My friend Princess Blogonoke is getting married in about two weeks. And so I thought it might be cool to pass on the sound advice of the experienced, for her and for future visiors. Please feel free to leave your own advice at the bottom.

For wedding-related stuff:

1) If you're not paying for the wedding, then you basically have no say in the planning.

When my husband and I got married, we were 20 and 22. We wanted to have a very small wedding, just immediate family (because he has like 22 aunts & uncles that he has barely spoken to since he was 12, and since he's literally the baby of his entire family, he has even more adult cousins he also barely knows). I invited all of 10 people to our wedding (four of which were bridesmaids, the rest were my family). But our wedding guest list ended up being 120. I was annoyed because we were willing to pay for our wedding ourselves--and it wouldn't have cost that much. But when his mom stepped in and was like, "Well, I want it this way and we have to invite my friends because I was invited to their childrens' weddings, so we'll just pay for it." We were like, "Whatever."

2) The wedding really doesn't matter.

The wedding is just one day. Marriage is the rest of your life (if you're lucky). So if the planning is annoying or stressful--just stop. Because in four years, it isn't going to matter anyway. Ditto for the wedding and reception, if people are getting drunk and being obnoxious, it isn't going to make you look bad, it's going to make them look bad.

As for marriage stuff...

1) Make sure you marry your best friend.

Because if they're really your best friend, everything is going to be fun. Even doing the stinky laundry is going to be fun.

2) Ask yourself: Does this person bring out the best in me and do I bring out the best in him or her?

Best friends/soulmates will always bring out your best--but not in a fake or phony sort of way. They will motivate you and support you to achieve your dreams. And the least you can do is reciprocate for them. ;)

3) He CANNOT read your mind. Seriously.

Do not "test" your spouse. It's pointless and you're just going to hurt everyone in the end when you leave the dishes in the sink as a strange kind of contest to find out who will crack first, and the weirdo tension it builds up in the air is so not worth it. Even if you saw your parents do this growing up--do NOT repeat this vicious cycle. Simply asking nicely will do the trick.

4) Speaking of asking nicely: just because you ask now doesn't mean it'll get done now.

And does it really matter if it gets done *this* minute or in a couple hours? Unless it's an emergency, like you're chopping veggies and you cut off your hand and can't physically dial a phone, then taking out the garbage, emptying the dishwasher and folding the laundry can wait through the end of Star Trek or the baseball game.

5) Do not just have a kid before you're 30 so you won't be "too old" later on.

I know for me, and thankfully for most of the people I am close to, getting married was about spending our lives together--it was not a means to an end (simply having children). However, for some of the people B and I have come across (usually in the workplace) people have children for, well, really weird reasons. For instance, some people seem to have children for "Obligatory" reasons--these are the people who get pregnant by accident and decide not to terminate. Conversely, these are the people who feel pressured or required to have children.

There's these two guys at my husband's work who got into the CFBC debate this week (while my husband decided to stay out of it). The father told the CFBC guy that he'll regret it later on. And the CFBC guy told the father, "I collect degrees, not children," as the CFBC guy has both a bachelor and master's degree. The father replied, "That doesn't matter. You'll still regret it." The CFBC guy responds, "Okay. Convince me. Why did you want kids?" And the father says, "Well, my parents had and raised me and it's my duty to do the same for someone else." The CFBC guy started laughing, and though that's kind of a harsh response to someone's face, it really does seem like an illogical reason! But at least the dad was honest, it's not a very good answer, but it's his. And sadly, I think that's what a lot of people really do think.

Time somehow always ends up being a culprit for people rushing in making this decision. At B's work, he knows another guy who is 30 and his wife is 24, and they just had their baby three months ago. They wanted to have kids, which is great, but they wanted to have them before the wife was "too old." I think as young people, especially as women, we're sort-of indoctrinated that if we're going to have children, we need to have them by 30 (or even younger) so the babies will be as healthy as possible, so our bodies will bounce back to their size 4s as soon as possible, so we won't be paying for college at the same time as retirement, etc. The list of reasons to have children before 30 are endless, and arbitrary.

