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.
Once a parent, always a parent. Even when they are old enough to take decent care of themselves, I find myself uneasy going to sleep at times.
At ages 7,5, and 2 any modestly egalitarian couple will find both partners losing a bit of sleep.
Re: legacy
I'm just vain enough to be proud of our kiddos, but I'm with you. My legacy is still what I've done in and for the world at large. Our kiddos have their own legacy to hew.
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.
Thanks for your comment :)
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.
Re: mom's sleep.
Once a parent, always a parent. Even when they are old enough to take decent care of themselves, I find myself uneasy going to sleep at times.
At ages 7,5, and 2 any modestly egalitarian couple will find both partners losing a bit of sleep.
Re: legacy
I'm just vain enough to be proud of our kiddos, but I'm with you. My legacy is still what I've done in and for the world at large. Our kiddos have their own legacy to hew.
When I was in my 30’s I asked an 80-year-old client how he felt about never having children, and he replied, “I haven’t regretted it yet.”