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As with so many things, perception is from extrapolation of personal experience.
Does one celebrate the fact that one was born? Then perhaps there’s merit in trying to have children, passing on the gift, as it were. Does one instead regret having been born? Then it would be cruel and duplicitous to pass on the curse, by participating in the formation of new human life.
Something along those lines....maybe.
They say people have children for a kind of immortality but over the years, I see my immortality as spiritual, not mortal.
And then, in personality psychology, one of the theories we learn is the 5 levels of development, as I recall, 2 more past Superego. At stage 4, a person becomes integrated with society. At stage 5, that is when the concept of having a family occurs.
Stage 4 people who never get to stage 5 are not faulty but rather, those who serve society such as Priests (using the term in general for religions where they don't marry) and Enforcers.
Hm. I don't regret being born at all. I love living life. But I think the fact that I didn't want kids was because, rather than seeing it as a way to be immortal, I saw it as erasure of my personhood, and a very great loss of freedom and autonomy.
Like my distinct accomplishments would then be nothing, all that matters is my service to my kids. I'm just another name in a chain of names forming some family tree that nobody cares about. Like, I did the ancestry.com thing for a while, and I was so disappointed about how little information I've got about so many of my ancestors, besides a name and some basic vital statistics...especially the women. The men, you might get where they traveled and what their vocations were. The women were just walking wombs, to history. The ones closer to me in the lineage, not all of the stories have been lost...but I don't feel like the kids much care, so maybe they will be. But even if my kids carry my memory into the future, it can't be more than a few generations before it's all but gone, really. It's not like writing books, making art, designing buildings. And at some point, your kids...you can't really control all of their influences, and they can end up being more bad than good no matter how hard you try to raise them well, so there's no way to know if you are making the world a better place ultimately, or adding more pain and suffering, either.
Raising kids...I don't know, there was just a lot of it that was so thankless, and so brutally expensive in terms of every resource I could possibly have to offer.
But though I see my reasoning so clearly now, and knew it so clearly before I conceived...I'm telling you, nature does not mess around. That love so great it was like a magical madness was on me, I chalk it up to hormones & brain chemistry.
Another way to look at it is that as you age all your past accomplishments, your health, your relevance as a human to others are all greatly diminished and eventually fade away. For the vast majority their only lasting accomplishment was perpetuation of the species. The furthest back in the history of their family that most people have knowledge of is their grandparents and a little bit of their great grandparents. Anything before that is lost forever. But I do know I am here because of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
Hm. I don't regret being born at all. I love living life. But I think the fact that I didn't want kids was because, rather than seeing it as a way to be immortal, I saw it as erasure of my personhood, and a very great loss of freedom and autonomy.
Like my distinct accomplishments would then be nothing, all that matters is my service to my kids. I'm just another name in a chain of names forming some family tree that nobody cares about. Like, I did the ancestry.com thing for a while, and I was so disappointed about how little information I've got about so many of my ancestors, besides a name and some basic vital statistics...especially the women. The men, you might get where they traveled and what their vocations were. The women were just walking wombs, to history. The ones closer to me in the lineage, not all of the stories have been lost...but I don't feel like the kids much care, so maybe they will be. But even if my kids carry my memory into the future, it can't be more than a few generations before it's all but gone, really. It's not like writing books, making art, designing buildings. And at some point, your kids...you can't really control all of their influences, and they can end up being more bad than good no matter how hard you try to raise them well, so there's no way to know if you are making the world a better place ultimately, or adding more pain and suffering, either.
Raising kids...I don't know, there was just a lot of it that was so thankless, and so brutally expensive in terms of every resource I could possibly have to offer.
But though I see my reasoning so clearly now, and knew it so clearly before I conceived...I'm telling you, nature does not mess around. That love so great it was like a magical madness was on me, I chalk it up to hormones & brain chemistry.
This is not a question I would feel comfortable posing to anyone I know personally (like money, the subject is too "sacred" for family, lol) but I've been wondering for ages if anyone could explain their thought process if there was one, for their decision to have kids.
If it was just "automatic" or "expected" that is a decent reason, but if you really gave it thought, what was your reasoning?
Those of us without the maternal gene, would like to know! Thanks....
My mother and I were always exceptionally close. I knew I wouldn't always have her around, and I wanted to experience that same bond with a child of my own. Other than that, I really didn't have much of a "material gene" myself. And other people's kids do absolutely nothing except annoy me.
I have long thought that the instinctive drive is to be sexual and the side effect is reproduction.
I’d think it was the opposite. The instinctive drive is to reproduce, the side effect is that sex is plearsurable.
I never never wanted kids at all, until I did. Then I wanted them so much, it was crazy. I do believe in that biological clock. It was almost like a switch was flipped, I want a baby I want a baby I want a baby. Never regretted it, yet 2 was perfect for us.
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