8 Things To Know If You're Not Sure You Want Kids

Hello everyone.

My name is Holly Trantham.

I am TFD's creative director

and I am here popping out from behind the camera

as I do every once in a

while to talk to you about something

that we don't get into

that much here at TFD,

but I feel uniquely qualified to talk about

as one of our resident moms

and that is what it's like to actually have a child.

But before I get into it,

I'd like to give a special thank you to our sponsor for this video.

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So based on the comments

and questions that we get from you guys

and from our recent survey responses from our audience,

I know that a lot of people watching this are on the fence about

whether or not they want children.

And I can tell you I was in exactly the same situation four

or five years ago.

If you had asked me if I wanted kids,

I would probably have said no.

But I never fully committed to the label of being child-free

because I was always open to the possibility

that I would change my mind.

And clearly, I did.

I now have the most beautiful, amazing,

perfect 6-month-old baby girl in the entire world.

And while I'm not going to get into all of the reasons

that I ultimately decided to have a child,

it ultimately boils down to

that this is an experience my husband

and I decided we wanted to take on together.

And I don't want to sway you in any direction,

but I do think there are some things everyone should know before having a

child about the realities of what it's actually like

that can hopefully help you make the right decision for yourself no matter

which direction of the fence you ultimately hop off of.

Note that I am mostly speaking to women here

and especially women with cis men partners

as that is my lived experience.

I'm also mainly going to be speaking to the experience of having a baby

rather than pregnancy and childbirth

because there is enough content out there about

that and I think it's very important to do all of the research you

can or want to about those things,

but ultimately, they are a lot more temporary than actually having a baby

and a growing child.

Also keep in mind, I only have a 6-month-old,

so I stand behind everything I'm saying here,

but maybe once I have a 2-year-old, a 5-year-old,

I'll do another video.

Okay, without further ado,

here are eight things I think everyone should know before deciding whether to have

a child.

Number one, feeling 100% ready is a myth.

The internet really loves to tell you, if it's not 100% yes,

it's a no on having children.

And while I appreciate and can get behind that sentiment,

I do think being 100% on any major life decision is kind of rare.

And maybe some people actually do feel this way,

but I do think that anybody who feels only positive feelings,

100% positive feelings about the idea of having a baby,

has not actually thought it through all the way

and may not actually be

as prepared for parenthood

as they think they are.

Of course, you want to be primarily excited about it,

but you should also be clear-eyed about what's going to be difficult about it

because there will be things

that will be hard.

And I think it's absolutely 100% normal

and understandable to have anxieties about what you're going to experience having a kid

you're taking care of.

I remember when I first had my baby, I was so excited,

but I did have this overwhelming anxiety at first about this being yet another

thing in life that you can fail at.

It's a big responsibility and it should be treated as such.

When I was still making my decision,

I personally spent a lot of time on the Regretful Parents subreddit,

I guess kind of as exposure therapy.

I still think it is worth perusing for anybody out there,

but I do think

that it does highlight a lot of the extremes

and I decided I was ultimately just looking at it

as a way to talk myself out of something

that I actually ultimately wanted.

Also, take selflessness out of the equation.

There are pretty much only selfish reasons to have a kid

and there's also a lot of selfish reasons to not have a kid.

It doesn't matter.

You are doing this for yourself.

Your selfishness or selflessness around

that reason is kind of neither here nor there unless you are purely having

a child to have a mini version of yourself,

which I think is misguided and ultimately bad.

The main thing you want to do is make sure

that you are having a kid for yourself

because that's something that you want,

not something to appease your husband or partner, your parents or family, or society,

or because it you feel like it's just the next thing

that you do in life.

But if your reservations are around whether

or not you think you would be a good parent,

I think that probably signals

that you are a conscientious person

and you probably would do a good job.

I also like the phrase it's not about making the right decision,

it's about making the decision right,

which our friend Erin Lowry referenced in our most recent season of Ask

and Answered.

You don't want to spend your life regretting your decision in either direction,

so being able to make a decision

and put yourself 100% behind it is the goal here.

But yes, the idea of regretting not having a kid is probably a lot

easier to stomach in the long run than the idea of regretting having one

because then at least it's not someone else's life that's impacted.

