/. biosoc. Sci. (1978) 10, 367-374
TALKING ABOUT CHILDREN: AN EXAMINATION OF ACCOUNTS ABOUT REPRODUCTION AND FAMILY LIFE JUDY PAYNE* Institute of Medical Sociology, Westburn Road, Aberdeen {Received 5th January 1978)
Summary. This study explores the reasons which individuals give for initially wanting children; data are drawn from intensive interviews concerned with reproduction, marriage and family life which were conducted with couples in the childbearing stage of marriage. The study is an extension of the approach put forward by Busfield (1974) in that it examines the beliefs which structure social constructions of reproduction. The evidence suggests that, although wide-ranging beliefs are drawn upon in accounting for wanting children, the underlying reasons are concerned with beliefs about the nature of ordinary adult life. However, except at a very general level, such beliefs are not uniformly held but are selected and structured by the particular situation and experience of individuals. The approach demonstrates how a deeper understanding of reproductive behaviour can be gained by relating it to the wider context of family, marriage and adult life.
Introduction
The vast majority of married couples in Britain have children and a great deal of research has been undertaken on the determinants and features of their reproductive behaviour. This research has been concerned predominantly with studying family intentions, achieved family size and birth intervals and has largely overlooked one of the most fundamental questions in understanding such behaviour—that of why couples start a family. It is suggested here that absence of research in this area is because researchers have both assumed that people want children and taken for granted initial reproductive motives. Busfield has drawn attention to the lack of research interest in the social context in which reproduction occurs, and has suggested that studies of the commonly held beliefs surrounding reproduction would further our understanding of repro* Present address: Plymouth Polytechnic, Drake Circus, Plymouth. 367
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ductive behaviour (Busfield, 1974, Busfield & Paddon, 1977). Human beings grow up expecting to get married, and getting married, by implication, means becoming parents. This set of beliefs stresses not only the 'ordinariness' of parenthood (Sacks, 1970, unpublished, cited by Dingwall, 1976) but also the many beneficial experiences which having children confers. However, until they do become parents, individuals cannot know what it is like to have children of their own. They might have some knowledge of what children are like through various social encounters but this is very different from being a parent, which implies in the majority of cases a more or less permanent, multifarious and constantly changing relationship with a child. Earlier fertility studies The majority of fertility studies (e.g. Hawthorn, 1970) have been concerned with explanations about birth intervals and family size, and have taken for granted that people want some children. They, therefore offer little explanation of why people want to become parents in the first place, since they have been derived from such questions as 'How many children do you want?' and 'Why do you want n children?' rather than 'Why do you want children?' (e.g. Cartwright, 1970, 1976; Woolf, 1971; Woolf & Pegden, 1976; Freedman, Whelpton & Campbell, 1959; Whelpton, Campbell & Paterson, 1966). Furthermore, because the majority of these studies have attempted to explain various aspects of fertility behaviour with evidence collected from people who already have children, accounts of reproductive motives are likely to have been redefined or modified by the experiences of childbirth and child-rearing, and can be expected to differ from their initial constructs of motives. The paucity of research in this area can also be explained in terms of changes in social values and fertility patterns. Until comparatively recently it was regarded by researchers as inappropriate, or even insulting, to ask married couples if they wanted children (Thompson, 1977, personal communication). Peel & Carr's survey in 1971 (Peel & Carr, 1975) was the first to acknowledge that some married couples might not want children and their findings show that 4% of the couples interviewed did not want any. However, apart from some psychologists (e.g. Pohlman, 1969) none of the fertility researchers appears to have been interested in, or asked, why people want children. Although answers to such a question are unlikely to reveal any absolute reasons, they would provide information about the beliefs resorted to and also about which explanations are regarded by individuals as socially acceptable. Definitions There are methodological problems associated with questions concerning 'wants'. When respondents say that they 'want' children it is difficult to determine whether this means intends, expects or desires to have, or that they want a child or want to become a parent. In addition, this could mean that they want (desire) to experience pregnancy, childbirth or a live child of their own. However, by examining accounts of why people say they want children, such meanings are likely, at least in part, to be clarified.
