for the US, as never before.
Just so you know, there is actually quite a lot of literature in population studies on this: eg, ambivalence about pregnancy, or changing one's mind as the pregnancy proceeds, adopting a "wait-and-see" approach, to watch the interests of the partner as they begin to reveal themselves.
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Agree with so many who have commented here. This is likely not news to many women, with or without children.
Next up: A percentage of women who have children are ambivalent about parenting!
We are fully formed human beings, capable of mixed emotions.
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I don’t see the big revelation in this article. What it comes down, is still the question of whether a pregnancy is planned or unplanned, and whether it’s wanted or unwanted.
The question/issue is really that pregnancy is not just about conceiving a baby, but the future worries of bringing up a baby. There’s financial constraints, there are real worries about career building (or not). I don’t believe doctors can solve that issues for women (and their families), nor should they be.
Policy makers do have a role to play. Universal pre-K and childcare would have helped alleviate much anxiety and relieve financial burdens of so many young families. It would also have meant that women would not have to step off the career ladder just to start a family and decide to have babies. And this is also why the public policies in this front from Scandavian countries are consistently admired by this side of the Atlantic.
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@tiddleYeah, but all that pre-K, free childcare, etc., may "...alleviate much anxiety and relieve financial burdens of so many young families.", but it will create more anxiety for ME and my childless family in having to pay more money we can't afford to pay for peoples' choices that they can't afford, either.
Wow, the medical establishment and policymakers are just figuring this out??? This has always been the basic reality for most women. It must be men who came up with the either/or dichotomy....
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@sfdphd
The basic reality for most women? Only 14% expressed ambivalence. Unremarkable. The important statistic that should have been explored, is that 7% did NOT want a kid at all but ended up with one. THAT needs addressing.
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For all my life, there was nothing I wanted more than to have a baby. It took a year, a PCOS diagnosis, medical intervention, and a miscarriage before my first pregnancy. But after that, I was so happy I didn't know if I wanted more. I knew I wanted more in an esoteric sense, but I felt concretely happy with my son. I got pregnant a second time and felt "meh" until the ninth month, which is when I started getting excited for the new baby. Currently, I'm edging into my ninth month with baby number three and while I needed medical intervention to get pregnant I would've been happy with just my two boys had it not worked out. I didn't care one way or another about this pregnancy until about a week ago. Now I can't stop planning and going crazy over every baby I see. It is certainly true that people expect you to be excited about your pregnancies from day one and that it isn't always the case. My doctor asked me about my feelings toward the pregnancy and then had a great analogy--he said, "having a baby is like going to Disney World. That first time you're excited just to be on the plane. The next time you already know the plane ride is nothing and the exciting part is actually being in Disney World."
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I am grateful for this article. It needs to become more acceptable for women to express their ambivalence, not just about pregnancy, but even about motherhood. I think a great many women love their children, but are ambivalent at best about the actual experience of motherhood because of the demands, the opportunity cost, and the loss of big parts of ourselves that can accompany it. Not all women find great fulfillment in motherhood. It doens't mean we don't love our kids, though.
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@Syliva The fact that "not sure" wasn't even considered an option, or that women were reluctant to express this, is the crux of the issue.
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The article is clear that while the cited moms were ambivalent, they end up loving their children and being mothers, though.
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I find myself in this position currently. My husband and I have good jobs and recently bought a house. We're in our early 30's and feel like we may be approaching financial security. But there is just such a multitude pf "what ifs" and I worry that I'll never feel that certainty that we are ready to be parents.
We've discussed it and we know that if pregnancy happened we would have the baby. I worry though about the health effects of being pregnant and not knowing it. I drink socially, I eat foods like sushi and deli meats. The biggest fear I have is unintentionally injuring a unknown fetus that I hope to bring to term.
It's strange being of an age where this is what I worry about in the middle of the night. I'm glad this is a conversation that those in health care and of the child bearing capable persuasion are having.
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@Heather M, being a parent is a lifelong pursuit. It starts with conception, then the worries for the fetus, the delivery. That’s the easy part which can at least be dealt with within a year. Once the baby comes, there’ll be constant worries of its health, wellbeing, education, its social life, costs of childrearing, saving for college, the list goes on.
But, being conscientious of it all, and to try to plan it out, is part and parcel of being a parent. There’s a beauty of “not knowing it all”. And a kid can bring so much joy. (Though of course a kid can also bring much grief and sorrow.) It’s a pursuit you have to be prepared to throw yourself into, hopefully with a supportive partner to share the joy and sorrow.
I can only say, for the most part, the experience could well worth the risks and worries.
