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April 03, 2003

The simplicity of raising children. 2

Those who have raised kids might look at my title and say, "he's obviously never had kids." They, of course, would be right. Nor do I want them anytime soon. But I do wonder how children fit into my current ideals of the importance of simplicity in ones life.
In my last blog entry I spoke about how happy I am in my current life. Part of my happiness stems from the freedom that comes with lack of responsibility. I believe my happiness is a positive thing for, not only myself, but those around me. Happiness is contagious, as well as being a good motivator. I tend to do more positive things with my life, when I'm happy. This may seem obvious, but isn't when you're not happy. Lack of responsibility means I do not have a lot of stress. Stress is bad (again obvious), and leads to unhappiness. Not all stress is bad, but too much normally is. How much is too much? It depends on the person and the type of stress. When, in my analysis, I asked myself how long I could maintain my lifestyle, the answer was indefinitely, until I thought of the idea of having children someday. :-|

Children are a tremendous amount of responsibility. Of all the things to consider when contemplating having children, more important than money, housing situation, etc.. is whether you're ready for the responsibility. If you are, then you can work other things out. If not, you're going to mess your kids up. Ok, maybe thats a little bit of a generalization, but you get the point. Given this, its safe to say, not everyone should have kids. I'm pretty sure I have no real excuse not to have them someday. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, kids are most peoples biggest contribution to society. For some, it is their only contribution, but if they raised good kids, that may be enough. I want to contribute, and I see having kids as a way I can. Here's where the dilemma starts.

Stated simply, I find that large amounts of responsibility makes me stressful and unhappy as my life becomes complicated and I am unable to do the things I want. Kids require a large amount of responsibility. You see where I'm going with this. So in an attempt to reconcile these issues I came up with a theory (while watching my brother interact with his newborn).

I think I may have been too quick to equate responsibility with complication. I thought the more responsibility one had, the more complicated ones life is. What I think I've found is that it depends on the responsibility. For example, I think there is such thing is unproductive responsibility. Work is often that way. You can have a lot of responsibilities at work which do not positively (or negatively) affect your life in any way. We all have some of this and its something we have to learn to deal with. However, the more of this type of responsibility we have, the more difficult it is to 'deal with'. Different people have different tolerance levels for this type of responsibility, and obviously it depends heavily on how idealistic the person is. I am very idealistic, so I don't seem to be able to take a large amount of this type of responsibility. I just can't make it make sense at a certain point. Children obviously do not fall into this category.
In fact, as I was observing my brother I realized that in many ways children FORCE you to simplify your life. Simplicity in life is often a matter of how clear ones priorities are. For most people, they are not always completely clear. At least, even if the order is clear, the amount usually isn't. When you have kids, it becomes immediately clear. Your highest priority by a good 2/3 are your children. You must provide for your child, both on a macro and micro level. From working to make make money, ensuring you can provide for your children, to actually feeding your children when they are hungry. The complicated part is (or should be) fitting the rest of your life in with your children (not the other way around).

Given the above, I believe having children fits in to my ideological views of life. For me, it means that someday I must consciously make the choice to put my priorities aside before having kids. Once the decision is made and internalized, then having kids will not add 'complications' to my life, but rather will change what inspires me to keep my life simple.
One of the things that helped me realize this was Mono County Search and Rescue. I had contemplated joining and even went to their annual recruitment meeting intending to join. At the meeting it became clear what a HUGE commitment it was in time and responsibility. It wasn't a simple matter of weighing pros and cons either. When I did that everything pointed to joining being the correct course of action. When I weighed the other factors I decided not to join. I am new to Mammoth and new to this new way of life. I do not feel ready to make the commitment required to be a valid contribution to them, or them to my life. Different from the idea that anything worth doing is worth doing well, some things are ONLY worth doing if you WILL do them well. However, at least with search and rescue, you can be wrong and change your mind. With kids, your decision must be final. "Is that your FINAL decision?" Even more so than marriage, you must be completely sure, and once done, not question your decision further.

All of THAT said. I am not ready to join search and rescue, if you know what I mean. :)

Posted by wonko at April 3, 2003 06:11 PM

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