Recently I read “Letter to a Child Never Born.” This novel describes an unmarried mother’s mixed feelings about whether she should give birth to a child or have an abortion. She loved the fetus but couldn’t face the harsh physical and mental torture of pregnancy. She not only had to bear the anxiety and depression, but also endured endless pressure to get an abortion from many outside sources, such as the father of the unborn child , and her friend. Her friend said, “If every chicken egg hatch,the world would become a chicken coop …even a hen would not choose to hatch all of her eggs, let alone a human being!” The arguments sounded logical, but she still insisted on giving birth to the child and raising him or her by herself. Although in the end she died of complications following a miscarriage, her critical thinking on the significance of giving birth to children impressed me very much. Most people who have children never think about the reason why they should do so. Instead, most of the time they just regard it as a responsibility or task for oneself or one’s family. All in all, it was refreshing to see the writer analyze the deeper meaning behind givingbirth.
The reasons for giving birth are seemingly as numerous as the ones against. When a single mother does not have good economic conditions and children cannot be taken care of well, abortion can seem like the more logical choice. Aside from that, the mainstream belief of the meaning of giving birth to children is for human beings, countries, families’ reproduction. Therefore, increasing population is always encouraged by directive or indirective stakeholders. But if it is doomed to have a disaster for mother and future children, is it still rewarding insisting on childbearing? Some people think since there are still opportunities to live a good life after the children grow up, every fetus should have the right to be born. But I do not think being born can count as a right of fetus. Because no one has the chance to negotiate with their mother on whether they would like to come to the world or not - everyone is a passive acceptor of parents’ choice. In this case, it is just a one-side contract by the single mother. As for the opportunities to change life on the children own, they did not figure out how much percentage the possibility is for a child and whether it’s rewarding taking risk coming to the world if the possibility is little. Life is a favor, but it does not necessarily mean all fertilized eggs have to be carried the full term. I can understand the mother’s choice in the novel that no matter how hard the situation is she would give birth to the child, but I do not agree with her thoughtless pregnancy. In the book the unmarried mother put forward an interesting question: what is the purpose of having children? From the perspective of the unborn child, no child ask for being born, they are forced to come to the world. From the perspective of the mother,if a mother is not empty or lonely without the concept that children are necessary for a complete life. From the perspective of family? If the father wants her to get abortion and never meets her again? From the perspective of nations? It sounded reasonable that keeping house price stable and promoting economic grown needmore newborn people. Children used to be regarded as the bond of marriage. Dramatically, in the world there are many couples who are married for several decades but do not have children, in contrast there are a lot of mothers who have children but still stay single.
I asked friends about the sense of giving birth to children for themselves. Most of them think that is a creature instinct and this question is a kind of wired and strange. Some believe raising children is full of achievement, enjoying the process of raising, and some view this as traditional culture they should finish the task as others, although it’s economically and psychologically challenging for them. Some hope that having children can help them avoid loneliness when they are old. Some hold the opinion that children can retain their gene on the world, inheriting their family blood. Their opinions are truly plausible and practical.
From my point of view, if individuals do not have the obligation to increase population for nations and society, I would rather have children for the sake of improving myself. I agree with the opinion of the writer, she believes “fetus and mother are strangers with intertwined fates. They are two lives in one body temporarily.” As Kahlil Gibran said, “Children come through mothers, but not from them.” Personally, I do not expect them to bring me a sense of achievement after they grow up and success in some fields or expel loneliness when I am old. I have my own things to do, which bring me enough sense of achievement, having no time to feel bored or lonely.
If I plan to have a child one day,it must be for improving myself not for the benefit of someone else. Because I quite lack empathy when I find some parents who do not educate their children well. I used to be an outside person who criticized and blamed them when they sought excuses to evade responsibility, being a mother myself may help me understand the weaknesses of human being more deeply and communicate with them in a more efficient way, not just claim that I understand their emotion but actually have no appreciation of the problems they face. For example, if a parent in kindergarten asks me about their children’s performance frequently, I may think they are too sensitive and anxious and cannot always keep patient to cope with their requirements.
Another reason for me to have children is to develop a better education method, which can be popularized and applied in normal families. According to humanistic perspective, human behavior is neither driven by instinctive force as Freud assumes, nor purely manipulated by environmental factors as behaviorists believe. I believe a good education is a result of combining microscopically conscious design of teaching activities and macroscopically life course of each child. Because people are not like machine, to input a value can get a specific output value, but an indivisible whole of the result of interaction of a series of experiences. Among all of those experiences, mothers play an important rolein their early childhood stage, just as quantum entanglement, a mother’s mental status influences children’s personality and preference even they have not been born. Therefore, to be a mother is a good way to observe and record children’s transforming and constantly improve and perfect educational method.
In short, each person has different reasons of having children or not, all the arguments are reasonable and interesting. I am a selfish person, never regarding having children as the sacrifice for country or family, but for my own benefit. I only want to develop some empathy by experiencing being a mother to enhance the communication efficiency with the parents I will meet in the future work and explore practical education method to help people in need, which can bring me a sense of joy and achievements.