Scoop du jour: Children aren’t pro or con, they’re unexplainable

George Le Masurier

Scoop du jour

While the national debate over whatever is the polarizing issue of the day rages on, many young couples find themselves eerily disengaged, distracted by the instinctual tug and rational push of their own struggle: whether or not to have children.

While getting married and having children is a traditional North American value, it’s obviously not for everyone.

That fact rambled through my life recently while visiting with my oldest son and his wife. They are both in their mid- to late-30s and trying to decide whether they want a family of their own.

Their opinion changes almost daily.

During the discussion, my daughter-in-law asked us to talk about the benefits of having children. I know the down sides, she said, I just can’t see the positives.

I could tell she was making an internal plus and minus, or pro and con, list that had no entries on the positive side.

Neither my wife nor I could articulate an answer that fit neatly into that kind of decision-making, as if they were trying to decide on a new car or a bigger television.

That way of thinking about having children had never occurred to me.

My wife and I came from a generation where most of us just naturally assumed we’d have kids and continue the bloodlines of our respective families. It’s what people did when they graduated from college, started their careers and got on with it.

Of course, we married young and, frankly, didn’t give it a lot of thought. I think the longer a couple waits to have children — when we can afford it, when we’ve finished traveling, when our careers are solid, when it’s convenient — the more they will approach the subject analytically.

And, of course, having children makes no practical sense at all.

Children are expensive. They encourage stress and worry and heartache. They often cause family conflict and sometimes even a loss of connection between the couple themselves.

Left to rational analysis, the world’s population would be declining faster than my retirement account.

So, how do you tell someone who does not feel the pull of paternal or maternal instincts, who puts no value on historical roots or blood ties?

We fumbled around the joys of experiencing the formation of a new life, the first steps, the first words, the first school plan, the first everything.

We talked about the sense of belonging that a family unit creates. And we conjured up memories of playing cards and games, teenaged foibles and shared experiences that could not, we argued, be replicated through relationships with friends.

We were not convincing, because the rewards of parenthood are — to me, at least — unexplainable.

That family forms the greatest attachment in our lives is not a persuasive argument, but it means something.

Friends come and go. They may show up when you need them the most, or they may not. Families provide an ethical imperative.

That can be good or bad, I suppose, depending on the moral compass passed along from previous generations. You only have to read the news to know that thousands upon thousands of parents should’ve never had children.

A family is an anchor that should, if it’s a good one, hold you steady through any storm.