I just called having children a burden in my last post. I stand by that claim though perhaps a better term would be 'very large opportunity cost'. Children are expensive. There's nothing really that complicated about the idea. Aside from the financial costs, there are the obvious time obligations and potential emotional burdens if for some reason you irrationally develop feelings for them. Hey, everyone makes mistakes. (Sarcasm much?)
By choosing (at some level) to have children, you accepted the obligations that such a decision requires. It's a very one-sided contract too and rightly so. You chose to have them. They didn't get much say in the matter. Thus, for 18 years you owe them. There is nothing that you can make them do, only that which you can persuade them to do. Remember, your children do not exist to make you happy or fulfill your unachieved goals or serve as a tax deduction. You exist to provide them with a reasonable opportunity to make themselves into independent and capable adults. That is the implied social contract you made with the world when you had them.
Despite all this apparent cynicism, I very much want to have children one day (though not anytime too soon). While children do not exist to make their parents happy, that does not mean that they cannot do so. It just means that it isn't the purpose of their existence. Be aware that the singular act of having a child should not make someone happy. The connection needs to be deeper than that (and I imagine that it usually is, but most people just don't realize it). For me, I expect raising children to be an aggravatingly enjoyable experience from which I will derive a great deal of happiness. That happiness will exist because I believe I will find the experience fulfilling in that it will help me be a better person. It will teach me about myself and others and in simple yet complex terms, the human condition. Thus, I will be happy because the process enabled me to learn a great deal. However, timing counts too. I am not currently suited to enjoy the potential benefits of having a child now, thus I can best reap the rewards when having children is a fairly deliberate decision.
Of course, I pretend to know all this when the whole child process is still several years out. I guess I'll see how close I was when I get there.
5 comments:
I am the proud parent of two young adults They are never a burden to me. I can brag about them all day long because they gave me a lot of joy with occasional pain in the you know where while growing up.
So what happened recently to make you think about the joys and obligations of having children?
i've been thinking about this exact issue a LOT lately and agree pretty completely with your thoughts. mmmm that feels nice.
seems that sometimes the problem is that parents, as normal fallible human beings, inherently feel to some degree that their children do owe them gratitude for having been brought into the world- that this gratitude should be a natural human response to being 'given' life, and children are therefore ungrateful brats if that gratitude isn't there, or if it doesn't manifest itself in some display of respect. i think this is one of the hardest things, as a parent, to overcome- getting over yourself.
trying to understand how hugely exhausting and terrifying and rewarding parenthood must be, i've got huge baby fever sometimes. but, you know, not in that scary way.
lalala.
Nothing happened recently. I've thought about all these things in more or less these terms for a while now. I just have a manufactured forum to air these ideas on now.
interesting pontification from someone who hasn't had the joys.....and sorrows of being a parent.
Some people would say that adults who choose to remain single all their lives are just selfish and self-centered. I think the decision is a good one but only if both husband and wife have together decided against having children.
I wish more people would take parenthood seriously and be prepared financially and emotionally before bring a child into the world. But that seems to rarely happen these days.
Every parent's wish for their child is that they will grow up to be a productive and contributing member of society....and that they don't leave this world before they do.
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