A reader writes:
Listening to your (wonderful) response about deciding not to have children, I was reminded of the following passage from Abbott Awaits by Chris Bachelder. The book is a series of vignettes from the narrator, Abbott, as he deals with his 2 year old daughter and his pregnant, insomniac wife:
"Abbot approaches sleep with an ineffable sense of relief that he did not know, before having a child, what it was like to have a child – did not really know what it was really like – because if he had known before having a child how profoundly strenuous and self-obliterating it is to have a child, he never would have had a child, and then, or now, he would not have this remarkable little child.”"
As a new parent myself, I think that is one of the most profound statements about becoming a parent. The shear life-obliterating quality of it, combined with the absolute miracle that birth and parenting is – the amazing combination of faith and love and biology that reworks life.
So many of my peers (early 30 somethings) seem to become parents out of a desire to continue down the preset path, or because it's what their parents want, or because it's just WHAT YOU DO, and there is a serious lack of prayerful, thoughtful, intelligent conversation between spouses about what it really means. You can never know how self-obliterating it is beforehand, but you can talk to those who do, you can watch those who do, and you can make that honest and intelligent decision to move forward, or to do as you have, and find other outlets to pass your own self on through generations. I wish more Americans would approach parenthood with the honesty you have. It is a huge decision that we have as society determined is expected.
The Dish 