legacy without children
Are children truly the only thing that defines our legacy?
I'm chilling solo by the pool in Bulgaria, and someone (on instagram) is probably about to get offended and come @ me, because how dare a woman over 30 enjoy a vacation without chasing after kids?
Yet, here I am, in Bulgaria by the pool when a mother of three enters the area. Her kids look to be around 7, 5, and 2 years old – an age range that's quite the handful, but who’s asking me?
The mother appears neither annoyed nor particularly joyful – she just is. The kids scream "Mama, Mama, Mama," leap into the water, and float in their swim rings. I wonder if this woman, unlike me, has a "real legacy." If her children are her legacy – just as we’re led to believe, and as it is legally defined. But let’s not dive into the legal aspect here; that’s cut and dried compared to the emotional and intangible dimensions of a legacy.
The question that's been on my mind now for a while is as follows.
What’s one supposed to leave behind when all one has is one's own head?
While I’m observing the family, I can’t help but wonder if the mother sleeps peacefully at night, knowing she’s done something right, at least in the eyes of society, or if she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in seven years.
I will never know.
Should we be having children just to leave something supposedly meaningful behind? Are children truly the only thing that defines our legacy? Let’s flip the thought experiment: Suppose you have a child who grows up to commit crimes and generally turns out to be a dreadful person – would THAT then be your legacy? Is that all that remains of you? The crimes, the career, the actions of your child? Can we really take pride in what another person – and yes, children are nothing more than that – has done?
I feel like this equation only ever works in one direction: when parents are proud of their children. But as soon as they can't say that, they suddenly become hyperindependent of their offspring’s actions. “No, that’s not me!”
What about us, our achievements and accomplishments?
Isn't neoliberalism all about the individual? The double standard, hah. So, should legacy, after all, be considered independent of blood relations? Isn’t legacy about what we DO rather than who we GIVE BIRTH TO – given that we have little final control over the outcome of our reproduction, whereas we have significant influence over our behavior, our words, our work, and our art?
As a consciously childfree person, I do understand that some people consider their children their legacy, but I personally refuse to believe that a legacy is only possible with them. My legacy is my books – or rather, my thoughts within my books, my words directed at an anonymous readership, friends, and lovers. The love I had to give at different points in my life, as it has always been the most important to me.
My legacy is the courage I was able to inspire in others, leading them to quit their dreaded corporate jobs. My legacy might also be a museum that I could one day inaugurate in the district where I grew up. A museum for art and culture, featuring feminist reading series.
Isn’t that what regional writers do, or is that only suitable for men?
If I had children who wanted to participate in curating, I would consider that my legacy – not the children themselves, but the act of curating. The role of the children could just as easily be filled by someone who shares my interests. I love the idea of finding them on the internet before I die.
Regardless of me and my literary ambitions, legacy can look very different from the typical family clan often held together by patriarchal structures, money, and violence.
Legacy is community within, and beyond family. Legacy is the gift to a friend's son. Legacy is kindness, legacy is inspiring, being present, existing. Exploring new places together, dedicating books, creating shows. Ultimately, legacy is a reflection of how we live our lives and the values we impart.
It’s about the ways we make a difference.
Legacy is who is remembered. And I doubt there’s a person in this world who hasn’t touched anyone, in some way.
How do you define legacy for yourself, if you are #childfree?
Nobody remembers Shakespears children, but Shakespears plays are still played globally. So legacy aren’t necessarily children.
On the other hand children aren’t just the legacy of the parents. The saying „It takes a whole village to raise a child“ is certainly true.
I don’t think becoming childfree has any future. Though it doesn’t matter if some do it.
What we have to do is reconnecting with the way of conscious community and understand the way we go from child (receiver) to adult (fighter) to elder (founder).
We have completely lost touch with the art of founding for the world after us.
That is a topic I also thought about for quite a while. Thank you for sharing your writing - which I like very much - with us here. I also am a fan of more text and less short videos and I felt since the death of Forums that when you wrote a comment that was longer than three words and five emoji you were a total weirdo haha.
I do not want to be the legacy of my parents or anyone so I would imagine that it would be wrong to expect that from children I could have had. I do not want to give birth to other humans but I would be absolutely willing to be a part of the village if that would still exist like that in our society and provide what I can provide.
I like to help and be there for others. Always did and I hope whatever good I did will have some little impact on the lives of other individuals and who they helped or their children or grandchildren or whoever. Every human with a good heart has value. And apart from certain psychopaths and assholes many out there are good people I believe who do not want to harm others most of the time. I also kind of see myself as part of a little species living on a pretty little planet in a huuuuuge universe. All our DNA is 99% the same. What does it matter in a global sense if I give birth to children or not, our legacy as human beings is what will one day decide if this whole "project" here on planet earth will have made any sense if at all possible and the part each individual plays in it can have so many different elements.
I totally agree with the fact that most of the time it is more interesting what a person did themself than what their children do. Especially with artists that often is the fact. I do not even know if Shakespeare or Goethe had children even though I am familiar with many works of them and have seen many plays they wrote. I know Edgar Allen Poe died young and that his life was really not nice but maaaaany decades later a little girl saw a book with a violet cover in the shelf and read it. That girl was me and I never forgot the stories written by him I read and always came back to them and they really had an impact on me and also on what I will tell younger people when I talk about literature and creative writing with them later in life. So his legacy is huge in my opinion for one single little human and that is cause of what he created and in my opinion you cannot "create humans" in that way even though our bodies can be reproductive in a biological sense because to me to call children "my creation" would mean I decide what my children should do or not and how they are and that would be abusive at some point.
It's a hard and for sure also beautiful job to be parents I imagine if you do it because you really want to and wish to and the work good parents put into raising good people gets not enough respect and help in many societies. I do not want to ignore the fact that I am part of a society and that children are important for that society, but there are many ways to contribute to humanity, help children and people and have a personal little legacy and I am so happy to have the right to decide I do not want to give birth as a woman. It's a huge freedom that for most parts of history nearly no woman (except celibacy) had and I know there are people out there who do not like it that we have this opportunity now and even less if we use it. That makes me really shiver sometimes to know in a historical sense how fragile and new this freedom is and I am so grateful and would be willing to fight for the next generations of girls and women in our society if that freedom should be in danger for them.