A reader writes:
Your remarks about not choosing to have a child make sense; I think that there are a lot of people who feel as you do, and if the world must be peopled (as Benedick said), well, it doesn't have to be peopled by everyone! However, the response of your reader bothers me. As a mother of two, I never felt "obliterated", even when they were young. Having children means adding to the personality through a new loving role, not obliterating it in any sense. Or perhaps the reader, and the author s/he quotes, means "self-denial" – there certainly is plenty of that when the children are small.
But as the children grow, the parents don't have to deny themselves, much less obliterate themselves, quite so much. And by the time the children reach their late teens, early adulthood (mine are 23 and 19), there is very little self-denial required. Most children and parents become dear friends, with different life experiences and the willingness to share them, accompanying each other on the journey.
Another is on the same page:
"Self-obliteration"? Sounds like a description but it's actually a judgment – and a fairly harsh one. I would make the opposite case – parenting is self-expanding.
Yes, some things are given up (temporarily) when one becomes a parent – in the same way, for example, a child gives up quite a lot when they enter the school system. It's
called growing up. We are born with love for our parents. In adolescence, we discover a love even more powerful (aka romantic love). I believe that having children unlocks a third kind of love – one far more fierce than anything that has come before it.
And as much as I hate it when people say things like this, I believe you really have to be a parent to truly understand. I was an uncle several times over before I had my own children. I loved my nieces and nephews deeply and would have happily laid down my life for all of them. But that is not this third love. I believe this third love is unlocked by the direct nurturing that occurs from having one's own children – however they may come your way. It is probably an evolutionary response. Whatever it is, I believe it is deeper and more profound than … well, than anything else the universe may throw at you.
Our reader sends the above photo as a P.S. Another reader:
Look, children are important, and as a parent you take on an awesome responsibility in caring for them. But that doesn't require that you sacrifice everything for them. It doesn't. Even if everyone else seems to be doing so, even if that's the model of parenting we're sold, it doesn't have to be that way. (Notably, my wife has the occasional pang of guilt about not giving more to our daughter, a hangover from the obsessive culture of parenthood that we encounter everywhere).
You don't have to spend every free minute with your child. You don't have to read to them every night, or choose the optimal diet for your 18-month-old. There may be benefits to striving for such optimization, but they might not be worth it (and the benefits themselves may often be speculative).
Kids are resilient. They can entertain themselves. They benefit from others taking care of them. Are they fed? Are they safe? If you can answer yes to these two questions, and maybe a few others, you've probably done enough.
The Dish 