Number two, know that people generally talk in extremes about children

and the reality is usually somewhere in the middle.

People really like to say that not having children makes your life incomplete,

but on the other hand,

people tend to talk about having kids and parenthood as the worst,

most harrowing thing they've ever experienced or the hardest thing that they've ever experienced.

The one thing that I got hung up on a lot

when I was deciding whether

or not I wanted to have a kid was the concept of not being

able to sleep for 2 years plus.

People love to say, "Look forward to never sleeping again."

That is not true.

It is very much luck of the draw what your baby will be like.

Um yes, those first few months are tough,

but you can figure out sleeping especially

if you have a partner who's like in it with you,

you can figure out shifted sleep schedules.

If you don't have, you know,

an extra bedroom or the ability to put like an air mattress in your

nursery or something.

We actually, like right down here in my living room,

my couch is over there,

we had the bassinet over here for the first few weeks.

One of us would sleep on the couch,

the other one would be up in the bedroom for about 5 hours,

we'd swap.

We got a lot more sleep than a lot of early parents,

I'll just say that much.

Ultimately, eventually we were able to move

that setup into our guest room once we no longer had family staying with

us and that was the best decision I made early days.

Uh I give myself full credit for that.

Congrats to my husband for marrying me for that decision.

But yes, how well your baby sleeps is ultimately a lot of luck,

but there are a lot of things that you can do like sleep training,

which is a very controversial tool for some reason,

um that can help them get through the night

if that is your big anxiety,

which is what it was for me.

My husband actually put a ton of effort into setting our daughter up with

good sleep habits from the get-go,

so we didn't actually even do full like official sleep training.

We were just able to get to a place where she could sleep through

the night unassisted by like 3

and 1/2 months.

It was amazing.

And that's very lucky, I realize, but again,

there are a lot of things you can do to make

that easier on yourself.

That's not me trying to talk anybody into sleep training or anything.

That's just one of the many ways people like to scare new parents

or future parents about the idea of having a baby.

I do think you should go into it clear-eyed about what's going to be

difficult,

but some of those things are well overstated

or they're coming from people who just haven't put in the effort

and research into making it easier on themselves.

Number three, you will be able to return to yourself, but not reinvent yourself,

at least not right away.

Kids inherently take a lot of effort to manage

and I'm saying that

as someone with just one of them,

probably forever.

And for this reason,

I think it is extremely important to put a lot of effort into building

before you have a child

because that child is not going to complete you.

They are going to add layers of love to your life

that you will never have been able to experience before,

in my opinion.

But just like a romantic partner is not going to complete you,

a child is not going to complete you.

And I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to expect

that they will be completely fulfilled in every aspect of life by just having

a baby and having no other energy for other personal outlets

or a social life

because it's true that the number one thing

that you lose when you have a baby is your free time.

Even if you are thrilled to be spending your time taking care of your

baby and even if you have an equal partner,

you're going to have a lot less time to yourself

and you're going to start to crave to get some of

that back.

And I say this

as someone who surprisingly really loved taking care of a newborn a lot more

than I thought I would.

You're going to have to be more intentional with your time

and you're going to have to work harder at maintaining your identity outside of

motherhood.

That doesn't mean it's by any means impossible,

but there are going to be people in your life, especially older family members,

in my experience, who only see you as mom now.

You are going to go to the doctor.

It doesn't matter which doctor you're going to, they're going to call you mama.

You're going to walk into a restaurant,

there's going to be a really friendly server, he's going to ask you,

"What does mom want?"

It's just going to happen.

And all of that is going to be completely exacerbated by your social media.

So if you don't work at it,

you are just going to become mom

and that's not going to be fulfilling for most people.

But back to what I was saying about building a life you love before

having a baby,

it's going to be much easier to get back into your habits

and routines that you already had pre-baby than establishing completely new ones.

So, if you were already making time for your social life and your friends,

it's going to be a lot easier to continue making time for them once

you have a baby,

especially if you can incorporate the baby into some of those plans.

Not all of them, but some of them.

But if say you've been itching to get into a sport

or activity that you've never taken on before,

you're going to have very little energy to start something totally from scratch in

those early days and months of having a child.

