to plan our families. The decision about having children is often central to the dreams we have about the long-term shape of our relationships. John and Hilary want to have their children while they are young. Lucy and Michael want to develop their careers before taking time out to have a family. Hugh and Petra are so involved in their careers that they cannot see a time when having children would be appropriate for them. Louis and Freda already have five children between them and feel that having more together would make life over-complicated for everyone.
But plans don’t always work out. People who don’t want children find one is on the way. Most people these days have friends who are having difficulty in conceiving. The figures are quite alarming. One couple in six goes to their doctor to say they are worried. For many of them it is impatience rather than a problem but, nonetheless, the number of people who do have problems of infertility has risen sharply. There is a great deal to be said for talking now about how you would feel if this became your situation. If you don’t discuss it until it is a hot issue, you will then be full of highly charged emotions. Talking about it now in a detached way may help you if the issue arises later. You don’t have to agree later with what you said, but at least it gives you a starting point. Some couples simply want to accept the situation. Others want to look at other options like adoption or fostering. Yet others will want to pursue medical interventions of various kinds. Each of them has a price to pay – in the case of IVF treatments it may be a financial as well as an emotional price. If there is a problem, either in having or not having children, you need to be open enough with each other that you are not secretly taking or giving blame.
In some parts of the world genetic counselling is routinely offered to couples getting married. Unless there is some obvious reason, that is not so for most of us. But tests during pregnancy may reveal possibilities, of varying degrees of certainty, about potential health problems for your child. Again, it is a good idea to have talked about this kind of thing before it is for real. For some, terminating the pregnancy would be utterly unthinkable in any situation, for others it might be a possibility they would seriously consider. Between you there may be differing views. Do you know how each other thinks? It takes a great deal of trust and honesty to be able to face all this but, with increasing numbers of tests available, more and more people will be in this situation. Jill and Tony’s marriage came under great strain when they discovered that he had agreed to a termination only because he thought that is what she wanted, and she had gone ahead only because she thought it was his wish.
Things to talk about and share
• What would you do in that situation?
• What would you do in that situation?
• What would you do in that situation?
• Will you look for support from parenting courses?
For everyone who has children, there needs to be thought about who does what. There is much evidence that, unless we consciously make decisions, we will tend to do what happened to us in our own childhood. The words attributed to King George V provide a grotesque example: ‘My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father, and I’m damned well going to make sure that my children are frightened of me.’ Most parents find themselves, in the heat of the moment, saying things to their children that they swore they would never say, because they hated it when it was said to them. Under strain, we tend to go back and replay the tapes that were recorded when we were small. There is a huge amount to be gained from learning parenting skills together, so that we share and support each other in a task that is the most daunting and also the most rewarding in the world. One of the prayers in the Common Worship marriage service puts all this on a very high plane. It says to God ‘you enable us to share in your work of creation’ (Prayer 23, p. 167). There is an old Jewish saying that there are three involved in the conception of a child – a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit of God. And, in nurturing our children, every home is a place for spiritual as well as physical, intellectual and emotional growth.
Commitment
. . . to have and to hold
from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part.
(The Vows, The Marriage Service, p. 108)
Martina Navratilova, the tennis player, once said ‘Do you know the difference between involvement and commitment? Think of ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.’ That’s a good image to run with. There are plenty of relationships that are ‘egg’, and don’t develop into ‘ham’. Real commitment means no barriers, no holds barred, no reservations. It’s a strange thing in the wedding service that the example offered to a couple is not a great pair of lovers of the past, but the example of a bachelor – Jesus Christ. But his love for his friends was utterly without reservation. He could easily have said, when it became apparent what might happen to him ‘I love you, but . . .’ But his love went as far as it could possibly go. Inappropriate as it might be for a Jew, his love was ‘ham’ not ‘egg’.
Some people living together outside marriage have that ideal kind of total commitment. But, for many, it is conditional commitment, a provisional arrangement, providing everything continues to be good for both of them. At least, that seems to be the evidence of the many couples who say that they see marriage as a further stage of their relationship, when they will be totally committed to a lifelong partnership.
There may be something about our time in history that makes such an absolute commitment hard. Young people don’t join organizations like Scouts and Guides as they used to but, on the other hand, are often eager to commit to ‘causes’ like environmental groups. Organizations often say that they can get volunteers who are prepared to be on standby, but find it harder to get people to promise to help regularly as a matter of priority. People opt in and out of all sorts of things. In relationship terms, that may lead to ‘playing the field’. People book for evening classes, and then drop out. Airlines have to overbook in order to ensure their planes are full, because they know some people who have booked will not turn up. To say words that mean total, unambiguous commitment is against the trend. Independence is a goal many are struggling to achieve and enjoy, and that can make it hard to commit to someone else.
‘Most people don’t have a conscious “shopping list” when they are looking for a partner.’
But what comes from commitment is a sense of well-being and security. ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his’ as it says in the wonderfully