Skip to main content

Seeking Children

Was not familiar with the term anti-natalism but the arguments are very familiar. I know several folks who have exactly these reasons for remaining child-free. Some would (and have) consider adoption of a destitute child over having a biological child to reduce their negative impact in the world and do some good for someone while at it. The arguments are quite reasonable and valid even. 

As someone who craved motherhood for many years until attaining that state, I don't think I will ever stop believing it was the best thing that every happened to me. For me it was more an inward looking self-centered decision - I wanted to know what it felt like to love a person unconditionally and without limit. I did not think I had it me to feel such love for anyone other than my own child - I believe that is still the case for me. Without having that experience, I don't think I would even know what it is to be human. 

By my reasoning, motherhood enabled me to understand my own humanity,  fully connect and draw from its resources. I sought to be a better more complete person by becoming a mother. What my action did for the world and the environment did not cross my mind. Did I bring J to a miserable world - I don't think so. Like most parents, I did what I could to make her life better than my own. My own life has been far from miserable.

People are different. A better person than me would presumably be able to feel unconditional, limitless love for any number of other people in their lives including children they adopt. For such folks, it would make sense to remain childfree, not burden the world through a Quixotic quest for their own humanity. They may argue that is not even relevant - specially if they view their own birth and existence as a mistake they cannot remedy. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
111 comments
Read more

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha
5 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques
6 comments
Read more