It frustrates me that critics/reviews have framed Peter B Parker’s unwillingness to have kids as being due to his arrested development psychologically. I keep seeing people say that he’s stuck in the glory days of his early superhero career and isn’t mentally capable of moving forward into the next chapter of his life, thus costing him his marriage with MJ. 

But like?

The guy’s an orphan who knew what it was like to grow up without parents. He also knew what it felt like to lose a parent figure as an adolescent. And now he has a side gig that has him basically putting his life on the line every night and putting the people he loves straight into harm’s way. Mary Jane is an adult who can choose whether or not she wants to be a part of that life, but their hypothetical child would have absolutely no choice whatsoever. 

So while he clearly didn’t handle it well with MJ and should have been more emotionally available and honest, I don’t blame the guy for being hesitant to bring a defenseless child into the path of people like Kingpin/Dock Ock/etc. And because I feel very protective of my “janky old broke hobo Spider-Man”, I don’t like that this part of his character is blamed on immaturity, rather than a reasonable fear.

In this essay I will-