Not only are you going to be healing,

but you're also just going to have so much less mental bandwidth for things,

and parenting a child is already a new skill you're building.

It's just not going to be the time to entirely start learning a new

language from scratch.

Especially if you have a partner who makes it easier to have

that time for yourself,

it's going to be a lot easier to hold onto an identity you already

established rather than trying to establish a whole new one now

that you have a baby.

Number four, who you have

as a partner is somehow even more important than you think it is.

It is so much harder to make time for yourself

if your partner is not pulling their weight

when it comes to parenting.

If you're entering into parenthood with a partner, how they take ownership of parenthood,

meaning whether or not they do,

is going to make a huge impact on your entire experience of it.

How many men have chosen to train for marathons

while their wives are actively pregnant

or in the middle of raising a newborn?

And even disregarding that kind of extreme example,

so many men enter into parenthood not realizing how much work it actually takes

and taking for granted the kinds of things women

and even their own mothers did by default

because they didn't have a good example of a father who was actually an

equal co-parent.

So many of them end up thinking they are doing an equal amount of

domestic labor when they are actually doing a lot less than

that.

And we've talked about domestic labor statistics here quite often,

but they never cease to shock me.

There are in fact a growing number of marriages

that are equal on paper in the terms of a husband

and wife making similar incomes.

However, housework is still not equally shared even in marriages where the woman is

the breadwinner.

She'll still do six more hours of domestic labor a week than her husband

on average.

In contrast, male breadwinners are spending nearly 15 hours less on housework than their

spouses.

And the only case in

which a wife does less work on average is

when she is the sole earner.

And even then, she will still be doing more housework per week than men

in every other household scenario.

So, back when I was pregnant,

I regularly attended prenatal yoga classes here where I live in Brooklyn.

Because I live in Brooklyn,

I met several women that were entering into parenthood completely on their own,

solo single motherhood by choice.

And now that I know what it's like to parent with an equitable partner,

I know that I would never have made that specific choice for myself,

but also through looking at my marriage compared to family members, friends,

people on the internet,

and women I have met through parenting groups here in my neighborhood,

I've gotten a glimpse of what it looks like to parent with an unequal

partner who does not take on their fair share of parenthood

or domestic labor responsibilities,

who does not take ownership of being a parent in the same way

that most mothers do.

And I would absolutely choose single motherhood by choice over parenting with one of

those dweebs.

I think it could very easily feel like more work to be constantly nagging

a man who is not pulling his weight than to simply just take care

of a baby all by yourself.

And I'm sure that many of these women have family members

or close friends or platonic partners

that are helping them

that honestly might be a one-to-one replacement for the amount of housework

that most men are taking on on average.

And I did make a whole video about how I knew my husband would

be a good parent,

but here are some things to ask yourself about your current partner

or a future prospective partner.

If you're planning on breastfeeding,

are you confident they are going to take care of everything else during

that time?

How are you scheduling sleep in those first few months?

If you're going through childbirth,

have you and your partner discussed how your sleep will need to be prioritized

during your recovery?

Have you had conversations about how much housework there is going to be with

a child in the mix?

A good place to start with this is the Fair Play card deck from

Eve Rodsky.

And have they taken a vested interest in owning a specific aspect of childcare?

Like I said, my husband was committed to establishing good sleep habits with our

baby from day one.

And that meant he was reading precious little sleep.

He was listening to the podcasts.

He was doing all of the work there.

I was not thinking about it.

I was just, you know, "Ooh, I hope she sleeps."

And now that I have several months of experiencing sharing these childcare tasks with

my husband,

I have a new take that I stand 100% behind.

And that is number five,

the biggest red flag is a partner who does not want to take parental

leave.

I know that parental leave is not guaranteed to everyone in this country,

or at least paid parental leave is not.

And I'm not necessarily saying

that anyone should take unpaid leave

if that's not really a financially feasible option,

but if your husband

or partner has parental leave available to him

and he doesn't want to take it

or doesn't want to take all of it,

that's a huge red flag.

When I shared that video about how I knew my husband was going to

be a good parent,

I got a lot of well-meaning but ultimately condescending comments,

uh a couple of emails even, saying,

"Just you wait till the baby's here

and things are going to change cuz men are men."

