Feeling of Inadequacy Normal

Published August 14, 1980. 

QUESTION: I am a 21-year-old woman and feel I am abnormal. While I anticipate marriage someday, I am not sure I want children. I hear so much about the difficulty of rearing children I don’t know if I can do it. This sentiment may be atypical, but I cannot get over my feelings of inadequacy. Do others have these feelings?

ANSWER: I suppose all of us who are parents have experienced a sense of inadequacy at one time or another. In my classes I have often defined parenthood as forced humility. Furthermore, it is interesting to me that some adults indicate both their greatest joys and sorrows in life have come from being parents.

You are quite normal for feeling inadequate as a parent, but your anxiety may be a little intense and premature. Though frustrating at times, most people cope adequately with parenthood.

Most people (93 percent) will marry, and the vast majority (95 percent) desire children. Only 5 percent of the people in the United States have joined the recent Voluntary Childless Movement. It is also true that another 5-10 percent are initially physically unable to bear children, but eventually almost 90 percent of these people become parents.

While most people desire children, it is true that they currently are having fewer of them. A recent issue of the “American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy” reported that the completed family size of women 18 to 34 years of age is currently near the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. This may also be attributed to the trend of women delaying marriage and consequently childbearing.

Like marriage, parenthood is often over-romanticized in the United States. And, like marriage, parenthood is a package deal; you take the children as they are. Strengths and weaknesses are blended with positive characteristics and inadequacies. In marriage, “For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, from this day forward.” But all too often we tend to focus on the difficult moments, as you may have done, and frequently forget or fail to anticipate the fulfilling and pleasant times associated with these relationships and responsibilities.

I share the sentiments of Edgar A. Guest who addressed this issue nearly 50 years ago. He wrote a poem titled “No children in the House,” which goes as follows:

No children in the house to play,

It must be hard to live that way!

I wonder what the people do

When night comes on and work is through

With no glad little folks to shout,

No eager feet to race about,

No youthful tongues to chatter on

About the joy that’s been and gone;

The house may be a castle fine,

But what a lonely place to dine.

No children in the house at all

No finger marks upon the wall,

No corner where the toys are piled

Sure identification of a child.

No little lips to breathe the prayer

That God shall keep you in His care

No glad caress and welcome sweet

When night returns you to your street;

No little lips a kiss to give

Oh, what a lonely way to live.