Parenting quest-ions
Sri Aurobindo reminds me that becoming a parent is better as a conscious and precise journey rather than an animalistic one. D & I are endeavoring to create a new human being who will embody our noblest and best, our highest aspirations as human beings. There are implied sacrifices in such a lofty pursuit, some as mundane as giving up drinking while pregnant to open ended quests such as self improvement.
It is altogether too easy to lose sight of the nobility in the process, especially when faced with barbaric reality of daily indignities. Perhaps each is only a learning experience of some kind. Or perhaps I'm just thinking too deeply. After all, I myself have learned that there is much joy, time and relief in letting life happen to me (animalistically) rather than analyzing or trying to frame and craft its moments.
Perhaps parenting can be a far less ambitious goal and still be very fulfilling. We want to create a person who can be happy and who can contribute to the net happiness of others. Above all else I would like for my child to be good hearted, kind & a productive contributing member of the world community. D has a simple and realistic aspiration - there are things that we enjoy about life and we'd like to pass that onto another human being. We'd both like to re-create a family unit because we've both cherished our own family units.
A friend and new father of a 3 week old just reported that the experience is indeed everything that one has heard. That it's hard, really hard, getting better, albeit slowly, with time.
The reality of each hour changes drastically in nearly every way. And self perception suddenly shifts from productive human being, contributing professional, and loving spouse to an exhausting, unrewarding and relentless care giving. What a shock it must be for the body and for the brain.
Hearing of the experience it seems to me that the only way for father to share some of the caregiving with the mother is to help with the feeding. Especially in the first few weeks as the new family transitions between integral being and independent being.
In the larger time scale, the hellish drudgery of hourly feedings fades into insignificance. From the spiritual perspective, it is possibly the easiest of the work ahead to mold the being. But the immersion in the hourly reality, low on sleep and energy, and overwhelmed with the shock of the change does not afford the luxury of the larger perspective.
The larger perspective also places us in context for what our parents did for us - facilitating the basest and smallest of our bodily needs, loosing themselves and their dignity to transition us into independent beings. Does time truly cycle around while we age ? We return to being dependent beings, first emotionally then physically. As we have our own children and fully appreciate what our parents did for us (as children, and in helping us as parents), do we recognize and feel the need to give back when our parents age into dependancy ? Will we hope for our children to return the work for us ?
There are bigger questions in my mind too. Having a child is a well documented method to bringing one closer to one's own parents. But doesn't it also inevitably distance us ? If we create our own and new family units, does it not inevitably remove some portion of us from the bond we had with our parents. Or does this cohesion simply overlap and multiply ?
I wonder if I'll have the sanity to ask myself these things when I'm in the thick of my own upcoming reality. I'm glad that my parents will be around to help me explore these things, should I be able to think.
It is altogether too easy to lose sight of the nobility in the process, especially when faced with barbaric reality of daily indignities. Perhaps each is only a learning experience of some kind. Or perhaps I'm just thinking too deeply. After all, I myself have learned that there is much joy, time and relief in letting life happen to me (animalistically) rather than analyzing or trying to frame and craft its moments.
Perhaps parenting can be a far less ambitious goal and still be very fulfilling. We want to create a person who can be happy and who can contribute to the net happiness of others. Above all else I would like for my child to be good hearted, kind & a productive contributing member of the world community. D has a simple and realistic aspiration - there are things that we enjoy about life and we'd like to pass that onto another human being. We'd both like to re-create a family unit because we've both cherished our own family units.
A friend and new father of a 3 week old just reported that the experience is indeed everything that one has heard. That it's hard, really hard, getting better, albeit slowly, with time.
The reality of each hour changes drastically in nearly every way. And self perception suddenly shifts from productive human being, contributing professional, and loving spouse to an exhausting, unrewarding and relentless care giving. What a shock it must be for the body and for the brain.
Hearing of the experience it seems to me that the only way for father to share some of the caregiving with the mother is to help with the feeding. Especially in the first few weeks as the new family transitions between integral being and independent being.
In the larger time scale, the hellish drudgery of hourly feedings fades into insignificance. From the spiritual perspective, it is possibly the easiest of the work ahead to mold the being. But the immersion in the hourly reality, low on sleep and energy, and overwhelmed with the shock of the change does not afford the luxury of the larger perspective.
The larger perspective also places us in context for what our parents did for us - facilitating the basest and smallest of our bodily needs, loosing themselves and their dignity to transition us into independent beings. Does time truly cycle around while we age ? We return to being dependent beings, first emotionally then physically. As we have our own children and fully appreciate what our parents did for us (as children, and in helping us as parents), do we recognize and feel the need to give back when our parents age into dependancy ? Will we hope for our children to return the work for us ?
There are bigger questions in my mind too. Having a child is a well documented method to bringing one closer to one's own parents. But doesn't it also inevitably distance us ? If we create our own and new family units, does it not inevitably remove some portion of us from the bond we had with our parents. Or does this cohesion simply overlap and multiply ?
I wonder if I'll have the sanity to ask myself these things when I'm in the thick of my own upcoming reality. I'm glad that my parents will be around to help me explore these things, should I be able to think.