Part of me wants to be petty and be like,

"Let me show you how you are all proven wrong."

And you know, take that and everything.

I ultimately want to talk about the reason I think

that we are set up to be equal parents now

and going forward.

And that is because we took the same amount of leave at the same

time.

Now, I'll preface this by saying that we live in New York State.

We are very lucky to have government-backed 12 weeks of paid parental leave,

and we both took a couple of extra weeks on top of

that of leftover PTO.

So, we both took 14 weeks total.

I actually took 15 weeks, but I took a week off before she arrived.

So, we were each fully there for the first three plus months of our

baby's life.

I know that that is not available to everyone,

even though it seems like

that was already such a crazy short amount of time,

especially compared to what other developed countries get for paid parental leave,

but I digress.

I firmly believe that taking this time established a clear equitable baseline for both

of us as parents.

For instance, I ultimately ended up exclusively pumping for about four months.

RIP that journey.

I don't miss it at all.

And I can't imagine going through that,

going through breastfeeding without having my husband here to manage basically everything else.

It was kind of a full-time job,

especially in that first month or two,

and you don't realize just how exhausting it's going to be.

For me, it was better than being pregnant,

but healing and pumping was still just

so draining on top of also not being able to sleep eight hours a

night or be in your regular self-care routines

that you were pre-baby.

Having him there was crucial for me to be able to rest

and recover like I needed to,

and also just made him feel as responsible for this baby as I was.

Yet so many men do not take significant parental leave even

if they have it available to them.

A 2016 study of more than 1,500 US employers found

that more than 80% of those offering paid family leave reported a positive impact

on employee morale.

And more than 70% reported an increase in employee productivity.

Another study published in 2019 found

that US companies in tech

and manufacturing saw improved revenue

and profits over the years in

which they expanded or began offering paid leave benefits.

Despite all of this,

the cultural stigma associated with paternity leave still seems to be offsetting the compelling

arguments for taking it.

A report from McKinsey & Company and MomsFirst, a gender equality nonprofit,

noted that dads in New York are forgoing

as much as $1.6 billion in state-guaranteed parental benefits by not taking leave.

In 2021, an academic paper found

that US fathers who do take parental leave typically take a week

or less.

According to that paper,

just 14% of fathers who take leave

and less than 5% of all fathers take more than two weeks,

even when they can.

My own husband had a lot of anxiety about taking his full leave

because he was the first man in his department to do it.

I know men personally who seem like wonderful equitable feminist partners,

and they still don't feel the need to take their full leave available

because their wife is taking it.

And in some ways they feel more obligated to their team at work than

they do to their new family.

And it's not talked about that much,

but having a non-equal co-parent can actually contribute to postpartum depression.

According to a study from Tokyo Medical and Dental University,

mothers that do not have social support from either a partner

or others showed higher risk of PPD.

That is, times more likely to have PPD.

Obviously, if your husband just doesn't have leave available to him, that's one thing.

But if he does and he doesn't see the point in him taking it,

I don't understand what his concept of parenthood is.

Number six, it is expensive to have a kid,

but not in all of the ways that you think.

So, financially preparing for a child does not mean you have to reach a

certain income level or a certain amount in savings before you are ready to

have one.

And I don't think

that only people who can afford to have kids should have them.

All kinds of loving homes exist,

and what feels affordable to one person might look totally different to another.

The most important thing is you are able to provide for your child's needs

and give them love

and support and attention.

But prioritizing their needs

and loving them does not mean giving them every single brand new toy,

all of the millennial pink contraptions

that we see targeted to parents

as necessary for their development,

or new clothes every month.

The truth is there are

so many ways to make having a new child a lot more affordable.

I've gotten a lot of baby clothes from hand-me-downs or swap meets,

and I have mostly bought my daughter second-hand clothing from the consignment shop.

And if you know other people with babies or can join certain parent groups,

you could probably clothe them for at least the first three months without ever

spending anything on clothing.

Maybe baby socks because there aren't really a lot of good used baby socks

out there,

but for the most part.

You can also get essentials off of Facebook Marketplace

or through your local Buy Nothing groups.

