Category: Family & Parenting

World leaders are meeting to discuss and negotiate climate change issues. When you think of climate change, you might think of disastrous natural consequences like fires and floods. Perhaps you’re concerned about rising seas levels or wrestling with policies aimed at preventing large-scale catastrophes. But for some, the impact is hitting home in another way: Many of childbearing age are worried about the threat of a scarcity of resources, and some couples are reconsidering whether to have kids at all or rethinking family size.

When talking about the effect of climate change and our diminishing natural resources in reference to having babies, words like “deterrent,” “discouragement,” and “responsibility” come up regularly. About a quarter of men and women who responded to a Morning Consult survey said they factored climate change into their reproductive decisions. “For both GenZers and millennials, the issue seems more salient, with 37 percent and 34 percent, respectively, saying it is a major or minor reason they do not have children,” according to the report released last year. Of 20- to 45-year-olds surveyed, a third said climate change was a reason they’d had fewer children or expected to have a smaller family than they considered ideal.

Kathleen*, who lives on the West Coast and has a 2-and-a-1/2-year-old, told me, “The wildfires were so impactful that we couldn’t leave our house. Climate change and the strain on our environmental resources are a discouragement to having more children. Several of my friends feel a child brought into the world now would not have a secure future. They don’t want their kids to inherit an unstable world.”

Kenneth, 39, an only child whose preference initially was a larger family, let go of that wish because of the financial pressure of more children and his feeling of responsibility. “I think having a lot of kids is irresponsible,” he said. “The more kids you have, the more consumption, the more the impact on the environment and on the global footprint. I cringe at people having a lot of kids.”

Following two articles in The New York Times addressing the dip in population growth and its effect on the economy, readers fired back: “With a smaller population, we will not struggle for resources to provide food, water and housing for everyone,” Alexandra Paul of California wrote in a letter to the editor. “We will not contribute as much to climate change; we will live in harmony with nature and allow wildlife to thrive; most people will have jobs despite the rise in automation; there will be less traffic, less crowding, more open space. These are all crucial things to well-being.”

“When I talk to people my age about having children, we don’t talk about whether or not we like kids, or whether or not we would be able to support them,” college sophomore Astrid Braun from Ohio wrote in her letter to the editor. “We talk about the moral implications of putting more people on this Earth to consume more resources. And we talk about not wanting our kids to live in the terribly uncertain future, one in which they could be facing a world of climate change disasters. We ourselves are already facing it, in many places.”

A small study from the University of Arizona—“No future, no kids—no kids, no future?”—asked 18- to 35-year-olds about their climate change concerns and thoughts about bringing children into the world. Their responses suggest that climate change looms large in decisions about whether or not to have children, reflecting how environmental concerns are increasingly influencing young adults’ reproductive choices.

Climate change: An undeniable factor

Climate change anxiety has become front and center in many family planning conversations. When coupled with women’s fraught participation in the workforce, the expense of raising children, and the profound economic aftershocks of COVID-19, climate change worries appear to be accelerating the sharp decline in birthrate in many developed countries.

More than 10 years ago, in his book The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet’s Surprising Future, economist Fred Pearce noted, “Once the trend has set in, it will be very hard to break.” With climate change now weighing heavily on couples’ decisions about having kids and family size, it seems a good bet climate anxiety will fuel the one-child trend for a long time to come.

Is climate change something you grapple with when thinking about having a baby?

*Names of participants in the Only Child Research Project have been changed to protect identities.

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman

Related Articles:

Only One!? The Pressure Is Off Parents to Have More Children

How Many Children Did You Hope to Have?

The exciting months leading up to your baby’s arrival are a whirlwind of planning and preparation. From choosing a name to creating a baby registry, there are so many exciting choices to make! And let’s not forget all the options when it comes to decorating the nursery.

Instagram is full of ideas and Pinterest is a decor maven’s dream. Details of the dreamy nurseries of the rich and famous seem to follow every celebrity pregnancy announcement. Naturally, you want the very best for your baby. But when decorating a nursery, it is definitely possible to go overboard.

I for one channelled my boundless enthusiasm for the arrival of my firstborn into creating her room. I admit I may have gone a little too far. Repeatedly. Here, I share some of my mistakes and regrets so that you might avoid the perils of nursery neurosis.

1. Overdoing the reno

My husband insisted the floors be refinished in the nursery. Our 60-year-old home had original hardwood in varying states of non-pristine condition. I could see where he was coming from: If our child was to be crawling in there, didn’t we want the floor to be exquisitely clean and fresh? Now my daughter’s room has the finest floor in the house. But, unfortunately, it makes the floors in all our other spaces look grungy, no matter how clean they are. And, obviously, our daughter’s crawling was not confined exclusively to her room. In a final, shocking twist, the floors in the rest of our house failed to infect her with any known affliction.

2. Making it too precious

We completed the nursery decor with a shelf my grandfather had built, laden with Hummels from my childhood and vintage books from my husband’s. Everything was clean and pristine. We were practically ready to run a velvet rope across the doorway, so precious was this nest we had built for our firstborn. I quickly found out that a nursery needs the utility of a laundry room and the fortitude to withstand the traffic of a mudroom. A nursery is not just where your baby sleeps—it’s a heavy-duty workroom for you. Design it with utility in mind, and you will thank yourself night after weary night.

3. Over-shopping

Pregnancy-related insomnia paired with a drive to attain the highest value for each item of nursery furniture meant I spent dozens of overnight hours online shopping for just the right rocking chair. I’d pick out my dream chairs at fancy boutiques, then scour Kijiji for them. I’d find models just out of our price range at sophisticated decor chains, then hope for a sale. I bookmarked so many pages that I created a file for them. And then added files within that file. No matter how many shopping hours I logged, one adage always held true. Practical, beautiful, affordable: Pick two. In the end, I settled on practical and affordable. Our Kijiji glider chair served us well, and then we resold it again on Kijiji. That’s good value.

4. Stressing about the paint colour

I chose a rather striking aqua blue for all four walls. When it was painted, I assessed it and realized that maybe I hated it. Maybe it was awful. Maybe it had been a big mistake. And if the paint colour wasn’t perfect, then obviously, my foray into motherhood was doomed. I had a full-blown case of The Frets.

If this happens to you, you don’t necessarily have to exhaust yourself repainting. First of all, try swapping your light bulbs. LED bulbs come variety of colours from ultra-warm white to cool white, and you’d be surprised how much lighting can change how paint looks. You can also try to balance the colour by adding textiles in a complementary colour. But my most important tip? Remember that it’s just wall colour. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Once your baby arrives, you probably won’t care anymore.

In my case, in the end, when the white furniture was moved in, the blue was a lot more palatable. And later, when a certain Disney movie was released featuring a pair of Nordic sisters, the colour was an exact match for the mountain of Elsa memorabilia the room came to contain.

5. Fussy lighting

It was a porcelain, owl-shaped table lamp, and I loved it. I imagined it casting a warm glow as I fed my baby after dark. As I was paying for it, the cashier told me it gets hot to the touch when you leave it on. So now it’s out of reach in the living room. What I should have done instead was to install a dimmer switch on the nursery’s main light fixture.

6. Imposing my taste

I hung a framed Arcade Fire album cover in the nursery. Very chic, no? After all, everyone gets into bands because their mom likes them. In hindsight, introducing her to my favourite music is probably the most fool-proof way to ensure that she will not like it. Everyone knows that introducing favourite bands is firmly in the domain of older brothers and cool cousins.

7. Going too high tech

Attaching speakers to my old MacBook and adding it to the nursery was the most fool-proof way to ensure that my child would grow up to be the next Steve Jobs. Plus, both the laptop and the speakers were white! *chef kiss* This dresser-top system to play music for our baby was excellent—for us, at least. You wouldn’t believe how many babysitters and grandparents can’t use a track pad to navigate to the hidden dock, double-click on the app, scroll through the playlist to find the right one, then find the volume control—no, not that volume control, the other one—then reach around to the back to turn on the speakers, and then adjust the speakers’ volume. Such Luddites! In retrospect, a clock radio backup would have come in handy.

My mistakes have been many, yet my child, now nine years old, seems to have come through it unscathed. Of course, I’m sure you’ll make your share of furnishing faux pas too. But, no matter what, remember that you want to create a peaceful workspace for you, and a safe and cozy snuggle space for your new addition. Everything else is just window dressing.

Wanting to raise “star” children is not new, but a significant number of parents in China have taken pushing their offspring to a new level. “Jiwa” parenting, as it’s come to be called, raises parental anxiety, and it can be expensive, too.

The name is derived from a decades-old untested medical treatment of injecting chicken blood into humans to stimulate energy. “The literal translation of ‘jiwa’ is pumping children with chicken blood (to motivate them to learn),” explains Dr. Xuan Li, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University Shanghai. “Translating it less literally, we may understand it as pushing kids to succeed – to be the best.”

Dr. Li and Dr. Lixin Ren, an associate professor of early childhood education at East China Normal University, point out that jiwa parenting shares similarities with tiger mom or helicopter parenting, but that there are differences as well. What’s particularly salient in jiwa parenting is parents’ strong sense of moral responsibility for helping their children to succeed and heavy emphasis on the academic aspect of child development, which is quite different from tiger parenting that emphasizes parental power and authority over children. Dr. Li says, “The term jiwa parenting is infused with a strong sense of stress and anxiety for the parents who feel the necessity to motivate their children even without agreeing to, liking it, or enjoying it themselves.”

A nationwide study in “China’s Blue Book of Children” reports that 60.4% of Chinese children aged 3 to 15 years participated in after-school education programs, with academic tutoring being the one that took up the most time. According to The Global Times, the trend has led many parents to sign kids up for costly tutoring, as they feel pressure to do so because other parents are doing the same. The state-owned paper and National Public Radio explain that parents are anxious their children will fall behind if they don’t sign up.

Jiwa parents’ investment in tutoring for their kids is significant. The BiPartisan Report, a weekly news digest, suggests parents spend 25 to 50 percent of their income on supplemental education, most of it for after-school private academic tutoring which has become a multi-billion-dollar business in China.

The Chinese Government Cracks Down on Private Tutoring

As part of sweeping regulations in many sectors outlined in the Washington Post, the Chinese government banned for-profit tutoring companies. The State Council and the Communist Party have asserted that they believe by greatly restricting the number of programs they can not only stem educational inequality, but also increase China’s low birth rate.

Relaxing the country’s infamous one-child policy, which became a two-child policy and is now a three-child policy, has had little effect. The thinking behind the new rulings is that if parents are not spending exorbitant amounts of money on expensive educational tutors, they will have more disposable income and have more children to boost China’s birth rate. The cost of raising child, especially in China’s urban cities, is high and out of reach for many parents.

