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The Web address of this
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http://sfhelp.org/Rx/spl/ourschild.htm
This concludes an article for co-parents on the pros and cons of
conceiving an "ours child" in a new stepfamily.
The last fundamental "ours-baby" question is...
Can We Provide a
High-nurturance Family Environment?
To answer this, you mates must agree on
in your nuclear stepfamily.
Your best
bet is to see all people regularly living in your
co-parents' homes as
comprising your nuclear stepfamily.
Excluding ex mates and/or
their new partners is a glaring red light! So the question becomes
"Can our three or more co-parents provide a high-nurturance family for our
present kids and any new ones?"
The next step is for all you co-parents to agree on what a
family is. That prepares you to help each other find a realistic
way of assessing your caregiving team's nurturance level. Because
stepfamily child conception is such a profoundly personal, emotional, and complex long-term decision, it's probably a wise investment to get
outside opinion on this nurturance-level question.
You co-parents can judge your co-parental
nurturance level with at least five indicators:
"Are my partner and I both consistently
by our
true
Selves now?" How do you know? Then ask the same
question about each other co-parent.
related readings, and qualified
professional counsel can help answer that accurately. Typical mates
controlled by false selves often have trouble maintaining a high family
nurturance level.
How many of
these traits
describe our present nuclear stepfamily? If your true Self is
disabled, your other subselves will either ignore this question or give
a distorted (over-positive) answer.
How is
each of our minor kids doing with their
developmental and
family-adjustment needs? If all your custodial
and visiting kids are "doing well enough" (a subjective decision), then
you co-parents and kin are probably "pretty nurturing," and a
new baby is less likely to overwhelm your household.
Again, objective professional opinion can be a wise investment
here. A fourth indicator is...
What are our stepfamily strengths now? Investing time
in taking and discussing
this long
inventory, after getting thoroughly grounded
on stepfamily basics
can help
you decide together. If you have "many" strengths or are
clearly developing them, then your co-parenting nurturance level is
probably "pretty high." Finally...
How aware are you
co-parents of the way you
plan for and
adapt to major
changes?
Intuitively, the more aware and agreed your adults are at planning for major
changes, the better the time to make a conception decision. Can you describe
your present policy (shoulds, musts, ought to's) on managing major family
changes? "No policy" is a policy...
We've just explored typical pros and cons for conceiving an
"ours" baby, ways of evaluating who wants a baby, why, when, and how
well can you all nurture your family members - including a new child. That's a
lot! Now - let's look at your whole complex decision process and identify
key...
Options
One choice you partners have now is to say
"this conception decision is too complex."
It is
complicated! My bet is that if you want the old-age satisfaction of having
lived "fully and well," you'll invest the time, energy, and patience
to break this
decision into do-able tasks, adopt a long-range view, and work at it
together patiently, a step at a time.
Another option your co-parents have is to
feel gloomy and pessimistic. "We've really
gotten ourselves and our kids into a mess. There's no way we can make a
healthy long-range conception decision here, so forget it." Or...
You may be idealistic: "Our love will
overcome all barriers,
and God is with us. We'll just trust our hearts, pray, and do it (have a baby)!" This is probably the riskiest option of all, unless
you mates (a) are sure you're not significantly
and (b) it's the right
time to decide, and (c) you have listened well to
your "still small voices" and (d) gotten informed human
If you're controlled by false selves and are having significant stepfamily
problems, you mates may
adopt the seductive
that "having
a baby will make us feel like a normal biofamily." It probably
won't.
Having an ours child will surely (a) add stress and some joys to your lives
for years, (b) upset any
you've achieved in
your complex nuclear stepfamily, and (c)
will not change your
stepfamily
and the
that come with it.
Do either of you mates wonder "What
do other stepfamily
couples do?" My research since 1979 suggests that a minority of
U.S. stepfamily mates conceive one or more planned
"ours" children. Key factors are that typical co-parents are
middle-aged, need two incomes, and already have over-busy lives with several
resident or visiting kids.
After research and discussion, you two may say "There are just too many
uncertainties and unknowns, so let's decide to not decide
for
now." As with all complex stepfamily decisions, help each other guard against black/white "bipolar" thinking
here. It reduces
many complex options to only two (conceive now or don't). Habitual bipolar thinking in
confusing or stressful situations suggests that a
protective false self rules the person's personality, seeking
simplicity, clarity, and control in a dangerous world.
Another option is to rely heavily on someone else's advice. If a lay or
professional counselor (a) seems to be
by their true Self, (b) can
answer these stepfamily
questions accurately, and (c) can realistically assess your nuclear-stepfamily's
nurturance level, then s/he may be qualified to advise you.
Relying primarily
on the advice of (a) professionals, authors, or media "experts"
and/or
on (b) kin and
friends with little or no stepfamily training or experience, risks years of regret and heartache
and
to your descendents.
An interesting option is to get undistracted, and imagine in detail the conversation
you'd like to have with a (potential) grown "ours" baby when you're
about to die. What would you like to be able to say, hear, and feel
about how your child's growing-up years "turned out"?
A final option is to seek feedback from a variety of veteran
stepfamily co-parents. Roughly one of five U.S. families is a stepfamily, so
there are a lot of co-parents out there. Locate some in your community and see if they'll talk about their
"ours" conception decisions and how they reached them. You can also
investigate the many co-parent
chat rooms or forums on the Web. A useful site
is
www.havinganotherbaby.com.
Lots of helpful perspective and resources!
Recap
The decision to conceive an "ours
child" in typical multi-home stepfamilies is significantly more complex than in intact biofamilies.
This article provides perspective and specific suggestions on how mates can make a wise long-range
child-conception decision.
A major decision factor is that many (most?)
stepfamily co-parents appear to bear significant psychological
from low-nurturance
childhoods. Where true, ignoring that risks unconsciously
to existing
and new children. Well-meaning, needy false selves will vehemently
discount, or
ignore this reality ("Well, that sure doesn't apply to us!"). For
a reality check, see
this.
The long-term satisfactions of conceiving and raising a child together are
beyond measure. So is the later-life agony of seeing your child/ren
unhappy, stressed, and floundering. Compared to high-nurturance intact biofamilies,
there are more obstacles to nurturing kids well in typical nuclear stepfamilies.
Overcoming the obstacles takes
co-parents and
unusual patience, knowledge,
focus,
dedication, wisdom, and
|
Your love and commitments
alone are usually not enough to overcome these
and prepare
your resident and visiting kids well for productive adult
independence... |
Pause and reflect: why did you read this article? Did you get what you
needed? If so, what do you want to do next? If not, what more do you need
now?
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