Growing up in a religious culture of large families, every other girl I knew wrote "have children" at the top of their list of life-time goals. I did too, because that's what girls did. And I thought I'd have 4 or 5 kids, because almost all the other Mormon families did. But that's about as far as I ever thought about children in my future. I know many other girls fantasized about being a mom, playing house when they were little, taking pleasure in babysitting as a teenager. Not me. I figured that one's own children would be much easier to love than someone else's. Beyond that, I didn't give it much thought.
When I got married, a child was the furthest thing from my mind. My world consisted of Rex and myself. I was barely even aware there were other people around me. Then we moved to Norman, OK and everyone was an early-20-something with a baby or two and/or pregnant. I doubt a BYU married ward would have been much different. Rex, the baby charmer, would hold a crying child and it would be immediately soothed. He would coo and cuddle a baby, making it smile and laugh. I'd remember how much my 7-yr-old sister loved to play with him when we went to my parents house. To a new bride, it was a most endearing quality -- as well as extremely threatening.
I didn't want to have babies till I was 30! I guess I could cut that down to 25, since I'd gotten married 5 years earlier than I'd planned. But 20...? I still needed to finish college! I wanted to get to know my husband as his wife, not as a hormonal pregnant woman!
But he was so happy! The look on his face was so cute, so sweet, so amazingly loving. How could I make him wait 5 years to have what he always wanted? Watching him look at a baby was like seeing the way he looked at me. He hadn't needed to tell me he wanted to marry me; I knew it in his gaze. And that was how he looked at those babies. When he had looked at me with those loving eyes, it scared me and I had run away. Was I going to do the same with parenthood? Look at him! How could I deny this man fatherhood? It would be the greatest gift I could ever give him. It was what he dreamed about in his youth, like the girls I'd known. Only he was a man and his love of children was genuine, not something embraced because it had been fed to him his whole life.
We'd only been married 8 months when I consented to let nature decide when we were going to have children. The next month, he was the happiest man on earth to learn he was going to be a Daddy.
So why did I have children? Because I desperately desired to be a mom? No. Because I wanted to hold a sweet, delicate little cooing creature in my arms? No. Because the Lord commanded us to multiply and replenish the earth? No. Because everyone else was doing it and I felt pressured? No. Because that was what was expected of a Mormon woman? No. Because I prayed about it? Well, yes, that's true. But mostly, I decided to have children so young because I loved my husband and wanted to make his dreams come true.
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