President Xi Jinping’s crackdown will also likely not affect those who can afford private tutoring. “Jiwa parents will undoubtedly find ways around the new regulations,” notes Dr. Ren, “particularly parents who are deeply concerned about their children’s future economic security.”

Fear of Falling Behind

Dr. Ren, who has studied the effect of extracurricular activities on preschoolers, told NPR, “Every time I hear the word ‘jiwa,’ I feel a very strong sense of anxiety, stress, fear and exhaustion. [There is a sense among parents] I feel that if I don’t move forward, I will fall behind.”

In Dr. Ren and Dr. Li’s studies of preschoolers found that increasing the level of participation in extracurricular activities could benefit children’s cognitive and language development to some extent, but over-scheduling children could decrease the benefits of extracurricular participation or even generate negative effects on child development. They point out that parental expectations for performance tend to increase as kids get older. Jiwa parents squeeze out almost all of school-age kids’ free time by scheduling hours of after-school programs, primarily tutoring. Parents who take this approach are relentless in terms of the time, money and energy they invest to see their offspring succeed.

Will “Chicken Blood” Parenting Come to the U.S?

So will this parenting trend take hold here?

“There are specific aspects about the culture and social realities in China that may have driven this push to the extreme. Chinese parents tend to believe in effort over talent and see education as a route to higher education and social mobility,” Dr. Li told me.

“While helicopter parenting describes intensive involvement in every aspect of children’s lives, jiwa parenting mainly concerns deep involvement in a child’s learning propelled by parents’ high expectations for their achievement,” she adds.

Dr. Li and Dr. Ren remind us that the intensive parenting approach isn’t new or uniquely Chinese. Parents around the world, and in the U.S., have adopted this approach often without even realizing it. Think: US middle-class parents who send their children to Japanese Kumon programs, Chinese classes, or Russian-style math camps, or Korean parents who send their children to endless cram schools.

But that doesn’t mean it’s good for kids or parents when so much emphasis is placed on academics. That is only one aspect of a child’s development and his or her chances for success.

As you know, Psychology Today no longer accepts comments on this site, however, you can comment (and I hope you will) on my Facebook page. By following me on Facebook, you can comment on this, recent and future posts. I look forward to what you have to say.

As part of the Only Child Project, a research study I’m leading, I have been asking only children and parents of only children how many children they think they want or thought they wanted. Most, though not all, say two or more.

The idea of the nuclear family with two or three children is burned into society’s belief system. But the 2020 Census underscores what’s really happening: One-child families outnumber two-child and three-child families, and they have now for several decades.

Families with one child under the age of 18 outnumber two-child households; the same holds true when you look only at families with children under age 6. Notably, the number of parents with some college or college degrees continues an upward trend. That indicates women are staying in school longer, marrying later, and waiting to start their families.

Consistently, women in the Only Child Project were at least 30 years old, and some were considerably older when they gave birth. Like many I spoke with, Kathleen,* 41, says that she might have had another child if she had married earlier. “My biological clock is counting down; I didn’t expect to marry at 37 and have a baby so late, at 39. We’re done. I’m concerned about the risk of pregnancy complications being older.”

Meredith and Doug are 39; each has three siblings and good relationships with them. When you ask them about having children, they say, “You would think because we have siblings that we would want to repeat that, but we don’t. We’re focused on our careers”—she’s an oncologist, he’s a biochemist—“and want to buy a second home.” “If we have any,” Meredith says emphatically, “it will be one.”

When sibling relationships are positive, it can be difficult to reconcile the one-child choice. In contrast to Meredith, Fredda, 42, says, “I always wanted two children because of my relationship with my sister—one that I may have idealized since she died in her early 20s. For me, a lot of reasons came together.”

Women today have career opportunities they didn’t have in the 1950s and 60s in line with goals they’ve set for themselves. Accordingly, many women, like Meredith and Fredda, weigh how having a child or more children might affect their job trajectory. Fredda wants more in her life than being home raising children. “When my husband and I hit 40, our son was 7 years old and becoming more independent. We realized that we were on the verge of having our lives back. We were content and wanted the freedoms you lose if you start over with a baby. Underscoring our decision was the jarring time I had after my long maternity leave. Unlike the United States, my country gives a full year of paid maternity leave.

“When I returned, I was pushed to the side; it was a career break, and I had to find another position in a new company. I knew from experience that if I took another maternity leave to have a second child, I would essentially be replaced again. Short-circuiting my career was hurtful, and a tiny voice in my head said, don’t do it again. I listened.”

More than half of Millennial women “assume that if and when they have children, it will be harder for them to advance in their careers,” according to Pew Research Center.

For the most part, women in their 20s, whether single or partnered, don’t think about their fertility. They focus on getting ahead at their jobs and being financially able to support a family. Those in their 30s and early 40s and in the family planning stages are also settling on one. Richard and Elena, together for 18 years, have decided it’s time to have a baby. She’s 38, and Richard is 39—older by the standards of previous generations to be starting a family. They are united in how many children to have: “It was a long road to get us to want a child. We are definitely having only one—we are both only children.”

Juliet was 43 when she gave birth to her son and explains another usual “decider” for having one child—the expense of infertility treatments. “When I was younger, I thought two was my number… as I got older, I worried about my fertility,” she says. “To have a baby took two expensive rounds of IVF, and, of course, they were not covered by insurance. We felt lucky to have a viable embryo and then fortunate to have a healthy child. We agreed to call it quits. We decided not to tempt the fates anymore.”

The pandemic changes minds.

The pandemic dropped a veil of uncertainty, causing people to rethink childbearing and how many children to have. The pandemic will probably affect the birthrate negatively for a long time, if not permanently. In the middle of the lengthy lockdown, Joe Pinsker, who writes regularly about families for The Atlantic, shared, “…in times of heightened uncertainty, people are less likely to bring children into the world. And the future is doubly uncertain right now: Potential parents are likely worried both about their (and their children’s) future health, and their future finances.”

The pandemic has put only child parents and would-be parents on high alert, as evidenced by recent posts on parenting boards. Comment after comment, sound an alarm:

• “When my husband just mentioned having a second baby, I went back on birth control.”
• The parent of a 2-year-old posted, “This pandemic and money convinced me to stop at one.”
• The mother of a 3-year-old added, “Too many unknowns. I have friends who tell me life will be fine, and I’ll be missing out if I don’t have another child. I’m not convinced. I think we should make the child we have a priority.”

Young enough to have more children, Rebecca, 36, has a 2-year-old and admits to having lengthy debates with herself and her husband. “We thought we wanted multiple children, three or four,” she told me. “When we thought we could have a second, the pandemic started. We both were working in jobs with shaky security. That brought us up short and got us thinking that this is not a good time to have another child.”

No matter how many children men and women say they want, today, a huge number of them prioritize their education or career and want to stabilize their place in the workforce before having babies or more babies. “We’re likely living through the most rapid change in family structure in human history,” writes David Brooks in The Atlantic. “The causes are economic, cultural, and institutional all at once.”

With the high cost of raising children and the pressure on working parents and amidst a pandemic that’s only further challenging norms, it’s understandable why many parents—including those who originally expected they would have multiple kids—are embracing the one-child family.

*Names of study participants have been changed to protect identities.

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman, Ph.D.

This curated list will help you score things like free diapers, rash creams and formula from your favourite baby brands.

Babies may be tiny bundles of joy, but they sure do need a lot of products—and some expensive ones at that! From diapers to formulas to hygiene products, these basic necessities can add up fast. That’s why we’ve rounded up the best baby freebies in Canada, so you can catch a break on a box of diapers for once, plus try tons of new products through samples and coupons.

Parents, here’s your holy grail of free baby stuff, including where and how to get the best goods.

buybuy BABY

What you get

Free goody bag with free samples and coupons.

How you get it

All you have to do is sign up for a buybuy BABY registry and head to your nearest store to claim your freebie bag!

Babies R Us

What you get

Free swag bag that could include:

• Huggies diapers and wipes
• Rash cream sample
• Johnson’s baby wash
• Nursing pads
• Playtex drop-ins bottle
• Lanolin sample
• Nuk pacifier
• Baby spoons
• Baby wash cloth

Savings coupons like:

• $25 off of $75 coupon when you add 25 items to your baby registry and sign up for emails (valid in-store only)
• 10% off remaining registry items coupon (valid in-store only)

How you get it

Just create a baby registry account either in store or online (make sure you allow for emails to get your coupons) and visit your local store to show them your registry number and score your swag bag! If there isn’t a store near you, use the Babies R Us live chat to provide them with your registry number and tell them where you live—they can give you your nearest store’s email so you can contact them asking for the goody bag to be mailed out to you.

Huggies

What you get

• One free sample-size package each of Huggies diapers and wipes (if your baby is over 4 weeks old, you’ll receive Huggies baby product coupons instead)

How you get it

Simply sign up to be a Huggies member through their No Baby Unhugged program (if you already have an account with any of their other brands like Pull-Ups, Kleenex or Cottonelle, your account will be linked and you can use the same username and password). Your diapers and wipes will be mailed out to you.

Similac

What you get

• $200 worth of baby products including coupons, rebate cheques, formula/baby samples and baby support and advice

How you get it

Sign up for the Similac Club and you’ll receive your coupons and samples via mail.

Membership programs

Some companies offer rewards programs for buyers of their baby supplies. So while you won’t get free samples, you can still access coupons, rewards and discounts at partner brands if you’re a regular shopper.

Pampers

What you get

Buying Pampers products can net you Rewards Points, which you can then:

• Redeem for Pampers products and coupons
• Enter into a Sweepstakes
• Get other digital rewards like Walmart and Amazon gift cards
• Make charitable donations

How you get it

Download the Pampers Club App for iPhone or Android and enter your details. Then, scan codes on products inside Pampers diaper and wipe packs you buy to earn Rewards Points.

Enfamil

What you get

• Up to $200 in savings as part of the basic program
• 10% off at the Enfamil A+ Shop
• Up to 20% off partner brands

How you get it

Sign up for a My Family Beginnings account with Enfamil to receive your coupons and promotional codes.

Nestle

What you get

Nestle’s Baby & Me program offers a number of perks. At 35 weeks pregnant you can expect to receive:

• A baby pack filled with coupons and useful information for expecting moms
• Personalized coupons and savings via mail and email
• Expert advice, articles, recipes, tips and tools including nutritional guidance

How you get it

Register here to receive your savings and helpful resources.

Most parents prod their children to succeed in some way — athletically, academically, or artistically. Without meaning to, however, you may be putting your child into a pressure-cooker.

