Comfort and Joy to The Childless Family
Some thoughts on Mother’s day on how to create love, purpose and meaning without kids (and with them, too!)
Create life, not babies
There are wonderful reasons to have a baby, but there are also thousands of reasons not to have one.
You may be afraid to start a family against the backdrop of a global pandemic. There is no guarantee about the next few decades about who will live or die, much less who will thrive. But fear should not be the reason you don’t have a baby if you are contemplating the possibility.
Fear is a strong motivation, but all journeys require great courage, and it often takes as much courage to forego having children as it does do have them.
Fear, then, is not something to which we should give in, either way.
I think that many people believe that having a baby will win them love. However, a bit of investigation into the facts, science, and common sense of human psychology shows that this is also not the case.
Life is about biology, not about generating love. Love is great to have, but love for the world and love for all living beings is a life-long commitment that should not be held to one time period. You cannot be a young mother, or new dad, for long. Most years of human life are not at all fit for reproduction. Those years should be honored and celebrated for creating world love and for connecting to all creation. It is a disservice to only select a few short years and say: “Well this is the most important thing I will have ever done.” That is a self-limiting attitude about all of life.
Creating a meaningful life, and promoting life itself, is about creating love, not babies.
Evolution crafted love, after all, to regenerate the genes of a species. The meaning we attach to that process, which long proceeds us, is up to us. Therefore, attach meaning to ALL of life, not just the baby-making part of it.
Genes are called “selfish genes” because of their sole focus of wanting to reproduce themselves. But human beings are not genes. Only a very selfish human would want to have children for the purpose of “giving something of myself to the world,” or “Leaving a legacy of immortality.” If the reason…