What I Wish I Asked my Partner Before We Had Kids

Common advice to would-be parents is to talk about parenting before starting a family. But which questions will actually yield useful answers? We spoke to five parents about questions to ask your partner before having kids.

“How involved do you plan to be in the day-to-day care of the baby?”

Tessa’s husband knew he wanted kids for longer than she did, which led her, she says, to believe he would be involved. But during their first daughter’s early months, Tessa found herself responsible for caring for all their baby’s needs—her husband stepped in only when she couldn’t, to change a pee diaper or get her dressed. “I told him I was worried he was going to miss out on these early stages, and he said the equivalent of ‘I’m good.’ Turns out, he’s not really into babies.”

It was a hard realization, but in some ways, it made Tessa’s experience with her second child easier. “I went in with realistic expectations,” she says. “This time, I’m doing everything.” Their second daughter is nearly seven months old, and her husband has never changed her diaper or dressed her. “He’ll hold her for a little while, but he doesn’t actually care for her.”

Once their eldest was a toddler and more able to play, he became much more involved. It was then, says Tessa, that he was able to look back and realize he was nervous about caring for an infant. “Even now, though, I’m the only one doing the bedtime routine. He’ll help with brushing teeth and pyjamas, but I’m the one who is in the room until she’s asleep. It would be nice to sometimes have that time to myself.”

“Which resources will we turn to for help?”

When it comes to seeking out advice, new parents tend to fall into two groups: those who are willing to accept insight from anyone who’s been through it, and those who don’t trust anyone whose name isn’t followed by a series of accreditations—the more scientific the better. Gabrielle and Max realized they weren’t in the same camp early on, when their now three-year-old was just a few months old.

“He was waking up six or seven times per night, and it was really starting to get to us,” says Gabrielle. The couple heard from multiple parent friends that co-sleeping was the only way they got through that phase, but Gabrielle knew that expert organizations like the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended against the practice.

“It seemed completely wild to me that I would prioritize my own sleep and add risk to my kid’s life,” she says, “but my partner tends to trust friends and family. He didn’t see it as ‘a big deal’.”

Gabrielle never ended up co-sleeping with her son—she was the one getting up, after all, so she was able to call that particular shot. (“Plus, I had science on my side,” she says.) But the issue of the two camps kept coming up. Feeding, toilet training, developmental milestones—there’s no shortage of hurdles new parents need to clear.

Gabrielle would usually end up getting her way as she’d dig up detailed safety reports, and Max would give in. “The problem was that I always came across as a controlling psychopath when really it just came from a place of wanting to protect my kid,” she says. Like many moms-to-be, Gabrielle spent countless hours researching parenting when she was pregnant.

“If I’d asked Max to do some research too, we might have been more aligned when it came to taking advice. I’d likely have more of an ally in those moments, too, rather than looking like a helicopter mom. It probably would have made some of those phases less frustrating and scary, too.”

“What are your thoughts on screens?”

“My husband was a TV kid,” says Vanessa. “Whereas I grew up without one, which I think led to my love of reading, conversation, theatre and other hands-on fun.” So when it came to their own son, now five-and-a-half, she wanted to avoid screens altogether, while her husband couldn’t wait until their kid was old enough to start playing video games. “We knew we’d have to compromise, but it’s been a struggle,” she says.

The couple went no screens until their son was two. Since he’s started playing with an iPad and sometimes watches TV with his dad. “It’s more than I’d like,” says Vanessa, “But it does allow us to take a breather from the onslaught of parenthood.”

And while she hates the idea of video games, she knows they’re inevitable in her house—her husband would play all day if it were up to him, and her son is getting a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. She’s trying to make peace with it. “It’s going to be a nice thing for him and his dad to do together, while I spend that time taking care of me.”

Screens still irk her though, and drum up a lot of feelings of guilt and anger. “Plus it just seems lazy to me,” she says. “But I have to let him parent in a way that works for his relationship with our son.”

