Seeking Insight Into Life's Most Challenging Questions

There is one topic that seems to pop up quite often in conversations with my friends. Why do people continue to have children in a world that is plagued with misery and evil? This question was weighing particularly hard on me the other night as I struggled to find the answer. I guess I had never really thought about it before. I have always let my heart lead me, and the choice to have children was no exception to that rule. Have I just been selfish, or naive?

This thought continued to haunt me for a couple of days. Of course I love my children, and I have always tried to do what was best for them, but now I was questioning weather bringing them into this world at all was doing what is best. As if I've set them up to fail.The idea was sobering. I only knew one thing for sure, that I could not imagine life without them now, so how could it have been the wrong choice then?

I decided to go on a little quest of sorts to find some insight on this subject. I happen to have many wise friends whom I know to have good answers to deep questions. I'm kind of lucky that way. When it comes to questions about children, I always go to Eve. Eve is one of the best mother's I know. She is kind and intuitive and very wise. This attribute of Eve's is in great contrast to the other, fun and silly side that I know. Seriously, she is the dirtiest minded little woman ever! But that is another topic for another post. As always, Eve did in fact have some very good insight.

" First of all," she said, "The world is not all misery and woe. There is a lot of good in the world too. And, how is the world supposed to change for the better if people don't have children and raise them to be the kind of good people that will do something to change what is wrong with it?"

She spoke the words that were trapped in my heart. I think these are things I've known, but need to be reminded of once in a while. My kids are amazing, and I'm sure a lot of people say that about their kids as well, because its true! We're better than our parents and our kids are better than us. I don't know how much I have to do with how great my kids are really, but I do know that if they weren't here, it would be more than just me that would be missing out. The world would be missing out on some little people who will one day make a difference. Sometimes we underestimate how strong they really are.

Now that I am reassured that not every choice I've made in my life was a huge mistake, and I'm not a big failure, the only thing left for me to ponder is how to be the mom my children need to become these great adults they will be. I've thought about this and the conclusion I've come to is simple.

Love. Maybe its too simple. Maybe I'm being naive again, but I don't think there is really a lot more that a parent can do for a child. All I know is that while we can teach them what we feel is right, they will probably defy it sometimes. While it hurts like hell to watch our children hurt, we cannot always prevent every fall, and if we did, we would be robbing them of their opportunity for growth. The one thing we can offer our children that cannot be mistaken or rebelled against is our consistent and unconditional love.

So, why do some people continue to have children? Maybe its because we choose LOVE!