That's how I found our high chair and our bassinet attachment for the stroller.

You can swap babysitting nights with a parent friend

so that you each get a night off without having to pay a babysitter.

You can utilize the library for children's programming or renting books or even toys.

Or you can get a membership to a place like Costco

that makes it a lot more affordable to stock up on diapers,

wipes, formula.

Those day-to-day expenses are actually pretty simple to find affordable swaps for.

It is the bigger expenses

that come with having a kid

that are a lot more taxing.

So, we're talking child care, we're talking health care costs,

especially if you don't have very good insurance,

and we're talking long-term savings like putting money away in their 529

or other long-term accounts for your child.

I don't want to overly downplay the impact

that having a child can have on everyday costs,

but again, those things are just a lot easier to make work

if you are currently getting by just fine.

Fitting in a child is often just a matter of shifting your priorities,

which I'll get to in a bit.

Whereas, if you're already stressed about money on a daily basis,

having a kid is just going to amplify that stress further.

And child care in particular is one major expense

that can make or break families financially.

According to the Center for American Progress,

among impoverished families who have children under age 6

and who pay for child care,

35% were pushed into poverty by these expenses,

totaling about 134,000 families per year.

Each year, an average of around 446,000 middle-class families are pushed into a lower

income quintile by child care costs.

The Child Care for Working Families Act could significantly reduce

or eliminate these costs for the large majority of low-

and middle-income families and could cut the median cost of care

that families pay annually by 2/3,

from roughly $7,500 to $2,500.

Again, many people could just figure out the day-to-day costs of having kids,

especially once you get the hang of budgeting for yourself.

But large expenses like child care are not something you should leave up to

just going with the flow.

So, of course, not being able to afford does not necessarily mean you shouldn't

have kids.

If you have always wanted to be a stay-at-home parent

and that is something

that you can figure out with your partner,

that might be a feasible option for you.

There are some things to consider when it comes to returning to the workplace,

but I've actually read recently

that when a gap in a resume is explained by parenthood,

it makes a less significant impact than a gaps explained by other reasons.

I also know a lot of people who made it work for a few

years while they were working remotely

and taking care of their kid.

I don't know if I could personally do that,

especially with the type of job I have,

but if you have a really flexible job, that might be possible.

I think it would add a layer of stress, but again,

people have done it.

But that kind of flexibility is a privilege.

I ultimately knew myself well enough to know

that I never wanted to be a fully stay-at-home parent,

neither did my husband.

Although, after going through leave,

I think he probably would feel like he was thriving.

Mostly because I didn't want to give up

that lost income and

that amount of time.

I can't speak to the long-term impact of trying to balance child care

and work life because we prioritized being able to pay for child care from

the get-go.

We put my daughter into what I can confidently say is a high-quality daycare

center from 5 months,

and it has been a total game-changer in my energy levels

and ability to be present for my baby.

It's ultimately worth the cost for us

because our incomes exceed what we would pay a nanny

or for daycare.

But that's going to be a personal decision

and also a matter of where you live

and what your job life looks like.

Again, there are other big costs that are also pretty concerning,

like putting money away for your kids' future college expenses.

There's an account called a 529 for this, and according to Vanguard,

you'd have to save about $570 a month in

that kind of account starting at age zero in order to save $200,000 by

the time your kid is in college.

And that's a really big number to think about.

But we also have to remember it is optional.

If you don't like the idea of having a kid

and not being able to pay for their college expenses,

I guess that's something to consider.

You can also start a lot smaller

because anything you contribute to their future is better than nothing,

and you can always start small and increase your contributions over time.

Parenthood looks a lot of different ways for a lot of people.

There are a lot of costs associated with it,

I don't want to downplay that.

But I do think some people beyond a certain income level could just figure

it out,

and if you're weighing the costs of what you're going to give up in

order to have that kid

and it's not worth it,

then that might be your answer.

Ultimately, I do think there are a few things anyone can do to better

financially prepare for a child.

So, look at the average cost of child care in your area.

We started saving as soon as we knew I was pregnant,

and if you can get even just a few months ahead of the game

there,

that might make a really big difference.

Get term life insurance, that is super important.