Some parents push lightly, many more forcefully, but almost always in the name of wanting the best for their children. Parents unintentionally go off-course and pressure in the wrong places, in the wrong way, and at the wrong times. If not guilty yourself, think about parents spewing direction from the sidelines or telling a child that it’s super important to hand in a perfect paper, get a good grade on a “big” test, or perform flawlessly. Parental pressure often gets tangled up in their own dreams.

Wanting the best starts early

Journalist Keith Gessen, a rabid ice hockey enthusiast and dad, desperately wanted his young son, Raffi, to follow his athletic lead. He began coaxing Raffi to kick a ball and skate from age two. Throughout Gessen’s entire life, from boyhood to grad school and long after, hockey, he says, was his “refuge and a solace.”

Gessen judged Raffi’s early exuberance and “desire to crash into things” as “the behavior of a person who wanted to learn how to play sports.” There were signs from ages two to six that Raffi might be interested in soccer, inline skating, or ice hockey, but they were fleeting glimmers.

This hockey-fanatic dad came to the realization that cheering his son on at the hockey rink may never happen. He wisely notes that “Children are their own people, yes, but they are also so much at our mercy — at the mercy of our moods, our insecurities, even our dreams.” And those dreams for our children can easily slip into parental pressure that defeats its intended outcome.

My own son was turned off by his father’s pressure to love the game of tennis and retired his racquet at age 15. He said “no” to his dad’s intensity and dream for him. Sadly, he was good and might have actually enjoyed the game if he hadn’t been strongly urged to take lessons, practice, and join the high school tennis team.

Parental pressure can have serious consequences that go far beyond abandoning an activity or receiving a poor test grade. In their book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self, psychologists Chris Thurber and Hendrie Weisinger write: “Around the world, loving parents have unintentionally made their children miserable by describing opportunities as scarce, competition as fierce, and perfection as vital … The result is a cohort of young people who are anxious, depressed, and unmotivated—precisely the opposite of what parents intend.”

Many children love or excel at what they focus their time and energy on, yet more and more high school and college students seek counseling help and an increasing number contemplate or commit suicide. Those facts should be enough to make any parent want to tamp down their well-meaning but detrimental pressure that in a parent’s mind is “helpful.” You can push a child, but there are positive steps to avoid all manner of pushback and prolonged negative fallout.

The fine art of supporting your children

Children don’t need a shelf full of sports trophies or to attend an elite college to succeed in life. There is an art to supporting children; that means converting parental pressure into parental support.

You may not be the obnoxious sports parent on the sidelines or the parent who demands academic excellence. Nonetheless, most of us have tripped up in the pressure department. Weisinger and Thurber provide hundreds of examples to help parents be supportive at the same time they prod their children to be their best selves.

Here are a few of their pointers when a child has to perform under pressure of any sort. They will keep you from derailing from your goal to be supportive:

Avoid high-stakes comments that focus on importance that can hinder performance, such as, “This is the most important test of your life” or “Your whole future depends on how you play.”

Instead say: “This could be a cool chance to show your stuff” or “Remember, it’s a concert, just like any other.”

Saying “Do you think you studied enough?” “Are you sure you rehearsed your lines enough?” only adds to a child or teen’s uncertainty.

Instead say: “You have studied a lot for this final exam” or (days in advance), “The more you practice, the more ready you’ll feel.”

Focusing on reputation and responsibility can undermine a child’s ability to perform well. This includes saying things such as, “Make us proud kiddo. I want to post about this” or “It’s all up to you. Everyone is counting on you.”

Instead say: “We are behind you 100 percent, kiddo. You got this” or “You know how to bring the heat. Give it your best.”

And after a performance, stick with “praising your child’s participation and effort regardless of the outcome.”

Have you asked?

Have you asked your child what she wants for herself? It’s probably not the ice hockey player that Gessen hoped for, the tennis lover my husband dreamed of, or the world-class pianist or scientist you may have wanted to be yourself.

“Just be certain that you customize your expectations for your child to their interests, abilities, and personality, not yours,” advise Thurber and Weisinger. “Supportive parents also have high expectations, but they want their children to do their best, not the best.”

When I had my first baby, it went well, all things considered. I was induced at noon, gave birth 15 hours later in the wee hours of the morning, and my beautiful little boy went right on my chest, snuggling in and latching. I remember him just gazing up at me endlessly, taking in my face. Eventually we were moved to a private room, and I went to a breastfeeding lesson just down the hall, before the grandparents arrived to meet him. Through all the commotion, my blissed-out baby boy slept soundly, swaddled in the bassinet beside me, just like I’d imagined he would. 

That night, I sent my husband home, after watching him restlessly toss and turn on the recliner in our room. (He’s 6’4″.) “You go home, check on the house, get some rest, and come back in the morning,” I said. “I’ve got this!”

Cue the narrator: I did not, in fact, have this. 

My baby, like many, “woke up” on night two—he was alert, hungry and very pissed off about not being in his warm, snug womb. He cried incessantly unless I stood up and swayed him, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. (This “night two” phenomenon—when the baby becomes more alert, and the mom’s milk hasn’t come in yet—is so well known that it was actually written up in the booklet the hospital had given us after birth, but I had been too distracted to read it.) 

After an hour or two of the swaying, I decided I needed a break and walked out to the nursing station to hand off the baby. To my surprise, the nurse I found didn’t take him—instead, she gave me a warm blanket to swaddle him in, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “you’re doing all the right things.” 

So I returned to my room. It was now 30 hours and a labour away from the last time I’d really slept, I was bleeding profusely, and I was again swaying my little baby, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The shadow from the hall lights flickered on and off of his face, and he blinked up at me, silent, but very awake. 

A thought hit me: Was this what motherhood was going to be? Me, doing whatever this baby needed, no matter the mental-health costs to me? (Spoiler alert: Yes—for the next little while at least.)

When I told my own mom about all this, she was shocked at how different my experience was from how she was treated when she’d given birth to me, in the 1980s. Back then, she’d stayed in the hospital for five days, and every night the nurses whisked me away to the nursery so she could rest, bringing me back to breastfeed twice. When they got home, my parents gave me a bottle of formula every night, just in case my mom wasn’t making enough breast milk. 

This generational switch has happened in response to mounting evidence that supports what’s called “rooming in”—where mom and baby are kept in the same room—and promoting exclusive breastfeeding. That means more support and encouragement around breastfeeding, not having nurseries available to healthy infants, and a lot of grumpy babies on night two.

During COVID-19, it’s also gotten harder: most hospitals allow birthing people only one support person, and no visitors. That often means moms can’t have a doula, or your own mom, as well as a spouse. At times, COVID restrictions have also dictated that both mom and their partner are not allowed to even leave the hospital room—no going to grab food, no smoke breaks, no in and out privileges. The pandemic has also raised the bar for when a baby would be sent to the nursery or taken care of at a nurses’ station.

Postpartum people are also getting sent home from the hospital faster—the average stay has dropped by 30 per cent since the pandemic began. 

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, which was started by the World Health Organization in 1992, has also helped push these changes forward, well before the coronavirus hit. Twenty-nine hospitals across Canada are certified as “baby friendly,” meaning they follow the 10 rules set out by the WHO, including training staff to help mothers breastfeed, ensuring moms are told the benefits of breastfeeding, rooming in, not giving pacifiers, encouraging feeding on demand, and doing skin-to-skin after birth. And hospitals with this designation have to refuse money from formula companies, refrain from advertising formula, and cannot offer it unless it’s medically necessary. 

This could be seen as shifting birth back to where it should be: not unnecessarily separating moms and babies, and supporting breastfeeding as the default way to feed a baby. Many moms love it, in fact. When I asked for thoughts on a few Facebook groups for parents, one mom replied, “You try and take my child out of my room after giving birth and I’ll wrestle you to the ground, grannie panties and all!”

Another said that after doing a lot of research while pregnant, she went to her doctor with a list of evidence-based requests, like doing skin-to-skin, and was reassured to hear that they were all standard at the hospital she was going to. 

But others, like me, have a more mixed experience. Alli Glydon, a mom from Calgary, is one. When she gave birth, she had a scheduled C-section because her baby was breech. She ended up having a reaction to the spinal block they gave her, and was violently ill for eight hours afterwards. 

Then, she had trouble breastfeeding, and the nurses encouraged her to wake up every couple of hours to hand-express a few drops of colostrum to give her baby. She would later find out that her baby had a tongue tie, small mouth and high palate, which was why nursing was so difficult. Additionally, Glydon had low supply and Reynaud’s syndrome, which can make nursing incredibly painful. 

“My daughter was obviously hungry—she was rooting and wouldn’t latch at all—and I couldn’t hand express anything beyond one to two drops of colostrum. The nurses were taken aback when I asked for formula, and it took a long time to come—like more than 30 minutes,” she says. “I felt like I had to beg for it.” 

Talia Bender, a mom in Vancouver, also had a negative experience. After a 25-hour labour, she was moved into a room with her baby. That night, when she was on her own (her husband was home with their older kids), she was exhausted and nursing the baby when they both fell asleep. “The nurse came in and yelled at me, saying, ‘This is so unsafe,’” she says. “And it’s like, I can hardly walk, I just pushed a watermelon out of my vagina, and we both fell asleep because I’m so exhausted. And you weren’t here!” 

Bender says she feels like leaving moms alone like this, postpartum, is abnormal. “When you think about birth in the past, you had midwives and your family and a support system; all the women would be there to hold the baby, and let the new mother recover,” she says. “Now we have hospital births and families live all over the place, and there’s so much pressure on the new mother, and so much disregard for the recovery process.” 

The question of whether the Baby-Friendly Initiative has gone too far has been making headlines lately thanks in part to a U.S. organization called Fed is Best. Founded in 2016, Fed is Best argues that hospitals are encouraging breastfeeding over health, and putting babies at risk of dehydration, jaundice, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and hyponatremia (low sodium). 

“There are billions of infants who require formula at some point during their first year of life,” says Fed is Best co-founder and physician Christie del Castillo-Hegyi. “To hide that and give parents an illusion that exclusive breastfeeding is possible, natural, easy and ideal for all infants, without any evidence, and no parsing out or informed consent of the harms—it has created a public health catastrophe,” she says.

Through its website, Fed is Best collects and publicizes stories like that of Landon, a healthy baby who died at 19 days old of cardiac arrest from not eating enough. “If I had given him just one bottle, he would still be alive,” reads the heartbreaking headline on the story. 

In a 2016 JAMA Pediatrics publication, paediatrician Joel Bass also raised concerns about the unexpected consequences of rigidly enforced baby-friendly practices, including the focus on strict breastfeeding exclusivity. Bass says every hospital should have a nursery for healthy babies, so moms have the option to send their babies there to rest, and that offering a small amount of formula in the early days of life isn’t likely to impact breastfeeding success. 

