What Do Current Parents Really Think About People Who Can’t Decide If They Want Kids?
The grease from the turkey burgers was already sticking to my faded canvas apron when my cousin Lila leaned against the back fence and twisted the label off her lime seltzer. It was the end-of-summer block barbecue, my 7 and 10 year old were chasing the neighborhood stray cat through the rose bushes, and my next door neighbor Jan had just wandered over to ask the question everyone asks Lila: “So when are you two going to start a family?” When Lila shrugged and said, “We still don’t know if we want kids,” Jan laughed and changed the subject to her granddaughter’s soccer season, but I saw Lila’s jaw tighten. After Jan walked off to get a second helping of potato salad, Lila turned to me: “Seriously. What do you all think? Do all parents think I’m being flaky or selfish for not picking a side yet?”
I told her I’d been thinking about this a lot lately, because it comes up all the time at school drop-off and after PTA meetings. Last month, after a meeting about the fifth grade camping trip, a handful of us stuck around folding chairs chatting about that viral TikTok where a 34-year-old woman talked about being undecided about kids, and how everyone calls her immature. Most of the parents there weren’t slamming her like the YouTube comment section did. Mia, who has a 5-year-old in kindergarten, said she was on the fence for six years. She and her husband almost decided not to have any at all, and she still thinks about the quiet weekend trips they used to take on a whim when she’s up at 2 a.m. with a teething toddler. Tom, a dad of two teens, said he and his wife waited a full decade to decide, back when people just assumed you’d have kids right after getting married. No one was giving them space to think it through back then, he said, and he still resents that.
I admitted to Lila that I was undecided too. I got pregnant with my oldest when I was 29, it wasn’t planned, and I spent the first three months panicking because I still hadn’t “decided” I wanted to be a mom. No one talks about that, I said. Everyone acts like you wake up one day and just know for sure, but that’s not how it works for a lot of us.
Most of the parents I know don’t judge undecided people the way social media makes it seem. What I hear over and over is that we wish more people would take the time to decide instead of rushing into it because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I have a friend who had her first kid at 24 because everyone kept asking when she’d have kids, and she told me last year she still resents that she didn’t wait to figure out if that was what she actually wanted. That’s hard on everyone, especially the kid.
I’ve picked up a few small things that work when people bring up being undecided, that I think more parents could do. First, just don’t ask when they’re going to have kids. If they bring it up, don’t jump in with “you’ll know when you’re ready” or “you’d be such a great mom.” That just pressures them, even if you don’t mean it. Instead, just say “It makes sense to take as much time as you need on this.” If they want to talk through the pros and cons, listen without pushing your own opinion. If you have hard days as a parent, it’s okay to say that out loud. You don’t have to pretend it’s all perfect to convince someone it’s the right choice for them.
Last month, Sarah, another mom from soccer practice, told me she used to bug her little sister all the time about deciding to have kids. Her sister is 36, and Sarah was worried she’d wait too long. Then her sister sat her down and said she thinks about it every single week. She’s not avoiding it, she’s just not ready to pick yet. Now Sarah just says, “I’m here if you want to talk through anything, whatever you decide is fine with me.” That’s it. No pushing, no unsolicited advice, just that. That’s enough.
By the time we got back to the barbecue, the sun had dipped below the roofline, and my kids came running over covered in grass, begging for s’mores. Lila helped me carry the graham crackers and chocolate bars out to the fire pit, and she said her mom keeps telling her she’ll regret waiting, that she’s running out of time. I told her that’s the thing about big decisions – either choice has regrets. I regret missing the quiet cross-country trips I used to take with my husband, I regret not finishing my master’s degree before I had kids, but I’d never trade my kids. If you decide not to have kids, you’ll probably have regrets about that sometimes too, right? No big decision is 100% perfect all the time.
We sat by the fire after that, passing around marshmallows on sticks, and Lila said she still doesn’t know what she’ll do. She might decide yes in two years, she might decide no, she might never decide for sure. That’s okay, I told her. Most of us parents don’t talk about how much we still question our own choices sometimes, anyway. We just don’t talk about it because people expect us to be 100% sure we made the right call.
What do we really think, when you get right down to it? Most of us don’t think you’re selfish. We don’t think you’re immature. We just think it’s better to take your time than to rush into the biggest decision of your life because someone else thinks you should. I don’t have a neat answer for Lila, and I don’t know what she’ll decide in the end. For now, though, it’s enough that she’s being honest about what she doesn’t know. And that’s way more than most of us were, when we were her age.
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