What are your thoughts on having children?

[Candice]

My whole life I’ve never wanted a child. Not because I dislike them but because I’ve never felt a “want”, “need” nor “call”. Neither does my partner.

However we have always maintained that should this change we’d adopt. I’d love any little being with my whole heart no matter if they’re not my personal “blood” or shared genetics.

If the coming “bad times” are near or in my lifetime there may very well be many children in my community without parents due to catastrophic events. I’ve already decided that I will step up to take care of them in any capacity I can. May that be as a teacher, minder, provider of food or as a parent.

I really hope that people who feel the “call” to have their own child do not put this on hold due to fears of the future. This may very well be part of your purpose this lifetime.

 

[loreta]

Something you could add to that is to think of how you can already be like the mother you would like to be. What are the actual traits that you want to develop/manifest, and how to put them to use now? No, it's not the same, and may be a small consolation for you, but I think it helps separate the biological drives and conditioning, from more noble longings and things you can manifest in your life right now. That can put you in a better position to decide later on.

How savior are these words, how beautiful put. Thanks Chu!

I decided not to have children for a couple of reasons. One, because our mother, my sister and I, instilled in us from a very young age, that having us was horrible. So having children was horrible. So to be a mother was monstrous. A program like so many programs. A brain-wash. And also because I didn't feel responsible enough, i.e. adult enough, to have them. And finally because having children in such a crazy world seemed absurd. In fact my sister didn't have children either.

I also think that I didn't have the courage, so I felt guilty for not being brave some years ago when I was young. Surely there is some selfishness on my part. And then my husband didn't want a child either.

Now, considering where humanity is going, I am happy not to have children. And I don't feel guilty at all. I can be a mother in my own way, I mean I can be maternal.

We are an integral part of our culture, our society and our family here. I am also a child of a time, of a country and of parents who lived through war and lived under a dictatorship. You will say that this has nothing to do with it... I think it does. I am also a child of parents who did not love each other. All this I could have said: ok, I will have a child to heal, to heal my family, to heal myself. But it didn't happen. I was not ready. The circumstances of life, that we choose, obviously. But I like what Chu says, the possibility to be the mother we wanted to be.

To be also a mother for myself. It is not easy.

 

[rideforever]

Another thing for me ... is that with my own family it was a long and painful and arduous journey that we all took together. We experienced many things very great, very wonderful, very unusual, and also very dark, very bleak, very nightmarish. I have seen people suffer, people I loved, people were destroyed, betrayed, but there was also great hope and joy.

And it feels to me that it's done already. I have already "had children" in a certain way. I have had the family experience in a deep way, a shocking way, I have seen into the whites of everyone eyes in sickness and in health. So those who wish to have a family to get close to people and experience people more closely, those from simpler backgrounds .... are looking for something that for me is finished.

Children are good in a certain phase of your life, in the spring maybe ... as you are flowering, then the children flow with you into adulthood, you are still close enough to childhood to be with them and you travel together. Having children later on ... as if trying to remember something ... is different. Younger families seem more natural in my experience.

I am probably trying to convince myself of something here. A friend of mine is 55 has just had more children with a new woman, he has children in NZ and now in the UK. He seems very happy about it, a natural father spreading his DNA far and wide. A conventional person.

Another Qigong teacher I know who refused to have children now has had one, he is also 55-60 years old. He said he gave up resisting.

Anyway for me, I am quite distant from society now ... I have no idea what is going on.

 

[Adaryn]

People who aren't in bodies don't exist. By bringing them into existence you are inflicting a serious harm on them that they would otherwise not experience, in their state of non-existence. So having no experience is better than having a bad experience, apparently. Although the hypothetical person in question can't really express any opinion on whether or not they would like to have a bad experience because they don't exist, apparently.

I haven't watched Benatar and Peterson's debate, but I've perused Benatar's Wiki page.