The younger and the healthier you are,

the more affordable it's generally going to be,

and you want to lock in a good rate to make sure

that your family is taken care of should the worst happen to you.

Thirdly here, remember that taking care of yourself is taking care of your child.

So, the last thing you want to sacrifice is things like your 401k

or any kind of long-term future planning.

That's going to make it easier for you to retire

and your kid not to have to,

at least financially, take care of you.

Also, come up with a savings plan that works for you.

For our kids' 529, we contribute a little bit every month,

but we also take windfalls, such as our tax refund,

and put that away in that account.

Of course, when it comes to your day-to-day spending,

this is a huge life change, which brings me to number seven.

Your priorities are going to change and you need to be okay with that.

And if you're not okay with that,

that might tell you what you need to know about whether

or not you want a kid.

The most underrated skill a new parent can have, according to me, is flexibility.

And I'm talking mentally and emotionally, not physically,

though you do bend over your baby a lot, that can certainly help.

I knew I would have a lot less time for my interests once I

had a baby.

But I also didn't know

that I would actually care a lot less about some of those things.

I spent a lot of time

when I was thinking about having a kid

and then pregnant,

grieving that we would not be able to have the vacations

that we have been able to take the last few years once we had

a kid,

both logistically and financially.

But now that I have my child,

I don't feel nearly as antsy to travel the way that we used to.

It's not that it's not important to me,

it's just that even the small moments at home are

so much more magical than they were before,

unless we're cheating.

Life is short actually has an entirely new meaning to me now.

Yes, life is short, to me that means you don't have to rush things.

Time moves so fast,

I cannot believe I have a 6-month-old who's twice

as big as she was

when she came out,

you know, 8 and 1/2 lbs.

I'm so hyper aware of how fast time is moving,

so even if it takes a few years for me to get back into

my climbing routine that I was in before baby

or take a hiking trip the way

that I used to,

it's okay cuz I know those years are going to completely fly by.

But you don't really know how you're going to feel about those priority shifts

until you're in it.

I had ultimately accepted the fact

that this was a trade-off I was going to make in order to have

a kid,

and I was more excited to have a baby than I was sad about

traveling less.

And some people do make traveling with a baby work, uh kudos to them,

blessings.

Your plans and your spending are going to change a lot in ways

that you do and don't anticipate.

Finally, number eight, having a kid can be the best thing in the world

as long as you have the right mindset about it.

I often see people sharing memes like, "Oh,

I can't imagine reading the news

and dealing with life

and then coming home

and having to deal with a baby."

I don't relate to that.

Coming home to my baby after having a difficult day

or seeing something difficult in the news is the best part of my day.

But I also put in a lot of work knowing

that there were going to be hard parts

and anticipating and planning for those things

that were going to be difficult.

And having a plan in place for how our finances would change,

how our time would look different,

how my husband and I were going to be splitting child care tasks,

means that those things I'm able to take care of

so I can enjoy the fun moments more.

Remember also that you are not just preparing to have a baby.

It is depressingly short how long the period of having a baby is.

I mean, it's not depressing

because I'm very excited to have a toddler

and an older kid,

too, but it is just like, "Ugh."

Life, it just flies right by.

Loving babies is not a good reason to have a baby.

It's a good reason to volunteer with or work with babies.

The baby phase is so short, it's going to fly by so much.

Make sure you are prepared for having an older child

and then ultimately an adult child

and all of the wonderful things

that that's going to bring with it,

too.

But also, all of the baggage that that's going to bring with it, too.

I can't speak for everyone,

but having a baby has made me both angrier at the world

and feel like it's more beautiful than I have ever experienced it before.

It's difficult, for sure,

but it's ultimately something I decided to do

because I thought the meaning I would take from it would outweigh

that difficulty.

You can't plan for the joy

that comes from seeing your baby have a laughing fit for the first time.

I can't explain what that feels like.

But you can prepare to make sure

that you are in a place to actually enjoy

that moment and embrace it fully.

Anyway, as I said,

I'm not trying to sway anyone in either direction with this video,

I just want to share a lot of things

that I think should be thought of more before you decide to have a

child.

Thank you so much for watching.

I'll see you around.