He also points out that while many breastfeeding-friendly hospitals still discourage pacifier use, newer evidence shows that it doesn’t interfere with breastfeeding—and may even encourage it—and that putting babies to sleep with a pacifier can help prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). 

But others point out that the Baby-Friendly Initiative does allow for formula when medically necessary. “There are babies that need formula—there are medical reasons for supplementation—and it’s perfectly fine,” says Hiltrud Dawson, a nurse and lactation consultant who works for the Baby-Friendly Initiative of Ontario. “I believe that babies are given formula when needed.”

It’s also important to remember that when it comes to following up with babies who are losing weight after they leave the hospital, Canada has a much better safety net than the U.S. does, says Merilee Brockway, a registered nurse and lactation consultant who studies the effects of human milk on babies. That includes babies seeing their doctor or a public health nurse within a week after leaving the hospital—that’s when a newborn is weighed and professionals help parents make sure breastfeeding is on track. 

Because of the time crunch in getting mothers home, parents are also not always sent home with enough information, says Dawson. In response, her group helped create a card with information for new moms about how to make sure their baby is getting enough— including how many wet diapers they should look for, the change in baby’s poop, and that their babies should gain weight from day four onwards. They should also have a strong cry, be active, and wake easily.

If your baby is getting enough, there do seem to be benefits to not offering any formula at all, says Brockway—even if this isn’t exactly helpful information for new parents who are already stressed enough about exclusive breastfeeding (EBF). “We can see significant differences in the gut microbiome after even one formula supplementation,” she says. Researchers have indeed found a connection between the gut microbiome and issues like asthma and obesity—but there isn’t enough research yet to confirm exactly how that connection works, or how much formula-feeding would affect it.

Brockway adds that there is also lots of evidence about how mom’s mental health is important to raising a happy, healthy baby—and that if mom is really suffering under the strain of trying to breastfeed, that can be reason enough to supplement. And she says some health-care professionals can be a bit “fanatical” about encouraging moms to breastfeed. She would like to see the mantras of “breast is best” and “fed is best” replaced by a new one: “informed is best.”

“We have really high breastfeeding intention rates and breastfeeding initiation rates in Canada. Most moms want to breastfeed. But breastfeeding can be really hard, and if you have a difficult labour, or if mom’s sick, it gets to be really really difficult,” she says. “We need to be able to say, ‘Are we forcing mom to carry on this path?’ We need to respect maternal autonomy.”

Boys are brilliant. Girls read better. Only children are spoiled. Parents play an identifiable role in perpetuating stereotypes, be they about race, sibling status, or gender.

According to a study published in Science, “Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests.” The researchers found that girls as young as 6 associate a high level of intellectual ability, such as brilliance or genius, with men more than women. The study pointedly notes that the 6-year-old girls shied away from fields such as philosophy and physics, believing those areas are reserved for kids who are “really, really smart”—i.e., boys.

Parents’ gender stereotypes are important in perpetuating gender differences, since they may affect the development of children’s beliefs about their competence, what’s called intrinsic task value—the interest and enjoyment that students experience when they engage in a task—and achievement, Drs. Francesca Muntoni and Jan Retelsdorf report in the journal Learning and Instruction.

Similarly, only-child stereotypes stubbornly stuck around for decades, in part, because parents continued to accept them. Some 30 years ago, when I wrote my first book on the topic, Parenting an Only Child: The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only (updated in 2001), negative only-child myths were deeply engrained and persuasive, and they influenced family planning decisions. It’s been a long slog to change people’s thinking.

One-child stereotypes: The disappearing act

Since 1896, when psychologist G. Stanley Hall marked only children as selfish, spoiled, lonely, and bossy, unfounded and unflattering stereotypes have plagued only children and their parents. But today those stereotypes have largely disappeared.

The myths about only children have been relegated to near extinction—especially by only children and their parents. Rarely do you hear unsavory comments about only children now. If you do, they probably come from older generations—grandparents and great grandparents.

For the past year, I asked close to a hundred only children of all ages (or their parents), “Did you feel stigmatized growing up?”

Laura,* 29, replied, “Never. My mom made it her job—she was determined—that I was not going to be that spoiled only child. People were and are surprised I am an only child. I had two jobs when I was a teenager. Even though my parents had the money, they made me work for what I wanted. I knew I could ask for something, but also knew I had to save for it. If I saved enough, they would give me the rest.”

Laura’s mother Robin, 65, grew up when the only-child myths were pervasive. But she didn’t buy them and wanted to make sure her child defied the stereotypes she had heard. “I never wanted her to be the kid everyone said gets everything. That was my main goal. We were strict with Laura and had a lot of rules.”

Only child Jessica, 59, took the “selfish stereotype” to task. “The only children I know or grew up with either want to give you everything they have or say, ‘Don’t touch my stuff.’ I was in the ‘don’t touch my stuff’ group, but my cousin, who is one of three, felt the same way.”

College student Carolyn, 18, said she knew only-child stereotypes existed, but said she didn’t fit any of them: “They had nothing to do with my upbringing. I’m not selfish; I learned how to share in preschool.”

“When I was younger, I was by myself if my parents were busy, and since they both have jobs, that happened a lot,” she says. “I got used to that over time and learned to be more independent.” Somewhere around first grade, she says she became comfortable doing her homework and playing by herself.

Henry, a 38-year-old only child, says he didn’t feel at all stigmatized or labeled growing up. “It never occurred to me there was anything wrong with not having a sibling or that it was weird,” he told me.

Shannon, also 38, was oblivious to any only-child stigma. Like others older and younger than her, she confirms, “I wasn’t aware of the only-child stigmas until I was well into my 20s… but even then I knew that the societal beliefs about only children were false.”

These comments from new generations of only children and parents with only children ranging in age from toddler to adult indicate that the negative stereotypes once pinned to only children have sputtered out. It’s been a hard road for many older generations, but the long-held judgment and deeply ingrained negativity surrounding only children have slipped away. Parents of only children and only children themselves have prevailed.

The birth rate has been steadily dropping, and only-child families are on the rise; having one child is the fastest growing family size. Today, men and women of childbearing age say that only-child stereotypes don’t factor into their decisions of how many children to have. So many other factors come into play: starting families older, infertility obstacles, insufficient or costly childcare, to name a few. When combined with women’s participation in the workforce and the high costs of raising children, the pandemic has also had a profound and likely lasting impact on childbearing.

In cities like Seattle, 47 percent of families have one child, and countries like Canada and England are already being called one-child nations. Clearly, the one-child family, while not right for everyone, is becoming increasingly common.

The antiquated myths have lost their power to label only children or persuade people to have more children—pointing to widespread acceptance and celebration of the one-child family.

*Names of study participants have been changed to protect identities.

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman

Here’s how to handle cluster feeding, the incessant-nursing phase when breastfeeding a newborn.

So you have a newborn, and lately your evenings have been hijacked by non-stop nursing sessions. If this sounds familiar, you’re probably dealing with the common breastfeeding phenomenon known as cluster feeding.

What is cluster feeding?

Infants nurse frequently (at least eight to 12 times in a 24-hour period), but sometimes it’s even more often, and they may bunch up those feedings—especially in the evening. This is frustrating for both the parent who’s been home with the baby all day and the parent who may only get to see the baby after work.

But cluster feeding is perfectly normal, says Attie Sandink, a lactation consultant in Burlington, Ont. “Babies instinctively know how much milk they need. If they’re not getting enough, they just want to feed and feed,” she says. This doesn’t mean your milk supply is tanking or you need to supplement with formula. And letting newborns nurse as often as they like doesn’t mean you are spoiling them.

“I remember thinking, Is this how life is going to be?” recalls first-time mom Alison Pearce of Toronto. “It was like looking down a tunnel with no light at the end of it.” From two to eight weeks old, her daughter, Simone, spent most evenings nursing non-stop. But once Pearce and her family noticed the pattern, they came up with a plan. Each night, before the intensive breastfeeding session began, Pearce’s mom (who stayed with them for the first month) made an early dinner while Pearce took a bath. Then, armed with snacks, they all settled in with a movie while Simone nursed and dozed, and everyone took turns holding her.

Cathy Wegiel, a mom of four in Airdrie, Alta., knew to expect a cluster-feeding phase, because all of her babies had spent their evenings attached to her boobs. But her son, Parker, was particularly enthusiastic. For two months, he was latched from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. Wegiel suspects Parker—who had needed heart surgery at three weeks old—was trying to pack on the weight he’d lost before his operation. Parker’s need to feed became part of the family routine. “I always nursed in the armchair in the living room, and the other kids would snuggle with me and read stories,” Wegiel explains. “And if he was hungry during dinner, I nursed at the table and tried not to spill my food on him.”

Why is my baby breastfeeding all the time?

Babies cluster-feed for many reasons. One theory is that a mother’s prolactin levels drop toward the end of the day, which means her milk supply decreases and the flow is slower, so babies may nurse for a longer time to fill up, says Taya Griffin, a lactation consultant in Toronto. They could be frustrated by the slow flow and go on and off the breast more often. Mastering breast compressions—pressing down on your boob while the baby sucks—can help, because it expresses the milk faster and more efficiently. Babies can also cluster-feed at any time of day if they’re feeling out of sorts and need comfort, adds Sandink. Sometimes babies who seem ravenous are having a growth spurt (which lasts a few days).

To make cluster feeding more manageable, get things done earlier in the day and lean on your partner for meals. Wegiel would make dinner while her older kids were at school and then reheat it. Also be prepared to lower your household standards. “I really let things slide,” she says. “It was a disaster for quite a while.” Keep a basket of filling snacks (like energy bars or almonds) and a water bottle near where you nurse most often.

Feeling marooned on the couch? Wearing your baby in a sling or carrier so you can multi-task (or even nurse!) can save your sanity. Or forget about your to-do list and spend the time catching up on TV shows, scrolling through social media or reading a book with one hand. Cluster feeding is temporary—so settle in and make the most of it.

Should I be worried my baby isn’t getting enough to eat? 

When a baby is eating all the time, almost every mom wonders, Do I have a milk-supply issue? Just remember that this pattern is normal for a newborn. You should only worry if your baby is not gaining weight well (something your doctor or midwife will keep track of) or is not producing enough wet diapers (typically six per day for newborns six days old and up). If you are in pain while breastfeeding, reach out to a lactation consultant for help.

This article was originally published online in February 2016.

In 1979, 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while walking to his school bus stop in lower Manhattan. And then, in 1981 with the disappearance of Adam Walsh, the nation froze. Missing children’s photos appeared on milk cartons for kids to look at while they ate bowls of breakfast cereal. Restrictions around what children could and could not do changed.