Benatar is vegan, and has taken part in debates on veganism. He has argued that humans are "responsible for the suffering and deaths of billions of other humans and non-human animals. If that level of destruction were caused by another species we would rapidly recommend that new members of that species not be brought into existence." He has also argued that the outbreak of zoonotic diseases, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is often the result of how humans mistreat animals. Benatar is an atheist and has stated that he has no children of his own

He seems to heavily borrow his ideas from Emil Cioran, a Romanian born nihilistic and pessimistic writer (1911-1995), who lived in France for a great part of his life and mostly wrote in French. He wrote books such as The Trouble With Being Born. I listened to a radio show the other day about him and his life. In an audio clip he explained how he always felt that his existence was absurd and how it brought him to the ultimate state of despair. What dissuaded him from commiting suicide is a "revelation" he had when his mother confided to him when he was young that she wished she didn't have him and had an abortion instead. He said that it brought him instant relief because he realized that he could never have been born, that he was just an accident:

I’ll tell you an anecdote that played a role in my life. I was about twenty-two and one day I was in a terrible state. We were living in Sibiu, a city in the provinces where I spent my whole youth, and where my father was the priest of the city. That day, there was only my mother and me at home, and---when I remember things, I remember them very precisely, I even remember the hour, it’s very strange---I think it was around two in the afternoon, everyone else had gone out. All of a sudden, I had a fantastic fit of despair, I threw myself on the sofa and said, “I can’t take it anymore!” And my mother said this: “If I had known, I would have had an abortion.” That made an extraordinary impression on me. It didn’t hurt me, not at all. But after, I said, “That was very important. I’m simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?” Because, in effect, it’s all without substance.

He did ask some pertinent questions about the purpose of man's existence, but the "answers" he found were wrong, a dead-end. His thinking is an illustration of non-being and ultimate nihilism.

To give an idea, here are some of his aphorisms:

As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and aesthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?

“I would like to be free, totally free… free like an aborted child”

My vision of the future is so exact that if I had children, I should strangle them here and now.

Is it possible that existance is our exile and nothingness our home?”

"Nothing proves that we are more than nothing."

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

“When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, “What’s your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act.” And they do calm down.”

“If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis-the dream of every consciousness sick of itself.”

“To have committed every crime but that of being a father.”

“Even in childhood I watched the hours flow, independent of any reference, any action, any event, the disjunction of time from what was not itself, its autonomous existence, its special status, its empire, its tyranny. I remember quite clearly that afternoon when, for the first time, confronting the empty universe, I was no more than a passage of moments reluctant to go on playing their proper parts. Time was coming unstuck from being—at my expense.”

“Each time I have a lapse of memory, I think of the anguish which must afflict those who know they no longer remember anything. But something tells me that after a certain time a secret joy possesses them, a joy they would not agree to trade for any of their memories, even the most stirring. …”

Cioran brought his line of thinking to its natural conclusion by dying at 84 of Alzheimer's disease.

 

[loreta]

If the coming “bad times” are near or in my lifetime there may very well be many children in my community without parents due to catastrophic events. I’ve already decided that I will step up to take care of them in any capacity I can. May that be as a teacher, minder, provider of food or as a parent.

That reminds me of Etty Hillesum that decided by herself that her place at this moment was to go to a nazi concentration camp to be able to take care of the children, even if some friends were able to save her to go to Westerbork. Yes, children need us, need to be protected and loved specially when Hell is on earth.

 

[SlipNet]

This has been a question on my mind today, as I just got back on facebook after a 5 year break, and I noticed that 3 of my old mates from town are now parents. I'd been out of contact with them all this time, and I was really surprised to see how their lives have changed over the years. There's no jealousy, but I couldn't help feeling like I was the odd one out, left behind in this crazy world of continual challenges. It certainly gave me pause for thought today I can tell you. I've just never had the urge or desire to become a parent, and as a schizophrenic I'd be mindful of ever propagating my genes anyway. It's no mean feat bringing kids up, I witnessed parental techniques as an uncle to my deceased brother's two children. He had a really tough time bringing them up as a single parent, I always offered my support if needed. But they've both now reached early adulthood now, and they've turned out just fine.

The second point was the oft-wondered question of "do you really want to bring kids into a world like this, at a time like this?". There's no correct answer to a question like that, I've spun my wheels on that one many times before. Each situation is unique, every relationship has its own specific qualities. If you're meant to become a parent, I think life will reveal this destiny to you before any such event occurs, but it certainly is not a thing to be taken lightly, it brings real responsibility.

 

[Alejo]

He seems to heavily borrow his ideas from Emil Cioran, a Romanian born nihilistic and pessimistic writer (1911-1995), who lived in France for a great part of his life and mostly wrote in French. He wrote books such as The Trouble With Being Born. I listened to a radio show the other day about him and his life. In an audio clip he explained how he always felt that his existence was absurd and how it brought him to the ultimate state of despair. What dissuaded him from commiting suicide is a "revelation" he had when his mother confided to him when he was young that she wished she didn't have him and had an abortion instead. He said that it brought him instant relief because he realized that he could never have been born, that he was just an accident:

Talk about being addicted to one's own suffering. It's beyond materialism, although I suspect heavily entrenched in it. Human beings are a mere accident of chance happening on matter for no purpose. And Alzheimers served him well, a being denying its own humanity is like someone going to a whole year of class and being determined to forget absolutely everything he learned, it's as if he was almost happy to simply be matter.