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Findings
The accounts which are presented here were derived from a series of intensive interviews concerning children, marriage and family life carried out with 30 married couples, 20 of whom had had medical treatment for infertility. All of the respondents were in the childbearing age range and represented all social class groups. The sample consists of eighteen couples with children at the time of the interview, ten of whom had had infertility treatment and eight who had not, and twelve couples who had no children at the time of the interview, ten of whom had had infertility treatment and two who had not. The majority of couples were seen both together and separately. Their accounts of why they want/wanted children and the more diffuse accounts about adulthood, marriage, children and family life, which occur throughout each of the interviews, will be examined. An attempt will be made to clarify the sets of beliefs held about reproductive behaviour and also to demonstrate how the particular beliefs expressed are situationally determined. The accounts of those who had undergone infertility treatment have probably been more clearly thought out than those of the more fertile couples, since the infertile can be regarded as 'strangers from life as usual'. Also, since nearly half of the births occurring to married couples are unplanned (Cartwright, 1976), the question of 'wanting' children might be affected by the initially unintended nature of such pregnancies. However, it can be assumed that those couples who have undergone treatment to have children do actually want (intend, expect, desire) children, and an analysis of their accounts enables the isolation of the aspect of reproductive beliefs concerned with wanting children. The accounts have been subdivided into four categories of belief: adult life; marriage and family; value of children; and personal beliefs and goals. However, as will be shown, these belief categories are interrelated. The different categories of belief were not drawn upon equally by all respondents but will be shown to vary with the particular situation and experience of the individual. Beliefs about adult life The belief in the ordinariness of getting married and having children underlay all the respondents' accounts of why they wanted children. With the exception of three women, the initial response to the direct question was that it was felt to be normal or natural for adults to get married and have children. The following two examples are illustrative of these responses. Successfully treated, male respondent: 'It's a normal thing. Well my feeling is that when you're getting married, I think, the children make it. It makes a marriage, makes a family.' Untreated with children, female respondent: 'Oh, I don't really know. I've just always thought that I'd get married one day and have children. It's a natural thing to do.' The three respondents who did not respond in this way did not want children, although one of them had successfully undergone treatment for infertility. However, even in their accounts there is recognition of the ordinariness of having children,
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especially in relation to the ways in which others had suggested that they were, in this respect, not normal. The respondents used both 'normal' and 'natural' to describe their need for children. The term 'natural' might be interpreted as referring either to some innate biological need or to the ordinariness of getting married and having children. However, by examining the context of these statements, it appears that the use of 'natural' refers to normality or 'ordinariness' rather than any biological reason. Seven respondents, however, did refer to the belief in a maternal instinct; six of these were men and felt that their wives wanted children more than they did. For them, wanting children was, to a great extent, to enable their wives to be fulfilled: Successfully treated, male respondent: 'Well, I wanted them, no doubt about that but (wife) was super keen. Maternal instinct, you know. Dogs and other people's children. She was a natural. I knew that she would only be fulfilled in some kind of way if she had family.' On the other hand, none of these respondents' wives mentioned feeling any maternal instinct. Many of them said that they liked children and wanted a family life and some of them felt that their husbands wanted children more than they did. It is therefore difficult to assess what was being referred to by maternal instinct. Usually, as in the above example, they drew upon evidence that their wives liked or were good with children but none of them made reference to any biological need for children. The only female respondent who referred to maternal instinct, in that she believed that 'If it wasn't for the maternal instinct there would be no children', appeared from the remainder of her account to be referring to sexual instinct rather than reproductive instinct. No one drew upon a paternal instinct as an explanation, but two male respondents had felt that having children had made them feel 'a man' in the eyes of their peers. Neither mentioned any innate urge to reproduce but they thought that the values of their peer group held biological fatherhood to be a prerequisite of adult male status. In this sense they can be seen as wishing to conform to group norms. Reasons of conformity and the feeling of being different were referred to by twelve of the twenty treated couples as part of their reasons for wanting children. Only one of the untreated respondents mentioned this. These twelve couples had felt very strongly their 'differentness' in various social settings and those who had finally had children referred to the relief they felt when they became the same as everyone else. The following account illustrates this feeling of wanting to conform. Successfully treated, female respondent: 'Well, most of our friends all have had children younger than you (to husband). But this is the whole thing. You know yourself, you go around with a crowd and everybody gets engaged, everybody gets married and then people start to have family and you think "What's happened to me?".' Of the eight treated respondents who had not experienced any strong feelings of being different, seven had been geographically mobile and had no strong peer group ties and one couple married late, by which time most of their friends had passed through the childbearing stage.
