Comments on: Having Children to fill a void: WRONG!

By: alex

alex — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:35:54 +0000

Amen

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:09:13 +0000

Of course one can get disappointed with a career path. Many do get frustrated and disillusioned. But it’s not the fault of the career, it’s the individual’s expectations that were not met. The career can be left aside and one can find another profession. But children shouldn’t be abandoned. The bottom line is that we shouldn’t rely on outside factors to fulfill us. This applies to relationships, homes, people and jobs.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:24:49 +0000

I agree, to some extent. The problem is that the two are not always clearly separable. I agree that people who believe they want children because they think they might be viewed oddly if they never have children, or because they might miss out on something abstract like “fulfillment,” maybe should question those feelings before acting on them. That’s true, in fact, for anyone who wants to have a baby, for whatever reason.
But all of these feelings tend to swirl around together: the desire to be a mother, the desire to parent a new and complex human being, the desire to see how one’s genetic imprint develops in a new person, the desire to hold a baby in one’s arms…. Too many feelings, too complex to categorize neatly. Isn’t the desire for a career to fulfill us also giving power over to something (and, inevitably, someone) else to fulfill us? Isn’t that destined to disappoint, too, at some level, at some point?