Kris Jenner is reportedly pressuring daughter Khloe Kardashian to have a baby pronto.
OK, I know it’s the new sexy Hollywood thing to be pregnant. It’s like “pregnant and hot” is the new “skinny!” I mean, when you look like Claudia Schiffer, Kourtney Kardashian and Kendra Wilkinson, I can understand the urge to bare your belly on the cover of Vogue or Us Weekly. The problem is, ladies, that babies only stay inside for nine months — and then you have a lifetime of love and commitment to impart. Your marriage may not survive the joyous trauma if it is done too quickly.
I’ve seen too many couples go down the road of too-early pregnancy followed by disastrous divorce. That’s why I’m appealing to Khloe to not listen to her mother, Kris Jenner. It’s all fine and dandy being the grandparent who gets to return the kid after a fun-filled day of playing and shopping, but it will be Khloe and Lamar who have to deal with the sleepless nights and exhaustion that go with having an infant. So, Kris: Back off for the sake of your daughter’s marriage!
Let’s face it: Khloe and Lamar were married just one month after meeting each other, which is a very quick courtship even by Hollywood standards. C’mon, they haven’t even hit 12 long months together! The problem with having a child too early is that it makes it hard for couples to develop the perseverance that comes from going through good and bad times together (times that don’t have anything to do with a breathing, eating and pooping human being!).
Going through a few seasons together allows you to know your partner more deeply and trust him to stick around (because he’s shown you that he’ll do so even when things get difficult, ugly, exhausting or annoying). We grow to love our partners in part because of the bond created simply by sharing a mutual story over time. Love, intimacy and relationship change over the course of years and deepen into a mutual commitment toward raising a family and creating a life.
When couples bring kids in too early, it upsets the bonding process and can make one or both of the partners want to jump out of the marriage because “it’s just too hard.” I’ve heard that comment countless times in my sessions with couples. I tell them, “Whoever said it was going to be easy?” Couples who’ve had less time to tend to their relationship often haven’t gotten past the “romantic love” stage — and the baby ushers that out very quickly!
These couples divorce faster because it seems like the “best” solution. They falsely believe that marriage and being a family is supposed to be easy and conflict-free, so to them the solution is to walk away. I have advised many couples to put off having their first (or second) child until after they’ve dealt with the issues they’ve come to see me about.
It’s best to create a really solid marriage before you have a beautiful baby bump to put on the cover of a magazine.