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Beliefs about marriage andfamily life In addition to being included in the belief in the ordinariness of having children in adult life, beliefs about marriage and family life were also referred to in more specific ways. These specific beliefs were very much influenced by the particular experience and situation of the respondent; few untreated respondents referred to such beliefs, and differences were found between those treated respondents with and without children, and between men and women. Children were not only seen as a normal consequence of marriage but as an integral part of it. To many of the treated couples, especially the women, children were seen as a physical demonstration of the marital relationship. They saw children as an expression of love and something the couple had created together. Ten respondents (five men and five women, all treated) extended this belief in children being an expression of marital love by regarding children as something one could have for one's spouse, a type of gift to demonstrate affection. Such explanations are illustrated in the responses which referred to maternal instinct, discussed in the previous section, and in the following account. Unsuccessfully treated, female respondent: 'He likes kids and kids like him. It's more for his sake than mine that I want to have.' A further aspect of this can be seen in accounts about leaving something of oneself behind for the spouse. This view was put forward solely by three unsuccessfully treated men; they were all working class and had stressed, and had said that they resented to some extent, their wives' close ties with the family of origin. This particular feature might suggest that they wished to have some counter-claim to their wives' affection even after their death. On the other hand, it could be that they felt more protective towards their wives than others, and wished this protectiveness to continue after their death. Beliefs about family life were advanced by all respondents. The unit of married couples and their children was seen as a usual part of life, and all except one of the treated respondents saw this as a superior way of life. Some respondents, particularly working class men with children said that children brought married couples closer together by providing shared interests and responsibilities. Children were also seen by many as a concern of the wider family group. Some respondents felt a certain degree of obligation towards parents to give them grandchildren, and others put forward explanations in terms of having come from either a large and happy family or of being an only child: Unsuccessfully treated, female respondent: 'Ifindit difficult to visualise not having children. If you' ve both felt part of a very happy family. Somehow children are the future, aren't they ? They're what it's all about. When there's just the two of you it stops. That's what life's all about. You don't die. You don't end. Maybe your body ends but you carry on through your children.' This need for continuity was expressed by the majority of treated respondents, but only rarely, and in passing, by the untreated. It is suggested that, by being faced with the possibility of not reproducing, such couples were more aware of the family continuity function of children.
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Beliefs about the value of children Although beliefs about marriage and family life were most often resorted to as an explanation for wanting children, many respondents believed that children provided certain benefits in themselves. By far the most common explanations in this category were that the respondent or spouse liked children, or that they enjoyed playing with them and watching them grow up. The proffering of these two explanations was closely associated with the sex of the respondents; females liked children but males enjoyed playing with them, and watching them grow up. This sexual division is clearly related to gender roles. Mothers usually have the closest day-to-day contact with children and are thus required to like them generally. Conversely, fathers have a more entertaining role and are concerned with the long term upbringing of their children, and they are thus more likely to be specific in the beneficial characteristics of children. Further sex differences in the beliefs about the values of children were seen in accounts about babies and altruistic reasons for wanting children. Women, particularly the unsuccessfully treated, wanted babies of their own to rear and often spent much of their spare time baby-sitting. Men, on the other hand, expressed a feeling of pleasure from being able to give someone a good life. The belief that children can look after parents in their old age was mentioned by many respondents as something in which they did not believe. Only two respondents, one male and one female, put this forward as a possible reason for wanting children. Both were embarrassed when they offered it and both joked about holding such a view. In addition to these values, many respondents mentioned the disadvantages of having children. Such accounts were clearly situationally determined, in that those who had had children without medical help were most likely to stress the problems of parenthood. Respondents who had been successfully treated emphasized the financial and social restrictions which children imposed but those who were expecting their first child were concerned only with the financial problems of parenthood. Childless couples who had been treated were least likely to recognize any disadvantages and the two couples who did not want children strongly emphasized the various costs of parenthood, particularly what they regarded as the adverse effects upon their life style and marital relationship. However, despite this varying emphasis upon the 'costs' of parenthood, all those respondents who said that they wanted children felt that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages: children were 'worth it'. When faced with the possibility of remaining childless, many of the treated couples had turned to adoption as an acceptable alternative. However, not all of these couples regarded adoption in this way. What seems significant in all eight cases is that the wife was the partner who decided that they should not adopt. It was she who wanted their 'own child' and the husband would have been quite willing to have adopted 'someone else's child'. For these women, children were not only part of marriage but were seen as something created by the conjugal relationship and not essential to it. They wanted to create their own family out of their marriage instead of importing someone else's child into the marriage so that they could have a 'normal family life'. To them it was the marital relationship which
