Why Have Kids?

Even before my second son, Soren, was born, I questioned whether I'd have the mental fortitude to survive another infancy.  Worrying about my wife undergoing labor again, and having to watch it, made her growing belly a nightmare.  Then, when Soren was born, I almost instantly experienced post-partum depression and didn't let go for about six months.  Yes, men can also experience post-partum depression.  The only escape for me came in the form of a question, "Why did I have this child?"  By asking the question I learned a lot.

I learned a lot about myself, of course, but I also learned that each and every prospective parent should ask themselves, "Why do I want to have kids?" before seriously considering having one.  On the flip side, every person who doesn't want kids should ask themselves the opposite question before making an almost equally irreversible decision.  Our answers to the questions will invariably vary but, I wager, each will point to our understanding of what life is about.

That is, as long as we don't answer, "I've always wanted kids," or, "I think I'll be a good parent."  While these may be serious and relevant answers they cannot be the entire story.  I think I'd make a good professional cyclist, but would I have been willing, and am I now willing, to put in the constant over-exerting work necessary to become an endurance athlete?  Doubtful.  As is true about being a professional cyclist, there is much more to being a parent than idealistic perspectives of ourselves.  Parenting is not about the parent but about the kid/s.  Our answer to the question, "Why do I want to have kids?" should be rooted in the yet conceived child's life.  If the answer is instead rooted in ourselves, then moments of difficulty parenting will also turn back on ourselves and our energy and patience will be sapped; if parenting is about ourselves, then we'll want to give up when it's no longer convenient, but if parenting is about the kid, then we'll be more likely to keep going when they're trouble. 

When we think about our kids in asking why we want to have kids, it's unlikely that the reason will be, "So I can love them," because, again, that has more to do with you.  Reasons like this tend to reveal your own issues rather than any meaningful foundation for parenting.  If you need someone to love, or someone to love you, then that should be worked out prior to conception.  Asking, expecting, hoping, or demanding a child to be an object or giver of love severely limits the life and purpose of the child.  Therefore, again, bringing a new life into this world should not focus on you or the lives that already exist.  Our reasons for giving life should focus on the new life and what may be in store for the child.

Unfortunately, too often it seems that many decide to have kids without reflecting on why or having a proper, child-centered reason.  I count myself in that category.  In that situation, the parent has no foundation on which to raise the child and endure the hardships other than pure determination.  "I am a good parent, I will do this," become the mantras but without any 'because' or 'for the sake of' to replenish the energy bucket.  For many, determination and willpower are enough.  For some, however, determination and willpower are not nearly enough, and what happens then?  For me and my youngest, I couldn't stand being around him for a long time, and yet I had to be the one to put him to sleep and I came to resent holding him for bedtime.  To some extent, I still do resent holding him, almost a year after I recovered from my depression.  If my spouse weren't as strong as she is and if I hadn't gone to therapy, I wonder what might have happened.  I wonder what would now happen.  I wonder if we might have ended up where some other families do, with parents' shutting down and losing interest or divorcing, or worse.

Now, there are a great many reasons why parents struggle and develop post-partum depression, including the simple but intense unavoidable chemical reason, that asking and reflecting on the question why we want to have kids won't fix.  The question and process of answering is not a cure-all.   But if we seriously ask and reflect on the question why we want to have kids, and root the answer in the prospective child's life, then the answer will almost certainly provide us a lasting foundation on which to return and replenish our reserves when parenting.  Our answer to the question will provide a dream, a meaning, toward which we can constantly strive on the child's behalf.  The answer will also help us relax in moments of crisis because we can put things in proper perspective.  Not only will our answer to why we want to have kids provide a foundation, a meaning, and means to peace, but it will almost certainly also reveal our understanding of what life is about.

For instance, my answer, six months after child two was born, came to be, "To share the good gift of life that God has given us to enjoy and share with God in His divine presence."  If you're not religious, this probably won't be your answer, but in my answer you can see that I understand the purpose of life to be enjoying the life God has given us.  In that sense, your answer probably won't be all that different.  You, too, will probably mention a desire for your kids to share in the joys of life or very similar reason.  Given such a foundation, when the child is a total wreck and all you want to do is run away from your kids, you can remember that the child isn't around for your benefit in the first place but because you wanted to share the goodness of life with another.  Then, you don't need to make the child's problems go away, you don't need to ratchet up your anxiety with every meltdown, but instead you can simply do your best to teach the child how to see what is good, how to laugh, how to play well, and et cetera.  If the child still chooses not to listen, you as parent can step back and differentiate some because your reason for having the child was to give the child a chance to enjoy life.  Ultimately that is the child's choice. 

