Sex after Kids: How are you doing?
Times Online Marriage and Sex Survery. By Jennifer Howze
Shining a light on this deeply private area of couple’s lives is not always easy. So when we posted a questionnaire on Times Online, we were not entirely sure what to expect.
So far nearly 1,700 men and women have answered questions that range from how often they have sex and how long it lasts, to how many children they have and whether the children have affected the quality of their sex lives. Many also wrote at length about their own experiences.
David Thompson – the only one of those we contacted who agreed to give his real name – spoke with lyrical nostalgia about a long walk in the woods with his girlfriend. The weather was perfect, no one else was around and they had nothing on their minds but each other; so they made love beneath the trees.
Now aged 37, Thompson is married to his girlfriend and a father of three. “Making love spontaneously outdoors is something we would never do now,” he said. “We’re too busy running after the kids, making sure they don’t beat each other with sticks.”
His experience seemed typical: most of the respondents to our survey agreed that having children meant having less time for love-making. Yet despite recent reports about the rise in sexless marriages, the overwhelming majority still had a sex life – and few complaints about its quality.
“Frequency has gone down because we are both constantly tired and frazzled with the demands of our jobs and looking after the family,” wrote a married mother of two, who said she had sex two to three times a month. “But quality has gone up, as we have got closer after the birth of our child . . . We trust each other more and so are more open with each other.”
In all, 1,675 respondents – 54% of them male – filled in the survey on the Times Online’s Alpha Mummy blog. While not strictly scientific – because the respondents were self-selected – it painted a reassuring picture of what happens to romance after having children. The majority of parents said they had sex more than once a month; and 63% said the frequency of their love-making ranged from several times a week to two to three times a month. For 46%, love-making sessions lasted 20-45 minutes, while 34% made love for up to 20 minutes and 3% for more than an hour.
Tiredness was the chief reason given for having less sex now than before having a family; causes of this included the sheer physical energy needed to look after children, disturbed nights, early starts, pressures at work and general stress.
One pregnant mother, who has one child, said the reason why she was having sex only two or three times a month was, in fact, nothing to do with having a baby. “Running our own business does more damage,” she wrote. Other reasons for less frequent sex included sharing a bed with children or sleeping in separate beds – in some cases so that fathers were not woken up when a baby needed to be breast-fed.
One mother of three complained that it was hard ever to escape from children – “I’m worried about little hands opening bedroom doors,” she wrote.
Sex with his wife was described by one father as “quick, covert, much like a military strike . . . My daughter seems to have been born with a built-in radar which informs her any time my wife and I try to get close . . . even if she’s in the other room . . . at two in the morning”.
Some parents said they stole private moments while the children were playing in the garden or when the nanny was on duty. “We have to make the most of the opportunities, but the quality seems to get better with age and experience,” wrote a father of three, who described sex with his girlfriend as “better than ever” after 13 years together.
It was striking just how many parents had a positive view of their sex lives – whatever the frequency. “The sex we have is really great. It is maybe not as saucy as it was when we first got together, but it is more effective in that we both know what the other likes and what works for us both,” said a mother of one, who has been with her husband for eight years. They still have sex several times a week: “Although sometimes I am tired and think I can’t be bothered, afterwards I always think how much fun it was and am so pleased that I made the effort.”
Another mother, who has three children, said: “Being constantly tired and busy with activities after school made it hard to feel ‘in the mood’. Once the kids were older and more independent, we could return to more intimacy, and now that the kids have left home it is great.”
Some in long-term relationships admitted that the ebb and flow of their sex lives did not necessarily have anything to do with having children.
“We thought children affected our sex life when they were very little; but looking back, it was better then than now,” wrote a mother of two, whose relationship has so far lasted 11 years. “It may be our age, or we may have just got lazy.”
According to Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Paranoid Parenting, mothers in particular can find parenting a desexualising experience. After a baby is born, he said, “there’s a sense that the baby becomes the priority; the body is given over to the child. And that is sometimes slightly contradictory to the woman as a sexual being”.
Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, says that there can be a tension between “the erotic and the domestic. Family life thrives in an atmosphere of consistency and stability. The erotic crumbles under routine”.
Several respondents recognised these strains in their relationships. “I believe that my partner saw me as a mother/housewife rather than as being a sexually attractive, interesting woman,” said a mother of one.
And a father wrote: “Being in the birthing room was very traumatic for me. Taking second place to our child hurt our sex life . . . I think we both withdrew from the sex part of the relationship.”
One father of two, who had been in a relationship for five years, said: “After the second child, desire just disappeared and never really came back to full strength – and it’s been three years.” The couple’s love-making – two to three times a month – was, however, “great when you get it”.
Another father said that his love life had dwindled to having formulaic sex several times a year: “It was never the right moment so I gave up trying . . .”
On the other hand, many felt that pregnancy and parenthood had put renewed energy into their relationships. “It’s great now because she’s pregnant and has a sex craving,” said a father who has sex about once a week.
Perel said this was not uncommon. “There are lots of women who actually discover through pregnancy, through birth, nursing and bonding with a child, a whole new sense of themselves as women – physically, sexually and sensually.”
The iron bonds of parenthood can often reinforce a relationship, according to Furedi. “Having kids and having some very positive shared experiences bring people together,” he said. “A good sex life for a couple depends on there being a kind of bond, a friendship – it’s what gives you confidence to relax.”
What can be done if the sexual spark between a couple has simply fizzled out? Scheduling time to be alone together is vital, advises Suzi Godson, author of The Sex Book. Perel advises going out for a meal, dancing – anything that the couple will both enjoy. “Just don’t talk about the kids,” she says.
However, one desperate parent asked: but what else is there to talk about by that stage in a relationship?
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