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was the most valued and if they could not have their own children they preferred to remain childless. Personal beliefs and goals In addition to the beliefs already discussed, some accounts drew upon feelings about personal achievements. This was particularly so for some of the treated women who offered explanations in terms of personal creativity and the experience of pregnancy and delivery. One respondent was extremely concerned with her own feelings of femininity and, to her, pregnancy and childbirth were important for her feminine conciousness. None of the other respondents expressed this view and for them being a wife and mother were most important. Some expressed the feeling of a personal fulfilment in having 'created' a child and a more general feeling of personal non-fulfilment was felt by those who remained childless. However, few respondents mentioned these reasons and, of those who did, none stressed them as of primary importance. The way in which these reasons were advanced suggests that either such needs are regarded as only of peripheral importance or that they are seen as not socially acceptable; people should not have children for personal or selfish reasons. This was particularly clear in relation to having children to look after one in old age and might well be a constraint on the willingness of respondents to advance personal reasons. Conclusions In their reasons for wanting children, these respondents have been shown to draw heavily upon beliefs about the ordinariness of getting married and having some children in adult life. However, there was a marked difference between the treated and untreated respondents. For the majority of the untreated couples this was the only proffered reason for wanting children; they had always expected to have children when they married and had not really thought much about it. Having some children is part of the everyday activities of married adult life which generally goes unquestioned. The treated couples, on the other hand, tended to be far more explicit in their references to social conformity. Their childless position had made them aware of this usual pattern of life, and the majority of them had experienced marked feelings of being different. For them, wanting children was not simply a desire for conformity but also a desire to identify and communicate with significant others. Further, the situationally determined nature of the accounts is illustrated by the wider range of beliefs to which the treated respondents referred. Because they were outsiders from life as it is usually experienced, they were able to identify many of the taken-for-granted aspects of having children. And, clearly, these aspects are differentially experienced for, among the treated group, differences were found between male and female accounts, between those of respondents with and without children, and between those of different social class, life style and family background. Individuals are selective in the beliefs upon which they draw, and these beliefs are shaped by the particular experience of the individual. However, the common theme which occurs in all of the reasons given for wanting children is
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because it is seen as an ordinary or 'natural' part of adult life. It is the way that respondents interpret ordinariness which is situationally determined. This examination clearly identifies a further dimension to the study of fertility behaviour which earlier studies have neither indicated or explained; they have taken for granted both that married couples want children and their possible reasons for wanting them. The explanations incorporated in these models are therefore only partial, since they have ignored the underlying context of reproductive behaviour. It is clear that the sorts of reasons outlined above, which the respondents say govern starting a family, are not likely to be exactly the same as those for anticipating a specific size of family or those connected with birth intervals or family limitation, even if the latter also draw on ideas about the ordinariness of adult life. Furthermore, while a utility model, for example, might be appropriate in explaining family size and birth intervals, it does not provide the wider perspective which might be achieved by looking at the sociology of the family life cycle and related age patterns. The basic premise of the utility theories is the balance of tastes for children against available resources but, as Busfield & Paddon (1977) have demonstrated, there has been no attempt to examine how such tastes and resources are determined. By examining the broader social context of beliefs, values and actions in which parenthood occurs, a deeper understanding of reproductive behaviour and experience might be achieved. These data illustrate that by adopting this broader approach it is possible to identify the beliefs which structure the dominant adult life pattern in general, and initial fertility behaviour in particular. For the respondents in this study, marriage and children were regarded as a means of becoming 'ordinary' adults. However, these respondents were married couples in thechildbearing age range, of which two-thirds were infertile at some stage. Similar studies of different groups at different stages of the family or adult life cycle are likely to provide further evidence about the significance of children to adulthood. Through such an approach our understanding of both fertility behaviour and family relationships would be further developed. References BUSFIELD, J. (1974) Ideologies and reproduction. In: The Integration of the Child into a Social World. Edited by M. Richards. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. BUSFIELD, J. & PADDON, M. (1977) Thinking about Children. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. CAKTffmGwr,K. (1910) Parents and Family Planning Services. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. CARTWRIGHT, A. (1976) How Many Children! Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. DINGWALL, R.W.J. (1976) Aspects of Illness. Martin Robertson, London. FREEDMAN, R., WHELPTON, P.K. & CAMPBELL, A.A. (1959) Family Planning, Sterility and Population Growth. McGraw-Hill, New York. HAWTHORN, G. (1970) The Sociology of Fertility. Collier-Macmillan, London. PEEL, J. & CARR, G. (1975) Contraception and Family Design. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh. POHLMAN, E.H. (1969) The Psychology of Birth Planning. Schenkman, Cambridge, Mass. WHELPTON, P., CAMPBELL, A. & PATERSON, J. (1966) Fertility and Family Planning in the U.S.A. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. WOOLF, M. (1971) Family Intentions. HM Stationery Office, London. WOOLF, M. & PEGDEN, S. (1976) Families Five Years On. HM Stationery Office, London.
