Parenthood

[poliphilo]

I want to say thank you to everyone who responded to my post about surrogacy. It's been really interesting.

Here's a related issue. At the beginning of her article Melanie Thernstrom writes, "to be childless felt like being deprived of something essential: the primal human experience." This niggles me. To begin with I simply disagree. Parenthood is not the "primal human experience".   The primal human experience is engagement with the world- and whatever it happens to throw up; a childless life is not a second-class life. Secondly it comes dangerously close to asserting parenthood as a "right"- which I don't believe it is. Parenthood is a privilege- which many abuse. Children are not property or playthings or an extension of the parent, but  autonomous beings whom the parent is never going to fully understand. The greatest thing a parent can do for their child is to let it go. As Khalil Gibran wrote, "Your children are not your children."

I'd like to know what you think...

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, though I certainly don't mean to downplay the pain caused by infertility amongst those who wish to have children.

I'm suspicious of any attempt to identify something as "the primal human experience", as if there has to be just one, and the same for everyone - with those who haven't had it being by implication somehow not quite as completely human. It reminds me of the childish obsession with making ranked lists - best friends, second best friends, third best friends, etc. - which serve one halfpennyworth of validation to such an intolerable deal of point-scoring and divisiveness. That kind of insecurity may be a primal human experience itself, but I particularly dislike the human habit of setting up shibboleths to separate those who are in from those who are out, rather than enjoying and valuing experiences for what they are.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There have been societies- medieval Christendom for instance- in which not having children has been seen as a high calling. A catholic priest forgoes paternity in order to become everybody's father in God.

Or that's the theory, anyway...

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I'm suspicious of any attempt to identify something as "the primal human experience", as if there has to be just one, and the same for everyone

Well put.

I think having children is *a* primal human experience. It is not the only one, nor is it necessary to be completely human.