Couple’s decision to have another child requires honesty

Dear Carolyn: I am happy with my wonderful toddler son, husband, dream job, apartment, etc.

My husband is really happy working for himself, and we both love our adorable, walkable community. We have flexible enough schedules that we get lots of time with our son. When he’s sleeping or napping, we have free time to chill or work on creative hobbies that are important to us. And we still also have time for friends and family.

After a lot of research and many, many “let’s game this out” discussions, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’d need to make really dramatic changes to afford another kid. We’d possibly have to move out of the city, I’d need a higher paying job, my husband would need to give up his business. With working longer hours and a longer commute, I’d have a lot less time and energy to enjoy my kid(s) if I had another one. My husband is pretty sure we’d both be miserable with all we’d have to give up ... and he’s probably right.

I’m in my mid-30s, so we can’t just wait a few years.

Although I have a deep emotional desire to have another kid, logically I don’t think it’s worth it — but I feel like such a spoiled brat because the “sacrifices” we’d make are things most people don’t even have in the first place. Most people drive everywhere and work long hours at jobs they feel so-so about, etc. That’s just life!

So I’m worried we’re going to regret that we didn’t just suck it up and grow up to have another kid.

Are we being too selfindulgent?

Adulting?

So that I’m clear: Your definition of “adulting” requires drudgery and comprises a long commute, a soul-sucking job, forfeited entrepreneurship, sacrificed kid time and the dismissal of your main pleasures in life as the spoils of the spoiled?

And choosing otherwise is self-indulgent?

You need either to “game this out” more fully next time, or see your rationalizations for what they are.

I should say, what they’re covering up.

“We’d be miserable” — that’s your husband talking.

“That’s just life”; “suck it up”; “grow up”; “most people”; “logically”; “spoiled brat” — that’s not you talking so much as it is an intensely self-negating assumed identity trying to talk for you.

And it’s not even doing that. Instead, it’s just coopting what you imagine to be the voices of society at large, and using them to shout down what you really believe.

But aren’t ready or able to say.

You can’t make good decisions, though, until you admit — to yourself, and then to your husband — the truth you’re burying in all of these feints and excuses.

Is it that you want another child, regardless of logic and cramped apartments?

Is it that you don’t want another child, and feel guilty for thinking that?

Is it that you resent the unyielding either-or of one city kid or two suburban ones?

Whatever it is, step away from self-negating hypotheticals and have the courage to speak in your own voice.