TALKING ABOUT CHILDREN: AN EXAMINATION OF ACCOUNTS ABOUT REPRODUCTION AND FAMILY LIFE JUDY PAYNE* Institute of Medical Sociology, Westburn Road, Aberdeen {Received 5th January 1978)
Summary. This study explores the reasons which individuals give for initially wanting children; data are drawn from intensive interviews concerned with reproduction, marriage and family life which were conducted with couples in the childbearing stage of marriage. The study is an extension of the approach put forward by Busfield (1974) in that it examines the beliefs which structure social constructions of reproduction. The evidence suggests that, although wide-ranging beliefs are drawn upon in accounting for wanting children, the underlying reasons are concerned with beliefs about the nature of ordinary adult life. However, except at a very general level, such beliefs are not uniformly held but are selected and structured by the particular situation and experience of individuals. The approach demonstrates how a deeper understanding of reproductive behaviour can be gained by relating it to the wider context of family, marriage and adult life.
Introduction
The vast majority of married couples in Britain have children and a great deal of research has been undertaken on the determinants and features of their reproductive behaviour. This research has been concerned predominantly with studying family intentions, achieved family size and birth intervals and has largely overlooked one of the most fundamental questions in understanding such behaviour—that of why couples start a family. It is suggested here that absence of research in this area is because researchers have both assumed that people want children and taken for granted initial reproductive motives. Busfield has drawn attention to the lack of research interest in the social context in which reproduction occurs, and has suggested that studies of the commonly held beliefs surrounding reproduction would further our understanding of repro* Present address: Plymouth Polytechnic, Drake Circus, Plymouth. 367
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ductive behaviour (Busfield, 1974, Busfield & Paddon, 1977). Human beings grow up expecting to get married, and getting married, by implication, means becoming parents. This set of beliefs stresses not only the 'ordinariness' of parenthood (Sacks, 1970, unpublished, cited by Dingwall, 1976) but also the many beneficial experiences which having children confers. However, until they do become parents, individuals cannot know what it is like to have children of their own. They might have some knowledge of what children are like through various social encounters but this is very different from being a parent, which implies in the majority of cases a more or less permanent, multifarious and constantly changing relationship with a child. Earlier fertility studies The majority of fertility studies (e.g. Hawthorn, 1970) have been concerned with explanations about birth intervals and family size, and have taken for granted that people want some children. They, therefore offer little explanation of why people want to become parents in the first place, since they have been derived from such questions as 'How many children do you want?' and 'Why do you want n children?' rather than 'Why do you want children?' (e.g. Cartwright, 1970, 1976; Woolf, 1971; Woolf & Pegden, 1976; Freedman, Whelpton & Campbell, 1959; Whelpton, Campbell & Paterson, 1966). Furthermore, because the majority of these studies have attempted to explain various aspects of fertility behaviour with evidence collected from people who already have children, accounts of reproductive motives are likely to have been redefined or modified by the experiences of childbirth and child-rearing, and can be expected to differ from their initial constructs of motives. The paucity of research in this area can also be explained in terms of changes in social values and fertility patterns. Until comparatively recently it was regarded by researchers as inappropriate, or even insulting, to ask married couples if they wanted children (Thompson, 1977, personal communication). Peel & Carr's survey in 1971 (Peel & Carr, 1975) was the first to acknowledge that some married couples might not want children and their findings show that 4% of the couples interviewed did not want any. However, apart from some psychologists (e.g. Pohlman, 1969) none of the fertility researchers appears to have been interested in, or asked, why people want children. Although answers to such a question are unlikely to reveal any absolute reasons, they would provide information about the beliefs resorted to and also about which explanations are regarded by individuals as socially acceptable. Definitions There are methodological problems associated with questions concerning 'wants'. When respondents say that they 'want' children it is difficult to determine whether this means intends, expects or desires to have, or that they want a child or want to become a parent. In addition, this could mean that they want (desire) to experience pregnancy, childbirth or a live child of their own. However, by examining accounts of why people say they want children, such meanings are likely, at least in part, to be clarified.
