Expert Answers: Can I change her mind about having children?
My wife and I were married nine years ago, and decided we'd wait to have children. My wife was desperate to have children, but I persuaded her to wait. Now she's super fit and career mad and says she no longer wants a family. How do I change her mind?
Thousands of women regret not having more children after putting off motherhood for their careers, official figures suggest.
A generation is suffering agonising "baby hunger" after waiting into their late 30s and 40s, often leaving it too late because of declining fertility.
Only four in 10 women in their early 40s have achieved the hopes they voiced as twenty-somethings to have two children.
And one in four childless women aged 36 to 38 still hopes to defy the odds by having a first birth.
The distressing gap between the number of babies women wanted and the number they actually had was revealed in data on childbearing intentions collected from 1979 to 2001.
Most women said they wanted two children but many did not achieve this, said the Office for National Statistics 2003 population report.
This could have led to a generation of women with an unmet need, researchers said.
They believe most have delayed motherhood to climb the career ladder or enjoy their freedom.
Researcher Steve Smallwood said: "Postponing fertility means women are giving themselves less time to achieve what they want to achieve."
The findings might help to explain the surge in fertility treatment in Britain, with more than 27,000 cycles of IVF carried out each year.
Around 20 per cent of women aged 36 to 38 were childless in the latest surveys from 1998, 2000 and 2001.
But only a small number intended to stay that way, leaving one in four wanting at least one baby.
The trend towards older motherhood looks likely to continue, the figures showed. The national average age for first-time mothers has risen to 29 and most babies are born to women aged 30 to 34.
The 560,000 births recorded in 2001 was the lowest rate since birth registrations began in 1838.
However, the number born outside marriage continues to rise, accounting for more than four in 10 deliveries in 2002.
The trend towards delayed motherhood has major implications for women, who may still have children under 18 in the home at a time when their own parents fall ill and need care.
Researchers found this particularly affected well-educated women who may have put off motherhood. As a result, they face a "caring squeeze".
Paul Charlson
GP from Brough
This is a difficult one as there is rarely a perfect time to have children. It is a major decision and when a couple have different views this can be disastrous for a relationship. The one thing that is against you both is time. The biological clock for your wife is ticking. Nevertheless, some women have children naturally into their forties.
The chances of birth defects and problems with conception increase with age. I suggest you obtain some help in the form of relationship counselling to try to resolve the issue and decide where you want to go with it. In the end, it is about compromise and this is the only way you will achieve resolution. Thinking outside the box at possible solutions rather than having a fixed view certainly helps.
Elaine Douglas
A chartered psychologist who specialises in family and child relationships
There was a time when your wife wanted children and you felt the timing was wrong – now the tables have turned. I am wondering how much of her current disinterest in having a family is due to the fact that she was thwarted a few years back when it was high on her agenda and not yours, and how much is due to the fact that she has quite successfully replaced that need with something else.
You need to talk to each other and find out what has changed in these intervening years. Talk with her about what it is that has seemingly changed her mind, but in an open discussion – not in a way that comes across as you trying to persuade her. She may dig her heels in if she feels that she is being put under pressure. Ask her how she sees herself in three years' time. That would open up issues about your relationship, work, etc and will help you both to see what you want out of life. If she has any worries, you will be in a stronger position to examine these and move forward.
Cary Cooper
Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
It sounds to me that waiting so long has had the effect of your wife creating an alternative lifestyle without children, one that she has grown to enjoy and meets her needs. Her worry now must be that having children will change all of that, that her independence will be undermined and that she will be expected to take on the child-minding, no longer being able to do what she wants to do and when she wants to do. You need to openly discuss this, but, most of all, you need to reassure her that you will be prepared to take on a substantial part of the child rearing role and not leave it all to her.
Given her current reluctance, this can't just be a ploy to get her to have children, but an honest commitment that you will make sure that the parental role will be shared, and that you will ensure that she will be given the space to pursue her own activities, as least as much as you. In fact, this is a good basis of deciding to have a family, the sharing of roles rather than finding oneself in the traditional roles, with women doing the "double shift" of work and the family and men only contributing to family life at the margins.
Dr Carol Burniston
Consultant Clinical Child Psychologist
This is a difficult one. The fact is, your wife's priorities have changed. However, she will be the one who will be carrying and delivering the baby and could be the one who takes on most of the child care and responsibilities. If your wife does change her mind, she needs to be very clear that a child is what she wants as her relationship with it will be influenced by her attitude towards the pregnancy and becoming a mother and can affect the rest of the baby's life. While you can discuss your feelings and wishes, it would be a mistake to try to insist she follows a particular path.
Can you remember how you felt when you were persuading your wife to wait early on in your marriage? Did you have some understanding of her feelings at the time? Have you discussed it since? Would you feel differently about your marriage if you found that you were unable to have children for any reason? You need to come to a mutually agreed decision and the only way to do this is to keep talking.
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