Children are good in a certain phase of your life, in the spring maybe ... as you are flowering, then the children flow with you into adulthood, you are still close enough to childhood to be with them and you travel together. Having children later on ... as if trying to remember something ... is different. Younger families seem more natural in my experience.

I am probably trying to convince myself of something here. A friend of mine is 55 has just had more children with a new woman, he has children in NZ and now in the UK. He seems very happy about it, a natural father spreading his DNA far and wide. A conventional person.

I tend to agree that children in some people's lives seem to be exactly what they needed, though there's suffering in both paths. Having children brings another being into that equation and so, at least in this reality, it seems to be a choice that will always be aimed at serving the self one way or another.

I come from a very large family with uncles and aunts that have had children with different partners and that has created so much suffering that one sometimes wonders "is that why you wanted kids? to abandon them?", I have also seen families who are strong in numbers, who bring joy to one another, grandparents who have no one but their grandchildren to care for them and that gives them strength. So to me, taking all into consideration, it's a choice that I am at peace with, I am not forcefully opposed to having children, I am simply at peace with my answer being no.

In terms of DNA and future generations, I have also thought about this, and well.. I would say that there are more ways to influence the DNA than by generational genetic transfer alone, though that is probably the most efficient, but at the same time the most unconscious way. Information and lifestyle changes, even emotional changes can have an impact on our DNA, and so, as it has been said earlier, being fatherly or motherly to others can have an effect on their DNA and their nurturing habits and thus change future generations.

To cite a few examples that quickly come to mind, Jordan Peterson has been dubbed the Father of the internet and I would say that his message has impacted a lot of lives for the better and thus rear better children, same thing with Dr. Mercola, he's probably done more for the DNA of generations than he could have if he had decided to have many kids.

 

[Gwenllian]

If the coming “bad times” are near or in my lifetime there may very well be many children in my community without parents due to catastrophic events. I’ve already decided that I will step up to take care of them in any capacity I can. May that be as a teacher, minder, provider of food or as a parent.

That's my thinking as well, Candice. Instead of having grand-children I could step up and take care of kids fallen on hard times in whatever way, shape or form. At the same time I'm still working on improving my relationship with my kids, hoping that when these bad times arrive they will be able to cope with the circumstances in a more constructive way.

Although my reasons for having children were selfish my kids did teach me some important lessons. Self-sacrifice was one of them, getting a handle on my programmes (especially these past few years) was another one. Becoming less self-centred and taking care of these very small human beings gave my life more meaning and an aim at the time and although it wasn't always easy they were my initial motivation to start working on myself (although I had no inkling of what that really meant until I found this forum).

That reminds me of Etty Hillesum that decided by herself that her place at this moment was to go to a nazi concentration camp to be able to take care of the children, even if some friends were able to save her to go to Westerbork. Yes, children need us, need to be protected and loved specially when Hell is on earth.

Author Alice Miller mentioned Janusz Korczak in her writings, a Polish Jewish pediatrician who did the same after

spending many years working as a principal of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused sanctuary repeatedly and stayed with his orphans when the entire population of the institution was sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp by the Nazis, during the Grossaktion Warschau of 1942.

I remember her saying that he couldn't change the times he was living in, but he could still make a selfless choice for the benefit of the kids living at his orphanage.

 

[Joe]

I found it to be Peterson at his philosophically weakest, unable to entertain the notion due to his emotional attachments and beliefs. However, it’s nice to hear the more objective and detached arguments by Benatar on the subject, who has spent years thinking about it and written books on it.

That's interesting, I thought JBP presented very rational and reasonable arguments against Benatar, and Benatar's line of thinking was so one dimensional and limited to be bordering on the pathological.

 

[Jo Bugman]

In terms of DNA and future generations, I have also thought about this, and well.. I would say that there are more ways to influence the DNA than by generational genetic transfer alone, though that is probably the most efficient, but at the same time the most unconscious way. Information and lifestyle changes, even emotional changes can have an impact on our DNA, and so, as it has been said earlier, being fatherly or motherly to others can have an effect on their DNA and their nurturing habits and thus change future generations.

