Why Do We Really Have Kids?

Besides the biological, the social, and the cultural reasons, I have held a more psycho-spiritual (so-called) belief as to why human beings decide to have children. It is a conjectured explanation that describes the causes of the love required for a parent to raise and care for their child. It seeks to recognize why parents come to be obsessed with, dedicated to, and perpetually conscious of their child in a manner similar to how one is obsessed with, dedicated to, and perpetually conscious of their own life and existence.

It goes like this:

As you age throughout your teens, you often experience vivid long and short term memory of your earlier life. You birthday parties, your friends, your trips and vacations, and other events with your family. Of course this may vary from kid to kid but it remains a general characteristic of younger teenagers. It is also in striking contrast to what we see with younger adults.

While your teenage brain ages into its twenties, the clarity of these memories begin to fade. This is a natural and scientifically proven process that gets right to the fundamental mechanism of memory formation and retention — when you remember an some past event, you are actually recalling your previous recall of that memory. After 4, 5, and 6 recalls of the same memory, it gradually loses its childlike vividness.

Into your more mature years, a young adult in your 20s and early 30s, your memories of curiosity, fear, anxiety, exploration, and the plethora of child-specific experiences you retained so well in your younger years have almost completely vanished with the exception of those memories that have resonated through the years, however still, whittled down to a skeletal bareness of a memory.

Now, I am not saying that this is definite — I have no evidence, proof, or information that our scientifically-trained minds require for convincing — but does it not seem funny that this age of unclear memory aligns so perfectly with the age of popular reproduction? The age when you have nearly unlearned all spiritual lessons taught to you during childhood aligns with the biological opportunity to have a child.

During the time in your life when you are in most need of a fresh perspective, a re-learning of childhood curiosity and the simple yet most important lessons, and a re-orientation with the feelings of freedom, drive, and uniqueness, you miraculously feel motivated to have a child. Parents may love their children because it is evolutionarily beneficial to further one’s genes. I have never fully bought into that perspective. It seems empty and lacking the detail required to explain why parents love their children just as much as they do — a lot. A striking amount when you think about it.

It is because parents — aging human beings — need their children. They need them to learn, mature, re-orient, and prepare for perhaps the most challenging time that is the rest of their lives. Having children is a way for parents to relive their own young lives through observation of their kids. Raising a child with your same genetic make-up sparks those faded memories and lessons lost over time and benefits you greatly as you apply hindsight and adopt them to your adult life. Through having children you are able to learn more about yourself and develop a deeper sense of wisdom.

Parents in this time of life crave this. It is what is needed for the spiritual, emotional, and psychological wellbeing of an aging person. And so in return for the reliving, re-orienting, and re-learning given to a parent by its child, the parent gives immense amounts of love — because dedication, obsession, and presence is the only way to receive the benefits.

Is the biological explanation really enough to explain why a parent craves time with their young, curious, exploring, and developing kid? I doubt it.