Even before those unnerving and highly publicized events, I wrote a short booklet, “Ice Cream Isn’t Always Good,” based on a local news report of a strange man in a blue car near my stepchildren’s elementary school. The booklet was distributed nationally by police and schools, and to parents. It subsequently became the book Never Say Yes to a Stranger: What Your Child Must Know to Stay Safe and has been in print in different formats for decades. The stories and messages helped parents and educators teach young children the difference between strangers who are good and would be helpful and those who might harm them. It was designed to provide the tools young kids need to stay safe when they were on their own, unsupervised.

The media messages surrounding missing children, at times misleading for failing to differentiate between children who had run away and those who were taken, panicked parents who then extensively curtailed children’s freedoms. Parents started hovering and have remained in an overly protective, vigilant stance.

Being Overly Cautious Makes Us Miss Out on Relationships

In her book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims discusses how a movement spun out of control and how micromanaging our children has affected young adults today and “led them to be cautious and as a result [they] are missing out how to form relationships that are key to our individual happiness.”

Her chapter, “Start Talking to Strangers,” opens with the quote, “Don’t talk to strangers,” which is attrbuted to “Everyone.” That was such a mistake, she writes:

“Accordingly, most Millennial and Gen Z children were raised with the mantra ‘Don’t talk to strangers.’ This meant have no verbal interaction with strangers and of course don’t go off with them anywhere, either. But it morphed into making no eye contact with strangers, and having no little chitchats with strangers on sidewalks or in stores. Then it became ignoring strangers entirely. A lot of kids grew up not just afraid of the very idea of strangers, but literally not knowing how to interact with them. As a result, kids didn’t learn to navigate the social cues given off by someone they didn’t already know. And then they graduated from high school and went out into the world, where their life was full of . . . strangers.

“Here comes what may be the most obvious point I’ll make in this book: we’re all strangers to each other at first. Then, somehow, we become acquaintances with some of those (former) strangers, and some of those acquaintances turn into neighbors, friends, colleagues, mentors, lovers, partners, and fam. Research from the fields of evolutionary biology, anthropology, and social psychology shows that we are a highly social species who must interact cooperatively and kindly with one another not just to get stuff done but to be emotionally well. Research even shows that interactions with people who will forever remain strangers to us (i.e., the person on the street who passes by) also have positive mental health effects on us.”

Talk to a Stranger

On a bus ride in New York City several years ago I overheard two ladies discussing a restaurant I was interested in knowing about. So rather than eavesdrop, I asked them to tell me about it. We began chatting. Coincidentally, one of the women lives near me and has become a close friend. Pre-pandemic we did many things together in the city and have become emotional support for each other. As soon as the CDC declares it safe to resume contact with those outside our pods, I am sure we will resume our face-to-face friendship—one born completely out of talking to a stranger.

The pandemic has underscored that whatever our age, we need face-to-face connection—not pages of social media “friends,” but people we can look in the eye, and, soon, hug again. If you were raised under the mantra of “Don’t talk to strangers,” forming those relationships may be uncomfortable at first, but as Lythcott-Haims reminds readers, “not only is it okay to talk to strangers, you want to. You gotta. Let’s go.”

As I was being wheeled into the labor and delivery unit to give birth to our son, it was already frighteningly obvious that pretty much nothing was going to go as I’d hoped.

Because there I suddenly was, only 36 weeks pregnant, about to be induced after my water broke at the end of a trick-or-treating marathon on Halloween. So much for my calm, all-natural birth plan.

I wasn’t in labour but, one way or another, I was going to deliver our second child that very day. I looked away as the nurse ran the steroid drip into my vein, to stimulate contractions, and strapped monitors on my lower and upper belly, left arm, and finger tip, while monstrous fears of the NICU swam in my mind. I had suffered two miscarriages before this pregnancy and nothing scared me more than the thought of our infant being born with medical complications. To me the NICU was like a haunted house I couldn’t bear to enter. What shadowy situations would we encounter?

Also, I knew very little about premature babies. How tiny would he be? Could he even breathe? Would his heart be strong enough for him to survive outside the womb? The nurse jabbed a painful shot into my thigh, another steroid to help the baby’s lungs function better since he was premature, and told us to try to rest until contractions began. (Yeah, right.)

The induction medicine kicked in slowly at first, then, as the doctor kept upping my dose, the contractions became extremely strong and close together. Less than an hour later, our baby boy was born, crying a healthy cry, and placed on my chest. He scored high on his Apgar tests, and immediately started to nurse. My husband and I cried with relief.

But not two hours passed before the on-call pediatrician informed us that our son was not all well. His blood sugar level, already below normal range at birth, had plummeted to almost nothing in the short time since he had been born, and he was diagnosed as severely hypoglycemic—at risk for seizures and brain injury—requiring immediate medical intervention. He was whisked away to the NICU.

Leaving the delivery room with empty arms was gut-wrenching, after everything we had been through. And once we were finally able to visit him, the sight of our minuscule newborn hooked up to IVs and covered in monitor wires first nauseated me with fear.

But as my husband and I sat there through that long, painful first postpartum night, taking turns holding our son under our hospital gowns to feel his skin against ours and help stabilize his blood sugar level, my perspective blurred, then shifted. With each hour that ticked slowly by, the beeping machines, flashing numbers, and squiggles on the screen above his incubator began to look far less frightening, and instead brought reassurance that everything was okay—and that more than anything the NICU was not a haunted place but the only place our son should have been.

In the NICU, the beeping never stops, but I actually found comfort in all those loud monitors. As I sat hunched with my son in my arms, struggling to nurse, worrying about his health and future, a quick glance at the monitor showed me what was going on inside of him so at least those things were quantifiable: his steady heart rate, blood oxygen level, and body temperature calmed me.

Another comfort of the NICU I quickly came to deeply appreciate was that any concerns or questions we had—and we had so many, as worried parents of a preemie—the NICU staff addressed thoroughly, expertly, and immediately. His stay in the NICU, I soon discovered, was not just about caring for him. It was about helping us, his parents, as well, through those uncertain first days and nights, as we learned to care for our tiny new addition properly.

For instance, because our preemie could not suck as effectively as a full-term baby, getting adequate nutrition was a major concern, and a real challenge for me trying to breastfeed. But the NICU nurses, doctors, and lactation consultant helped ensure that our baby was eating properly, and showed us simple ways to tell if his food intake was adequate each day, in order for him to grow and be healthy.

When the baby spit up, the NICU nurses cleaned him. When he felt cold, they dressed him and brought warm blankets. They changed his diapers, something that was hard for me to do from a wheelchair, hooked up to an IV. They monitored his vital signs meticulously and adjusted the temperature, medications, and fluid dosages as needed, so that I found myself worrying less and less, and flooded instead with gratitude, and a real sense of security as the days went by.

And, when I needed time to deal with my own needs—and my family’s—I didn’t have to worry about our newborn. It wasn’t easy to leave him there, but at home I was able to take a shower, eat a hot meal, look after my older daughter when she spiked a sudden high fever, and even clock some quality sleep, while the NICU staff looked after our son—no need to hire, train, or schedule outside help—which was an enormous help during a really stressful time.

Photo: Courtesy of Lorraine Allen

When our baby was finally ready to leave, the NICU staff gave us all the tips and tools we needed to help him thrive outside the hospital. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and anxious about taking our early-bird baby home, we felt ready to care for him on our own. The nurses even made themselves available to us for the rest of that day and night via phone, so that we could call with any questions or concerns until we visited his new pediatrician the following morning.

I know very well how lucky we were. There are babies born much more prematurely with more severe health problems, and the NICU may very well be hell on earth for those parents. But for me, the NICU wasn’t the scary place with dark portents I had feared. Without the excellent care he received there, our son might not be with us today. And I wouldn’t know the emotional healing power of this extraordinary place.

This article was originally published online in April 2018.

The pandemic has changed how many think about family size, and those wanting children—be it a first or second or third—face a newly complicated landscape.

The unpredictable nature of COVID-19 and its economic fallout have been added to the equation, but one outcome seems certain: “We have no precedent to estimate changes in birthrates from these disruptions, but they will undoubtedly also contribute to a large reduction in overall births,” two economics professors from the University of Maryland and Wellesley College wrote in The New York Times.

If you have one child and were planning for more, it could be you are waiting for the pandemic to settle. Different sources predict different timelines as virus variants emerge. In other words, the goalpost for life as we knew it keeps moving.

9 Questions to Ask Yourself

Here are considerations—some related to the pandemic, some not—that you will want to evaluate before deciding if no children or “just one” or more children could be just right for you.

Is now the time to start or add to my family?

In an article for The Atlantic, Joe Pinsker predicted the pandemic trajectory, “Life this spring will not be substantially different from the past year; summer could, miraculously, be close to normal; and next fall and winter could bring either continued improvement or a moderate backslide, followed by a near-certain return to something like pre-pandemic life.”

Others are more cautious in their assessment. Because the path of the virus keeps shifting and with it changed regulations and restrictions, you may find yourself asking: Will waiting another year or two make a difference?

Is my job secure?

The pandemic has created a shaky economy and job uncertainty, especially for mothers. In the U.S., women “comprised 47 percent of the workforce prior to COVID-19, yet they sustained 55 percent of the job losses due to COVID-19.”

That translates to roughly four times more women than men, one of the primary reasons being the added workload for mothers during the pandemic. The National Law Center reports that those who stayed in the workforce worried about how their added caregiving responsibilities, such as homeschooling support, would be perceived at work and if using any time-off benefits an employer provided might cost them their job.

Will a baby slow my career?

In these uncertain times, you will also want to examine your employer’s parental leave policy and think about how much time you want to be home after your child is born. If you are anxious about job security and advancement, it may be wise to wait.

Think, too, about your career objectives, your employer’s attitudes about working parents, especially mothers, and decide how a pregnancy and family leave will affect the job goals you have for yourself.

How many children can I afford?

You can’t put a price tag on children, but the reality is children are expensive. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost to raise one to age 18 (college not included) was estimated to be $233,610 for middle-income families. That number fluctuates higher or lower depending on where you live and your income.

Close to one-third of the total cost goes toward housing. A child or more children may mean you need a larger house or apartment. If you work outside your home, be sure to factor in childcare. Its cost can determine whether or not you leave or remain in the workforce. Harsh as this sounds, and you may not agree, but having babies is an economic decision.

Your decision may simply come down to how many children you can afford and whether or not the additional expenses would change your lifestyle significantly. Kenneth,* the father of an only child who is an only child himself and a subject in my recent study of only children, says, “a second child would shuffle our dynamic. Beyond having to move to a larger house, it would mean that one of us would have to give up our career—most likely my wife. Childcare is prohibitive where we live.”

Do I fear missing out?

