Post #174911 by BarkerBird on Tue, Jul 26, 2005 3:47 PM

DonHoNYC,

To ask why have children is to me, a little bit like asking "why fall in love?"

For yourself? Because you want someone to share all your life with you?

And if you don't fall in love, you have all this freedom. Go anywhere, do anything, no strings to tie you down.

Because to me, that's what parenting is like. It's like falling in love. Hard work. And you'll never see the end of that hard work. But at the same time, I have two great loves of my life, where I had only one before!

If you can get through life scott-free, with the minimal number of connections to others, with the least strings and commitments to those who require your time and devotion, so much for you. Maybe that's a good way to be in a crazy world.

As far as bringing a child into a crazy world, well, please point me to the epoch in history when there wasn't crazyness and it was a good time to have kids. It probably lasted only 20 or so years, and those kids grew up and had to clean up the problems of the world. My parents had me during vietnam. Their parents had them during WWII.

But I have to say, I really didn't understand any of that truely until I became a father. I enjoyed my relatively carefree years too, very much. But I enjoy my life now as well, and I absolutely wouldn't change it.

It's something to think about.