It's hard enough to be married and to adjust to the latent expectations each of you will have about marriage, expectations you didn't even realize you had, but it'll be even harder to throw a baby into that mix. Plus, these years are precious because it's just the two of you, once you have kids it'll be a very long time before it'll just be the two of you again--even if you manage a vacation away from children, you're never really "away" mentally. Furthermore, if you have a strong foundation between the two of you, it'll make having children a lot easier and a lot more joyful because you will have grown together as a committed couple first.

I do not want to beleaguer this topic, but I recently have run across the best book I've ever read on this topic of whether or not to have children. It's called: The Baby Decision: How To Make The Most Important Decision of Your Life. It's not actually sold on Amazon, as it's out of print, it was published in 1981. However, I can attest that even though it's 25 years old, it's still as relevant today. Even more so, as there is no other book currently on the market like it. And I've decided to include an excerpt from the book for anyone who wants to read it:

The late humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow distinguished between two kinds of motivation--growth motivation and deficiency motivation. When a person is motivated by deficiency or safety needs, he or she acts out of a desire to decrease anxiety. Any kind of change seems too risky, and therefore frightening, to undertake. On the other hand, when a person is motivated by growth needs, his or her actions reflect a desire for greater fulfillment. The risks seem less important than the possibility of improving one's life.

This distinction between growth and safety needs applies equally well to the decision-making process in general, and to the baby decision in particular. There are, in fact, six possible baby decisions, three of which are growth decisions and three of which are safety decisions.

The three growth decisions are:
1. The decision to become a parent.
2. The decision to remain childfree.
3. The decision to postpone the decision, but with definite goals for the postponement period and a target date for re-evaluation.

Why are these "growth decisions?" Because when you make them you:

- Take responsibility for yourself.
- Take a risk.
- Make a commitment.
- Learn something about yourself.
- Have an opportunity to use all four of the above actions to develop and grow.

The three safety decisions are:

1. The nondecision to have a baby (also known as the "nonaccidental accident"). After perhaps five years of marriage with no previous "accidents," a couple struggling with the baby decision suddenly have an "accident." It may be unconscious (such as forgetting to take the pill), or conscious ("Let's not bother to put more jelly in with the diaphragm"); it may be a joint accident or the result of one spouse's actions. However it happens, the result of such a nondecision (besides the baby) is that the couple are taken off the hook. They declare themselves victims and avoid having to answer to anybody--including themselves--for their "decision."

2. The nondecision to remain childfree. In this situation, a couple tell themselves and others that they don't know whether they want children. Maybe later on, they say. So they simply drift without ever making a conscious commitment to the childfree lifestyle. And, in the process, they don't have to admit their desire to remain childfree or deal with the disapproval from others or their own fear of regrets.

3. The nondecision to agonize. This is the antithesis of the growth decision to postpone. In the latter case, a couple postpones the decision for specified reasons and a finite period of time, in order to meet specified goals. However, in this type of nondecision, a couple set no goals; rather, they circle the issue frantically, full of doubt and confusion. Although they claim they would love nothing better than a resolution, they actually get a payoff--in the form of unhealthy satisfaction generated by their painful soul-searching.

Although all three of the safety decisions appear to be emotionally cheaper in the short run, they are more costly in the long run. Nondecision-makers are bound to feel like victims rather than masters of their own fate. While they may avoid the momentary agony of making difficult choices, they are actually condemning themselves to chronic pain. By clinging to a safety decision, they miss an opportunity to take stock and use what they learn about themselves. In fact, safety decisions really are danger decisions because they are detrimental to development. If you make a nondecision, you won't have to deal with your pain directly, but you'll never really get rid of it either.

That's the just the beginning of the book. The whole book allows you to evaluate your reasons to parent and to remain childfree without judgment. I feel as though Merle Bombardieri has no personal agenda that she is pushing on the readers--whereas other motherhood or CFBC books feel as though they're holding one choice above the others. Bombardieri is just truly concerned with helping/enabling the readers to make the best personal decision they can for their own lives, regardless of the direction their decision takes.

Labels: books, cfbc, childfree by choice, children, men, parenthood, pregnancy, questions, real life, the children question, uncomfortable questions, women

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