A planned accident.

A planned accident

“We spent ages looking at all the different pushchairs. Each had different features, some we liked while some had bits that were not necessary. We plumped for one that was in our price range and thought it would be best for our needs. We became unstuck however, a few months later when twins were born.”

On the one hand we have societies that did not make the connection between having sex and producing babies, on the other we like to plan and control our child rearing down to the finest detail. What can be frightening is the realisation that procreation is not something we can fully control. Some try for months or years to conceive, some never manage at all and there are the many that can't help but breed like rabbits.

Humankind has been known to drown babies without penises and abort for reasons profound and obscure. This is within our control. Mitosis is not so easy to control. Any one of several billion of your brothers or sisters could have been born instead of you. If only that sperm a few millimetres away had got in first, you would have been spared the torture of this amazing life. Add in the fact that if your father, for reasons aplenty, did or did not make that romantic gesture that evening, maybe your mother would have been less willing to lay back and position herself for conception that month. A person may have been planned, but you specifically were not. Maybe in some sci-fi future we could predict the nature of all potential persons, but we would have to go against the certainty of randomness.

We didn’t choose to be born, but that doesn't impinge on our gratitude for all the care given to us when we are young. We like the idea of settling down and having a certain number of children, but nature gets in the way of that. You can’t plan it in the same way as you might organise buying a house and furnishing it. There is more accident than planning when having children. Each child will present a different challenge and whilst some ideas here have been helpful to many, nothing stops you finding other, better, solutions. Besides, it barely scratches the surface of what comes our way. We don’t have to do everything people suggest to the letter. We are free to improvise and accept that perfection is never attainable when it comes to kids. It is just some are better than others at making excuses for the outcome.

Many seek help in adulthood for problems that started in early life. Our childhood shapes us in good ways and not so good. Your child’s destiny is in your hands. It is a bigger responsibility than we acknowledge.

Many children come along in families where one or both parents were not exactly thrilled by the prospect. It is wrong to assume that a child will automatically bring instant pleasure and satisfaction. For many the maternal/paternal instinct is quite muted and remains so even as the children get older. Biology doesn’t care. If an accident can happen, it will and there is no need to feel guilty if you are not as enthralled by children as everyone else seems to be. It is hard in some societies to be honest.