Why do people want to have children?

In a recent post, I talked about a few former classmates of mine who were under a lot of pressure to get married and have children and it generated a huge discussion. In today's post, I will talk about some of the most common reasons people have children and offer my reaction to these reasons. After all, I am 40 and many of my peers do indeed have children: some for the right reasons, some for reasons I will never understand. Once again, I'm simply hoping to stimulate yet another vibrant discussion on the topic so if you don't agree with anything I say here, please don't be offended, it's nothing personal - I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here and challenge some very traditionally held views on the topic. For the record, my mother-in-law has put pressure on my partner and I to adopt as gay couples can adopt in the UK - but I have adamantly refused to become a parent even via adoption. No, not after the childhood I had. I just can't face the thought of raising a child only to not get along with him/her after s/he becomes an adult.

Do you want to become a parent?

"Children fill your life with fun and laughter - without them, life would be a lot less fun." 

My friends who do not have children have plenty of free time on their hands - they have a choice of either spending more time at work or going to pursue other interests in their free time when not working and having a vibrant social life. From the moment you have a baby, unless you have a supportive extended family or if you can afford to pay for quality childcare, every spare moment will be spent on childcare when the child is young. The bad news is that you can kiss goodbye to your hobbies, your friends, any kind of sports you enjoy, watching the latest movies - forget all of that and be prepared to change nappies, wake up in the middle of the night when the baby starts crying and it will be quite a few years before you can even leave the child on their own at home for a few hours. If you do not have that extended family or the money to pay for childcare, can you shoulder that kind of responsibility whilst holding down a job? Will the stress of taking care of the child affect your performance at work? Children may bring some joy to your life, but that is contingent on you taking pleasure in seeing them have fun rather than the other way around.

"Having a child feels like the final piece to complete the puzzle of my life." 

At my gymnastics club, I see two kinds of adults - there are the adults who take part in our adult gymnastics programme and continue to enjoy the fun of the sport. Then there are the adults who hang around, waiting to pick their kids up after their training. I often joke with the parents waiting to pick their kids up that they should come and join us in the adult classes. One mother said to me, "actually I'd love to, I see you guys always having so much fun. I used to do gymnastics when I was a student years ago, but I have to get my daughter home after training so I'm afraid I can't." She gets saddled with the boring tasks whilst her daughter has fun? That sounds like a pretty bad deal for the mother - if not for that responsibility, I'm sure she could find a far more interesting way to pass those few hours where she gets to focus on herself instead of her daughter. There are only so many hours a day and between holding down a job and caring for your children, unfortunately most parents find that they have virtually no time left for themselves.

Is it selfish for adults to actually want a little 'me' time? I had this conversation with a director in a company I dealt with - he lived way out in south London then and his office was in central London. When I found out that his train journey into town takes about an hour everyday, I asked him if it was possible to work from home sometimes to spare him spending two hours a day commuting, His answer surprised me, "hell no, I love my commute. I have children at home and the moment I step into the house, either my wife or my kids want my attention. When I am in the office, I have a department to run and I have either someone in accounts wishing to speak to me about some budget or someone in marketing wishing to talk to me about the new strategy for their latest project. It's like the only time I am ever on my own is when I am on the train, I turn my phone off, I can read a book or just stare out of the window and just empty my mind, not having to do anything else." I suggested that he try something like yoga to relax and he said, "sure that sounds like a great idea but really, with four kids, I just have no time to do anything like that." I'd hate to think that riding the northern line to and from work is the favourite part of his day - but that seemed to be the case.

"I want there to be a little part of me left in this world after I die." 

Many people are afraid of death, this fear of mortality is normal and we often feel a deep sense of sadness when someone famous dies, mostly because that reminds us that we too, will die one day. Many people actually have children because there is a part of them that will live on after they die and if their children have children, then their DNA will be passed on long after they die. However, I do wonder why these people think their DNA is worth preserving: do they have any wonderful athletic ability that should be passed on? Are they some brilliant scientists with extremely high IQs? Or are they just ordinary folks who have really not achieved a single thing worth boasting about in their entire lifetime? Rather than investing so much time and effort into bringing a child into the world, why don't they first spend a few more years trying to achieve something worthwhile before turning their minds to making babies? If you were to die today, what would be your legacy to the world? George Michael was a gay man who had no children - yet he left behind such an incredibly legacy with his music when he died and so many people will miss him now he is gone.

"I want to share my dreams with my children." 

