My Right Time to Become a Parent

There is no right time to become a parent, but if I had become a parent before my 40s, I would not have been a very good one.

This is definitely one of the benefits of being a queer intended parent.  Nothing happens by accident.  We get to decide, research, and plan for everything.  We really have to want it and be ready for it, and I think that’s a nice litmus test for parenthood.

I have been writing about my and my husband’s journey to fatherhood as well as all topics related to assisted reproductive technology (ART) for queer intended parents for over a year now.

However, I have never written about my own parental timing.  Why now?  What is it about me in the past couple years that has made me ready to be a father?  What was my life like in my 20s and 30s that made it inhospitable to parenthood?  And, more generally, is being an ‘old’ parent the new way to be a parent?

Developmental Delays

One explanation for my journey to fatherhood starting later is likely due to my chosen career path.  I think anyone who has gone to graduate school can relate, but as a physician, we have an even more protracted ‘academic’ path that affords little time outside the hospital as well as little money in our bank accounts.

After 4 years of college, 2 years of research, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and 2 years of fellowship, I was already 34 years old before I had my first real job and was buried under a mountain of school debt.

In addition to this occupational and financial lag, I also believe I had emotional stunting from this path.

Medicine forced me to compartmentalize my emotions in order to protect myself from the challenges of working 80+ hours a week around sickness, sadness, and death.  This compartmentalization is one of the reasons I concluded that clinical medicine was not the career for me.  The problem is, if you spend over thirty years training to be something, it’s not easy to just change paths and find out what you now want to do with your life. 

Jumping Off the Career Train 

Once I left medicine and moved to the pharmaceutical industry, it was as if all the direction and momentum I had in my previous 34 years dissipated.  

For the first time in my life, I had both money and time.  I think because I had worked so hard for something I didn’t end up liking, I now didn’t feel this overwhelming obligation to fill all my time with work.  

I wanted to travel.  I wanted to go to nice restaurants.  I wanted to try new sports like surfing and rugby.  I wanted to spontaneously meet up with friends at a bar and not worry about when I needed to be home.  

I think the world is a lot more accessible and tempting today than it was fifty years ago.  Through the internet, social media, and cheaper travel, we have grown up seeing and wanting to explore and do more than ever before, and I think everyone who can should take advantage of this.  However, it does come at the cost of other life milestones and family planning. 

Again, I don’t think this feeling of independence and self discovery is unique.  I think we all go through this in our lives, but I thought it was something people did in college and their 20s.  Here I was, in my late 30s, still ‘finding myself’ and in no position to care for and raise another human being.

‘Inside Out’ in Adulthood

This weekend, my husband and I saw Inside Out 2.  Amazing movie.  The portrayal of Anxiety felt as though the Disney/Pixar writers had literally spent time in my own brain.

This is another component about my path to parenthood that I needed time to process and deal with before I could be ready for this stage:  Mental health.

Training to be a doctor conveniently left me with little time to deal with my own mental health.  During the period after, I was blissfully preoccupied with my new sense of freedom.  However, as the dust settled on my jet setting and outward exploration, I found myself looking inward.

Coming from a family with mental health issues, I should not have been surprised that psychological challenges would find me at some point in life.  Unfortunately, my life in medicine - and our culture in general - really promotes us not trying to uncover and deal with any underlying depression or anxiety that we may have.

After several disastrous romantic relationships, I decided to go to counseling as a way to help with my dating life.  However, it turned out that the problem was not all the guys I had been dating.  The problem was me and my own internal mood and perception of myself.

Learning to understand this part of myself is not a journey that I have completed, and I will probably never be done understanding my mental health.  Therapy is great, and just like physical exercise, I don’t believe we should ever be done ‘working out’ our minds and building up our emotional intelligence.  However, it is a part of me that I can now healthily acknowledge and appreciate.  There is no covering up or shame involved, and in the last couple years - with the love and support of my husband - I feel I understand and even like myself more than I ever have before.

Dad Mode

It’s through this journey of career derailment, exploration, and mental wellbeing that I now find myself more ready than ever to be a parent.  

Again, I don’t think this story is completely unique.  Everyone has to ‘figure themselves out’ to some extent before they feel ready to have children.  

My point is, I am in awe of people who do this and have children in their 20s or even 30s.  Unfortunately, medicine refers to pregnant women over the age of 35 as ‘geriatric mothers,’ which is a term that really could do with a rebrand.  Yet, this exists for the biological reason that female fertility and reproductive health decreases dramatically after this age.

I am incredibly grateful that I didn’t have to deal with the incessant ticking of a biological clock.  To be honest, I don’t think I would have heard it, and if a partner or someone else had pointed it out, I may have rushed into parenthood earlier and less prepared.  

Many people I trained with became parents during or immediately after residency or fellowship.  If I had done that, not only would I have been physically absent from my child’s life, but I truly believe I would have also been emotionally absent.  I believe the latter is far more damaging.

At this time, I have done the work of understanding and learning to co-exist with the little orange character in my brain named Anxiety.  It’s not perfect or complete, but I do feel like there was no faster way to get to this point, and it’s a point where I can enter my ‘Dad Era’ and be fully present, excited, and emotionally available for my child.

For everyone who is ready to be a parent earlier, I applaud you.  For anyone like me who needs a bit more time, I hope you take it.  Join the ‘old’ parent club.  We’re a fun, well-balanced group, and I think our membership will continue to grow in the future.