A Feminist Wife: “If you think being married is hard…
… wait till you have kids!”
I should have known this would be the most common comment I’d receive when I said marriage is hard. Of course, it was more or less a tie between that, “grow up” and “stop whining.” Oh, and “take a breath.” The latter three bother me, but nothing bothers me more than when moms tell me that absolutely nothing is harder than having kids. And then, when I tell them we don’t plan on having kids, they push their childbearing agenda on me (“But it’s such a blessing!” “Oh, I said that, too, when I was your age. You’ll change your mind.” “Well, what are you and Tim going to do if you don’t have kids?”), which is really kind of funny to hear after I’ve just heard them complaining about how having kids is the hardest thing in the world.
Here’s the thing. Having kids is hard, I imagine. I mean, shoot, I deal with kids all day and I can’t imagine the stresses involved with dealing with your own kids for the rest of your life. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harder than being married. It’s just a different kind of hard, and an adjustment from the life you lived before. It’s just like when we were in college and we would say that college was hard and people would say, “You think college is hard, wait till you have a job!” And I just think that’s ridiculous, too. Sure, having a job is hard. Having responsibilities that come along with that job (and the apartment and the car and the other things you buy with the money from that job) is hard. But college is hard, too, in a different way. My job is extremely difficult and stressful at times, but I’d take this job – heck, I’d take the job SEARCH – over undergrad any day. The all-nighters, the endless papers, the studying-tell-I-dropped, the computer crashing in the middle of term paper writing, the boyfriends who broke my heart, the anxiety, the depression… Sure, there were good times and I met some of the best friends I’ve ever had in undergrad, but I absolutely would not go back to that time in my life if you paid me. Similarly, if (and it’s a big if at this point) Tim and I have children, sure it’ll be hard, but in a different way than marriage is hard. And, most likely, I’ll never want to go back to it being just the two of us again, even if you paid me, because I will love my children with all my might, but that doesn’t really make having them any more or less hard than being married is. No matter what phase of your life you are in – high school, college, job training, working, marriage, motherhood – they’re all huge adjustments, and all very difficult in their own way. And if you find something difficult as you are living it, you’re absolutely allowed to think that thing is difficult. I mean, of course there are harder things in life than being married. I could be jobless, homeless, starving… any number of things. But that doesn’t make being married less hard; saying these things only attempts to make me feel guilty for admitting that being married is hard. And that doesn’t really help anyone.
Right now, I’m working on being married, I’m new at it, and I probably am not very good at it yet. And it’s hard right now, but it is also amazing and hilarious and comfortable right now. I’m just trying to get it to be amazing/hilarious/comfortable more often than it is hard. I’ll deal with the rest of life’s situations if and when I get there.
The fact of the matter is, lots of people just think that marriage – and especially being a newlywed – is all happiness and butterflies and picking out matching china patterns, and it isn’t always that way. Lots of these people who are trying to tell me that having kids is so much harder have been married for quite some time. Perhaps, for them, marriage is total bliss because they’ve made the adjustment and they cannot remember how difficult it was, or they expect that everyone will make the transition as easily as they did, or they long for some alone time with their husbands. And the other fact of the matter is that, for many of my friends and readers who are not yet married but who are headed that way, I know that these posts are helping them deal with issues they may be facing right now or expect to face in the near future. So, regardless of these comments, my goal for the next year at least is to post candidly and honestly about the joys and pitfalls of being married while feminist. And I have the same philosophy about this as I do about teaching: If this helps just one person, then it was worth it.
I’m a married feminist with two kids, so here’s what I think you should say to all those smartypants getting in your biz: “Yes, I hear having kids IS hard, but I imagine it’s even HARDER when your marriage is a mess.” That ought to work nicely. if it doesn’t, they are beyond help!
Shannon, you are officially my new favorite person. This is exactly something I would say! Thank you!!!
I agree, you can’t compare marriage with marriage and having kids, i.e. apples to oranges.
Any big change in your life IS hard. A change in my life that I experienced most recently–which is not like getting married but similar kind of big life-change–was moving in with my partner. I am a very independent woman and it took me awhile to not only have a roommate, but also my partner as a roommate. I felt like a sense of privacy was taken away from me. It took time, but I’m used to it now.