While I have nothing against helicopter parents, I wonder if indeed part of the anxiety there is an inability to differentiate ourselves from our child.  The child's problems are ours.  The same goes for parents who live their dreams through their children.  Then, when all comes crashing down, we run to the opposite extreme of complete differentiation and indifference: "They let me down.  They're impossible.  They don't listen to me."  But there is a middle ground of teaching, modeling, living and laughing without becoming upset if the child doesn't want to play soccer, and instead chooses chess, or doesn't want to learn challenging things, and instead wants to have tea parties.  It seems to me that such a middle ground is only possible when we have grounded our reason for having and loving the child in the child's own opportunity to enjoy life and find his/her own meaning.  The parent must have a desire to lead the child to the river of goodness and not also force the child to chug the water.  The parent must have a clear understanding of what life is about so that they can hope and pray to share, teach, and model that life with others.

For a lot of people, they may have a clear understanding of what life is about but feel incapable of raising a child into that life.  If life is about some form of enjoyment, and you're certain that your family will suffer hardship after hardship to survive, then should you have kids?  Well, I can't say, "no," that's not my place.  Many families, especially those who provide their own food and supplies, are often better off having children. My only point is that we should ask ourselves the question as seriously and prayerfully as possible.

With that said, I recently had a conversation with a couple planning to move to better chase their dreams and what they find meaningful in life.  As they were talking, the wife said, "We'll probably never have kids.  I know that sounds strange."  I felt bad for her and other wives (husbands, too, but especially wives) not planning on having kids.  There is a constant need to explain away such a 'strange' comment, as my friend immediately set about doing.  But as I told her, the reason for having or not having kids should be well articulated and thought out and, if it is, then well and good.  Her reason was indeed good, that they have had to scrape and fight for all that they have and, with the work they hope to do, their schedules would make it impossible to give a life to their child that they would hope for any child.  Others may simply say that they prefer a life of luxury and travel and wouldn't want a child to interrupt their fun.  That's not quite as good a reason but it's still a reason.  If you'd only ever resent your child for derailing your life, then don't have a child.  We should be able to leave room for those who wisely acknowledge that the parent and/or the child would be miserable and not able to fully enjoy life.  Responding, "Oh, but you'd make such a good mother!" is, first of all, an often not reflected upon enough comment to realize its untruth, and, secondly, a ridiculous thing to say to someone who is essentially saying, "I'd be unable to provide for a child what I think should be provided."  Such a person deserves our support, not terrible cliches.  Or, more exactly, such a person deserves our respect for honestly and deeply thinking about the welfare of the child.  The only way we can more properly respect those deciding not to have kids and leave room for them to make such a decision, without their feeling the need to constantly explain themselves, is if all of us stop assuming that having kids is an automatic part of life.

If we want having kids to be an automatic part of life for everyone, and want to continue saying, "Oh, but you'd be a great parent, and I want grandkids!" then we should think about ways to improve our communities and world.  Again, the reason for having kids will undoubtedly be associated with what life is about but the promises of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," of equality and justice, of love and peace, of hope, well, those promises are inevitably out of reach for many in our world today.  In fact, it is probably not an overstatement to say that those promises have been out of reach for some at every stage of human history.  We've had 'civilization' for about four thousand years, the revelations of God (through the Hebrews and Jewish people) for almost as long if not longer, and still many millions cannot guarantee to their children anything other than a life of starvation, migration, homelessness, extreme poverty, and misery.  Why have kids in that case, when the goodness of life is nearly impossible to grasp?  To bring them into such a world?  Because a loving God said we should procreate as a command, as a reason for marriage?  We in the privileged West like to look to third-world communities and say, "Boy, I've never met anyone so happy," and think that all is fine after all, but I, for one, cannot imagine that a loving God could command ignorance or inactivity when the scales of hope and contentment are so twisted; nor can I imagine a loving God commanding procreation into misery and at all costs.  No, if we want life and more life, then we as a society need to work harder making the foundations for life and survival more easily accessible.

After all, life is not about amassing as much material good as possible.  The atrocious inequality of power and material goods should therefore have no place in the question of why one should have kids so that each and every prospective parent can simply focus on the emotional and spiritual answer.