What are some things you wish you would have discussed or thought about before having a child?

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My husband and I are TTC. Although it’s VERY exciting, it’s also somewhat stressful with information overload and thinking about everything.
What do you wish you would have thought about or talked about before conceiving or having children? i.e money, religion, etc.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Bill M
These are the things that if I had them to do over would have. Number one I would have nailed down a college degree and a career! I would not have had kids at twenty -four. I would have planned much better for their education. I would have been a lot more involved in their school and extra curricular activities and tried to be a better role model.

Answer by PetMom
My husband and I had been together a total of fourteen years, dating three and married eleven, before we decided to have children and I thought we had discussed everything there was to discuss. As a result of his being active duty, we’d been through separations due to an unaccompanied tour (I joined him four months into the tour and he extended a year) and a deployment (eight months during Desert Shield/Storm.) I really thought we were prepared. After twelve years of parenting and two children, there are several things I wish we had discussed more in the beginning instead of having to work through.

We decided in the beginning that I would give up my job and stay home. It has really worked well for us in light of the changes in the world and his present career. I have been a constant in our children’s lives in spite of deployments, retirement, and a career change that keeps him away from home periodically. However, I wish that we had discussed how household responsibilities would be divided. What sounded good before children has completely overwhelmed me on more than one occasion. I really thought I could gracefully give up a job that I was very good at and be just as successful at home. However, I should not have willingly agreed to take on everything — child care, bills, laundry, errands, yard work, house hold maintenance, everything. I didn’t want to ask for help because I knew I was competent. However, I didn’t realize how exhausting being a mother can be at times. We should have agreed on a more even division of parenting from the start and talked about how we would deal with situations where I needed help.

We should have also discussed his role in parenting more. It’s easy to sit down and agree to things when everything is calm. However, in the first six years of our son’s life, my husband was gone four and a half. Because I had agreed to be responsible for the children, my husband didn’t have a clear picture of what he could do to help. He left a baby who had only begun sitting up and essentially returned to a walking, talking six year old who had speech issues and was lagging behind his peers in classwork as a result. He felt helpless and angry because he didn’t know how to help. I was so wrapped up in what needed to be done that I didn’t take time to explain what he could do to help both me and our son.

We should have talked about the future more. We have put money away for years for retirement and the possibility of children who might go to college. It was easy to just assume we’d put money away and eventually it would either be spent on children and a retirement. Instead of just assuming, we really should have talked about what we need to do to raise healthy, happy children who are successful whether they go to college or not. We should have discussed how to encourage our children to have confidence and try new things. The conversation should have included how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be. It’s not enough to make goals, you need to talk about how you are going to get there. It’s nice we saved money, but we should have talked more about what we need to do as parents to build confidence and drive in our children. I am pushy and he wants to take a wait and see approach that keeps us at odds on a regular basis.

Answer by Elizabeth
I wish we had been on the same page financially. It’s the #1 cause of our arguments.

Answer by Ista
Definitely a good idea to make sure you are on the same page regarding everything that pertains to the child. The biggy for me, was discipline. My ex and I are not even close to being on the same page regarding discipline. That can be very stressful.