In case the implications of my positions expressed in many posts on this blog over the last few years on the subject of parenting aren't clear, in case I haven't directly said where I think things must lead if human beings are indeed evolving towards that "Highly Enlightened Society" mentioned in the "Conversation With God" books, let me state it now for the record, as such:
Parents are the least qualified of all adults to raise children.
Now, of course, I am saying it in that way somewhat for tongue-in-cheek impact, but here's what I genuinely and specifically mean - getting pregnant requires no further act beyond having sexual intercourse, maybe even only once, during the time when a woman is ovulating. That's it. Period. And once pregnant, if a decision is made to take the pregnancy to term and have a child, parenting does not have the prerequisites in our society's 3-dimensional value system and sensibilities that things like getting a job does, or that even driving a car does. In fact, you don't need a degree in anything, nor do you need a license or to have passed a test of any sort to become a parent. You do not even have to be of sound mind or body to become a parent; you don't have to be mature or wise or educated, including in sexuality or contraception, anatomy, child-development or child-rearing, and you certainly do not have to be self-actualized to become a parent in our society. All you literally have to do, then, to become a parent is fuck somebody, get pregnant and have the baby. Voila! Instant parent.
In Conversations With God, the "radical" statement is made that in a Highly Enlightened Society, the young would bear the children and the elders would raise them. Think about that! Really!
You see, as both as a seasoned parent and as a psychotherapist and expert in childhood development, I can tell you that a young parent (i.e. - under 40) has only youthful energy to offer a child, as in the ability to play soccer with them, which is basically no different than what a child can get from its own peers. On the other hand, a self-actualized older adult has wisdom to offer, experience, groundedness in life, and the ability to actually guide a child through some of life's mazes, something, in other words that a child can't get from its peers.
And PLEASE, don't use the "L" word with me! I have seen way too much abuse and exploitation of children by biological parents, and even more narcissistic, vicarious acting out through children by biological parents, all who claim to "love" their kids. I know too much to be fooled into thinking that love for a child is biological and restricted to "natural" parents.
Nonsense.
Love is a universal force that comes through someone who has opened that channel, and it comes in greater quantities as a function of sincere self-work and self-actualization, not from genetics or "blood."
Some who've read my strong opinions on these subjects over the years have tried to suggest that I just don't like children. Quite the contrary. I love children. That's why I am so vociferous, see?
It's parents I don't like.
Why? Because almost none who become parents do so because they are actualized and gratified in their well-lived lives, so in love with their romantic partner, and so loving of themselves, that they experience the calling of another soul wanting to come through them and be born into this world and go with that flow from that place. That would be quite beautiful, wouldn't it?
You see, a parent starting from that place, doesn't idealize and project and transfer onto a child. That parent allows love to flow through them to the child, but that parent also knows that raising a child is a job that requires as professional an approach as their career, with as much clarity and focus and planning, and with as much time away from the job as necessary to replenish oneself. A common and sure sign of dysfunctional parenting is when you hear the pseudo-superdedicated Park Slope-type parents talk with sighs about how their sex lives are on on hold because they have kids.
UGH!
Too bad for those kids, huh?
Okay, folks, I think I'm done for now. I hope I've made my positions on the matter of parenting a bit clearer, and thank you and congratulations to all the adults among you that have chosen to express your generativity by giving back to the world in ways other than adding to the population.
1 comment:
love your article. As a woman who chose not to have kids unless I knew myself and my partner had grown up enough and had the appropriate resources for parenting... I couldn't' agree more!
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