Love, humility part of prep for baby

Dear Carolyn: How do you know when you’re ready to have a baby? I’m 28, he’s 29, we’ve been happily married for over five years, we own a home, and we both have good, secure jobs that we’ve been in for several years now. I am willing to stay home with the baby, at least for a year or so, and we’re financially secure enough that I can be a stay-at-home mom for as long as I want to be. It seems like everything that should be in place is there. So, should I be waiting for a lightning bolt, for some sort of earth-shaking epiphany, or is this as ready as anyone ever gets? – Thinking of Throwing Out My Birth-Control Pills

That’s as ready as anyone gets on paper. Which is perfect, for a paper baby.

To be ready for the real thing, it’s harder to say what it takes; children introduce so many variables that the notions you bring to parenthood rarely, if ever, seem to survive the process intact.

In fact, if I could do it without diminishing the importance of at least stable finances, I’d argue that humility belongs higher on your checklist than a flush bank account.

There is, however, one omission from your list that I would call glaring. Love. Not that you don’t have it, just that you don’t specifically mention it – when ideally your home, in its existing condition, is spilling over with so much love that you need a whole other being around to absorb it.

I mean love for life and for each other, but obviously you should both love children, too, even if (given your childlessness) that feeling is still vague and untested; animals or causes or needy fellow adults are also honorable, legitimate, even heroic places to channel spillover love. I’ll repeat this till I’m blue: If nothing else, make sure you would be grateful to have the parents you’re about to become.

Dear Carolyn: I am 49, divorced twice and have been seeing a guy for the last three months. Although I really like him, I don’t feel “that way” about him and am pretty sure I never will. I’m not sure if I will ever feel “that way” about anyone again. Is it okay to keep on seeing someone you enjoy and respect as a person but see no long-term future with? I have not dated anyone else since we met and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t, either. But we have not had the “are we exclusive?” chat. – Is It Wrong?

No, it’s not wrong, it’s okay. In fact, I think it’s wrong to think that every relationship has to be a conveyer belt to the Great Whatever – and that your only two choices are to stay on, or jump off if you have a different destination in mind.

Sometimes, people provide for each other, for a limited time, some pleasant companionship. Sometimes, that’s just fine.

What isn’t fine is misleading people. If you’re writing because you suspect he has bigger ideas, then you need to make your intentions clear. No rationalizing around it.

Otherwise, a pleasant evening to you both.