The chapter urges readers to access a “hidden library” of motives before deciding about children. It introduces a Gestalt-style chair dialogue to separate the desire to parent from the desire to be childfree, revealing how external pressures can drown out an authentic no or yes. Readers are encouraged to revisit the exercise over time and use variants that simulate conversations with partners or relatives.

Next, the text probes early conditioning and body responses. Exercises revisit childhood attitudes toward babies, visualize pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, and distinguish attraction to gestation from the work of parenting. Case vignettes show Taylor grieving lost pregnancy experiences while affirming a childfree life, and Sonya confirming a commitment to long-term parenting rather than just childbearing.

Imagery brings parenting from abstraction to reality: holding and soothing an infant, imagining an ideal child, scanning stages from infancy through adolescence, and confronting fears via “monster” fantasies and the “wrong sex” thought experiment. Readers then test core values through epitaphs, surprise pregnancies, and the “knapsack” exercise that reveals tradeoffs; examples show some couples resisting losses while others reimagine schedules, money, and roles.

Career tensions are examined through scenarios of being passed over, medical time limits, infertility, and the impact of loss or singlehood. Timetable tools—weekly hour counts, life-cycle mapping, and the “rocking chair” regret test—encourage choosing the path one would regret least. The Betty Rollin misquote illustrates biased predictions of childfree regret, reframed as normal mixed feelings about the right decision.

Finally, readers mine the unconscious with diaries and dreams, rehearse practical supports via a “Swedish family hotel,” and imagine real discipline and caregiving moments. Couple-focused tools address decision power, changed minds since courtship, division of labor, and family sculptures of both futures. The chapter concludes with a pragmatic readiness checklist spanning safety, mental health, empathy, flexibility, sobriety, support systems, and relationship stability.