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How do I know I want a baby?

Hi Fun Advice, wow I haven’t been on here for so long, I don’t know who’s on here now or if my old friends are still active but regardless, I need some help!

I am now 20, and my partner is turning 23 very soon. He wants a baby so badly, but I’m just not sure I’m ready yet. We recently moved from New Zealand to Australia and I don’t feel settled yet. I like it here, and it’s a permanent move (it cost 2k to fly our dog over!!) but I don’t yet feel comfortable here. We have started our own business in Property Management / Property Services as contractors and it is going well. It will definitely provide a stable and generous income to support a baby, and I wouldn’t have to work while pregnant or in the first few years of baby’s life. We are currently looking for a place more suitable for our lifestyle- we have a large dog and it’s difficult finding a rental that will allow him but hopefully we get into somewhere better, soon. We are saving to buy/build our first home and will hopefully have a good deposit before baby would be born (assuming we will conceive easily and soon).

My partner has grown up around young children and already has nephews and many small cousins. He would be a great father, he loves kids. I love kids also, and definitely want to have children soon, but my kind of ‘soon’ is 2-3 years whereas his kind of soon is to try tonight. He is so worried that he’s running out of time. He wants to be able to play sports and run around with his kids and even though of course you can do that at 40, he wants to do it at 30 which I completely understand.

I’m worried that having children now will limit everything I do, I don’t care for ‘partying’, never have never will, but I have such a wanderlust and need to travel. I’ve always wanted to travel nomadically but I know having a child would cut this fantasy out of my life all together. I know I would still be able to travel later on, on planned vacations with my partner and children but I dream of living in nature, hiking, camping, hitchiking, meeting crazy strange people along the way and being carefree.

My problem here though, is that I know that won’t even happen in my life in my current situation. We have our dog too, and he’s more than just a dog to us, hell we sold everything we own in order to fly him across the pacific ocean with us. So it’s not like I would be able to travel like that anyway. I guess I have always known I’ve missed out on this want of mine but only now am I coming to terms with it….

As far as careers go, I’ve always wanted to be a police woman or a firefighter. This is where I actually would prefer to have kids now, because I can raise my (preferably 1-2-3) children, then still have time to get into the kind of physical career I want. Whereas if I amble around and start training for that career now, I’ll be faced with the decision of giving up my career life completely to have kids at 24ish, or not having kids at all, which isn’t an option for me. So career wise I would like to have kids now.

I’m actually figuring a lot out while typing this haha, so I guess my problem is:

My partner wants kids now at 23. I am 20. We both love kids and could raise one right now comfortably. It suits our careers to do it now. Both our families would be supportive, no dramas there. The child would be able to grow up with our dog which we want. (Titan, dog, is 1) We earn enough to still be able to keep saving for a house, with a child.

The only thing for me is that I feel it would cut my travel life off completely. Which is kind of not true, because we could still travel with a young child. Or we could go on a holiday for a short period like a week and family could look after the child with no problems.

I don’t really know exactly what I’m asking here, I’d just like some different opinions on my situation.

By the way I’ve already completed 2 college degrees, and my partner has a bachelors degree, although neither of us use our degrees in our work!! So we are both educated, just in case somebody brings that up in discussion which I’m sure it will haha.

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Answer #1

At 20 and 23 you are still both very very young. You and your boyfriend are both kind of freaking out about your futures, but there really isn’t a need to. I think you should both wait on the baby because you are not 100% ready for it yet. It’s not like there’s an expiration date, and your boyfriend will be just as great of a dad a few years down the line than he is today. I say live your life! You are both young, save up some money, see the world, do what you gotta do, and then settle. I’m 20 years old too and I can’t imagine having a baby now, I’m not done growing and I’m not done doing the things I want to do before I settle down. All I’m saying is you have all the time in the world to have a child.

Answer #2

why not just wait? you shouldent feel rushed to have a kid just tell him your not ready…. 20 is way young to have a kid why not wait till your 25 he will be 28 that would be better because once you have a kid its no longer about you….. its alll about your kid so why not do what you wanna do because once that baby comes your life revolves around them and you say you wanna be a police officer or something do that firsttt because once u have kids your not gonna be able to do that….. my dad always tells us to find our career first and get education out firstttt then have kids cause if you have kids first n put your career on hold your probably neverrrrr gonna have time to go back to school and get your career… thats my advice because once you have a kid its gonna b really really hard to go back to school because a kid is a full time job when you first have one but once they go to school you could get a job..

Answer #3

Hi Renee! Sounds like you’ve nearly talked yourself into having a child soon, and I think that’s great. For travel, get some kind of camper van; you can still do some hiking and plenty of camping at developed campsites. After a few short years, your child will be eager to learn more from you about how to help and participate more in those activities. If you want to travel in more civilized (but still exotic) places, too, take trains. They’re great for meeting strangers - even more so if you have an adorable young child with you!

If you feel like you’re just not ready yet, even if you can’t quite put your finger on the reasons, try looking at it this way: You said, “my kind of ‘soon’ is 2-3 years whereas his kind of soon is to try tonight.” Starting to try tonight means having a baby in nearly a year at the soonest, maybe more. That means there’s only a year or two difference between your “soon” and his. I bet the two of you could reach a compromise without too much difficulty by splitting that difference.

I gotta say, the main impression I get from reading your whole question is that you guys are off to a beautiful life together! I wish you great success and joy.

Answer #4

Here how my husband and i based our choice when it came to starting our family. We wanted to be young enough to enjoy it , but old enough to know better. We had our first when i was 23 and he was 24. Trust me is it completely different when it is your own. I thought i was ready, I read all the books, talked to every mother I knew, and even follow forums on parenting. I thought i was ready and prepared. ya i was no where near! But i do not regret having them (we had our second 18 months later!, surprise! turns out birth control pills don’t work on me anymore). what i am trying to say is i felt completely ready and was still thrown off guard, so if you are hesitating at all it might be even a bigger shock for you. And don’t worry about not being able to get your body back, i have seen women have children in there 40s and still get it back. That is all on you afterwards.

Answer #5

I think the only way to know you want to have a baby now is to really, really want to have a baby right now! Haha. If you were as antsy to have one as he is then you’d be ready, if you need to weight the pros and cons, WAIT!

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