We Plan to Start a Family
Sounds like a kind enough phrase, right? How many times have you heard a couple talking about starting a family and not thought twice about it? I did, too, until a few weeks ago.
My wife and I are childfree in a sea of parents. We’ve learned to accept it and pretend to listen to parents drone incessantly about what Junior is up to. We get it: your kids are special. Good for you.
However, lately we have noticed people saying they will start a family and have kids. Think about that logically for a second: if you aren’t “starting” a family until you have kids, you are saying that those without kids are not a family. How offensive is that? My wife and I never even knew that, in the parlance of our times, we weren’t a family.
I have been married eight years and I certainly consider Melissa and myself a family. There is no question about it. So why does someone without kids (yet) or who has kids have the right to tell me we aren’t a family because we are sans offspring?
Now, I am not an overly touchy person and I take things in stride. I don’t get offended often, but this insinuation that my wife and I are not a family is beyond the pale. We are certainly a family of two, certainly happy, and certainly do not require a child to be considered a family.
I normally give parents the benefit of the doubt when they make rude statements regarding childfree people. Most of these parents cannot see things from our perspective. It’s not a possibility in their minds that a couple (whether married or not) would not want to have children. They cannot see any financial, psychological, or medical reasons why one would not procreate. They see it as either selfishness or foolishness, or some combination thereof.
Given their lack of open-mindedness about why we don’t have children, I can live with some of the dumb comments. Most of these comments revolve around the “you’ll feel different when you have kids of your own.” They don’t say “you’ll feel different IF you have kids of your own” – they only say “when.”
Because of this mindset, it is inconceivable for them to consider any couple without children a family, whether the couple is married, cohabiting, or not living together.
The insensitivity of this mindset just drives me nuts. Plenty of people who have had children are not nearly as close to each other as my wife and I are. Do they get the title of family simply because there is a babydaddy and babymama? Furthermore, do they get the right to tell me that my wife and I do not constitute a family?
It’s kind of funny, but I first noticed the start a family phenomenon while watching the TV show House Hunters with my wife. Inevitably, every show featured a couple seeking more living space so they could “start a family.” Weren’t they already a family? Didn’t they love each other?
Conversely, would two parents whose child tragically died young no longer be considered a family? Think about that. Who gets to be the one that tells these parents, “Sorry for your loss, and pardon me while I remove that family designation from your house. Now, if you have another child, you are more than welcome to consider yourselves a family again. But until then, please ix-nay on the amily-fay.”
That seems real fair, huh? I wish we can say that two people that love each other can be considered a family here in the year of 2007. Some people choose to have kids, some don’t. Some would love to have children, but aren’t able to. Some had children and lost them. They are all families in my book.
Now back to watching House Hunters and hoping the guys don’t see me. You know, I only watch it because my wife enjoys it . . . that’s a good alibi.
Copyright . Published 1 September 2007 in Editorials.
Reader comments
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It is very nice to see that more men are participating in this web page.
I completely understand what Michael says. I also feel akin to his phrase ‘childfree in a sea of parents’.
Comments about family certainly include children, and there is a lot of people who ask me, when I will ‘have a family?’.
Definitely my wife is my family. We love each other, we like to live together, and we have common life goals. There are a lot of activities that we enjoy together, and relating to children, we have a couple of nices we love to play with! Isn’t that a family?
Last sunday in a party, I was talking to a good friend whom I will name John. John struggled 10 years to have a child. He was very convinced and trying to convince me of the need to have a child to “bind me and my wife together in a common life project”.
It was close to impossible for him to accept that we have actual life projects that do not include a child.
Another friend, let’s name him Peter added to the conversation that he knew a colleague who is about 60 y.o. and has been married to his wife for 40 years. They do not have children, but is evident that are very happy. Peter told us how a lot of nieces, nephiews and friends’ children and grandchildren love them; and how do they enjoy spending time with them.
Although John was very stubborn supporting his arguments, after listening to Peter and me remained perplexed and finally closed the topic saying “I had never seen it that way before”:
permalink — 3 September 2007, 11:53