No Greater Love

I recently listened to an National Public Radio program as I was driving across the Everglades towards Naples, Florida. With the relative bland nature of the landscape, my attention was easily focused upon the spoken words and therefore my interpretation of their intent.

The storyline of the program was on how society – a collection of apparently intrusive people – views a woman who has chosen not to have children. It was basically done in an interview style This is the most popular method of editing for NPR, as this style can lend situational and emotional truths to the storyline. We’re human, right? It’s quite obvious to structure our communications in the first, second, and third-human context; the I/we, you, and he/she/it/they points of view. What else is there other than how we view existence and our travails of life?

What proceeded were a few societal challenges put forth to a woman who has chosen not to bear children. This state of womanhood has existed as long as there has been the human species. It’s perfectly natural in occurrence, yet there does seem to be something that drives people to challenge said women as to their status of motherhood.

First up, there is the challenge that no greater love a woman can have than the love she would have for her children. In response, it’s defended as simply one type of love of many.

“Then there’s the old, but if you don’t have kids, you know you’re going to die alone, right?” (That’s a line straight from the story.) The argument here is that many of today’s children won’t be there for you in your later years. Apparently today’s children lack appreciation, at the least. I wonder why? I mean that facetiously.

Naturally we’d have the “…like when your mom says, when are you going to give us grandchildren?” The answer here is to respect one’s choices.

I guess I’d be challenged on this idea of the natural inquiry about motherhood. At this present time, the status trend for women is to seek options in life to a greater range than in past centuries, when de rigueur was more or less a life of fewer options; mostly centered about children and other situations where the particular and unique state of womanhood are best employed and unfortunately exploited.

Is this relatively new state of being an advancement for women? I do not know, and that’s probably what I would be challenged on. Today, the general consensus is that women have been liberated from a life of motherhood, housewife, and concubine, and now breath the free air of an independent mind and body; as if being human involves shackles on an otherwise ethereal soul.

That’s what this is all about isn’t it: independence. To use the word “freedom” here just doesn’t really describe the truth. Humans want independence from the constraints of being human; not simply the freedom to act as a human. This sort of freedom is where we are now, and pretend to look no further, but we will indeed sequentially look further, and always will. Of course, once there – that place of non-humanity – we will already be looking to the next immunity.

“What the… immunity from what?” you might inquire. My response is as it has always been in my recent essays. “An immunity from our reality.”

Look, I’m not really going anywhere with this short writing, other than to get things into focus a bit.

We all – that being humans – can act out as humans all we want. There are higher levels to us. We are primates, then mammals, then chordata, then animalia. Forget the science lingo… we’re animated creatures strictly defined by and limited to the aggregate of our composition. These are definitions, and definitions have more to do with purity than perspective.

We spend our days worrying about our composition and little else, because it’s difficult to do otherwise. We’re only human. People strive to contribute to that human state, and through such efforts, humanity moves forward; sometimes towards the light, other times towards the dark. Each of us hopes for our best and I believe acts in good conscience for the most part. The unfortunate side of that “good conscience” is that it prefers to cultivate in the workshop of ideas and good intent, rather than the plowed field of good experience and knowledge.

Humanity means a life of values from the concrete to the mystical. We all attempt a physicality of endeavor towards a creative, formative, and contributory life. Emotions are the release of human desires and hopes, and as such, constitute a significant portion of what being human means. How can one love without one’s emotions? Each of us pursue a path that is unique and immeasurable. We are all on our own Broadway stage and it’s for real. One chance, one hope, one desire, one happiness.

We want to be somebody. We want someone, hopefully many, to show up at our funeral. We want an epitaph. And so we play out a life that we hope has some meaning to others, for that is the only way to have meaning and not be meaningless. Right?

Well, if we consider, for a moment, the future; the human state in the future, we can dream utopian or distopian all we want, but for there to be that future, there has to be humans. For there to be humans, many of us have to have children. Those children have to have children, and so on, and so on. It’s the only way to get there.

Having children is the primary purpose of a human. Everything else is secondary. The enduring and immutable future is for those who move humanity into that future by unselfishly and carefully painting the canvas of that future with their children. I’m not kidding. Only those who procreate can create the future of humanity. Future humans are the result of humans past who have born them. As animal and disgustingly elementary as this all sounds, this is the noblest of human endeavors. It’s a fact.

As unlikely as it seems to us, the most meaningful, contributory, permanent expression of being human is in procreation; having children, and therefore it might be a good idea to hold highest that which is most necessary and dear to our human future.

The NPR story ended with a few lines from women (and couples) who have decided not to have children:

“Oh, we can’t. Our cats are allergic.”

“I prefer to borrow the children of others, spoil them and then send them home.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d ask such a personal question.”

I guess that sums up my point.

Humanity means embracing humanhood. Culture demands certain conformities that are bred in and not merely a temporal meme. Society can change, and it does, but in the end, society is but a ship whose fuel and rudder is a reality we rather ignore. It just seems so unappetizing.

What’s your take?