Should You Legally Marry If You Want Children?

One of the main points of this blog is to urge most men to avoid legally marrying.

But what if you want to be a father?

Do you REALLY want to BE a father?

Do you really want to be a father, or is it that you have your religion, your family and/or your friends, or a woman you're with pressuring you? Do you really want to be a father or do you want the mistaken FANTASY of fatherhood? Unless you use a bought egg and a rented womb, fatherhood will forever tie you to a woman, no matter how terribly she acts or treats you. Most women today don't have both the desire and understanding to truly be good mothers, and are even less prepared to be good partners.

We hear all of the time that statistics/studies indicate children of legally married parents are better off, and so you should legally marry if you want to raise children.

But this is misleading.

These studies/statistics never separate out people who have intentionally avoided legally marrying but have sincerely, mutually, enthusiastically agreed to become parents together after getting to know each other well and determining they are fundamentally compatible, ready to be a parent, and the other is ready to be a parent as well. If the children have both of their parents with them and are being parented well by both, it's not going to matter a hill of beans whether or not their parents have a state marriage license. Conversely, if their parents don't get along well enough to marry and stay married, that has a negative effect on the children, but it's how the parents are behaving, not the piece of paper or lack of it.

Getting a bad state contract will not magically make the two of you better parents. All it can do is put you in a Mexican standoff with the woman and the state, which can keep you around even when you want to leave. More significantly, it is often the kind of people who avoid being parents until they are in a stable social marriage who make good parents. After all, there were studies saying same-sex parents were just as good as married parents when same-sex couples couldn't legally marry. Why? because most of those same-sex couples truly WANTED and PLANNED to be parents. It wasn't a matter of "Oh well, oopsie, we're pregnant now."

So, you two can choose to be good parents in such a way that legally marrying couldn't make you any better as parents.

The problems: 1) you don't really know for certain what kind of a mother she's going to be all throughout life - seeing her with puppies or other people's kids is no assurance, and if she already has kids you shouldn't be making more with her; 2) even a good mother can be turned bad by illness or trauma; 3) good mother material is scarce; 4) you might not really be good father material.

To be a good father, you need to put your desires and even needs behind the needs of your children. Children need a lot of care, attention, supervision, energy, money, teaching, patience, and protection. Want to come home and relax after a long day of work? Too bad! There's fathering you have to do. Oh, by the way, you'd better be earning enough money while still being available for your children. Want a career advancement that would require moving? That would mean taking your kids away from their friends. Keep in mind, there is no guarantee your children will carry on your values or religion, or care for you in your old age (Dr. Laura condemns parents who are a burden on their children). There's no guarantee your children will conform to your fantasies about fatherhood. As an example, maybe you like to fish and hope to take your kids fishing with you, but they might hate it.

Kids need a parent to raise them full-time until they go to school at age five or six, then a parent needs to be there for them before and after school (and be available during school if needed) and when they're not in school. Boarding schools, months-long summer camps, having your kid in day care until 6pm on school days... that's not raising your kid. So you or their mother needs to be there for them at all these times, and you should switch off or be there together at times as well. You'll have to share your residence with their mother and at least be polite and civil with her, if not affectionate and romantic, and hopefully she won't be nasty and argumentative, or take your kids away from you and alienate them them from you. But you don't control any of this; a woman can refuse to cooperate.

Being a father changes everything about your life, from what kind of residence you have and what you have in it and how messy it is, to what kind of food you eat to what kind of automobile you drive to what kind of entertainment and recreation you'll have to your social engagements and being able to show up on time. You definitely should not have children unless you have the personality and tolerance to handle a messy and disorderly home, constantly changing plans and getting places later and leaving them earlier than you wanted to or planned, and just about everything in your life changing.

YOU are liable for whatever that kid does. And yet, when it comes down to it, the state claims control over your child.

You might have heard from some men how being a father is a greatest thing ever. But you don't know what is going on behind closed doors or how those men really feel. They certainly aren't free to say anything otherwise. Also, people tend to try to make the best of whatever situation they're in and claim certain choices they've made turned out better than they really have. They don't see any benefit to saying something like, "Geez, I really ruined my life." There are fathers who MURDER their children, and children who murder their fathers. Clearly, fatherhood isn't always wonderful. Children are time consuming, expensive, and limiting. They are not clones. They have personalities and wills of their own.

The bottom line:

1) It's OK to NOT want to be a father, and thus decide not to be. (Get a vasectomy!!!)

2) It's OK to NOT have children even if you've wanted to be a father. Life is full of choices and we can't always have everything we want. The culture/odds are against good fathers and providing a child with a stable, happy home that meets all their needs.

3) You don't have to legally marry to be a great father. If you truly want to have children (and have a logical, reasonable, unselfish reason to do so), or you were foolish enough not to get a vasectomy even though you didn't want children and you got a woman pregnant, you still shouldn't legally marry. Consult a family law attorney (ideally, BEFORE getting a woman pregnant or living with her) about how to avoid the terrible state contract; you might still be able to have a ceremony, even a church one, without involving the state. You can certainly CHOOSE to be a good father and husband without a state license.