To cite a few examples that quickly come to mind, Jordan Peterson has been dubbed the Father of the internet and I would say that his message has impacted a lot of lives for the better and thus rear better children, same thing with Dr. Mercola, he's probably done more for the DNA of generations than he could have if he had decided to have many kids.

Well said, I haven't looked at it that way before.

 

[Ina]

We had children because we wanted a family. That was the main reason for getting married. My husband proposed the first day we met, but we got married five years after that. We are great partners in card gams, work, sports, towards our children and sometimes in housework.

 

[jess]

Truly that the decision to bring life into this world through a child is a very complex one.
It seems that with at least, if you have a bit knowledge, awareness and responsibility of the current state of the planet, social, political, personal, etc., it is better not to do it.
Some years ago I had a very strong desire for motherhood and a stable couple, and I believe that as a result I had my first and only daughter. That happened before I realized that I had to begin to see that I had to work inside, "the spiritual search", and I believe that when you start with it there is no turning back. If you were to ask me now if I would like to have another child, it is definitely a NO.

It also seems to me that it is a decision of two people, that seems to be the starting point, in most common cases, where a couple is sexually active. Perhaps, it could be that a relationship becomes exaggeratedly complicated when a child arrives, because at least, in my own experience you face the programs you were exposed to as a child, you can see yourself acting as your mother with your own child, I think this is most horrible, because then you start to discover your own programs that your parents made of you, well, not only yours, but also your partner's programs about parenting, and in turn if you are still very close to your biological family they will try to teach you how to raise your child. I think this is a difficult part, about observing yourself and do posible to modifying and cutting those programs. But I think you find that out when you're already inside the experience, in my case, I don't think I would have ever realized that if it wasn't for my daughter, at least, not that quick.

One positive thing that I think I am still learning as a mother of a 3 year old daughter, it made me discover humility, physical strength, resilience and fortitude.
(I could also be wrong with the following, I am still learning and working on eliminating my erroneous ideas)
It seems to me, personally, I wonder if there is any possibility of having a child in other more optimal conditions for the responsibility of a child in a relationship. If you have some information, knowledge and awareness of the enormous responsibility first to work on oneself to purify or cleanse oneself, grow - learn, be happy, etc., I feel that the enormous challenge is if after you acquire that awareness, and with good luck and a lot of work, the enormous challenge to resonate and find a partner at par, together, and if it were a different context than the current one. Perhaps, maybe, you could plan a new way of approaching motherhood-parenthood or the meaning of conceiving a child.

 

[Joe]

That Benatar guy is either a complete idiot or he's trolling. One of his so-called "points" is that bad things can happen to people without them being aware of it. The example he gives is even more idiotic than his point: "if someone wishes that their body not be desecrated after death, but it is, then this is a bad thing for that person even though they have no existence to experience it." More than anything, I was amazed at Peterson's tolerance for an extremely obtuse, arrogant and ignorant interlocutor.

 

[Ghazi18]

This is a difficult choice and as many here have said, you have to look at the reasons on why you want to have another child. Also consider the current state of the world (economy, food, weather, etc) and how it will be getting worse at the rate that it’s going. With these current worldwide problems, it’s going to be a bit harder to raise a child (on top of the current indoctrination that children and young people in general are going through).

This is something that has been on my mind for some time because my wife and I would like to have children in a couple of years but at this rate we will most likely be in a completely different world in a couple of years. I’m choosing to not have children at the moment but you never know how things will ultimately go down. There’s infinite possibilities and outcomes.

 

[Joan]

Many years ago, I can't really recognize the time frame, possibly in my twenties, when young people are supposed to get married and raise a family. Somebody asked me why I didn't have children, I replied, "I couldn't bring a child into this world"

The long term partners I had (only 2) had both been snipped, not through some conscious decision on my part that the relationship developed. It was just circumstance, they had both been previously married, with the usual 2 children that was the norm at the time. One even talked about getting it reversed.

When I did eventually marry, in my early 40's, what I think of the urge to procreate, was long gone. Due to feminine issues, I had a hysterectomy, it was just the way it played out.

But I always, think, even though I am alone with no children, the thought remains on reflection, thank god, I have never had any children, because now I think, possibly if I had, then I could have had grandchildren, and my consciousness would not allow any harm to come to my children or to my granchildren. They would be a part of my essence.

But some of us make that sacrifice and choice, and for that I am grateful, because, for me it signals a regeneration of humanity.