For some people this is the world's easiest question -- they've always been able to see themselves as parents, they have their life set up the way they want it, and they're ready to go. Others go back and forth on this one for years, or feel the need to do a little serious wobbling before taking the plunge. Some just never get the call. Wherever you are on the spectrum, even if you know you want to do it, you can make a conscious decision about whether to become a parent.
Being a parent is really fun, and satisfying in a way you can't fully imagine when you don't have children. And it's really hard work -- more work than you can imagine until you've done it. It's hard because of the sheer volume of demands on your time and energy, with few breaks to refresh and recharge; it's hard because parents almost never have enough time, money, emotional support, training, or preparation to do the job they want to do; it's hard because it puts your own emotional issues squarely in your face as your children inevitably push every button you have; and it's hard because the mistakes you make -- and you'll make some -- affect the ones you love the most: your children. Having a child is a major life change, and because women everywhere bear the major responsibility for raising children, it's a change that in general affects women's lives more than men's. It means adding the way society treats parents (not well) on top of the way society treats women.
Men as a whole are more involved as parents today than ever before, but the day-to-day housework, meal-making, emotional counseling, childcare, purchasing, and household details and logistics still tend to fall -- unpaid -- to the woman of the house. That's not to say it's an easy decision for men. Both men and women face unhappy tradeoffs between work and parenthood in modern society, with women usually having to choose parenting to the detriment of work, and men usually having to choose work to the detriment of parenting.Men's patterns of workaholism, reinforced by most workplaces today, are fueled by a new sense of responsibility for the family. Long hours of work increase the sense of emotional isolation that most men deal with anyway, and many feel frustrated at not being able to be the kind of father they wish they could be. With all the romanticized images of children and parenthood floating around, hardly anyone gets a realistic idea of what it's like to be a parent before they actually become one.
Before you make a decision to have children, make sure you have done your research. Be sure that you are also doing live research. Ask a friend if you can babysit their kids. They will be happy for the break and it will give you a live demonstration of what it will be like to have kids.
For more tools, check out Plan My Baby Review or the Family Freindly Fat Burning Meals Review
