TRANSCRIPT
I think if we fast forward 20 years into the future, there are going to be a lot, lot more young people asking their parents this question: why in the world did you bring me into this completely messed up world? Why did you have kids knowing what you knew about how screwed up this world is?
I think some younger people are already beginning to ask this question. But I actually, I ask it when I look at people now who are living in modern America, who watch the news, who hear about the horrible things that are happening on our planet, who realize all the awful things that are happening, and yet they are bringing children into this world. And so I ask, what were you thinking? What are you thinking?
And two words come to my mind when I think about that question. If I could answer it for them: denial and selfishness. Denial first, maybe selfishness first. Yeah, let me try with selfishness first. This is how they would answer it if they were going to be completely honest about why they had kids. They would say, I don’t really care about my kids that much. I wanted kids for myself. I wanted kids to make my life complete. I wanted to have children to give me something to do, to give me societal perks, to give my life structure, to make me happy, to get love from my child, to feed my little wounded insecure self, to give me a role and a status in our world that so respects people who have children.
Also, from what I’ve seen, a lot of parents, if they were honest, would say this: well, you know, my little baby, my child, as hard as it is to have a baby and a child, how much it costs and how much work it is, they are my anti-depressant. They make me feel less existential anxiety, less confusion. I don’t have to think about all those other horrible pain questions about life. Instead, I just have to put my focus into raising them and doing my best because I had them for me. These are all selfish reasons why I had kids, why I am having kids. That’s what they would say if they were and are honest. But they’re not. They’re not honest.
I mean, I have heard a few people here and they say, yeah, I’m having kids for selfish reasons, but most don’t do it. Instead, most go right to the second part of the answer. First part of the answer is selfishness. Second part of the answer: denial. They deny all of this. And so if they were really, really psychologically deeply honest, they would say, I’m in denial about how screwed up the world is. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to know. I want to say, oh, in my denial, my child is an expression of hope. My child is going to help change the world and save the world, and I’m going to raise this beautiful young child in person who’s going to make such a big difference and change everything.
And I know, of course, this is denial because it’s ridiculous. Because if I really, really wanted to create a human being who would change the world, who would change the dynamics of the planet and change everything, I would change myself. I would grow. I would heal. I would work out my childhood trauma. I would find out who I really was on the inside. I would break all my denial and I would be honest. I would have my feelings. I’d have my sadness. I’d have my rage at my parents for doing all these same things to me, my denial-laden, confused, selfish parents. I would call them out. I would side with my inner child instead of siding with my parents, which I have always done.
Instead, if I really were to break my denial, I would nurture myself. I would nurture my broken, hurt little child within. But I’m not going to do that. I’m in too much denial. That’s too painful. That has too many consequences. I would become a taboo person in my family. I would be rejected and abandoned yet again in my family system. They rejected me emotionally when I was a very young child, just as I am now in my denial rejecting my own child. They rejected me once, and if I called them out on all this stuff and I didn’t have kids and I broke away from them and became a really true, deep, honest person who changed the world through my own inner transformation, woo, my parents, those bastions of denial, they would hate me and they would reject me. And that would be too painful.
So much easier to just do what they did, do unto my child what my parents, my traumatizers, did unto me. Accept intergenerational denial. Accept intergenerational selfishness and not even acknowledge it. Just subliminally accept it, pass it all along, not grow, not heal, not study the history of my childhood. Instead, take all the things my parents did to maybe improve on a little bits and pieces or put a different facade on some of the things they did for a newer, more fancier, more psychologically adept, more child-centered era. But essentially, at the underlying self of what’s going on, do the exact same thing. That is my denial and dress it up with a lot of, I’m a loving parent and I have all these new theories for a great way to be a parent. And I give my child everything and use the same lies that my parents used and other parents used.
I am unconditionally loving my child, no matter that the world is so screwed up and the child’s future is very dysfunctional. And no, no matter that this person is in a very troubled, confused relationship like most parents are at a deep fundamental level. No matter that the economy is, no matter that the environment is, no matter that society is crumbling at the edges and violence is seething all over the place. No matter that everybody knows that in 30 and 40 years, the world is going to be a horribly confusing, more dysfunctional place than it already is. No matter about all this because I have hope and I have happiness. Oh yes, and it’s wonderful that I’m bringing another child into the world. And let’s have a baby shower and let’s have birthday parties. Hooray! And everything’s going to be so lovely, and I’m going to get perks from my parents and they will give me gifts and baby clothes and haircuts. And I’ll give so much nurturance, limited nurturance, to my child.
And I won’t say all this if someday in 20 years my child looks at me and says, why did you bring me into this crazy world? What in the hell were you thinking? And I won’t say all these things because I’ll be too deeply buried in the muck and mire of my own continued selfishness, my own denial, and my lack of growth. And what’s so sad, what’s so terribly sad, is the children are wonderful. Children are beautiful. But children deserve more than this crazy world that we have created for them.