Kids absorb discretionary income, and that may alter your lifestyle. If you worry about the parties, the after-hours cocktails with colleagues, maybe even trips you planned that you might not be able to afford, better to put a baby on hold. Or, perhaps, consider having just one child. With one, you will have greater mobility, more time, and energy for the things you want to do.

How long can I wait to have a baby?

Without question, women, in general, are waiting longer to start families or add to them. Dr. Joanne Stone, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, told the CBS Sunday Morning show, “Forty is the new 30… Everybody’s older. If you have somebody that’s 28, it’s like a teen pregnancy.”

Judith* makes no apologies for not having more children after giving birth to her daughter. She explains, “We started late; I was 40. I didn’t understand about eggs and fertility, and I wanted a career, but I wasn’t giving up on a baby. We had our daughter $180,000 later when I was 45. She will have to get a scholarship for college. We spent that money trying to have her.”

The options and advances within the fertility industry are enormous; however, the cost can be prohibitive, as it turned out to be in Judith’s case. If you are older and hesitant to become pregnant now, you may want to look into freezing your eggs or embryos for a future date. Fertility treatments can be emotionally difficult and stressful. It is one of the reasons why women with one child often abandon the idea of giving their child a sibling.

Is your partner on board with what you want?

Avoid the mistake of believing a baby will resolve issues in your relationship. Parenthood tends to acerbate any problems, and you both need to be in agreement. Babies rarely, if ever, improve or cement a marriage or partnership for the long term.

And, if you both agree, discuss each partner’s responsibilities or how you see your future lives with more children or a child.

Are only children happy?

If you’re leaning toward “just one,” know that the nasty labels and stigmas that once surrounded only children have disappeared—in part due to huge numbers of parents deciding one child is just right for them and to parents of one being savvy and wise about how they raise their child.

The views baked into our culture that only children are lonely, selfish, bossy—the stereotypes—simply don’t hold up any longer. As I end a research project that investigated, in large part, attitudes about only children and their parents, I can say with a high degree of certainty that only children, especially most of those under the age of 50, don’t and didn’t feel they were ever targeted or labeled because they had no sibling.

Only child Genevieve, 45, says, “Sure, I was bullied in school, but it wasn’t about being an only child. It was those things kids are mean about… my squeaky voice, my hair, or my size. That sort of thing.”

Richard, 39, who grew up in the 80s and 90s when families were getting smaller and having one child was more common, reflected: “I always knew the myths about only children were out there, but I never thought they applied to me. If I had heard anything like that, I would have brushed it off as being silly.” Looking back, he adds, “Being an only child makes it easier to grow up without having a sibling you are forced to play with or be nice to.”

The mother of an 8-year-old singleton, Meg, 43, agrees. “I grew up with three sisters, and I can tell you that my daughter is much happier, more confident, and sociable than I used to be. I can still remember many moments that I felt lonely and misunderstood.”

Still not sure what to do?

Long before the pandemic, The New York Times asked almost 2,000 men and women why they were having fewer children than their ideal; their top reasons were akin to what women are saying in other countries: 64 percent said childcare was too expensive; 54 percent wanted more time with the children they had; 49 percent were worried about the economy.

More recently, The Brookings Institute and similar reports have predicted fewer babies as a result of the pandemic. They base their finding on the large number of women saying “that they plan to postpone giving birth or have fewer children.” And that is never an easy choice.

Ashleigh Wallace openly discusses her struggles, revealing painful feelings about herself and her needs as she wrestled with the question: Is one child enough for me?

Given all there is to weigh, could “just one” be just right for you?

*Names of study participants have been changed to protect identities.

Related Posts:

“COVID-19 Puts Babies on Hold”
“6 Well-Kept Secrets that Affect Family Size”

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman.

The pandemic has changed how many think about family size, and those wanting children—be it a first or second or third—face a newly complicated landscape.

The unpredictable nature of COVID-19 and its economic fallout have been added to the equation, but one outcome seems certain: “We have no precedent to estimate changes in birthrates from these disruptions, but they will undoubtedly also contribute to a large reduction in overall births,” two economics professors from the University of Maryland and Wellesley College wrote in The New York Times.

If you have one child and were planning for more, it could be you are waiting for the pandemic to settle. Different sources predict different timelines as virus variants emerge. In other words, the goalpost for life as we knew it keeps moving.

9 Questions to Ask Yourself

Here are considerations—some related to the pandemic, some not—that you will want to evaluate before deciding if no children or “just one” or more children could be just right for you.

Is now the time to start or add to my family?

In an article for The Atlantic, Joe Pinsker predicted the pandemic trajectory, “Life this spring will not be substantially different from the past year; summer could, miraculously, be close to normal; and next fall and winter could bring either continued improvement or a moderate backslide, followed by a near-certain return to something like pre-pandemic life.”

Others are more cautious in their assessment. Because the path of the virus keeps shifting and with it changed regulations and restrictions, you may find yourself asking: Will waiting another year or two make a difference?

Is my job secure?

The pandemic has created a shaky economy and job uncertainty, especially for mothers. In the U.S., women “comprised 47 percent of the workforce prior to COVID-19, yet they sustained 55 percent of the job losses due to COVID-19.”

That translates to roughly four times more women than men, one of the primary reasons being the added workload for mothers during the pandemic. The National Law Center reports that those who stayed in the workforce worried about how their added caregiving responsibilities, such as homeschooling support, would be perceived at work and if using any time-off benefits an employer provided might cost them their job.

Will a baby slow my career?

In these uncertain times, you will also want to examine your employer’s parental leave policy and think about how much time you want to be home after your child is born. If you are anxious about job security and advancement, it may be wise to wait.

Think, too, about your career objectives, your employer’s attitudes about working parents, especially mothers, and decide how a pregnancy and family leave will affect the job goals you have for yourself.

How many children can I afford?

You can’t put a price tag on children, but the reality is children are expensive. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost to raise one to age 18 (college not included) was estimated to be $233,610 for middle-income families. That number fluctuates higher or lower depending on where you live and your income.

Close to one-third of the total cost goes toward housing. A child or more children may mean you need a larger house or apartment. If you work outside your home, be sure to factor in childcare. Its cost can determine whether or not you leave or remain in the workforce. Harsh as this sounds, and you may not agree, but having babies is an economic decision.

Your decision may simply come down to how many children you can afford and whether or not the additional expenses would change your lifestyle significantly. Kenneth,* the father of an only child who is an only child himself and a subject in my recent study of only children, says, “a second child would shuffle our dynamic. Beyond having to move to a larger house, it would mean that one of us would have to give up our career—most likely my wife. Childcare is prohibitive where we live.”

Do I fear missing out?

Kids absorb discretionary income, and that may alter your lifestyle. If you worry about the parties, the after-hours cocktails with colleagues, maybe even trips you planned that you might not be able to afford, better to put a baby on hold. Or, perhaps, consider having just one child. With one, you will have greater mobility, more time, and energy for the things you want to do.

How long can I wait to have a baby?

Without question, women, in general, are waiting longer to start families or add to them. Dr. Joanne Stone, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, told the CBS Sunday Morning show, “Forty is the new 30… Everybody’s older. If you have somebody that’s 28, it’s like a teen pregnancy.”

Judith* makes no apologies for not having more children after giving birth to her daughter. She explains, “We started late; I was 40. I didn’t understand about eggs and fertility, and I wanted a career, but I wasn’t giving up on a baby. We had our daughter $180,000 later when I was 45. She will have to get a scholarship for college. We spent that money trying to have her.”

The options and advances within the fertility industry are enormous; however, the cost can be prohibitive, as it turned out to be in Judith’s case. If you are older and hesitant to become pregnant now, you may want to look into freezing your eggs or embryos for a future date. Fertility treatments can be emotionally difficult and stressful. It is one of the reasons why women with one child often abandon the idea of giving their child a sibling.

Is your partner on board with what you want?

Avoid the mistake of believing a baby will resolve issues in your relationship. Parenthood tends to acerbate any problems, and you both need to be in agreement. Babies rarely, if ever, improve or cement a marriage or partnership for the long term.

And, if you both agree, discuss each partner’s responsibilities or how you see your future lives with more children or a child.

Are only children happy?

If you’re leaning toward “just one,” know that the nasty labels and stigmas that once surrounded only children have disappeared—in part due to huge numbers of parents deciding one child is just right for them and to parents of one being savvy and wise about how they raise their child.

The views baked into our culture that only children are lonely, selfish, bossy—the stereotypes—simply don’t hold up any longer. As I end a research project that investigated, in large part, attitudes about only children and their parents, I can say with a high degree of certainty that only children, especially most of those under the age of 50, don’t and didn’t feel they were ever targeted or labeled because they had no sibling.

Only child Genevieve, 45, says, “Sure, I was bullied in school, but it wasn’t about being an only child. It was those things kids are mean about… my squeaky voice, my hair, or my size. That sort of thing.”

Richard, 39, who grew up in the 80s and 90s when families were getting smaller and having one child was more common, reflected: “I always knew the myths about only children were out there, but I never thought they applied to me. If I had heard anything like that, I would have brushed it off as being silly.” Looking back, he adds, “Being an only child makes it easier to grow up without having a sibling you are forced to play with or be nice to.”

The mother of an 8-year-old singleton, Meg, 43, agrees. “I grew up with three sisters, and I can tell you that my daughter is much happier, more confident, and sociable than I used to be. I can still remember many moments that I felt lonely and misunderstood.”

Still not sure what to do?

Long before the pandemic, The New York Times asked almost 2,000 men and women why they were having fewer children than their ideal; their top reasons were akin to what women are saying in other countries: 64 percent said childcare was too expensive; 54 percent wanted more time with the children they had; 49 percent were worried about the economy.

More recently, The Brookings Institute and similar reports have predicted fewer babies as a result of the pandemic. They base their finding on the large number of women saying “that they plan to postpone giving birth or have fewer children.” And that is never an easy choice.

Ashleigh Wallace openly discusses her struggles, revealing painful feelings about herself and her needs as she wrestled with the question: Is one child enough for me?

Given all there is to weigh, could “just one” be just right for you?

*Names of study participants have been changed to protect identities.

Related Posts:

“COVID-19 Puts Babies on Hold”
“6 Well-Kept Secrets that Affect Family Size”

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman.

Parents are rightfully concerned about the amount of time children have spent alone during the pandemic, isolated from their friends and away from their busy schedules.

There is, however, a significant and lasting upside to time spent alone that parents, no matter how many children they have, will want to understand and encourage once in-class school and after-school activities resume at full tilt.

For parents with one child, in particular, alarm bells went off unnecessarily as lockdowns dragged on. They felt as if they needed to be their younger only child’s playmate or to make sure their older only child was occupied. Turns out, most only children were at an advantage and did just fine during the pandemic; one reason being they were used to having alone time and were able to fill it on their own.