I’m really looking forward to your posts. I think it’s awesome that you are sharing your experiences as a newly wed because a lot of people–men and women–need to hear it (especially those of us who will be married in the near future 🙂 ).
Thank you so much, Emily!
Hi
I think this blog is a great idea and I’ll be checking in regularly ( I found you via TheUndomestic on Twitter). I found Marriage hard from the off – we had a couple of *awful* rows on honeymoon even for exactly the kinds of reasons you talk about. We were utterly exhausted from the pre-wedding build-up and the day itself (which was incredible and wonderful, and I’ve never been so happy, etc). Even Iceland and New York couldn’t make-up for the fact that all the excitement and people and momentum had just stopped, and now it was just back to us with a bump.
So I do remember how hard it is being married without kids.
But, as a feminist, I would say having kids is a whole new level. I can only speak for myself of course, but becoming a mother is harder than anything I could have imagined times about ten. Make that 100. And the most difficult part is the way it changes the way things work with your partner. You share everything, for the most part feel happy and harmonious with a set-up which means you are together but also maintain and enjoy independence.
Then, BAM, out comes baby and its like you live on different planets.
Suddenly, you’re very enlightened, urbane, pro-feminist husband sees you as a Mother and things change.My view of him has probably changed too. I have never felt the need to fight for my feminist rights like I have since giving birth. At times I have RAGED against the unfairness of our modern, enlightened society. I see injustice towards women in places I just didn’t recognise before. and I guess that has made me a difficult, angry person to live with!
I have seen this happen to several friends and it has put enormous pressure on their marriages. In a nutshell, it seems even the most feminist-seeming men walk the walk but when it comes to caring for a small baby they won’t/don’t/can’t walk the walk.
There is so much I could say on this subject, and I don’t want to take up too much space here so I’ll sign-off now, but am thinking perhaps i feel a “Feminist Mother” blog coming on….what do you think?!
All the best, keep on keeping on
Mary-Louise
Hi Mary-Louise. I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog.
Thanks for the insight – it is valuable – but the point I was trying to make was that marriage is hard and having kids is hard, but they are very hard in different ways, and it is sort of inappropriate for anyone to tell someone having a tough time with marriage that their difficult situation pales in comparison to what they are going through having kids. Saying “But, as a feminist, I would say having kids is a whole new level…” is really just saying “Marriage is hard, but having kids is harder.” This statement is what I’m trying to say is, honestly, kind of irritating to hear. Telling someone it only gets harder, or that you have it harder, does not make it less hard for that person.
It sounds like you have some good material for a blog, though, and best of luck should you choose to start it.
Ashley, this post couldn’t have come at a better time for me! I just celebrated my second anniversary, and I love my husband dearly (and I love that I don’t feel like I need to add that caveat here, though it’s still a knee-jerky response for me). But it’s almost like I’m living a different life now. And while I absolutely believe change is good and growth is good and life is for living, sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that believing all those good things doesn’t magically cancel out the other less welcome feelings.
I do have someone else standing at the center of my life with me now, and that’s always going to feel a little scary, since it took me a long time to feel okay about putting ME there. My husband may not get that, many of my most sympathetic girlfriends don’t even get that–and I envy their ignorance. I think it means they had a sense of themselves long before I did!
Makes me thankful for, oh, probably the umpteenth time in my life, to have feminists like you (and Shannon, whose line I’m going to shamelessly borrow, too!) out there.
Jodi
Hi Jodi! I’m glad you enjoyed this post, and it’s really good to hear that there are people out there feeling the same way as me. Changing your life so completely, like marriage does, can be both an extremely happy time and an extremely stressful time, and it’s totally worth it, but it can be very hard. I am, also, thankful for feminists like you who help me to see that we’re not alone and, in a way, working through this together!
To have or not to have children?
A bit of a tangent to the article, but I recently heard a radio discussion on this topic. Sometimes woman are challenged with the line, “But, if you have children, you’ll love it and wonder why you didn’t have them sooner.” (or something similar)
One woman countered this argument by replying that nursing might seem the perfect vocation for some people, but you’d not embark on such a career just because it ‘might’ turn out to suit you, if you had no interest in it beforehand.
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