Talking About Having Children Before Marriage: The Questions Every Couple Needs to Answer

The question “do you want kids?” is often the only children-related conversation couples have before getting engaged. It’s not enough.

Whether, when, how many, and how you’ll raise children are among the most consequential decisions you’ll make as a couple — and the details matter. Two people who both answer “yes, I want children” can still have wildly different, irreconcilable visions for what that means in practice.

This guide walks through the essential questions every couple should answer before getting married — not to be exhaustive, but to make sure nothing important gets assumed.

Start Here: The Non-Negotiables

Before you get into the nuances, make sure you’ve genuinely answered the foundational questions:

Do you both want children? This is the non-compromise question. If one partner wants children and the other doesn’t, that is a fundamental incompatibility — not a preference gap that can be negotiated away over time. Be honest, and take each other’s answers seriously.

When do you want to start a family? “Someday” is not an answer. Try to get specific: do you want to be married for at least a few years first? Do you want to start trying right away? Is there a financial threshold — a certain income, a paid-off debt, a home — before you feel ready?

How many children are you thinking? Not everyone has a specific number in mind, but most people have a range. One vs. four is a significant difference in life structure, finances, and relationship dynamics. Make sure your ranges are at least compatible.

Have you covered all the essentials? Download the Before Yes app — includes a dedicated set of family and parenting questions to work through together before the wedding. Free on iOS.

Questions About Parenting Philosophy

Even if you agree on whether and when to have children, your approaches to parenting can diverge dramatically. These conversations often don’t happen until after the baby arrives — by which point you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and arguing.

Have them before the wedding instead:

• How do you think about discipline? Are you drawn toward structure and boundaries, or a more permissive approach? Did the way you were parented shape this, and has your thinking evolved?
• How will you balance work and parenting? Will one partner stay home, or will you both continue working? How will you handle childcare — family help, nannies, daycare? Who bears the primary caregiving burden day to day?
• What values do you most want to instill? Religion, education, work ethic, kindness, independence — what matters most to you, and are you aligned?
• How will you handle screen time, social media, and technology? This is increasingly important and couples often have strong, divergent views.
• What role will extended family play? Will grandparents be deeply involved? Will you rely on family for childcare? What boundaries do you want around that involvement?

Questions About Faith and Religion

For many couples, how children are raised religiously is one of the most significant points of potential conflict. This is especially true in interfaith couples, but even couples from the same tradition can have very different levels of observance.

• Will you raise your children in a specific faith?
• Will children be baptized, have a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, or go through other religious ceremonies?
• How much of a role will religious practice play in day-to-day family life?
• What happens if a child, as a teenager or adult, rejects the religion they were raised in?

There are no universally right answers — but you need shared answers, or at least a genuine agreed-upon approach to navigating differences.

Questions About Education

• Public school, private school, or homeschooling?
• How important is academic achievement to you? What’s the right balance between academic pressure and childhood freedom?
• How will you handle it if a child struggles in school?
• Do you have views on college — is it an expectation? Will you save for it? What if a child doesn’t want to go?

Questions About Finances and Children

Children are expensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the average cost of raising a child to age 18 at over $300,000 — and that doesn’t include college.

• Have you modeled what your finances will look like with children? How will having children change your budget?
• How will you handle the income reduction if one partner reduces work hours or stops working entirely?
• Will you save for college, and how?
• What’s your approach to giving children money — allowances, financial education, gifts?

What If You Have Different Parenting Backgrounds?

Many of the friction points in parenting arise from the fact that partners were raised differently — and often default to recreating what they know, or reacting against it.

Talking explicitly about your upbringings — what you loved, what you’d do differently, what shaped your views on family — is some of the most valuable preparation you can do.

Questions worth asking:

• What did your family do really well that you want to carry forward?
• What do you want to consciously do differently from how you were raised?
• Were there significant parenting differences between your parents, and how did that affect you?
• How did conflict get handled in your childhood home — and how has that influenced how you approach conflict now?

If Fertility Is a Question

If either partner has known fertility challenges, or if you’re older and starting to think about timelines, these conversations need to happen before marriage:

• How far would you be willing to go with fertility treatments?
• Have you both considered adoption, and how do you feel about it?
• If you’re unable to have biological children, would that change your relationship or your vision for the future?

These are hard conversations, but they’re ones that couples who face fertility challenges wish they’d had earlier.

When You’re Not Aligned

If you discover real misalignment in these conversations — not just different preferences but fundamentally incompatible visions — that’s important information. Couples therapy or premarital counseling is the right place to work through it.

Some differences can be bridged through honest conversation and compromise. Some cannot. The goal of these conversations isn’t to resolve everything neatly — it’s to make sure you both know where you actually stand before you make a lifetime commitment.

For the broader set of questions worth asking before marriage, see our list of 50 essential questions to ask before marriage.

The Bottom Line

Talking about children before marriage isn’t just the “do you want kids?” conversation. It’s a series of specific, sometimes difficult discussions about parenting philosophy, religion, finances, education, and family values.

The couples who have these conversations — really have them, not just brush past the surface — arrive at parenthood with far fewer surprises and far more capacity to navigate the hard moments together.

Start those conversations now, before the wedding, when you have the space and clarity to think clearly. The Before Yes app includes a dedicated set of family and parenting questions to help you work through this together.