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Findings
The accounts which are presented here were derived from a series of intensive interviews concerning children, marriage and family life carried out with 30 married couples, 20 of whom had had medical treatment for infertility. All of the respondents were in the childbearing age range and represented all social class groups. The sample consists of eighteen couples with children at the time of the interview, ten of whom had had infertility treatment and eight who had not, and twelve couples who had no children at the time of the interview, ten of whom had had infertility treatment and two who had not. The majority of couples were seen both together and separately. Their accounts of why they want/wanted children and the more diffuse accounts about adulthood, marriage, children and family life, which occur throughout each of the interviews, will be examined. An attempt will be made to clarify the sets of beliefs held about reproductive behaviour and also to demonstrate how the particular beliefs expressed are situationally determined. The accounts of those who had undergone infertility treatment have probably been more clearly thought out than those of the more fertile couples, since the infertile can be regarded as 'strangers from life as usual'. Also, since nearly half of the births occurring to married couples are unplanned (Cartwright, 1976), the question of 'wanting' children might be affected by the initially unintended nature of such pregnancies. However, it can be assumed that those couples who have undergone treatment to have children do actually want (intend, expect, desire) children, and an analysis of their accounts enables the isolation of the aspect of reproductive beliefs concerned with wanting children. The accounts have been subdivided into four categories of belief: adult life; marriage and family; value of children; and personal beliefs and goals. However, as will be shown, these belief categories are interrelated. The different categories of belief were not drawn upon equally by all respondents but will be shown to vary with the particular situation and experience of the individual. Beliefs about adult life The belief in the ordinariness of getting married and having children underlay all the respondents' accounts of why they wanted children. With the exception of three women, the initial response to the direct question was that it was felt to be normal or natural for adults to get married and have children. The following two examples are illustrative of these responses. Successfully treated, male respondent: 'It's a normal thing. Well my feeling is that when you're getting married, I think, the children make it. It makes a marriage, makes a family.' Untreated with children, female respondent: 'Oh, I don't really know. I've just always thought that I'd get married one day and have children. It's a natural thing to do.' The three respondents who did not respond in this way did not want children, although one of them had successfully undergone treatment for infertility. However, even in their accounts there is recognition of the ordinariness of having children,
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especially in relation to the ways in which others had suggested that they were, in this respect, not normal. The respondents used both 'normal' and 'natural' to describe their need for children. The term 'natural' might be interpreted as referring either to some innate biological need or to the ordinariness of getting married and having children. However, by examining the context of these statements, it appears that the use of 'natural' refers to normality or 'ordinariness' rather than any biological reason. Seven respondents, however, did refer to the belief in a maternal instinct; six of these were men and felt that their wives wanted children more than they did. For them, wanting children was, to a great extent, to enable their wives to be fulfilled: Successfully treated, male respondent: 'Well, I wanted them, no doubt about that but (wife) was super keen. Maternal instinct, you know. Dogs and other people's children. She was a natural. I knew that she would only be fulfilled in some kind of way if she had family.' On the other hand, none of these respondents' wives mentioned feeling any maternal instinct. Many of them said that they liked children and wanted a family life and some of them felt that their husbands wanted children more than they did. It is therefore difficult to assess what was being referred to by maternal instinct. Usually, as in the above example, they drew upon evidence that their wives liked or were good with children but none of them made reference to any biological need for children. The only female respondent who referred to maternal instinct, in that she believed that 'If it wasn't for the maternal instinct there would be no children', appeared from the remainder of her account to be referring to sexual instinct rather than reproductive instinct. No one drew upon a paternal instinct as an explanation, but two male respondents had felt that having children had made them feel 'a man' in the eyes of their peers. Neither mentioned any innate urge to reproduce but they thought that the values of their peer group held biological fatherhood to be a prerequisite of adult male status. In this sense they can be seen as wishing to conform to group norms. Reasons of conformity and the feeling of being different were referred to by twelve of the twenty treated couples as part of their reasons for wanting children. Only one of the untreated respondents mentioned this. These twelve couples had felt very strongly their 'differentness' in various social settings and those who had finally had children referred to the relief they felt when they became the same as everyone else. The following account illustrates this feeling of wanting to conform. Successfully treated, female respondent: 'Well, most of our friends all have had children younger than you (to husband). But this is the whole thing. You know yourself, you go around with a crowd and everybody gets engaged, everybody gets married and then people start to have family and you think "What's happened to me?".' Of the eight treated respondents who had not experienced any strong feelings of being different, seven had been geographically mobile and had no strong peer group ties and one couple married late, by which time most of their friends had passed through the childbearing stage.
