How do people bring children into such a hurt and broken world? We live in a world where between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. And perhaps more shockingly, 1 in 6 men will be molested or sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. So often, young kids are not safe in their own homes. Even if the kids themselves are not getting abused, they witness oh so much. 90 percent of kids living in domestic violence situations know about the violence between their parents. The kids see mom and dad fighting. They catch the bruises and the angry looks and the shame. They feel the tension and internalize the pain.
Even if the household isn't physically or emotionally abusive, every home, every parent, every family member gives off signs and signals of their personal problems and troubles and hurts and pains. Parents can try their hardest, be incredibly patient and loving and attentive, yet every child still grows up with his/her own issues. They can have physical pains and ailments and emotional problems. They can misinterpret their parents' loving admonishions as demands for perfection (as in my case). Or even the youngest child, like my 3 year old nephew, can take a weeklong absence from a parent to mean an oncoming abandonment. My brother and sister-in-law are incredibly loving parents, yet their son is nearly constantly asking his daddy if he'll be here tomorrow. My heart broke for this little boy when I saw him feel compelled to climb into his parents' bed the first night they were home and fell asleep there just to be sure they they were staying.
We live in a world where violence is literally everywhere. Boys are taught that having the biggest "guns" (meaning both muscles and firearms) somehow makes them more manly.
Depression and sickness and disease are rampant. A congresswoman can no longer feel safe greeting constituents at a local grocery store for fear of being gunned down (like Gabby Giffords). Kids, no matter how young or old, cannot go to school without at least a cursory fear of gun violence as a result of schoolyard bullying or problems at home.
Even the most loving and seemingly non-violent families often use corporal punishment (i.e. physical violence), albeit well-intentioned (hopefully) as a form of "love.". This concept baffles me. How could physical violence and inflicting physical pain ever be loving? No matter how much the parent says, "Oh, it hurts me more than it hurts you" or "I'm only doing this because I love you so much," all the kid feels and knows is an association between physical violence and pain with "love."
If you truly love someone, how could you knowingly inflict pain on him/her? And with this in mind, I come back to the original question: "How could people choose to bring children into this world?".
This world, without fail, offers so much pain. If I ever had a child, I know that I would love him/her so much it brings me to tears. I cry because even the thought of these future children breaks my heart because I know that, at one point or another, their hearts (and bodies and minds) will be shattered and broken and bruised.
I could never do this to them.
And I have no clue how anyone else could either.
