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Mental health issues don't equal abusive. Plenty of people who can't claim mental illness have committed child abuse.
To me, a parent who acknowledges that they are having an issue & takes steps to treat it is anything BUT abusive.
There are some forms of mental illness involving severe psychotic breaks that children should be protected from, hopefully by the other parent. I'm in an online group where a wife is having to "protect" the kids from their father with paranoid schizophrenia but she "can't leave him". He had his first psychotic episode after the kids were already born & I think she just doesn't understand that this is her life now. She's got tough choices to make. Her husband stopped taking his meds & now thinks she & the kids are "lizard people" & it's his ordained duty to eliminate them.
IMO, she's committing neglect by not taking the kids to safety. If he hurts them (or worse), she's just as guilty of abuse as he is & she's not the one who is mentally ill.
I don't think the position of "inheritable mental illness" is viable. There are no single-gene causes of mental illness, only variants within the genes. Mental illness is multifactorial genetic. You can inherit many little flip-flopped AA-CC-GG-TT variants for alcoholism but if you make a choice not to expose yourself to alcohol, you won't be doomed to be an alcoholic, no matter how genetically predisposed you are. Nobody is born an alcoholic.
Schizophrenia associated variants are the same as the variants associated with Autism & Alzheimer's. They are located on genes controlling immune response. Which disorder one may trigger with an atypical immune exposure depends on what developmental stage they are in when it happens. If it happens. Plenty of people carry the variants for Schizophrenia but will never develop it.
Generally, I'd vote no. I'd only change this to yes if your mental illness is severe and not easily treated. Or if you have a significant history of failing to adhere to treatment protocols.
I'm the child of two parents with mental health issues. The issue wasn't that they struggled with mental health, it's that they never sought treatment, therapy, or healthy means of coping. We've all got the hand we've been dealt, but that means that we need to work on it, especially when choosing to have children. As an adult, I have gone years of no-contact with them, and am only in contact now because my parents left my brother and I to manage my grandmother's care (all while refusing to cede POA to the people involved in her day to day care as a means of control). I have requested that my parents seek mental health help in order to reopen the door for a more normal adult-child relationship... but they refuse to see how much their mental health has impacted their strained relationship with both of their children and the distance that is maintained between them and their grandchildren.
My brother now has 2 children despite dealing with severe depression. He's the best father I know - no competition - and that's largely because he began therapy the day he found out his wife was pregnant. It's helped him learn to deal, and he has been able to do so without medication.
I hope to have children in the next 2-3 years, and have been in therapy for anxiety for nearly a decade. My anxiety has the potential to impact my kids, and so it's all the more important that I learn more coping strategies to deal with it now.
I don't know if my brother and I's mental health issues stem from genetics, or because we had a fairly traumatic early childhood. No one would have called us happy children, and that stems directly from the environment we lived in. My niece and nephew, on the other hand, are bubbly, confident, happy kids who never question their place in the household or the level of love and support they feel from their parents. Even if they inherit their father's depression, they are already coming out ahead in those all too important early childhood years.
Great question. It can be a form of child abuse because if the parent(s) can't manage their own mental illness, how will they deal with their child(ren)'s? Unless you know your family's genetic history on both sides, it may(not) be wise to have kids.
Great question. It can be a form of child abuse because if the parent(s) can't manage their own mental illness, how will they deal with their child(ren)'s? Unless you know your family's genetic history on both sides, it may(not) be wise to have kids.
It seems like people don't care. Many people are selfish when it comes to having children. I've seen quite a few women with cancer whose prognosis isn't good try hard to have a baby because they want to experience motherhood come hell or high water.
Most people have someone in their family with some sort of mental illness. My grandfather was an alcoholic...he had 4 kids and none of them are alcoholics.
Great question. It can be a form of child abuse because if the parent(s) can't manage their own mental illness, how will they deal with their child(ren)'s? Unless you know your family's genetic history on both sides, it may(not) be wise to have kids.
I'm definitely not implying that mentally ill people can't raise children.
I think people are getting the wrong opinion on how I view the "abuse" part.
It's the possibility that the genes get passed on, not how a mentally ill person would parent, that I am concerned about and think could potentially be viewed as as "abuse".
My sister told me she was terrified she might get bipolar when she went off to college, but it never happened. Neither did my other sibling or I get bipolar.
With that said, my mom's brother had two children who I believe both have mental health issues (bipolar - one of them overdosed and died but I am not sure if he also had bipolar, but the other one for sure is bipolar.)
No. people with mental health issues should not have children. Children would suffer, either physically or mentally by it. Life is tough enough, as it is.
This female had SIX kids...and killed one of them. Just so sad. Drugs were the main issue but I'm sure she had some type of mental illness to lead to the drugs and think someone in her situation should have any kids nevermind 6.
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