I really admire my husband for loving children enough to consider their well being more than our desire to have them. If he wasn't certain we would do right by them, he'd rather not have them at all. So many people today have children with no consideration for the child, whether they'll be able to meet any of the child's needs, physically or emotionally, they just do it for their own sense of purpose.
Although my sense of purpose was greatly tied to having children, a lot of that had to do with how much I knew I could provide them. Not just physically. I knew of so many mistakes parents made that I could avoid, and I made sure to stay tuned in to how it felt to be me as a child so that I could help my children avoid my mistakes. And I knew my husband had a lot of wisdom to share as well. Not to mention love, I knew we had so much love to give away.
But that didn't stop him from worrying he would somehow ruin our children. He did not have a good example of a father for him to pattern himself after, in fact he mostly had no example. He wasn't a natural with children, and he had a lot of instincts but not much practice, so he wasn't sure of himself. And in general he didn't like doing anything that he couldn't succeed at, and being a parent wasn't something he was sure he could succeed at.
I of course re-assured him that there is no such thing as a perfect parent, all parents are a afraid of making mistakes and do make mistakes. Most of those mistakes are largely inconsequential in the bigger picture, and even the big mistakes don't always ruin their children. The people we raise them to be plays a big part in how they deal with our mistakes. He was a perfect example of that.
Not to mention, would he be any less afraid of those mistakes in just about a year and a half from now, when I hit the magical 30? Of course not....he had just hoped for as much time as possible to get used to the idea that he was going to be a dad some day.
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