Parenthood and Mental Health

As I was cleaning up my office I came across an article from 2006 I had printed out when I was doing the research for Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice. It’s titled “Parenthood Ups Mental Illness Risk” and was written by Jasmine Karalakulasingam, M.D. a medical reporter for ABC News.

As I read this article, which reported a higher risk of mental illness during the first three months after birth, I was thinking why don’t people talk about this?

In 2003 actress Brooke Shields went public with her crippling post-partum depression but when I attended birth classes with a young woman I was mentoring that same year I didn’t hear any warnings of the mental heath risks of parenthood. The nurse who was teaching the class warned about post-partum infection, breast-feeding challenges, and what to expect when you bring your newborn home but not a thing about being alert for signs of mental distress or illness.

Shortly after I had re-read this article I received an email from a woman who admitted that although she felt, even as a young child, that she didn’t want children when she got married she thought she might change her mind and discussed the possibility of having a child with her husband, who had a daughter from a previous relationship. But her mind did not change and after finding out she was pregnant she knew that she couldn’t handle the stress of birthing and raising a child.

“The thought of being a parent actually scared the hell out of me,” she admits. “I did not want to be pregnant or keep the child. It was in that moment I knew that I did not want to be a parent and I knew that my mental health would not survive having a child as I suffer from depression and general anxiety disorder.”

After discussing it with her husband they decided to terminate the pregnancy, and he arranged to have a vasectomy so they wouldn’t have to worry about birth control. They now have custody of his seventeen-year-old daughter “working through the challenges of teenage life.” She feels they made the right choice for them even though she still hears things like ‘You’re still young, it’s different when they are your own,’ but she knows that it won’t be different because she knows how the stressors of step-parenthood have impacted her mental well-being and her life: “To this day, I do not regret my choice and I believe my marriage is better off for it. I know my mental health is better for it.”

Whether you agree with this woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, or not, what are your thoughts on her consideration of her mental health in the process of her decision-making? Is this something you have considered in your fertility decision making?

Flickr Photo by Giarose

Parenthood is Not Fun for Every One

There is an assumption we make as a culture that says “You may not want kids now, but it’s different when they’re your own.”

After this week I’m not so sure this little birdie can fly. First was the news that the state of Nebraska’s “Safe Haven” law will have to be rewritten because people are abandoning their adolescents and teens at the safe haven hospital sites instead of newborns, which the law was originally intended to protect. In fact, the majority of the seventeen kids who have been abandoned at Nebraska hospitals since the law went into effect last July are over ten years old.

If it is different when they’re yours, then why are parents abandoning their kids? They are no longer colicky, they are, hopefully, toilet trained, and, bonus, they can dress themselves, yet their parents and guardians are clearly not in love with the parenting role.

Which brings me to the second thing—a quote from one of my interviews for the Childless by Choice Project in which Susan Jeffers, a parent and author of the book I’m Okay, You’re a Brat!: Setting the Priorities Straight and Freeing You from the Guilt and Mad Myths of Parenthood said: “I’m not talking anti-parenthood. I’m talking about the fact that some people love it, some people don’t love it. It is not good, or bad; there shouldn’t be any judgment about it.

“You know, it is very possible to adore your children but not love parenting. I think some of us like to be lawyers, some of us like to be teachers. We don’t all love the same thing. So I think it’s absurd to think that everybody would love to be a parent.”

Clearly, some of us don’t relish the parent role and if our society gave us permission to choose childlessness there would likely not be as many parents abandoning kids at the emergency doors of a hospital in the state of Nebraska. And I’m not making a judgment about these parents.

Parenting is hard. Let’s not pretend that it’s not.