🚀 go-pugleaf

liversen@physiology.medsch.ucla.edu (Lori Iversen) wrote:
>In article <DqCMDn.HwD@world.std.com>, jcooley@world.std.com (John Cooley) says:
>>
>>I just saw on one of those news shows on night TV an interview by Jane Pauly
>>of Ann Landers.  Two of the stats that surprised me was that Ann Landers
>>said when she asked her readers if they could do it all over again:
>>
>>         - Only 55% said they would have married their current spouse.
>
>No comment.  (See .sig).
>
>>         - 70% said they wouldn't have had kids if they could do it again.
>

   The following contradiction has always perplexed me: Frequently, I hear 
people complaining loudly about the burdens and restrictions imposed by 
parenthood; when questioned only seconds later, however, they insist that 
they definitately would have kids if "they could do it all over again". 
How do we resolve this apparant contradiction? Possibly:
   1) An extremely strong life instinct, pushing for preservation of the 
species and genetic self, overrides momentary inconvenience.
   2) Children represent possibility, and allow us to rekindle the hope 
that previously abandonned dreams may still be fulfilled ,albeit 
vicariously, through the child who symbolically is an extension of 
ourselves; the lure of the possible (and of narcissistic gratification) is 
strongest when the child is still very young and experience (nasty, 
callous reality) has not yet shown us his limitations.
    Such hope, such parental enthusiasm, may be based on self-deception; 
cold blooded, statistical analysis quickly shows us that, like us, our 
offspring probably will be ordinary, frustrated beings whose years of 
frantic grasping end in listless resignation.  Nonetheless, such 
self-deception, such delusions, may be critical in maintaining enthusiasm, 
social-mindedness, useful ambitions and in warding of the paralysis which 
leads to further social decay.
   3)Timeless yearnings for immortality (fear of death) are answered 
through procreation (and religion); through children, we extend our beings 
in space and time.
    4) Having children satisfies the timeless mandate to "go forth and 
multiply"; by so doing our duty, we are partly exonerated from feelings of 
social guilt.  Until quite recently, procreation was indedd a duty to 
community and family; when infant mortality was high, less fertile 
families soon died out, and lost their businesses/farms due to a dwindling 
workforce.