Continuity
Yesterday, I did my weekly shopping. There is a supermarket I visit that has a tiny bazaar area. Their offerings vary by week. This week there was a range of children's clothes. An older woman was pawing through some t-shirts, and said to her husband, "Look at these cute shirts." Her husband replied, "Who are they for, the cat?" I couldn't help but laugh, and so did the wife and husband.
I bet that woman has grown children and is eagerly awaiting news of an upcoming grandchild. I'm sure she mentions it often whenever she sees her children, "Well, when are the grandchildren going to arrive?" So many women are like her in these villages! When I first married, my mother wanted a grandchild, though she didn't say it to my face continuously, just took it as a matter of course that we would have children soon. My mother-in-law was the one who was always asking about the stork's arrival. It became trying after a while. Even after our daughter was born, she kept asking when the second baby would arrive. She gave up on us only a few years ago. She now has seven grandchildren from four of her children, but she would still love some more. Now, she's assuming that her older grandchildren will soon marry and have children of their own.
But the newer generation has changed from its parents'. If most of my generation saw it as a natural evolution of life to get married and have children, the next generation doesn't see it that way. Already, when we were married, it was getting more expensive to rear a child in such a way as to give it the foundation for a better life. Now, it's getting prohibitive. The cost of living has gone up exponentially. Finding and keeping a good job is becoming impossible for the twenty-somethings. More and more young people have to keep living at home. Those who decide to get married also end up coming back to their parents' house or emigrating. Some don't even get married, just live together if they have good jobs, or put off even that if they don't. It's so much more difficult to get started in life, that most young people can't even begin to think about having children and providing for them and their future education.
Some young people don't even want children. My mother-in-law is starting to drop hints in our daughter's direction, but my daughter doesn't see herself becoming a mother, neither in the near future nor ever. I have been contaminated by village thinking, and someday would like to have a grandchild. I tell my daughter that she feels that way now, and that right now it is a very bad idea, though someday she might change her mind. But I understand her point of view. She's young, she has her life before her, and she is the key to living it. She doesn't need a man or a partner by her side, and she doesn't need a child to fulfill her life. This generation is probably one of the first, at least in these villages, to break from the species-imposed obligation of replicating themselves. Given the large world population, and the dwindling resources, it is very understandable and even laudable, but there's a tiny niggling in the back of the mind that I will end forever.
Part of the need for children is biologically ingrained. The species that doesn't reproduce is the species that dies out. But humans have also learned to see it as a way of having eternal life. We live on in our children, who live on in their children, who live on in their children, etc., until the end of time. If we are presented with a family heirloom from generations past, however small or insignificant, we want to be able to pass it on to the infinite future. We see ourselves as the embodiment of our ancestors, and we would like to be the embodiment of future generations. Continuity is a human need.
Will I have a grandchild some day? I don't know, though the balance at the moment is leaning toward "no." It is my daughter's decision, and I have to respect that. Besides, babies are time-consuming, and a crying baby is a nuisance. Like a story my father used to tell me about my late cousin Moncho when he was three years old, and I was a newborn. "Throw that baby into the river; she cries too much," he would say to my parents. I sympathize with his sentiments.
I bet that woman has grown children and is eagerly awaiting news of an upcoming grandchild. I'm sure she mentions it often whenever she sees her children, "Well, when are the grandchildren going to arrive?" So many women are like her in these villages! When I first married, my mother wanted a grandchild, though she didn't say it to my face continuously, just took it as a matter of course that we would have children soon. My mother-in-law was the one who was always asking about the stork's arrival. It became trying after a while. Even after our daughter was born, she kept asking when the second baby would arrive. She gave up on us only a few years ago. She now has seven grandchildren from four of her children, but she would still love some more. Now, she's assuming that her older grandchildren will soon marry and have children of their own.
But the newer generation has changed from its parents'. If most of my generation saw it as a natural evolution of life to get married and have children, the next generation doesn't see it that way. Already, when we were married, it was getting more expensive to rear a child in such a way as to give it the foundation for a better life. Now, it's getting prohibitive. The cost of living has gone up exponentially. Finding and keeping a good job is becoming impossible for the twenty-somethings. More and more young people have to keep living at home. Those who decide to get married also end up coming back to their parents' house or emigrating. Some don't even get married, just live together if they have good jobs, or put off even that if they don't. It's so much more difficult to get started in life, that most young people can't even begin to think about having children and providing for them and their future education.
Some young people don't even want children. My mother-in-law is starting to drop hints in our daughter's direction, but my daughter doesn't see herself becoming a mother, neither in the near future nor ever. I have been contaminated by village thinking, and someday would like to have a grandchild. I tell my daughter that she feels that way now, and that right now it is a very bad idea, though someday she might change her mind. But I understand her point of view. She's young, she has her life before her, and she is the key to living it. She doesn't need a man or a partner by her side, and she doesn't need a child to fulfill her life. This generation is probably one of the first, at least in these villages, to break from the species-imposed obligation of replicating themselves. Given the large world population, and the dwindling resources, it is very understandable and even laudable, but there's a tiny niggling in the back of the mind that I will end forever.
Part of the need for children is biologically ingrained. The species that doesn't reproduce is the species that dies out. But humans have also learned to see it as a way of having eternal life. We live on in our children, who live on in their children, who live on in their children, etc., until the end of time. If we are presented with a family heirloom from generations past, however small or insignificant, we want to be able to pass it on to the infinite future. We see ourselves as the embodiment of our ancestors, and we would like to be the embodiment of future generations. Continuity is a human need.
Will I have a grandchild some day? I don't know, though the balance at the moment is leaning toward "no." It is my daughter's decision, and I have to respect that. Besides, babies are time-consuming, and a crying baby is a nuisance. Like a story my father used to tell me about my late cousin Moncho when he was three years old, and I was a newborn. "Throw that baby into the river; she cries too much," he would say to my parents. I sympathize with his sentiments.
Your daughter sounds like mine. Although I would have loved to be a grandmother, having a grandchild on the other side of the Atlantic doesn't make sense. I did tell her if she wanted a child without a husband, I would come and take care of it until the child was ready for day care (not creche). Fortunately she didn't, but I wanted her to know she had a choice.
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