She’s sought out ways to intentionally minimize the impact of TV time on her own quality of life. “I read when they’re watching TV and my son uses headphones while on his iPad so I don’t have to hear it.” And though the couple has rules around the use of screens—time limits, and never outside the house (except on travel days)—Vanessa finds she’s the one who has to enforce them. “If I didn’t set a timer and require the shutdown, it wouldn’t happen. It’s frustrating, but it matters to me.”

“How much do you know about child development, and how much are you interested in learning?”

Matilda* and Tom* have a smart, engaging, playful four-year-old named Frances.* And as anyone who’s ever parented a four-year-old knows, it’s a tricky age—they can be delightfully curious and creative one minute, demanding and uncooperative the next. But each phase of child development has its peaks and valleys, and Matilda—a journalist-turned-academic—has enjoyed diving in and learning about each.

“I was really excited to research best practices, try—and fail—with those tools, then find new ones, and generally navigate the ups and downs of raising a child.” Tom, she feels, is operating on instinct, using the same tools he was raised with.

Like most kids her age, Frances can have big reactions that sometimes turn into big meltdowns. “When that happens, I try to apply what I’ve read about acknowledging feelings and offering safe options to manage them,” says Matilda. “On the other hand, Tom doesn’t understand why she’s making ‘a big deal out of nothing.’ He gets annoyed at the screaming and usually ends up raising his voice, too, so I end up having to de-escalate two crises instead of one.”

She’s since asked him to just remove himself from the situation if it’s too much so that she can focus on Frances. “I can see he’s making a huge effort to apply what I’ve asked, but it doesn’t feel like a team effort. And a lot of strategies I try to put in place don’t hold, either because I flinch and need backup, or it’s a two-person job. I need his help, ” she says.

“It’s hard because we can’t go back in time. But now I understand that I wanted to actively raise a child, while he just wanted a child because that’s what people do. He didn’t think about the nitty-gritty of it and how parental knowledge and involvement has changed—for the better—since we grew up.”

“What do we do if our village disappears?”

Tania* and her husband Jack* had been together for 12 years before they had kids, so they thought they’d hashed it all out. They also thought they had a solid village to support them, including Jack’s cousins, with whom he was very close, his sister, and their children, as well as friends they considered to be family.

“We were the auntie and uncle who did everything with our nieces and nephews,” says Tania. “Babysitting, sleepovers, lake days, treehouse dates, Christmas shopping outings.” When Jack’s sister had twin newborns and a four-year-old to deal with, they were there every week.

When one of his cousins changed jobs and needed someone to watch their one-year-old son three days a week for a few months, Tania and Jack showed up. “We were the people his family counted on when it came to their kids, so naturally we thought it would be the same for us.”

Then Tania and Jack’s first child was born in mid-March 2020, the same weekend the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the globe. “At first, we thought our village was closed because the world was closed,” says Tania. But even as the restrictions loosened, Tania and Jack felt like they were still living in isolation.

“The people who had relied on us for everything didn’t check in.” As Jack’s sister’s kids got older and no longer needed adult supervision, she stopped bringing them around. No aunties were helping out with bathtime, or sleepovers with the grandparents. Then they had their second child in the fall of 2022. Jack’s sister couldn’t commit—“or wouldn’t, given she had six months notice”—to watching their firstborn during Tania’s scheduled C-section. “That’s when reality really hit—the village we thought we’d be able to count on was gone.”

Then one of Tania’s newer connections—a fellow mom she met through work—offered to take care of her toddler while she gave birth to her second child. She’s one of two really amazing “mom friends” who Tania says have been there for her and her family in ways she never could have anticipated.

Offers of help did show up, from unexpected places: Tania’s new mom friends, one of their mothers, an aunt, another cousin. But Tania and Jack weren’t able, to immediately let these people in. “We started forcing ourselves to say yes. And if we’d talked this through earlier, we might have learned to accept help from all these wonderful people sooner,” says Tania. “Because the village we have—the one we created and let in—is pretty amazing.”

*Some names have been changed.