“I have nothing to do”

Is there a parent who hasn’t heard a child of theirs say, “I have nothing to do” or “I’m bored?” Parents, me included, tend to rush in or feel they should find something for their child to do.

Contrary to what you may think, boredom—that space to allow your mind to wander—is more than desirable. In her book, Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, Manoush Zomorodi, creator of the WNYC’s Podcast “Note to Self,” drives home the point that “boredom is actually a crucial tool for making our lives happier, more productive, and more creative.”

Zomorodi spoke with Dr. Jonathan Smallwood, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of York in England, who told her, “In a very deep way, there’s a close link between originality and creativity and the spontaneous thoughts we generate when our minds are idle when we are not interacting with others or immersed in a goal-specific chore or project.”

Michele Borba, EdD, underscores the advantages of not having children constantly busy in her book, Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine. She adds sanity to what is parenting today and the stress we put our children under with expectations too high and competitiveness too great…with schedules so tight, children eat meals in the back seat of the car as parents rush them to the next game or lesson.

Before the pandemic, most children had little downtime. Dr. Borba asks parents to make room in their children’s day to be idle, to do nothing, possibly be bored and establishes the link between boredom, free time, and creativity. According to Dr. Borba, creativity, and its close cousin curiosity, is one of the seven strengths a child needs to thrive. Without meaning to, by overscheduling and micromanaging their children’s lives, parents leave little, if any, time for that creativity to flourish.

“Parents can make a big difference on their children’s character and future success if they help them develop mindsets that are open to curiosity and the capacity to imagine, create, and invent ideas,” she says. In other words, she explains, “when left on their own to explore and fill their time, they develop curiosity, creative problem solving, and divergent thinking that will help them thrive. Children need some solitude and the time to daydream, play and imagine.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the enormously successful “Hamilton” and other extraordinary stage and film projects, attributes much of his success to having hours alone as a child. During an interview with GQ journalist Michael Hainey, he said, “Time alone is the gift of self-entertainment—and that is the font of creativity. Because there is nothing better to spur creativity than a blank page or an empty bedroom.” Lin-Manuel’s key to parenting is, “a little less parenting.”

“Periods of solitude and the time to play encourage children’s creativity and curiosity,” Dr. Borba underscores. For younger children who may need a parent to get them started, she recommends different types of boxes filled with items you think might capture your child’s attention, such as a Meryl Streep box filled with hats, scarves, old towels for capes; a Frank Lloyd Wright box with hammers nails, wood, and sandpaper; or a Leonardo da Vinci box with empty paper towel rolls, sticks, paper clips. If your child doesn’t seem interested, make up a different box. Open-ended toys or supplies such as building blocks, paints, colored pencils and paper, balls of yarn, for example, don’t require a “right way” or “right answers” and allow imaginations to take hold.

Although older children may seem tethered to technology, they need time away from their devices. Even the late Steve Jobs who co-founded Apple supported this once saying, “I’m a big believer in boredom. … All the [technology] stuff is wonderful, but having nothing to do can be wonderful, too.” Jobs told writer Steven Levy at Wired magazine that he was nostalgic for the long, boring summers of his youth, which fueled his curiosity, because “out of curiosity comes everything.”

Creativity is so important in our fast-paced and, as we know from the pandemic, unpredictable world. As we slowly head back to some semblance of normal, consider avoiding the fast-moving train that so many children rode prior to the pandemic. Children can’t be fully curious and creative if they are being shuttled nonstop from one activity to another.

When we eventually “re-enter” from our pre-COVID-19 isolation, think about what activities and commitments can be pared back so your children have some of the solitude and free time they need. Who knows what your child will discover on her own and all the fun she will have. Or, as Dr. Borba told me, “If you want to raise creative, curious kids, leave them alone.” Yes, let them be bored.

Related: Only Children are Doing Better Than You Think

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman

After your sibling, friend, work colleague, parent or child slighted you or caused you pain, should you forgive without receiving an apology?

Susan Shapiro, a New School writing professor, is the author of The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology. In her new book — 10 years in the making — she talked to therapists, religious leaders, and people who had experienced terrible wrongs never righted. In this guest post, she takes us into her anger and dismay at the person she trusted most who offered no explanation for his actions, and no regret. Along her journey for answers, she shares surprising pieces of the forgiveness puzzle that can lead to peace and reconciliation.

Guest Post by Susan Shapiro:

After the contentious election and ongoing pandemic, half the country is trying to figure out whether it could forgive the other half. I always prided myself on being a forgiving person who never held grudges. But that all changed the night I caught her leaving his brownstone.

“I can’t believe you lied to me!” I told him, feeling betrayed.

“I wasn’t lying,” he replied, shutting the door so nobody would hear.

No, my husband wasn’t cheating on me with another woman. It was my long-time therapist I felt betrayed by. He’d sworn he wouldn’t treat my favorite student. Their deception unnerved me.

“I’m getting an All About Eve aura from her,” I’d warned him six months earlier. “She’s already working with two editors I recommended. She wanted numbers for my literary agent and Jungian astrologer. Now she asked to see you too. We’re getting over-connected.”

“She sounds crazy,” he commented.

“Don’t be flippant. She’s important to me. What if she contacts you?” I asked. He’d been my mentor for the last 15 years. A brilliant substance abuse specialist, he’d helped me quit smoking, drinking, and drugs, marry, get out of debt and launch a new career.

“I’ll refer her to someone else,” he assured me.

Sharing a shrink wasn’t like having the same dentist, I’d explained to her. Dr. W. had guided me through substance withdrawal and recovery in my forties, creating the kind of intense dependency you’d have with an A.A. sponsor. Though he was only eight years older than me, I viewed him as a father figure. While I freely referred professional contacts to my colleagues and classes, this was more personal. I didn’t want to bump into her in his waiting room, my sacred space. I suggested she try one of the other 20,000 head doctors in the city.

“I will,” she said. “Sorry if I overstepped.”

End of story. Or so I thought, until six months later when I was shocked to see her coming out of his office. I learned he’d been treating her for six months, behind my back. He’d even scheduled her appointment right before mine and ran late, as if he’d wanted me to find out.

Their double deception unnerved me. Wasn’t being trustworthy his job? When I pressed him to explain why he’d deceived me, apologize and fix it, he said, “I hope you’ll forgive the imaginary crime you think I’m committing.”

My crisis management strategy became my crisis.

Twisting turbulently until dawn, I had nightmares where my father ran away with the red-headed daughter I didn’t have. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or focus on work. After incendiary emails from Dr. W. implying I was irrational to be upset, I even chanted a secret Yiddish curse to exact revenge. (“The Goodman women were always witches,” my mother said of her side of the family.) When he emailed that he’d been bedridden, in pain from kidney stones, I was petrified my spell might kill him. Sleep-deprived, my sanity was slipping. I was afraid I’d relapse — or worse.

Worried, my husband insisted I cut them both off. For six months, I refused to speak to Dr. W. or answer his emails or messages. But that didn’t end my distress.

I remained mind-boggled that someone who’d been so empathetic could suddenly be hurtful. I kept trying to figure out why he’d changed. Was he sick of my boring problems? Maybe he needed the money?

I hated being so angry, wishing I could understand and move on. If he’d just explained what happened and apologized for lying, I’d forgive him anything. But I couldn’t pardon someone who didn’t even think they’d done anything wrong.

Researching the billion-dollar “forgiveness industry” that promoted forgiving everyone everything, seemed fake. But without my long-time guru to guide me, I was desperate for direction. I read hardcovers about forgiving from all angles. I interviewed religious leaders from different denominations, asking their theory about forgiving someone who wouldn’t say “I’m sorry.”

Although Jesus famously said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” a reverend explained that an unrepented sinner wouldn’t actually be unforgiven. A Muslim chaplain clarified that in Islam, forgiveness also followed repentance. A Chasidic colleague said “Jewish law requires a person to ask forgiveness three times. If the injured party won’t forgive, the sinner is forgiven and the non-believer has to seek forgiveness for not forgiving.” Yet the request had to be inspired by sincere regret, lacking in my mentor.

I felt vindicated when my lawyer cousin Danny reminded me that admitting guilt and expressing remorse reduced the sentences in many criminal court cases. I underlined book chapters delineating the elements of a full apology: 1) Acknowledge and take responsibility for your mistake. 2) Explain why it happened. 3) Show it won’t happen again. 4) Offer reparations for healing.

Now, this philosophy I could wrap my heated head around. But I still couldn’t get over that he had no remorse.

After I told friends and colleagues what happened, they revealed dramatic stories of wrongs they’d experienced that were never righted. When I asked how they coped, they shared their wisdom. Some managed to pardon offenders based on a person’s overall kindness from the past while others held grudges and figured out ways to thrive on spite.

Telling my story to a doctor who was raised in a Hindu family, he too found it mysterious that a professional who’d been kind for 15 years would suddenly turn on me. “There’s a piece missing to your puzzle that you can’t yet see,” he opined, offering a metaphor: “A commuter was enraged when a woman in an SUV stopped abruptly to get something in the backseat, almost causing an accident. He didn’t know the driver’s infant was choking. Similarly, there is something you don’t know about your mentor’s life that will shed light on why he hurt you.”

He was right. Six months later, Dr. W. emailed that he was sorry and asked if he could apologize in person. There he explained that his wife and daughter had ongoing medical crises that had screwed up his head – and his life.

“Why didn’t you just tell me they were sick?” I asked.

“Hard to talk about. My wife is private. I was in denial, thinking I’d compartmentalize and still do my job well. It feels like I lost a whole year.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I heard myself telling him, thinking that if my spouse was seriously ill, I’d probably lose it too. After his full-fledged mea culpa, he found ways to make amends. We wound up co-authoring an addiction book together to help others conquer substance dependency and it even became a bestseller (for two weeks), proving how fruitful forgiveness could be. It felt so liberating, I went on a forgiveness binge myself, apologizing to everyone I’d unwittingly hurt.

Copyright @2021 by Susan Shapiro

Related: When Are Difficult Sibling Relationships Worth the Struggle?

The perfect time to have a baby doesn’t exist in the real world and the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t made it any easier to time pregnancy. Deciding if or when to have a child, getting pregnant, and becoming a parent is complicated—and far more so if you are single.

In the 1960s and earlier decades before the feminist movement made strong inroads, women went to college to find a husband. If you weren’t married by age 25, you might be considered a spinster, an old maid. Few women were thinking of careers—of becoming dentists, scientists, or CEOs—and being able to support themselves and children financially. Culturally, even fewer still accepted the idea of a family with two dads, two moms or single parents.