I see this a lot with my parents' generation: my mother had unfulfilled dreams of playing the piano, so she forced all her children to take piano lessons. My two sisters dutifully did as they are told without questioning my mother - I protested every step of the day until the day I took my very last piano exam. I told my mother that the only person in the family who was interested in playing the piano was her and that she should be the one taking the lesson - not me, I never had any interest at all. Why the heck was I the one taking the piano lessons and not her? It made no sense at all: but my mother simply didn't have the self-confidence to learn something new like that. She confessed that whilst she loved the idea of being able to play the piano beautifully, she thought it was too difficult to learn at her age, her fingers were too clumsy and she would struggle to read music. And I was like, that's for you to deal with - but how is making me learn how to play the piano any kind of sensible alternative to that?  And even if my mother turned out to be terrible at the piano, at least she would have enjoyed taking piano lessons far more than I ever did. Parents should always let their children choose their own interests, rather than use them as a vessel for their unfulfilled dreams.

"There is something special about the mother-child bond."

My friends who are mothers have told me about that magical bond they have with their children. "Alex, that baby was in me for nine months, that baby was a part of me, grew in me - that created a special bond that will never ever break once that child leaves my body and you'll never understand it because firstly, you're a man and you're not a parent." I don't want to question the kind of feelings a mother will experience during pregnancy, but please forgive my cynicism as I am barely on talking terms with my mother. Didn't I come from her womb too? Didn't I spent 9 months there before I was born? So how can it be that my mother doesn't even know what the heck I do for a living today? I think too many mothers assume that they will always have that kind of special bond with their child and then they get a rude shock when their children grow up to become teenagers - suddenly, that magical mother-child bond is no substitute for proper parenting skills. That mother-child bond is mostly experienced by the mother but not always by the child - that's rather presumptuous of the mother to assume that this bond goes both ways. A mother may have experienced all kinds of emotions when she was pregnant whilst few of us have conscious memory of anything until we are at least 3.

"I may not be Superman, but I can be Superdad!" 

Oh dear. I have encountered people who want to become a parent because of this notion that they will be a great parent. The worst part is that these people have not achieved any kind of remarkable success in their careers, so they default to, "hey I may be a clerk who spends her time doing loads of boring administration work for very little money, but I can be the best mom in the world! I may have been a disappointment in both my studies and my career, but I can make it up through parenthood and raise the perfect child who will go on and be a superstar!" Oh dear. Talk about a recipe for disaster. You see, parents with this mindset are usually not complete disasters in their own lives, but neither are they successes. They are certainly not good role models for their children You should be a parent because you want to have a child, not because you're wishing to use parenthood to plug a gaping hole in your life. Such people should focus on fixing the problems in their lives rather than see parenthood as the solution to their problems.

"My children will take care of me when I am old."

Oh this is so Asian. That's a really bad reason to have children. Let's run through the following scenarios:

- You may have children who are simply not in a position to take care of you because say by the time you're 80, they are 50 but they cannot afford to retire and become full time carers. At the age of 50, they may have children still trying to finish further education or they may be in debt (a mortgage for example) or quite simply, they may be simply working hard just to make ends meet because they earn so little money. You are really rolling the dice and gambling that your child will be rich enough by the age of about 50 to become your full time carer - there's absolutely no guarantee that will happen. I've seen very intelligent parents produce children who struggle at school and by the same token, I've also seen very average parents produce children who are super high-fliers. In short, life is just too uncertain: without a crystal ball, you have no idea just how capable that baby is going to be in a few decades' time.

- Even if your child is earning a lot of money and very filial, health may be an issue. Case study 1: Evelyn is one such filial child who was prepared to take care of her parents when they got old, but when she turned 47, she found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer. The next few years saw her leaving her job, undergoing treatment and it was extremely traumatic for her to say the least. Evelyn's parents were there for her and they took care of their daughter as Evelyn was in very poor health for the next few years. So even if Evelyn wanted to take care of her parents, her ill health prevented her from doing so and it was her elderly parents who still took care of her.

- Case study 2: Chung was an extremely filial son who had every intention to take care of his parents when they were old. One day as he was returning from work late at night, he was a victim of a hit and run accident which left him severely injured. As a result, he was left crippled and in very poor health for a long time. As in the case above, Chung's elderly parents had to step in and take care of him instead, for he was simply not in a position to take care of them.

- Case study 3: Lillian wanted to have a child to take care of her when she grew old, however, her first child was diagnosed with Down syndrome and she was warned to see if she could cope with caring for that child before trying for another. When she learned more about Down syndrome, she soon realized that this severely disabled child was never ever going to be able to take care of her when she was old and she would be the child's carer until her dying day

I could go on, but there are a multitude of reasons why a child may not be in a position to take care of their parents: what if in the case of Evelyn and Chung, the cancer or accident resulted in the death of the child. Life can be unpredictable and there is every possibility that your child may die before you - then what? The bottom line is that having children is no substitute for sound financial planning - you need savings, you need a pension plan, you cannot rely on anyone else but yourself to finance your retirement. If you become ill and frail in your advanced years, make sure you have set aside enough money to hire the best healthcare professionals to care for you then. This simply boils down to sound financial planning - you should only really have children if you can already take care of yourself rather than expect them to take care of you. If you haven't made plans for your retirement yet, consult a financial advisor!

