Why do we have children?
I know that sounds like a silly
question seeing as how our parents and their parents before them and
so on and so forth all chose to have children. In fact, most people
who have ever lived have had children or sought to have them. This
question may seem as self-evidently silly as the question “Why do
we have to sleep?” There is a part of us that says the answer is
“We just do.”
But that isn't good enough for me. I'm
a philosopher by training, and I know that the desire to have kids is
not like our other natural desires. If we don't eat, sleep, breathe,
we die. But we won't die from being childless. Yes, there is the
sexual urge, but the pleasure principle can't explain the desire for
children. In fact, our society has sadly been able to put up a
barrier between the pleasure and the progeny. Of course that barrier
is often times latex-thin, but it is still there.
So I come back to the question of
“why?”
Some say that it is our desire for
immortality. We may leave this world and mingle with the dust, but
our name, our genes, our indelible biological imprint has been
stamped onto the world. But this answer does not satisfy me. If
Christianity is true, then our souls are immortal. We will live
forever beyond anything done in the material world per se. And if it
is not true, then the immortality that children bring to you is
empty. We like to say that the parent lives on in the child. But
that is mere sentiment. There is no “you” in the child. You are
gone. And there is no way to experience that life as yourself, so
your “immortality” is empty. Not only that, it is vain. No
matter the work or man, it will all come to naught as the blistered
feet of Ozymandias remind us.
And some others see in children the
fulfillment of their desires. I remember reading a story about a
teenage girl who intentionally got pregnant. Her reasoning was that
she wanted someone who would love her unconditionally no matter what.
What a horrible inversion of love! To have children in order to BE
loved seems so horribly cruel to me. The fruit of the womb is not
something that you squeeze all of the affection out of until it is
dry and empty.
And still there is the desire to live
vicariously through the child. How many of us have seen scenes from
shows like “Toddlers and Tiaras” and cringed with pain as we
wagged our proverbial fingers at these domineering stage moms. And
yet let's be honest: how often to we picture raising our children to
love the things we love, not for their sake, but for ours. We want
to see them be great at our high school sport or to look beautiful in
their prom dress or, in my case, drive around the neighborhood
dressed like Batman and Robin.
While many would reject the above
reasons, they still want to be parents. And this desire is large and
looms over us. Some do not feel it as keenly as others, but it
nestles in our hearts like thorny spurs, urging us onward. But what
does this desire promise? After all, giving into hunger promises
satisfaction, sleep promises rest, sex promises pleasure. But what
does the desire for children promise?
Nothing. We have wishes and desires,
but there is no promise of good times ahead. You could be the best
parent in the world and your child could still make all of the wrong
choices or evil people can impose their wickedness on them. You have
no idea if your child will love you or hate you or not care. You can
probably guarantee a lifetime of anxiety. I am in my mid 30's and
I'm sure my parents still worry about me. When a child enters the
world, a perpetual knot enters the stomach of the parent, and I don't
think it ever goes away.
Now I am speaking all from supposition.
I do not have children. As I wrote earlier, my wife and I are
seeking adoption. But I have had a lot of time to think about it.
For some, having children comes easy, for some it is a long difficult
effort. When looking to adopt, it is a sustained act of the will
that gets you anywhere. And our will has been set for a very long
time.
But I had to have a good reason to hold
on. I couldn't look to my vanity or desires vicarious living.
Having the desire does not justify its satisfaction. I needed
another reason.
And this is what I have concluded.
First, the desire for kids is
universal. There is something in our bones that demands that we have
children. Fr. Larry Richards once told the story about the night
before he took his promise of celibacy. He woke up in a cold sweat
and said to God, sad and desperately honest, “God, I want kids!”
But he knew that he was giving them up forever.
The next day he went be ordained a
deacon and he was asked if he would be a celibate for the kingdom.
Understanding the sacrifice, he did not hesitate in saying yes.
After the ceremony, the children from the youth group he led came to
congratulate him and give him a gift. It was a medal of St.
Christopher. He thanked them but they yelled at him to turn it over.
On the other side was an inscription:
“Congratulations. We Love You.
-Larry's Kids.”
In the space of a few minutes, Fr.
Larry went from never having kids to having 160 of them. He really
is their spiritual father, just as he is to me and thousands of
others. He has kids. Fr. Larry said that you cannot out-give God in
generosity. And that's when it hit me.
It isn't about generation. It's about
generosity.
God made us. He is our ultimate
Father. But he didn't need to make us. He was perfectly happy with
Himself in Trinity. Perfect love and harmony forever. We cannot
make Him any happier, we do not add to his glory. And yet He made
us. Not out some kind of need but from the utter overflowing fury of
his generosity. He gives us life for no other reason than for our
good, not His.
And we are in the imagio Dei.
We are made in God's image. We reflect Him. And in His wisdom he
placed that generosity into our hearts. But small and simple
creatures that we are, the intensity of that generosity is felt like
us to be a need. A desire.
A desire for children.
We need to be parents because we need
to love. And children require love in ways that parents, friends,
and lovers don't. The demand of children is complete and constant.
Children require us to give up our lives for them day in and day out.
Children require us to be generous. A parent who is not heroically
generous to a child is a bad parent. We must empty all of who we are
to the child because that is what God Himself did.
On the cross, Jesus held nothing back.
There is no limit to how much He loves us. He is the Inferno that
gives flame to our candle-hearts. We know it in our souls that our
child will have not just part of us, but all of us.
And that is how it should be.
I am bound and focused on one day
becoming a father and having my wife be a mother. I am compelled
because the love that I see in her, and the pale reflection of it
that I return to her, is made to overflow from us. It is made to be
finally be incarnate in another. Our child will fill our lives by
emptying us. We will be made rich by giving everything away.
And we will be most like God when we
give like parents.
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