Is it selfish to have a child?
I’m a married woman approaching 30 years old and I recently find myself more frequently thinking about whether or not I should have a child. My husband and I are fortunate that we have the financial means to support a child and we consider ourselves well educated and capable professionals. The environmental factors are definitely not in play here; for us this is purely a question of personal choice. As I ponder on this, I came to question whether or not I’m being selfish.
My motivation
To be completely honest, my motivation for having a child right now is simply to experience motherhood; to find out what it’s like to have and nurture a child that resembles myself in some way. I have a number of friends who are parents now and I’ve heard stories of how having a child changes your perspective on life. How the bond between a parent and a child is indescribably complex. I’ve read articles that illustrate how you could simultaneously love your child to death and also sometimes regret your decision of having them in the first place. How having a child ruins your life, yet it also brings you unbelievable joy. All that I’ve consumed on this topic seems to describe an experience that is unlike any other. An experience that arguably may have the most life-altering impact in a person’s adult life. As a curious individual with a bit of a FOMO (fear of missing out) complex, how could I go through life without having experienced this? Forgive my crude analogy, but isn’t this like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower?
People who want children
I asked around to see what other people’s motivations are for having children. Excluding religious reasons or family traditions, some people say it’s so that they could nurture and create the next best version of themselves, like a fun project or challenge. Some people want to leave a legacy behind when they pass. Some people want to have someone to take care of them when they’re old. Some people are lonely and simply want a child to love. Some people just want to have a purpose or want to feel needed in some way. To me, these all sound like selfish motivations. It’s not for the child that parents decide to have one, nor is it for the greater good in anyway (ie. to populate the world with more people etc). It always seems to be for personal gain. Whether it’s to make ourselves feel more needed, to help us find a deeper purpose in life, or for me, to enrich my personal life through a commonly recommended life experience.
People who don’t want children
I explored the alternative. I have friends who don’t ever want to have children at all and I asked them for their reasons. Some say it’s because they want to maintain their personal freedom or have a better chance to advance their career or life goals. Some people say that it’s because this world is so messed up that they don’t want to bring a child into this madness. Some people have the foresight that they won’t be good parents, and therefore decided to not put the child through a potentially bad life experience. Is it me, or do the people who don’t want to have children seem less selfish overall?
More Questions
Let’s say for the sake of argument that it is a selfish decision for a parent to have a child. What does this mean? Is this a bad reason to have a child? Is there actually a good reason to have a child? I want to have the child so that I can have the experience of being a mother in my lifetime. Does that mean the child is doing me a favor? That can’t be the case since I’m the one providing for the kid, right? Or is it a symbiotic relationship where we mutually benefit? Kind of like the working relationship between an employer and employee; one provides a salary and a chance to grow through mentorship and the other provides their time and effort, win-win. If so, does that mean I wouldn’t really deserve the thanks and praise on Mother’s Day? Or is this justified because the child owes me more for raising them?
What does this all mean?
As it stands, I feel like my decision to have a child is based on selfish motivation. And because I selfishly want to have a child, I’m not really doing anyone a favor; I’m actually just doing myself a favor. Therefore, it would be wrong of me to expect gratitude or praise for being a mother or feel like I deserve it. It’s like me choosing to clean out my closet because I ran out of space and then expecting a big thank you or some kind of recognition from the donation center for all the clothes I’ve brought them. That just doesn’t seem right to me.
Do other people feel this way? Is having a child a selfish decision? If so, is that okay? Do we really deserve the assumed gratitude and praise for being a parent?