That’s changed. Dramatically. Nearly one-quarter of kids in the U.S. live with a single parent—the highest rate in the world—according to data from the Pew Research Center. Single parents who have never been married roughly equal the proportion who were previously married. And, the U.S. Census reports that most children in one-parent households are being raised by single moms—one in five single parents are fathers—some because of divorce or the death of a spouse and others who choose to be single parents.

Many Start Families Later

Straight or gay, men and women don’t necessarily hold out for Mr. or Mrs. Right. But single people, like their married counterparts, do frequently wait to start families. The median age among solo parents is 38, compared with 34 for cohabitating parents who aren’t married, according to Pew.

Because many women are waiting longer to start their families, a huge and growing industry has developed that is no longer under the radar or a hush-hush topic. In vitro fertilization (IVF) has grown swiftly and the advances have been enormous and especially beneficial to single women who want to be mothers.

Freezing eggs for use at a convenient time is no longer unusual, either. Within my immediate sphere, I know three young women in their late 30s and early 40s who have frozen their eggs. They want to keep their options open. It may be they want to consider possible sperm donors, be more settled in their jobs, or move ahead when they feel they are able to support a child on their own—or hope to find a partner, but want to be sure they preserve their eggs.

Fertility doctors have been successfully freezing sperm since the mid-20th century, with the first human pregnancy achieved with frozen spermatozoa in 1953. While single fathers are greatly outnumbered by single mothers, their ranks are growing as well. Like their female counterparts, single men often wait until they’re older to become dads.

CNN host Anderson Cooper became a single dad at 52 via a surrogate. Whatever your views on surrogacy or freezing eggs and embryos, these medical interventions are here to stay, though they remain prohibitively expensive for many.

“One Good Egg” Is All You Need

For would-be single mothers, if you have one good egg, you’re good to go, as Suzy Becker, a humorist and “older” gay woman, reveals in her book, One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir. “For the first twenty-three years of my life, I was sure I’d have babies, at least two,” she writes. “Then it took me fifteen years to decide to go ahead and have just one.”

Becker details the many roadblocks she faced and sorts out the fertility jargon, from IUI to IVF, all the while informing the reader with delightful illustrations that are heartwarming and amusing. With a good friend as donor, her tale unknots the knotty hurdles of becoming a mother “later,” which she did at age 42.

Nancy, a woman I interviewed as part of a research study, was divorced without children. Her advancing age was only one factor that led her to become a single parent. “I started my journey at age 41. I had been on my own for several years and dating wasn’t working out. I decided that I had a lifetime to find a partner, but the window was closing to become a mother,” she said. “I remember reading an article about parenting being the greatest education. It wasn’t that I was dying for a baby, but I didn’t want to miss out on the experience of parenting.”

Nancy considered adoption but was, after a long, stressful, and complicated time, successful with infertility treatment. Many single women choose to adopt for medical or financial reasons, and, like Nancy, don’t wait to find a partner to do so.

The Pluses of Single Parenthood

As a single person, whether you choose a sperm donor from among your friends or from a sperm bank, carry your baby to term, engage a surrogate, or adopt, the rewards are plentiful and enduring. You make the important decisions about your child’s development and education, about where you live and what and to whom you expose your child.

Nancy, whose child is now 8 years old, underscores that point. “I have complete control of decisions. There are fewer moving parts, making it easier for me to be all in with no distractions,” she says. “All in all, it’s fantastic: We have adventures; there’s spontaneity when it’s just the two of you.”

Unless you have an incredible support system, you can’t “pass off” your child to have a few hours to yourself. At times there are monumental challenges and the burden is all yours. Nonetheless, when you talk to single women who chose to be mothers, what is patently clear is their desire, determination, and grit, no matter how daunting the obstacles and disappointments along the way. They have the child or children they desperately wanted.

In the end, one single mother told me, reflecting the feelings of so many others, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Related:

6 Benefits for Children of Older Mothers

On Not Waiting for Mr. Right

Why More People Don’t Adopt

Copyright @2021 by Susan Newman

Many parents and paediatricians swear by it, yet some maternity-ward nurses tell new moms and dads that it’s too dangerous to try at home. What gives?

When Melissa Romain had her first baby at a Toronto hospital in 2016, the nurses demonstrated how to swaddle him and encouraged her to continue doing it at home. But by the time she had her second baby four years later, things had changed. The nurses swaddled her baby the whole time they were on the maternity ward; then, as she was being discharged, they told her she shouldn’t swaddle at home because it was too dangerous. They said this was because the baby was under closer supervision in the hospital, but Romain says there was plenty of time that she and her baby were alone together in her room. “I was confused and a little frustrated,” says Romain. “Nobody explained why swaddling is no longer a best practice. They just said that this is how it is now.”

According to Wendy Hall, a sleep specialist and professor emerita at UBC’s School of Nursing, most hospitals now advise parents not to swaddle. They’re likely following the guidelines of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario and Perinatal Services BC, who both recommend against it.

“We suggest families use sleep sacks instead, because babies move, the blankets [you use to swaddle] can come undone, and if that gets in their face, there is a risk for sure,” says Cynthia Joly, a nurse educator at CHEO in Ottawa. “Unless you’re able to really watch the baby, like during a nap in your arms, we don’t advise that parents swaddle.”

The other concerns are that swaddling might lead to overheating; chest infections (because an overly tight swaddle can restrict breathing); and hip dysplasia, a condition in which a baby’s hip joints are loose or partially or fully dislocated. Swaddling also may be linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which is not necessarily when a baby rolls over and suffocates, but an unexplained death of a baby under one year old.

But this messaging can be confusing for parents who have researched swaddling on their own. Paediatrician Harvey Karp, author of the best-selling Happiest Baby on the Block books, includes swaddling as one of his five key ways to soothe a newborn. (He also markets his own line of swaddles to use.) And other trusted sources, like The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society, both say swaddling is low risk if practised correctly.

“The Canadian Paediatric Society certainly is not against swaddling as long as it’s done properly,” says Janice Heard, a community paediatrician in Calgary and member of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s public education and advisory committee.

Swaddling does seem to help newborns sleep longer stretches at night. That’s because it helps calm the Moro reflex, which makes the baby’s arms spring out. “Many babies like that cuddled-up feeling. It’s like being in the womb,” explains Heard.

Toronto paediatrician Dina Kulik says to avoid swaddling if you can, but that it’s much better than some other sleep “crutches” parents reach for, like holding a baby all night, using a swing or sleeping with them on the couch. “If they can go down without it, don’t do a swaddle,” she says. “But if the alternative is holding them all night, swaddling is certainly safer than that.”

Make sure the swaddle is worn low—around their shoulders, not bunched up at their neck—and fits snugly, because there is a risk that the swaddle will become loose and the fabric could cover the baby’s face and suffocate them. Babies should be dressed lightly underneath a thin swaddle to avoid overheating. If you’re using a Velcro or zip-up swaddle, make sure it’s the right size so your baby’s head doesn’t scooch down into the swaddle as they sleep. And the baby’s hip area should be left loose so there is room for them to bend up and kick out their legs, which helps prevent hip dysplasia.

Then, there’s positioning: Always put a swaddled baby to sleep on their back, never on their side or their front, which greatly increase the risk of SIDS. When babies show signs of learning how to roll over, it’s time to ditch the swaddle.

Babies who bed-share with a parent should also never be swaddled. “Swaddling and co-sleeping is really not a very good combination,” says Hall. “If a baby is swaddled and ends up face down, they are completely defenceless.”

Kulik adds that there are some infants who shouldn’t be swaddled under any circumstances, such as babies who are very jaundiced or underweight. If you’re unsure, ask your healthcare provider for personalized, up-to-date advice, she says. “Always talk to your doctor. Every kid is different.”

Dry winter months call for a bathtime routine that takes extra special care to protect your newborn’s skin barrier.

Your baby’s oh-so-fresh skin is actually super delicate—it’s up to 30 percent thinner than an adult’s skin and it loses moisture quickly. This is especially true in the dry winter months when the humidity level drops and skin loses moisture more rapidly in general. The skin is also a barrier between your baby and the outside world and a weakened skin barrier can lead to dryness in babies. The good news is, parents can play a role in keeping their baby’s skin soft and healthy with these bathtime tips.

Delay the first bath 

It used to be common for babies to get a bath shortly after birth, but this is no longer considered best practice, says Dr. Jennifer Leavitt, who works at St. Paul’s Maternity Clinic in Vancouver. “Babies are born with a protective, sticky white coating on their skin called the vernix. It’s both hydrating for newborn skin and provides some antibacterial properties as well.” After 24 hours you can bathe your baby, but you shouldn’t submerge them in water until their umbilical cord has fallen off. Until then, a sponge bath will do. Be sure to only uncover the part of your baby that you’re washing at that moment, to keep them comfortable and warm. 

Don’t bathe too often

Less is more when it comes to bathing your newborn, says Dr. Jennifer Leavitt, who works at St. Paul’s Maternity Clinic in Vancouver. “Frequent bathing of a baby can lead to a weakened skin barrier and increased dryness,” says Leavitt. Short baths, under 10 minutes long, two to three times a week is sufficient. Of course, if your baby is visibly dirty with spit up or has had a poop explosion, you’re going to wash that off, but you don’t necessarily need a full bath to do so—just gently wash the soiled area with a washcloth.

Keep your baby comfortable

The bath water should be lukewarm—Leavitt suggests touching it to the inside of your wrist to ensure it is not too hot or too cold. Cold water is just unpleasant, and babies get cold faster than bigger people do. Hot water could burn them and too warm water can also break down the skin barrier. You can bathe your baby in a specially-designed infant tub, or an insert that goes into your bath—whatever works best for you and your set-up at home.

Use a gentle cleanser

“Babies absorb things really easily into their skin,” says Leavitt. That’s why she recommends to parents in her practice to choose a cleanser that’s been specifically formulated for babies, with a neutral PH level, and one that is free from fragrance, dyes and phthalates. These ingredients could irritate your baby’s skin, and could even potentially lead to skin reactions later in life. Use only a small, dime-sized amount of cleanser on your baby, and be sure to rinse it all away.

Pat and moisturize

When you take your baby out of the bath, gently pat them down with a towel, rather than vigorously rubbing them dry. Then, apply a moisturizer all over the body to replenish and protect the skin barrier. “It should be applied in a thin layer to try and avoid build-up of the moisturizer in between skin folds,” says Leavitt. She recommends looking for an emollient type of moisturizer, which creates a thin barrier on the skin to lock in moisture. Again, avoid ingredients like fragrance, dyes and phthalates. Frequent moisturizing, not just after a bath, is important for all babies, and especially important where there is a history of eczema in the family, or when your baby has dry skin.