Failing at parenting is probably the worst fail you can have in your whole life
Although I love little children – everything about them – from their earnestness, curiosity, their cute ways of walking and that intent look that comes into their eyes when they are taking in something new to them – I do wish we had fewer in the world.
I wish it for the children. I wish it for the earth. I do know that if we have fewer children now we may see a leaner old age for ourselves. But I feel that this will be worth it. Not only because the worlds resources be easier to share in the next generations and the pressure on our environment decreased.
I wish it for the children even more perhaps...
If the only children who came into the world were truly wanted and planned for what a difference we would see in the children of the world. And in the kind of world we have. Not wanted as a biological ‘imperative’ or an economic hedge against old age but as a person in their own right.
When I say planned for I mean also waited for, until one had the resources both inner (emotionally) and outer (economically). I do not mean that one needs to be a millionaire to have children but have a home, a stable job and plenty of emotional space to fit this new person into.
So often babies seem to be born to teen-agers mutilating two lives, or even in older people to patch up relationships or to have someone in the world that will love them, or even have pregnancy to a large extent forced on them. A cult of the ‘baby’ and pre-creation making even those who subsequently seem to really dislike having children at all to have them.
Perhaps all I am saying is: think first before you decide to have children. Think about who you and your partner are, what you want in life, and where you are in your life’s journey.
Because truly; failing at parenting is probably the worst fail you can do in your whole life.
And we are failing to nurture our young in so many ways in South Africa.
And unfortunately, in this fast paced, me, me, unequal world babies and young children are suffering and growing up emotionall stunted and damaged. Both from the very rich and the very poor families and what I want to call the many ‘non-families’ we seem to have become accustomed and habituated to.