"If I don't have children, my parents will be disappointed."

Oh that's the worst one I've heard and to be fair, it's not just Chinese parents who do that. I've been to enough weddings in the UK and I've heard so many parents put pressure on the newly weds to have a baby as soon as possible as if that was the sole purpose of them getting married. Having a baby should be the decision of the parents, not the grandparents. In recent posts, we have talked about how parents and grandparents wield certain mechanisms to wield control over their children and grandchildren: I'm going to use my own parents for example. When my sister graduated and became a highly skilled professional holding a well paid job, my parents soon realized they have no idea what the hell my sister does for a living - it's not like she tried to hide anything from them: she would tell them everything that is going on in her life, the only problem was that my parents are not educated enough to understand any of the complex projects she handled at work. It was all simply beyond their understanding for they were retired primary school teachers: I'm afraid anything more complex than the PSLE syllabus simply confuses them.

My sister had did everything she was told: she studied hard at school and had excellent results every step of the way. She got a degree from NUS - something my parents never achieved and within a few years of working, she was earning far more than my parents. Though they'll never admit it, the way my sister had done everything right had somehow left them feeling inadequate in comparison and they were scrambling around to find ways to criticize the perfect daughter. The one way they could make her feel inadequate was her marital status: she was single. So instead of praising her for all the great things she achieved, they nagged at her to get married. When she finally did get married, they nagged at her to have children. When she had a son, they nagged at her to become a better mother - you see, my mother had more children than my sister, so in her mind, it was one thing she did better than my sister since she had performed worse in every other aspect of her life. That is why my mother had been so obsessed with pressuring my sister on the subject of motherhood for that perverse reason. But in my mother's head, it does make complete sense: in her culture, a woman's primary duty is to be a good wife and mother, not to have a career.

Should a woman have a career after she has children?

So are my mother's actions wrong? Yes - she should have put my sister's interests first. Is it unusual? No. I remember when I was in Singapore, my sister had a Wii console and I played a few different games with my nephew - I found that I was good at some and sucked at others. Naturally, my nephew wanted to play the games that I sucked at, so that he would always win and he avoided the ones where I had any chances of winning. You see, it is human nature to want to win and we all hate to lose - what my nephew did in making those choices is perfectly normal and quite frankly, I didn't mind losing to him as long at those games as we could hang out and had fun together. My mother's choice to pressure my sister to have children is really no different from my nephew choosing the games where he would win - the desire to 'win' is often so strong it becomes our primary motivation without us even realizing it. Fortunately, in this case, my sister did have a maternal instinct and a very strong desire to become a mother and I suspect that is in part because of the way she has simply surrendered and embraced her culture's expectations of her in a way I never did.

"I have always wanted to be a parent, ever since I was little."

That's a mistake that a lot of people make because in their minds, they imagine that their children will take after them and be like them. It's almost an ego thing - to want to create a 'Mini Me', those of you who have seen the Austin Powers will know how Dr Evil created a mini clone of himself because he was so disappointed with his son (see clip below - really great movies BTW). But without the kind of technology that allows us to clone replicas of ourselves, you are really rolling the dice to see what kind of child you may have and that's a process you have little control over. I am sometimes shocked at how completely different I am from my parents to the point where I wonder just how much one's character is nurture vs nature. After all, I am such a passive aggressive bitch who went out of my way to make sure that I don't share a first or even a second language with my father, just to prove to him that I'm nothing like him at all.

I know that there are many good parents out there who do understand that their children may turn out to be totally different from themselves and do not expect to bring up 'Mini Mes'. I have seen a lot of conflict between parents and children because the children have decided to follow a different path that their parents have set out for them. Either the parents were trying to create 'Mini Mes' or were trying to channel all their unfulfilled desires and dreams to their children (ref: my mother forcing me to learn the piano), but either way, when the children choose a totally different paths for themselves, some parents react extremely negatively because they didn't get the child they wanted. But such is parenthood, it is not shopping - you can't take the child back to the store and ask for a refund. You are stuck with whatever child you have: the child may be gay/lesbian, may be hopeless at school, may be completely different from you and have different ideas of the world - are you then prepared as a parent to accept that when it happens?

"I had a terrible childhood, I want to make things right by being the perfect parent." 

I've actually encountered a few parents like that before. These are people who have had terrible childhoods and really bad relationships with their parents - as adults, they are simply not in a position to fix the poor relationships they have with their parents (often it is too late, the damage done is irreparable), so instead, they want to retrospectively make things right by being the perfect parent. They want to show their parents by example how parenting should be done properly. Often they end up doing the complete opposite of what their parents did - "my parents never let choose what TV programmes to watch so I am going to trust my children to make the right choices when it comes to TV". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't: context is everything. A parent should make the best choices for the child based on the child's needs, rather than a resentful desire to just do the complete opposite of what their parents did.

