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agonyaunt2022-04-15 06:20 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-04-15 06:20 pm
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Dear Care and Feeding: I'm worried my college age niece will regret not having children
Sorry for the spam but I COULD NOT pass this one by.
My family has built the foundation of our life on the Church. It’s a positive way to look at the world, but I can understand why some might need to rebel for a while, to understand the alternatives. My cousin is in her early 20s and has left her father’s house to go to college. When I think of her, I always see her with the children of the family, the little ones following her around like ducklings and her face shining with contentment. Since she went to college, she’s shaved her hair, started to wear a whole new wardrobe, and proclaimed that she is never marrying. Everyone finds God’s path for them in their own way, but her declaration about marriage worries me, because she has always been a “mother without children,” and I don’t want her to spend her youth in one way and realize she no longer can have children later. God didn’t create anyone to be one role, but I know this column values parenthood as it deserves, and I’m wondering if you have any advice for approaching her about the devastating consequences for her worldly, short-term plan.
— Worried
Dear Worried,
Your cousin very well may have two decades to make a decision before having to turn to medical intervention or other means to become a mother—she’s hardly running out of time here. And who she is as a college student isn’t necessarily who she’ll be at 30 or 35. She may later choose to have five kids. Or, she may have already made up her mind and won’t have any at all. The version of your cousin that stands out in your memory is from a time in which she had a lot less control over her actions and how her life looked. She wasn’t “a mother without children,” she was a young girl who enjoyed caring for her little cousins. That isn’t to say she didn’t, or doesn’t, treasure the time she spends with the younger children of the family; however, those experiences and her gender are not reason enough to decide that she will only find contentment as a wife and mother. There are lots of people who are excellent with children, some going so far as devoting their work to serving them, who have no interest in becoming parents. The best thing you can do for your cousin is to be accepting and loving no matter what her current haircut and life plan may be, and to allow her to become the woman she wishes to become without making her feel that she has let her family (or God) down for making different choices than the one you would make. Wishing you the best.
— Jamilah
My family has built the foundation of our life on the Church. It’s a positive way to look at the world, but I can understand why some might need to rebel for a while, to understand the alternatives. My cousin is in her early 20s and has left her father’s house to go to college. When I think of her, I always see her with the children of the family, the little ones following her around like ducklings and her face shining with contentment. Since she went to college, she’s shaved her hair, started to wear a whole new wardrobe, and proclaimed that she is never marrying. Everyone finds God’s path for them in their own way, but her declaration about marriage worries me, because she has always been a “mother without children,” and I don’t want her to spend her youth in one way and realize she no longer can have children later. God didn’t create anyone to be one role, but I know this column values parenthood as it deserves, and I’m wondering if you have any advice for approaching her about the devastating consequences for her worldly, short-term plan.
— Worried
Dear Worried,
Your cousin very well may have two decades to make a decision before having to turn to medical intervention or other means to become a mother—she’s hardly running out of time here. And who she is as a college student isn’t necessarily who she’ll be at 30 or 35. She may later choose to have five kids. Or, she may have already made up her mind and won’t have any at all. The version of your cousin that stands out in your memory is from a time in which she had a lot less control over her actions and how her life looked. She wasn’t “a mother without children,” she was a young girl who enjoyed caring for her little cousins. That isn’t to say she didn’t, or doesn’t, treasure the time she spends with the younger children of the family; however, those experiences and her gender are not reason enough to decide that she will only find contentment as a wife and mother. There are lots of people who are excellent with children, some going so far as devoting their work to serving them, who have no interest in becoming parents. The best thing you can do for your cousin is to be accepting and loving no matter what her current haircut and life plan may be, and to allow her to become the woman she wishes to become without making her feel that she has let her family (or God) down for making different choices than the one you would make. Wishing you the best.
— Jamilah
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