The case for children
Another chain better left unbroken
As you know, we have three children. For now. I will have to remember to update this if I settle negotiations with your Mother in a positive way, in which case, we have four. This puts our family at the upper end of the average family size in our country, of those families with children.
If you look at all families, however, we are above average. How is that possible? Lots of people are not having children. Some by choice, both intentionally and unintentionally, and some due to circumstances outside their control. The number of people intentionally choosing not to have children is growing, and it feels like rapidly. Although that may be inaccurate, it does appear that way and is deeply concerning.
I hear a myriad of arguments against having children that generally boil down to one of the following ideas:
The environment cannot sustain humans, and we are doomed for extinction.
People are a burden on the environment, and we need to stop having kids to protect the habitat of other animals.
The world is full of pain, evil, and suffering, and I will not bring a child into a dangerous, scary world where they might be hurt, or have negative experiences.
People without children are happier.
Your mother and I have chosen to have children, so we obviously fundamentally disagree with all these reasons.
I will mostly ignore the first two deeply related reasons in this post, other than to throw in some brief thoughts. These grounds have been explored by people far better educated, more informed, and smarter than I am. I will just say I am aware of plenty of doomsday predictions in the past, and yet here we are. Could the sun burn out, the ecosystem implode, or the earth collapse due to nuclear war? Sure, I guess. But that isn't in my control, and I try not to waste time thinking about things I have zero sway over that are unlikely to occur. Theoretically one of you could also suddenly evolve to have wings, but I am not losing sleep over the potential cost of buying custom shirts with extra wing slits in the back.
As for the last two reasons, they are illogical and asinine beyond comprehension. They are also hubristic to the point of inspiring awe regarding the arrogance of people. Every human alive today is the product of millions of years of interrupted continuation of the species.
Who are we to say we know better than each and every one of our ancestors, 99.999999999999999999999% of whom lived in a much more dangerous world, filled with more suffering than we can fathom? They all lived in times when war was much more frequent, famine commonplace, and the survival of your baby was the flip of a coin. I cannot wrap my head around the laughable idea that now, suddenly, the world is too scary and full of trauma.
I believe that human life is special, an intrinsic good unto itself. I do not believe, under common modern circumstances, that we should kill, or take it for granted. That is not to say that there are no reasons for violence, including self-defense or protection of loved ones. Life offers potential, opportunity, and the chance to grow, learn, and improve the world around us. It also provides the ability to motivate, inspire, and touch the lives of others, who also may go on to help others or change the world for the better.
Life is a precious experience, full of wonder and mystery, but it is not always pleasant. Disease, injury, death, and the loss of loved ones occur. Each of these brings unique pains, but also varying chances to learn about our capabilities, will, and the capacity to overcome hardships, tragedy, and on occasion, malevolence. Because yes, while love, joy, and happiness exist in life, so does hatred, ill will, and spite.
I believe that individuals falling into the third argument above seem to weigh the scales of the “good” and “bad” of life and decide that the negative far outweighs any of the benefits, which is why they do not have children. I think that is shortsighted, ignoring that without the opposing poles of positive and negative, there would be no way to appreciate life’s small pleasures and joys. I am fairly certain I have quoted this before, but I refer back to the valuable life lesson in Motocrossed, “I mean if it wasn’t for the bad stuff, it wouldn’t make winning so great.”
I also have come to view this thought process as insincere, lacking self-awareness, or a self-serving intellectual argument to convince themselves of what they want to believe to avoid the responsibility that comes with growing up. If a person believes, as they claim, that life is so terrible that it is not worth causing a person to “suffer through,” I would assume the logical end of that thought pattern is suicidality. I am not saying I think they should, merely noting that they seem very amenable to the idea of deciding that someone else’s life is not worth living, but they are not using the same calculations for themselves. Conveniently, in this case, the person they are saving from this imagined suffering and tragedy just happens to be a human who would require them to sacrifice something, to make a trade-off. Again, that yawning logical chasm seems a bit too convenient…
… This leads me to believe that for a large majority of people espousing argument Number 3, it is really a pseudo-intellectual attempt to justify their choices in service of the actual argument, which is that “People without children are happier.” Said another way, this might be that childless individuals more often feel a chemical and hormonal response to certain experiences available to those with enough flexibility and financial freedom to travel, participate in music festivals, or visit fine-dining establishments, whatever their individual tastes and preferences are. I cannot argue that this is not likely accurate. Having children temporarily comes with constraints on time, money, and flexibility.
Are we so self-important to think that our own immediate desires are greater than the continuation of a millions-years-old tradition of continuing humanity and consciousness into the future? Especially given the fact that the future is so full of hope and apparent limitless possibility.
In addition to the fact that the argument appears short-sighted and presumptuous, I also find it inaccurate. The fleeting pleasure offered by sipping a cold beer in the hot sun while listening to live music in the mountains pales in comparison to the transitory pleasure of hearing my children scream “Daddy” and run at me when I come in the door after work. The enjoyment I used to receive staying up far too late talking to friends about weird, theoretical explanations for the universe or debating the merits of believing in free will is less than that of reading Harry Potter with you and seeing your excitement mount and your love of books grow.
That is all true, and yet, completely irrelevant. The comparison is not between one passing moment or another, a dopamine bath versus an oxytocin shower.
No, the real comparison is between activities that offer pleasure, fun, or excitement, and those that offer a deeply felt sense of purpose and meaning. Childless people being happier implies that happiness is the proper metric, the thing we are aiming for. I reject that. It is true, when I listen to two of you fight over something absolutely petty, I am not particularly happy. Hearing someone mouth off to Mom leaves me feeling frustrated. Do I worry about things that have happened in the past or may happen in the future? Yes, and I assume that the negative emotion known as worrying is one reason that childless people are “happier.” So what? When did “never frustrated” become the measurement for life?
Raising children can be difficult, with ups and downs depending on all sorts of factors including age, amount of sleep, and who knows what else. The difficulty, however, comes from the realization that you only get one chance to do it right; the acceptance that what you choose to do will, hopefully, ripple down through generations to come. It stems from the burden that parents feel, knowing that an innocent, beautiful child relies on them for everything, but must be taught to survive and thrive in a world that is imperfect, that will sling arrows and rocks at them, in one form or another.
Challenges drive you and give you purpose; the more challenging and long-term it is, the greater the sense of accomplishment and meaning as you succeed. No one feels overly proud after climbing a 100-yard hill, but they do when they climb a mountain. The difference is, if you climb this mountain right, you will be surrounded by wonderful, loving humans with whom you share one of the most precious bonds. Ideally, they will be with you until the end, and then you will leave them, as they carry on. The joy felt when seeing your child overcome an obstacle and succeed is orders of magnitude above anything I can feel about myself or my achievements. A wise Grandfather once told me, when discussing this topic, that the culmination of this is watching your children successfully raise their own children. I believe him.
Which is why[1] I am writing this letter now, when you are young. I am sure you will read and hear arguments about why you should not have children. Ignore them all. The people writing them may be better educated than I am, more intelligent, more articulate, or have way more fun. The one thing they don’t have is first-hand knowledge about what being a parent is truly like. I have been on both sides of that divide. They have not. Anyone who has could not, in good faith, make the arguments they are making. Also, I dream of all the grandchildren I hope to one day meet.
Love,
Dad
[1] Given that I dream of all the grandchildren I hope to someday meet.
I loved the math lesson at the beginning: you have a lot of kids, you have a normal number of kids.