Briefcase on the Kitchen Table

I wrote a post a while back about “the baby question”. Ave and I started getting questions about starting a family the day after the wedding (which was ridiculous to me). For a while folks stopped asking because we made it pretty clear- we were both in very intense graduate programs and there were no plans for a Baby Arch any time soon. Now that I have graduated and have a full time job, “the question” seems to be coming up more and more. I have a few issues with this conversation.

First, it is rude. 

Period. Now that is not to mean than no one can talk to me about it. There is a group of people who can ask and it doesn’t feel awkward at all; my mom, my sisters, my aunts, my childhood and college best friends, or friends with whom it naturally comes up in conversation. These people also fit into another very specific category- I would talk to them about my sex life (not in a kiss and tell type of way but in the way that women do). And that’s because the topics are relatively the same thing. Asking if Avery and I are “trying for a little one” is very similar to asking “are you having unprotected sex”. “Trying” requires a very specific activity. For the most part however I consider myself an open book and have rarely found myself gaffing at this question, even if it the person asking it seems slightly out of place. What I am more offended by is my second issue when it comes to “the baby questions”:

My ovaries are not attached to a countdown timer. 

I get it. I know the biology. Women have years in which it is easier to reproduce than others. As time moves forward and folks get older fertility goes down and risks go up. I’ve read the literature. However, while this is a part of the decision it is not the only part of the decision, nor should it be. Many woman are at their most fertile in their late teens and early twenties- does that mean we should be encouraging every 18 year old to get a movin’ on the baby train? It would be irresponsible, to both the potential children and ourselves for the only consideration in the baby-decision to be the age of my reproductive system. We need to consider that…

I am more than just a baby machine. 

I am so happy to finally be working a career I love and went to seven years of post-high school education for. I want some time to throw myself into it. Additionally, my husband is still in school and will be for over a year. That’s what is takes to be Dr. Avery Archer, Astrophysicist and I could not be prouder of his work. Avery and I would like to have some time after he is done with school to just enjoy each other. We had exactly three days of our marriage before we started school. Over the last four years we have watched joyfully as friends have traveled across the country and across the world and we talk often about doing the same. This sort of adventuring together is impossible on the salary of a public defender and a graduate student. We have to wait, and are willing to, until Ave is done with school and working in order to make these dreams happen. These adventures would become all the more complicated with a baby in the mix. Bottom line- we are on a delay. I know all of the work is going to pay off with careers that we love but that doesn’t mean we are at the same place as everyone who started careers right out of undergrad. I understand we were married young but as many around us have established careers and bought houses and settled down, Avery and I don’t even know where we will be in a just a few years. All of these- money, time, stability- are things Ave and I have to consider. And there is emphasis on the “we ” because…

I am not the only person who gets to decide when we have a baby. 

I am not saying this to imply that one of us is ready to have baby and the other isn’t- it is more the emphasize that Avery is never asked “the baby question”. Never. I have a couple of issues with the fact that this question is always directed at me. First, when we do decide to start a family it will be a decision we make together. Second, asking just me implies that somehow the reason we don’t have kids is because I have decided it isn’t time. That’s not how our marriage works folks.

So my advice to any one thinking of asking about when a young couple is going to have children is, for the most part, don’t. There are few more personal questions you could ask and just because a couple is in their twenties or thirties and are childless, it is not an open invitation to start the conversation. As I said, if it comes up naturally in conversation that’s one thing, but if you are asking just to be nosy, reconsider. By not asking and waiting you will be a person with whom the couple will celebrate when there is a baby on the way, not someone they resent or avoid.