children
This morning I felt much happier; I’ve been feeling down for weeks. We’ve been talking with friends about children and we’ve found that we’re not the only ones who feel like, with the world going the way it is, having children might be wrong. Lots of people think the same – westerners I mean; Vietnamese certainly don’t think that way and that is the most depressing thing of all.
Last night I played a lot with a little girl at Trish’s house, a Vietnamese girl adopted by an American mother. She pretended to be a cat and then a dog.
Francis said that the family is the basis of society, that if we give up on the family we might as well give up completely. That was an opinion we could have argued with but, when we pushed him further, Francis said he prayed he would always fear God more than he feared environmental catastrophe. That made me feel uneasy: was I returning to a simplistic idea of doing good in the world in order to escape spirituality? Was the violence of my fear and anger just a front against something even worse or even closer to home? Was I even forgetting what was really important – does the Saola really matter?
It reminded me of something a monk at Plum Village once said: “You want to save the rainforest? See if you can look after a pot plant first, then see about the rainforest.”
‘Very spiritually correct,’ I thought from a darker place, ‘but do we really have time for that?’
This morning I wanted to write and I did, before sitting or anything else, while Hannah lay in bed reading her book. I wrote about the wind-up radio on my desk and about its personality. Suddenly I decided that, in order to develop my writing, I ought to try and describe it properly, including all the electric innards I could see because it was transparent. Suddenly I felt there was an emotional gulf between me and the radio. A minute ago we had been conspiring together in writing; now I was writing about it. It seemed to me that maybe the idea of developing my writing wasn’t really the point, that maybe my voice wasn’t just my own. And when I started writing about Hannah, still in bed reading, I felt from the little objects something that was almost jealousy. I remembered how my friends, who want to ordain as monk and nun, said they felt their love should be free of all attachment. Suddenly the idea didn’t scare me any more.
I began to feel hungry for breakfast, and to think about breakfast with my family in Ellerton Rd. I suddenly realised how wonderful it was that we always had a proper breakfast together – not a pull things from the fridge breakfast. Cappucino and croissants and the table laid. It was a wonderful achievement, and the most wonderful thing about it was that it was never a battleground, we never questioned it.
Yesterday I said I was alone in the house with the computer, a book of short stories, some dried ginger and my work ethic. I was quite wrong, our children are also in the house and they are really with us, no matter what we’re doing and no matter what we decide. Francis said that having children was not a choice like having a car and I think he’s right. The question is no longer whether to have children, but how to look after them.
jacobite said,
March 19, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I am very happy to read what you write at the end of your post. Why is it depressing that Vietnamese people want children? Is it not rather the contrast between their attitude and that of westerners depressing? Perhaps the thought that having children could be wrong is one that only westerners are capable of thinking.
When I wrote that I wanted to fear God more than environmental catastrophe, I was not seeking to undervalue ecology anymore than I would seek to undervalue political action to change things. But it is a matter of priorities, and the Christian-Aristotelian worldview that is mine is not one that ultimately acknowledges an absolute altruism. Morality boils down to the flourishing of the individual (Aristotle) or individual salvation (Christianity). So it is fundamentally egoistic. But that is misleading, insofar as Aristotelian egoism is tempered by the definition of the human person as a social animal; so it is inevitably part of what it is to be happy as an individual to make others happy. Christianity might add to this that the human person is a transcendent animal, capable of a relationship with God.
So I’m not sure that I’d agree with the potplant thought, or that it relates directly to what I said.
Mark said,
March 23, 2007 at 1:17 am
I’m afraid the croissants have become muesli these days. But the cappuccino persists.
As a scientist, to deny yourself the indulgence of curiosity that one experiment – a child of your and your partner’s own production – is hard indeed.
And a second experiment always comes out different.
If you can, to decline might seem perverse to those who cannot. And you miss a lot of fun. Fun is important.
We can only extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicaments by fresh supplies of perceptive and dedicated individuals – who need nurture – but a chance to exist first of all.
On the saola – we are only here because of the extinctions of countless others, but those who have survived till now deserve respect, and may yet have something to teach us. The pot plant stricture is rubbish. You can always get another near identical pot plant, but not a rainforest. Individuality is paramount. On that score alone, the saola earns its place. And it might be that awful thing – emblematic.
Chloe said,
March 26, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I have to conrfess, I often find it hard to follow the thread of what you write, interesting but I have very little framework to hang what you are saying off. I assume this is becouase we have very different assuptions in the first place.
Statememt below however I find completly baffeling. Am I to understand that you think a fear of God has nothing to do with spirituality and is mearly doing good! The fear of God is the start of spirituality.
‘Francis said he prayed he would always fear God more than he feared environmental catastrophe. That made me feel uneasy: was I returning to a simplistic idea of doing good in the world in order to escape spirituality’
farandfew said,
March 31, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Sorry to take so long to reply. I read all these comments straightaway and I’m really grateful for all three. Sorry also if I’m hard to understand and perhaps there are too many Buddhist assumptions in what I write. But basically what I mean is that I realised I’d been putting the idea of having children off somewhere else; to be dealt with later. I’ve excused this by saying I have enough other stuff to deal with here & now. The new realisation for me was that you cannot use this excuse with a child who is already born so – somehow – you shouldn’t be able to use it with a child who is not born yet. I don’t think it’s really about time, but about love. Having a child isn’t something that’s going to happen at some remote time in the future, when I’ve passed through to some new stage of being; instead I feel like the me who is interacting with my work, my things, cats, motorbike drivers, is the same me that will have to look after children and that the same sorts of habits will be involved. So children are an immediate issue, not one for the future, in a sense, my children are already with me. That doesn’t mean that I’m writing off the possibilty that we will make the resolution to devote our lives to something else, other than having children but, if so, I feel we must be able to devote as much love to it as we would to our children, otherwise what’s the point?
Now I’ve spent several paragraphs just repeating my original post. Let me try again.
farandfew said,
March 31, 2007 at 10:09 pm
No, what I meant about the fear of God was the opposite of that! I am worried that I am moving away from a spiritual life towards a life which is justified in simplistic do-good terms. Like Francis said, it’s a matter of priorities. I just read ‘fear of God’ as acknowledging the true importance and power of the spiritual dimension. That sounds like a bit of a lily-livered interpretation and I’m happy to hear any other ones. I must admit that the idea of a spirituality which starts with fear and does not hope to overcome it is very odd to me. I realised today though, while walking up the steps of Tu Hieu temple, that Christianity is another thing I’ve been putting off to the future.
I don’t really know why Francis’ thoughts reminded me of that potplant. I don’t think I’m doing as well as I’d hoped with this post. It’s bedtime, really. I’ll have to try again. Funny how I can do intellectual argument on very little energy but for the rest of me to work takes a bit more. I can’t respond to what really matters here. And I can’t respond to the second comment, which i am the most grateful for.