Some people are trying to fix the past by having children.

"Having a child will bring the couple closer together as you become parents." 

I have a problem with people with that mindset - shouldn't you want to be close to your spouse regardless of whether you have any children or not? Time for another case study: I know of this woman Julie whose husband used to stay out late after work, going drinking with his colleagues. Julie was left feeling very frustrated - her husband claimed that it was necessary for him to network with the guys at work in order to be accepted in an environment where there was a lot of office politics and he had little choice. She saw little of him and they felt they were drifting apart so they decided to try for a baby. After Julie had her first baby, she pressured her husband into coming home earlier from work to share the childcare responsibilities and it did work. To be fair, her husband did make a genuine effort to try to become a good father for their young child and Julie was relieved that the baby did provide a solution to her situation.

I do have a problem with Julie using the baby as a pawn in her relationship - if she wanted her husband to spend more time her, she should have addressed the situation without introducing a baby into the equation. Fast forward several years, Julie and her husband drifted even further apart and have become the couple who have stayed together just to give their young daughter a stable environment and a happy childhood. The only thing they seem to have in common was their love for their daughter, but they have long fallen out of love with each other. However, any thought of divorce was out of the question as they both wanted the best for their daughter and that meant staying together for her. Julie's daughter is now 14 years old and in a few years' time, she will be going to university and I wonder what will happen then, when the daughter is finally an adult? Will that marriage finally fall apart once their daughter leaves home? Or will they then pressure their daughter to give them grandchildren just so they can stay together for a new purpose? 

Julie's husband worked very long hours

"Giving life to another human being is the most generous act of kindness you can do." 

Oh I beg to differ. What kind of life are you giving this child you've brought into the world? I have talked about this case where a working class single mother has raised a child who has been causing all kinds of trouble at school - the child gets into all kinds of trouble everyday and doesn't listen to the teachers. Fingers point back to the mother who is at best guilty of neglect, at worst, she is responsible for creating a monster. This woman works all day as a market traders, selling products at a street market and hence has little time to care for her son who has been left to his own devices everyday for years. What kind of childhood does he have? What kind of parenting skills does this single mother have? The gift of life doesn't end at childbirth - you have the next 18 years to contend with. If you are going to bring a child into this world then taking parenting seriously is an act of responsibility, not generosity. If you bring a children into this world, only to subject them to a miserable childhood, then you're not generous, you're a monster.

If you really want to be generous, then do acts of charity: tales of George Michael's extraordinary generosity and kindness emerged after his death - this man gave away vast sums of money to charity. If you want to be a kind, generous person, there are thousands of charities out there you can support - you don't have to have a baby you know. The act of copulating creates a baby - that isn't the gift of life, that is a result of a biological process, a result of a man and a woman fucking and impregnating the woman. Carrying a baby to term doesn't make you generous, choosing not to do so doesn't make you selfish either - that is why I am so pissed off when I hear people accusing adults who don't have children as selfish. The world is overpopulated already and you want to make more babies?  Let's not glorify the act of reproduction: even animals are capable of having sex and producing offspring, it is but a biological process. Do you know the difference between being a responsible parent and being generous?

Do you know what generosity really is?

So, where do I stand on this issue?

Am I anti-parents? No, but I do have something against people who have children and become parents despite not considering what the hell they are getting themselves into. In such a situation, it is the unwanted children who ultimately suffer the results of poor parenting and I consider myself one such victim. My parents were under a lot of pressure from their families not just to have a children but to have a son - nobody actually gave them a plan as to what to do after the son finally came along, as if everything would magically fall into place when they clearly didn't. They struggled to cope with having so many children but most of all, failed to take into account the widening generation gap that was a result of the world changing so quickly. Instead of trying to deal with the problem, they just went into total denial and refused to even acknowledge it and as a result, I'm pretty much estranged from my parents today.

I know there will be people who will be leaving my hateful messages like, how dare you be so ungrateful, your parents brought you into this world and raised you yet you have the audacity to question whether it was the right choice to even have you in the first place. How would you feel if your mother had an abortion instead of keeping you? I ask you to spare a thought for every child out there who is currently having a miserable childhood and every adult out there who's hurting on the inside because they too had a miserable childhood and with that in mind, I put this to you: we are made to take a difficult driving test before we are allowed to get behind the wheel of a car and drive, yet we allow anyone to become a parent without any kind of verification if these people are prepared for the duties of parenthood or even have any kind of basic parenting skills? I hope I've given you plenty of food for thought - as always, I can't wait to hear your responses. So, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Many thanks for reading.