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Beliefs about marriage andfamily life In addition to being included in the belief in the ordinariness of having children in adult life, beliefs about marriage and family life were also referred to in more specific ways. These specific beliefs were very much influenced by the particular experience and situation of the respondent; few untreated respondents referred to such beliefs, and differences were found between those treated respondents with and without children, and between men and women. Children were not only seen as a normal consequence of marriage but as an integral part of it. To many of the treated couples, especially the women, children were seen as a physical demonstration of the marital relationship. They saw children as an expression of love and something the couple had created together. Ten respondents (five men and five women, all treated) extended this belief in children being an expression of marital love by regarding children as something one could have for one's spouse, a type of gift to demonstrate affection. Such explanations are illustrated in the responses which referred to maternal instinct, discussed in the previous section, and in the following account. Unsuccessfully treated, female respondent: 'He likes kids and kids like him. It's more for his sake than mine that I want to have.' A further aspect of this can be seen in accounts about leaving something of oneself behind for the spouse. This view was put forward solely by three unsuccessfully treated men; they were all working class and had stressed, and had said that they resented to some extent, their wives' close ties with the family of origin. This particular feature might suggest that they wished to have some counter-claim to their wives' affection even after their death. On the other hand, it could be that they felt more protective towards their wives than others, and wished this protectiveness to continue after their death. Beliefs about family life were advanced by all respondents. The unit of married couples and their children was seen as a usual part of life, and all except one of the treated respondents saw this as a superior way of life. Some respondents, particularly working class men with children said that children brought married couples closer together by providing shared interests and responsibilities. Children were also seen by many as a concern of the wider family group. Some respondents felt a certain degree of obligation towards parents to give them grandchildren, and others put forward explanations in terms of having come from either a large and happy family or of being an only child: Unsuccessfully treated, female respondent: 'Ifindit difficult to visualise not having children. If you' ve both felt part of a very happy family. Somehow children are the future, aren't they ? They're what it's all about. When there's just the two of you it stops. That's what life's all about. You don't die. You don't end. Maybe your body ends but you carry on through your children.' This need for continuity was expressed by the majority of treated respondents, but only rarely, and in passing, by the untreated. It is suggested that, by being faced with the possibility of not reproducing, such couples were more aware of the family continuity function of children.
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Beliefs about the value of children Although beliefs about marriage and family life were most often resorted to as an explanation for wanting children, many respondents believed that children provided certain benefits in themselves. By far the most common explanations in this category were that the respondent or spouse liked children, or that they enjoyed playing with them and watching them grow up. The proffering of these two explanations was closely associated with the sex of the respondents; females liked children but males enjoyed playing with them, and watching them grow up. This sexual division is clearly related to gender roles. Mothers usually have the closest day-to-day contact with children and are thus required to like them generally. Conversely, fathers have a more entertaining role and are concerned with the long term upbringing of their children, and they are thus more likely to be specific in the beneficial characteristics of children. Further sex differences in the beliefs about the values of children were seen in accounts about babies and altruistic reasons for wanting children. Women, particularly the unsuccessfully treated, wanted babies of their own to rear and often spent much of their spare time baby-sitting. Men, on the other hand, expressed a feeling of pleasure from being able to give someone a good life. The belief that children can look after parents in their old age was mentioned by many respondents as something in which they did not believe. Only two respondents, one male and one female, put this forward as a possible reason for wanting children. Both were embarrassed when they offered it and both joked about holding such a view. In addition to these values, many respondents mentioned the disadvantages of having children. Such accounts were clearly situationally determined, in that those who had had children without medical help were most likely to stress the problems of parenthood. Respondents who had been successfully treated emphasized the financial and social restrictions which children imposed but those who were expecting their first child were concerned only with the financial problems of parenthood. Childless couples who had been treated were least likely to recognize any disadvantages and the two couples who did not want children strongly emphasized the various costs of parenthood, particularly what they regarded as the adverse effects upon their life style and marital relationship. However, despite this varying emphasis upon the 'costs' of parenthood, all those respondents who said that they wanted children felt that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages: children were 'worth it'. When faced with the possibility of remaining childless, many of the treated couples had turned to adoption as an acceptable alternative. However, not all of these couples regarded adoption in this way. What seems significant in all eight cases is that the wife was the partner who decided that they should not adopt. It was she who wanted their 'own child' and the husband would have been quite willing to have adopted 'someone else's child'. For these women, children were not only part of marriage but were seen as something created by the conjugal relationship and not essential to it. They wanted to create their own family out of their marriage instead of importing someone else's child into the marriage so that they could have a 'normal family life'. To them it was the marital relationship which
