How do you know when you're ready for marriage and family?
Dear Kerry,
This isn’t exactly a parenting question, but maybe it is. I’ve been interested in your take on parenting issues when I have read your column. My fiance and I are 21 years old. We both have jobs and have been engaged for a year. We are committed to each other and want to marry and start a family, but my future mother-in-law says we are too young. Do you have any advice for us?
LD, Muskegon
Dear LD,
I think you are right that this is a parenting question, even if it’s not literally about having a baby right now. You and your fiancé are doing good work thinking together about what phase of adult development you are in.
People sometimes don’t realize that grownups keep on growing and that there are distinct stages in adult life, even if they’re not as visible as children’s different phases.
Your commitment to each other is a hallmark of entering the phase of parenthood. Parenthood doesn’t necessarily mean actually having children, currently or even at all. The psychological phase of parenthood involves a commitment to something or someone beyond oneself. That means a commitment to create, cherish and care for a marriage, a child, a cause, a career, a project, a community.
But it doesn’t happen automatically. When we were little most of us thought that one day we would just arrive at being grownup — then we would be a firefighter or acrobat, a mommy or engineer, a nurse or pilot or a daddy — we would know how to do everything.
When we are little, we don’t realize that adults are still growing too, that we are in a phase of development that keeps us changing for the rest of our lives. And thank goodness for that! How boring it would be if we stayed exactly the same.
Most of us still carry a bit of that childhood thinking with us even when we become adults, feeling surprised or somewhat inadequate when our responsibilities feel big and our knowledge insufficient to the task. That childhood image of adulthood usually includes the idea of no effort. Grownups look so capable that we can grow up without realizing how much work is involved.
It isn’t just the accomplishment of learning skills and going to work every day, although those take a lot of energy and investment in themselves. There are mental tasks too, developing the emotional muscles to stick to something even when it’s hard, to keep trying, to tolerate failure, to be generous to oneself and others, and so forth.
Actual parenting of real children makes the same demands and more. Your commitment to doing the best you can and seeking resources to support you in your central job will contribute to a satisfying outcome.
Most children turn out pretty well, because most parents who are ready to be adults do a good-enough job. You are well on your way, by virtue of your commitment to doing the work of building a marriage and a life together.
Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, and author, with Jack Novick, of "Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children," available at amazon.com or through