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

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You have been a devoted teacher- and that is a remarkable thing to have been.

I think of the great teachers in my life- and one in particular. This man never married, he never had children of his own- but he was mentor and role model to many generations of boys. His influence on me was as deep and beneficial as that of my own natural father.

I've always liked what Gibran has to say about children. You can't hang onto them, you have to let them go, you shouldn't expect a return.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That inevitably evokes the final words of Goodbye, Mr Chips, which are relevant to your post in general: "I thought I heard you say 'twas a pity, a pity I never had children. But you're wrong...I have...thousands of them...thousands of them...and all boys!"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The man I'm thinking of was a real life Chips- who served at the same school from the 1920s to the 1960s.