Should You Have Kids? The Great Debate

For some couples, the desire to have children seems built into their DNA. Others feel perfectly content with their kid-free coupledom (of course, there are also couples who want children but aren’t able to have them). Then, there’s that fuzzy middle, with some couples wondering if they want to or are ready to have a baby. Whether or not to have a child is a major life decision, and one of the most hotly debated questions is, Does having kids help or hurt a marriage? 

The Research

As any parent knows, having a child dramatically changes life in both good and not-so-good ways. A 2009 University of Denver study found that, whether or not you have kids, blissful feelings about being married can gradually decline over time. However, relationship satisfaction did a much more sudden dive after married couples had their first child. The jolt of first-time parenthood — the sleep deprivation, arguing about parental duties — can put stress on a marriage.

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Multiple studies show that couples without children are happier than married ones with kids, including one involving 5,000 adults that found child-free married and unmarried pairs are happier in their relationship than couples with kids. The research also found that married people with children appear to engage in less relationship maintenance, such as making time for each other, than those in kid-free relationships.

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Along with added responsibilities, less sleep, and less downtime, the financial cost of caring for children can also add stress to a partnership. Kids are incredibly expensive — the estimated cost of raising a child to age 18 in the U.S. is now more than $245,000, according to CNN. And that doesn’t even include college.

But it’s not all bad news for twosomes who want to expand their family. Despite the major life shift parents make when a baby enters the picture, many couples find that becoming a parent makes life more fulfilling. A 2013 study in Psychological Science shows that parents report having higher levels of happiness and meaning in their lives.

Whether or not to have a child is a major life decision. (Photo: Alamy)

A 2009 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that children increase life satisfaction for married individuals of all ages, but especially for married women. The research also showed that life satisfaction goes up with the number of children in the household. However, your relationship status matters: The study found that raising kids was less rosy for people who are separated, living as an unmarried couple, or single/never been married parents.

Other research shows that people are equally happy (or unhappy) whether they have kids or not: A Princeton-Stony Brook study, which surveyed 1.8 million adults, found that once you factored out other influences on happiness, such as income, education, religion, and health, there’s little difference in how people with and without kids rated their well-being.

What the Experts Say

While it’s true that mutually supportive duos can form a tighter bond as a parenting team, children are hard work and often test a marriage, shining a bright light on flaws in the relationship. “Couples often think that children solidify a marriage, but the truth is they are a serious threat,“ John Jacobs, MD, a New York City couples therapist and author of All You Need is Love and Other Lies About Marriage, told Parenting. "The transition from couplehood to parenthood marks one of the greatest stressors on the life of a marriage.”

But other experts argue that whether a new baby brings spouses closer together or drives them apart has a lot to do with their prechild relationship dynamic. "With the arrival of a first child, everything good in a marriage gets better, everything bad gets worse,” Jerrold Lee Shapiro, PhD, professor, and former chairman of the department of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University in California, told WebMD. “A couple that has good intimacy will find a lot more to share, more experiences to get excited about together. A couple that has a lot of distance will find that a child becomes a wedge.”

The Princeton-Stony Brook study authors, Angus Deatona and Arthur A. Stone, sum it up well: “People who have children think that children will make their lives better in that they anticipate that, taking everything into account — new responsibilities, financial costs, the joys and disappointments, as well as the children themselves — they will be better off with children. Similarly, people who choose not to have children anticipate that they will be better off without them. People who want to be parents would have lower life evaluations if they were unable to have children, and those who do not want to be parents would have lower life evaluations if, by mischance, they became parents.”

What the Parents Say

“I don’t think anyone is ever truly ‘ready’ to have kids — you need to look within your heart and be dead honest with yourself: Do I like my life the way it is so much that I don’t want to change it? If so, then the answer is probably no, because kids change everything! But if you feel the deep need to nurture and shape another human being, then you should have kids. With respect to helping or hurting a marriage — it’s a combo of both. Having kids has strengthened our marriage because there are little people depending on us to make it work, but we definitely have less time for each other than we used to. But I wouldn’t change a thing!” —Debbie O'Malley

“I love children. I just don’t really want to have my own. We saw our friends have children at a young age and never felt 'ready.’ We’re really happy, and a lot of married couples don’t get to say that. We’re pretty good at being married, but I’m not sure we’d be great parents. My husband and I also grew up differently, and we’re not willing to take a chance when we have a great thing.” — Anne J.

“I knew I wanted children, but I didn’t have very strong emotions about parenting until I was actively in it. Thankfully, now that my two children are 6 and 4, I am grateful to be a mom, thrilled that I have a (nearly) perfect partner as a coparent and that we both have solid careers that allow us to take care of our family the way we want. That said, parenting is not for every couple…. If you aren’t willing to compromise your own needs as a couple for your children, then you probably shouldn’t be parents. There has to be the willingness to work through the tough times and hold on to the love that brought you together in the first place.” —Jocelyn J.

The Bottom Line

Having children is the biggest responsibility you’ll ever have as an adult, and it’s not for everyone. If you’re content with your life as is and know in your heart that you don’t want to change things, then having a child may not be for you. If you feel like your life won’t be complete without children, and you have the emotional and financial stability to provide, either with a supportive partner or on your own, then parenthood may be right for you.

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