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@Heather M I recommend you read a book, "Expecting Better" by Emily Oster. It talks a lot about the advice given to mothers like this, no deli meats etc. It discusses the actual studies behind these recommendations (or lack thereof) and weighs the pros and cons of the advice. The book might give you peace of mind - I know it did for me!
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Completely understandable.
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When I got pregnant with my daughter, I was married. It was an unplanned pregnancy. I wasn't sure how I felt about it either. This is not a new finding. Women have felt this way since the beginning.
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@Libby Thank you. I read this baffled. "For decades, researchers and physicians..." Hey. We're not lab rats. Also, any woman can tell you that your feelings about impending motherhood change by the day - by the hour! As my dear departed mother used to say, "Women are unhappy when they're not pregnant and when they are."
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@Libby Absolutely. You go back to the oldest of herbals, and you find many things recommended for bringing on the menses. Some of it, including wild carrot seed, actually worked if properly used.
But women weren't considered to be pregnant until quickening, about 4 months, and bringing on your menses before that time was a treatment even the most religious orders were familiar with and probably handed out on a regular basis.
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Please go back and read The Fog Zone (2009) and Promises I Can Keep. Both show the ambiguity that people often feel about having children--now. this is not newly discovered.
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But it is newly “scientifically established.”
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@Julie Zuckman’s, I don’t see how “scientifically” this is, only that you can now talk about it with statistics. Is that all “science” is for you?
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Please go back to any point in history and listen to a woman. We have always expressed our ambivalence to having children. This isn’t a new discovery since 2009 either.
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As important as continuous medical care for women are the support systems that are (or are not) in place when they are thinking about pregnancy and during child raising. Many women and men describe the transformational nature of having a family through pregnancy. That means to me that they had no idea about the ecstasies and the agonies of raising a family and for that matter how different it can be when you have a second child, given the experience you gain.
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@a goldstein
It would just be nice in general if there was importance placed on "continuous medical care" -- and not just for women who may become mothers.
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As a Family Physician I hear the "I'm not sure" or "If it happens it happens" answer a lot and it always throws me. I was always encouraged, as the article says, to offer either contraception or pre pregnancy planning. That a fair number of women are at best ambivalent is borne out in my experience. I do try to get people to be more intentional about it but "it's complicated".
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@Bob (This is Claire's wife posting). Meanwhile, my wife and I would LOVE to leave #3 up to chance. We have two wonderful sons, but since we need to use fertility services in order to conceive, we can't really do an "if it happens, it happens."
We decided on a compromise: when we're ready to start trying for #3, she's not going to the more intense (and high-side-effect) fertility meds.
Also keep in mind that for many women, there is a lot of pressure to deciding to try to conceive. If it doesn't work out, then we may have feelings of guilt (heck, I had feelings of guilt when my wife was pregnant because I have health issues that would make it a very bad idea for me to be pregnant. But I felt guilty that I couldn't do it!), and may even have societal or family guilt heaped upon us. Leaving it more open-ended when someone wants children but doesn't want the stress of being officially trying to conceive may simply be less stressful in a very results-oriented culture.
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@Claire
I think there are important observations in your comment that would have rounded out this article (not to mention the study). The stress of making such a huge decision, the cultural pressure of "succeeding", the cultural blowback of not wanting to be a mother... lots of psychological insight on ambiguity.
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Women who are ambivalent on this most consequential of life-changing decisions are weighing complex and difficult questions for which there are no easy or certain answers. Messaging that basically boils down to “well, this is important, so you gotta make a decision!” doesn’t help them gain insight into a single one. In fact for someone having trouble with a decision, it could even make it worse. These women need to be taken seriously and engaged with. Maybe the doctor can give some insight by inquiring about one or two of the issues she’s struggling with, and/or refer to a therapist for help exploring these complicated feelings.
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Let's be clear: For women who decide that they don't want to carry a pregnancy to term, they should be given the opportunity, without obstacles, without coercion, to end that pregnancy. Period.
That is the important point for policymakers. And for reporters.
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@Sean That's not what this article is about. Why are you trying to make this political?
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This is one reason physicians ask a binary question and want a clear intent. Ambivalence is fine until a pregnancy reveals it was actually an “absolutely not.” Many agree on the reasonableness of keeping abortion legal while detesting the practice deeply, including those in the profession devoted to healing and sustaining life. If ambivalence means “not gonna bother with prevention” in an effort to keep it what? Interesting? Romantic? And then turns into “absolutely not” when pregnancy happens, that is just not cool.
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@Sean
I agree fully! As a guy with three females in my family, I want the politicians to keep their legislative fingers out of their bodies.
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