Planning to be Married with Children?

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

25 Jan 2006 10:00 AM

First comes love Then comes marriage Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

- Child's Limerick

There are lots of trials in the early days of marriage, but when couples have worked out the wrinkles, they experience a time period of almost carefree whim. You might both be working so the financial burden is pretty low. You can eat out every night, go to the movies, pick up and go on a quick weekend trip with few responsibilities and obligations to hold you back. It's a great time for you to go back to school or even change careers.

The options seem limitless, right up until two pink lines show up on the home pregnancy kit. When you have a child, everything changes. It's no longer just the two of you, footloose and fancy-free. Suddenly, you need to check on the budget and maybe change how you manage them. You are looking at increased expenses, physical and emotional changes and only a few short months to go from being two to three.

Most people have children before they realize the effect that it will have on their lives. Some do not. Some honestly contemplate whether they are ready to have children, how much will it change their lives and will the changes be worth it? Will it be better? Will it be worse? Unfortunately, still others believe that a child can repair a troubled relationship and that it will draw the potential parents to be closer.

It takes time for you and your partner to learn to work together as a team and to build a solid foundation. That teamwork and foundation will support the couple through the trials of adjusting to the enormous changes a child brings into a relationship. On average, experts feel that couples married 2 to 3 years before seriously considering having a child.

Having children too soon can cause friction and difficulty. Now, do not take this to mean that parents who have children before that time are worse than those who wait. It just means that if you are asking the question, that you are considering whether you want to try and conceive or you want to wait. Choosing when to have a child is an option available to married couples through birth control.

Children are a wonderful part of life. They can enrich and deepen a relationship as the married couple bonds in the new state of parenthood. But they should be the result of a loving relationship where the bond existed before the parental one in order to support both the individuals and the marriage.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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Teresa McEntire (2984) 27 Jan 2006 05:30 PM

Kids rarely make things easier. Being a parent is the hardest job you will ever have. Children do bring a lot of joy and complete a family. But having that time just as a couple to fall back on and remember is precious.

Heather Long (16954) 01 Feb 2006 07:24 PM

It's hard to think back on a time when I didn't have a child, even though that was only a few years ago. It's hard to remember how it used to be when we had all that time and now I wonder did we waste those moments? Because when we do get down time together by accident or design -- it's fanatstic.