So, I have just returned from sunny and sexy Tanzania where I enjoyed my time a great deal. While in Tanzania and travelling through the gem that is Dubai, I was certainly constantly chilling, and contemplating when necessary. And naturally the existential questions sprouted in the mind as they do.
“Why do people have children?” I wondered over and over again. Simple question it seems to be, but I thought long and hard and wondered whether people just want to see clones of themselves in the children, want to legitimize their marriages, want to witness a person
(or something) grow, want to re-live their lives, want to offer someone else a better life than they had?
I mean, the way some people treat their children once those children are born is almost as if they entertain the idea of a child but not so much the existence of one. I know this is a very Philip Larkin type of post but I would like to hear what the chillers’ thoughts are on this. There is just no way that EVERYONE who has children wants to have children.
As I sit inside looking out, the mind wanders back to much the same balcony-posed dilemma. Ironic that we mulled there, on the cusp, within and without, pondering and envisioning.
ReplyDeleteWho of us can speak for parenthood, the term at large? "[R]e-liv[ing] their lives"? Some parents realize themselves through their children. Insight late in life? But that should be ever sprouting. Some human beings never realize themselves. I have of course one in mind.;) They drop themselves to lesser people and are confounded by the correct way to display emotion, feeling little of themselves. Their children stumble. Sometimes trip, trip, trippety-trip...but they are conscious always and conscientious.
Other parents, the counterpart- again who will always be in my mind, body and endeavours- live to give. Live to be parents. It is their one role that is uncompromising. Their child is the self who they love more. They may not be born out of gratification but they give purpose. And these parents give eternal support and love. Who can ask for anything more?
So are my thoughts. But then, there is no objective wonderment.
In the words of T.S. Elliot:
' But there's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech
This love is silent.'
-from THE ELDER STATESMAN
I personally, at my present state of being, do not see the point of having children. Why would anybody want to 'create' a bunch of responsibilities and hassles...and gain what?
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you have read The Selfish Gene, in that book Dawkins gives an evolutionary explanation of why we WANT and NEED to have children. It goes something like this...we as humas bodies are machines...and we run on the code that is our DNA...it controls us...it determines what we do...how we think...what actions we take and what choices we make...it is embeded in every microscopic partlice that makes us what we are...we are just robots following the 'divine' instructions...So Dawkins explains that we have children because the DNA wants to live on...as any human being wants to live on...but a human body has limitations...it cannot live for million of years...so to solve the problem the selfish gene or the DNA engineers a process by which we reproduce and it lives on forever and ever...
While my children may not be born from me, as a woman I feel that my capacity to love will only be realised once I am a mother. It is the most powerful love I have known.
ReplyDeleteWhile safe-keeping your own genes is what Dawkins terms selfish, there is no doubt that a human being cannot give more of their selves, physically and mentally, than a mother does to a child as it grows.
Yes, there are mothers for whom children are but a carnal burden. Very few and far between, but they exist.
But don't exceptions prove rules? This is the one time I am forced to ask, is the situation different for a man and a woman?
It might be different for a man than for a woman because the extrenal pressure/expectations of parenthood from society are different.
ReplyDeletee.g. expectations to marry are different, expectations to raise children AND stay in the marriage are different. And parenthood is gendered. A father can be cruel, abusive and spit on his kids and it will be more acceptable than if a woman deviates from being caring, warm and actually there.
Right well the argument is that we want these things because we are so conditioned societally or because we want to see ourselves. That may all be true, but despite genes and society it is different for us physically.
ReplyDeleteWomen really do suffer all their lives to have children. Why should they accept all the pain without gain? It is difficult to imagine all the pain and bloodshed that they go through for a quarter of their lives for just one singular purpose. Inclinations are bound to be quite different.