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was the most valued and if they could not have their own children they preferred to remain childless. Personal beliefs and goals In addition to the beliefs already discussed, some accounts drew upon feelings about personal achievements. This was particularly so for some of the treated women who offered explanations in terms of personal creativity and the experience of pregnancy and delivery. One respondent was extremely concerned with her own feelings of femininity and, to her, pregnancy and childbirth were important for her feminine conciousness. None of the other respondents expressed this view and for them being a wife and mother were most important. Some expressed the feeling of a personal fulfilment in having 'created' a child and a more general feeling of personal non-fulfilment was felt by those who remained childless. However, few respondents mentioned these reasons and, of those who did, none stressed them as of primary importance. The way in which these reasons were advanced suggests that either such needs are regarded as only of peripheral importance or that they are seen as not socially acceptable; people should not have children for personal or selfish reasons. This was particularly clear in relation to having children to look after one in old age and might well be a constraint on the willingness of respondents to advance personal reasons. Conclusions In their reasons for wanting children, these respondents have been shown to draw heavily upon beliefs about the ordinariness of getting married and having some children in adult life. However, there was a marked difference between the treated and untreated respondents. For the majority of the untreated couples this was the only proffered reason for wanting children; they had always expected to have children when they married and had not really thought much about it. Having some children is part of the everyday activities of married adult life which generally goes unquestioned. The treated couples, on the other hand, tended to be far more explicit in their references to social conformity. Their childless position had made them aware of this usual pattern of life, and the majority of them had experienced marked feelings of being different. For them, wanting children was not simply a desire for conformity but also a desire to identify and communicate with significant others. Further, the situationally determined nature of the accounts is illustrated by the wider range of beliefs to which the treated respondents referred. Because they were outsiders from life as it is usually experienced, they were able to identify many of the taken-for-granted aspects of having children. And, clearly, these aspects are differentially experienced for, among the treated group, differences were found between male and female accounts, between those of respondents with and without children, and between those of different social class, life style and family background. Individuals are selective in the beliefs upon which they draw, and these beliefs are shaped by the particular experience of the individual. However, the common theme which occurs in all of the reasons given for wanting children is
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because it is seen as an ordinary or 'natural' part of adult life. It is the way that respondents interpret ordinariness which is situationally determined. This examination clearly identifies a further dimension to the study of fertility behaviour which earlier studies have neither indicated or explained; they have taken for granted both that married couples want children and their possible reasons for wanting them. The explanations incorporated in these models are therefore only partial, since they have ignored the underlying context of reproductive behaviour. It is clear that the sorts of reasons outlined above, which the respondents say govern starting a family, are not likely to be exactly the same as those for anticipating a specific size of family or those connected with birth intervals or family limitation, even if the latter also draw on ideas about the ordinariness of adult life. Furthermore, while a utility model, for example, might be appropriate in explaining family size and birth intervals, it does not provide the wider perspective which might be achieved by looking at the sociology of the family life cycle and related age patterns. The basic premise of the utility theories is the balance of tastes for children against available resources but, as Busfield & Paddon (1977) have demonstrated, there has been no attempt to examine how such tastes and resources are determined. By examining the broader social context of beliefs, values and actions in which parenthood occurs, a deeper understanding of reproductive behaviour and experience might be achieved. These data illustrate that by adopting this broader approach it is possible to identify the beliefs which structure the dominant adult life pattern in general, and initial fertility behaviour in particular. For the respondents in this study, marriage and children were regarded as a means of becoming 'ordinary' adults. However, these respondents were married couples in thechildbearing age range, of which two-thirds were infertile at some stage. Similar studies of different groups at different stages of the family or adult life cycle are likely to provide further evidence about the significance of children to adulthood. Through such an approach our understanding of both fertility behaviour and family relationships would be further developed. References BUSFIELD, J. (1974) Ideologies and reproduction. In: The Integration of the Child into a Social World. Edited by M. Richards. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. BUSFIELD, J. & PADDON, M. (1977) Thinking about Children. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. CAKTffmGwr,K. (1910) Parents and Family Planning Services. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. CARTWRIGHT, A. (1976) How Many Children! Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. DINGWALL, R.W.J. (1976) Aspects of Illness. Martin Robertson, London. FREEDMAN, R., WHELPTON, P.K. & CAMPBELL, A.A. (1959) Family Planning, Sterility and Population Growth. McGraw-Hill, New York. HAWTHORN, G. (1970) The Sociology of Fertility. Collier-Macmillan, London. PEEL, J. & CARR, G. (1975) Contraception and Family Design. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh. POHLMAN, E.H. (1969) The Psychology of Birth Planning. Schenkman, Cambridge, Mass. WHELPTON, P., CAMPBELL, A. & PATERSON, J. (1966) Fertility and Family Planning in the U.S.A. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. WOOLF, M. (1971) Family Intentions. HM Stationery Office, London. WOOLF, M. & PEGDEN, S. (1976) Families Five Years On. HM Stationery Office, London.
