SOBER TO MAKE BABIES?

Long gone should be the days we get children to fulfill other people’s expectations. Long gone should be the days we get children as old age security. Long gone should be the days we get children to trap each other into hopeless relationships. Long gone should be the days we get children to acquire and live on child care. Long gone should be the days we get children because we are a certain age and feel obliged to make a family and also can’t stand societal judgmental gestures, phrases and comments. So on and so forth. Y’all must be familiar with some of these pressures.

Parenthood is not meant for everyone! Not all people can bear the thought of been a mother or a father. We should respect those who say “NO I don’t want to have kids! ” for various reasons of course. We shouldn’t go all about trying to convince each other to have at least one. Are we gonna raise kids for others huh?!

It’s very irksome when some women just randomly advice other women not to have children and go ahead to explain how you should enjoy life because children are a burden. Or because children are a workload. Or how pissed their children make them. Making one excuse after another because of their kids. What and who forced you to give birth?

(Y’all get me right, I’m not talking about those situations one gets pregnant against their will. Like through rape).

Some women will ask you whether you have kids and when you say no you notice relief signed on their faces and they “advice “you shamelessly at what age you should start conceiving, how many kids you should have. Oh.. one is enough! Oh don’t get more than two! Oh you have three kids? Surprise written all over their faces…please get this or that contraceptive. So much hullabaloo around kids and parenthood. 

How don’t most young women and men in this era know that having children is a sober decision that should be met with all sobriety? Having kids is not a requirement of life that MUST be met. 

Some very religious people will be out there preaching how God wants us to procreate nonstop. Bash out birth control and all. So fill the world and then what? Are we capable to give quality and quantity love, care, time and support to each of our many kids? How many children grow without receiving love out of various reasons? Living in poverty and Lacking out coz mum & dad were never prepared to get kids. They just fulfilled one societys standard. Obeyed one of Gods command. Procreation!
Bringing a human being into the world requires one to be well if not wholly equipped mentally, emotionally, psychologically and all those…llys you know. Well, we need to have a financial plan too. What do we want our kids to eat, wear, have. What schools do we want them to go to? Do we want to send them to boarding schools at very young ages just to get them out of our space? How much (not only monetary) can we afford to give another life that is going to be dependent on us all it’s life? Scary right? 

Married couples or those people who want to co-parent should sit down with their partners and discuss whether they are even 60% equipped to take responsibility of one other beautiful life. Do you love yourself enough to love another life you want to bring to the world? Then maybe just maybe there will be less broken families. Less friction between parents and their kids. More contact, connection, openness, respect and togetherness amongst parents and their kids. 
It is so annoying and heartbreaking to hear parents ask their kids when they will open school as the first thing when they close school. How mothers complain that they don’t know what to do with their kids now that they are working and the kids have closed school. (They never saw this coming. Really?) 

Young girl in Highschool there is too much to life than having unprotected sex and just giving birth. (I won’t even touch sexually transmitted diseases now) Seek direction for your life. Who will pay your clinic & maternity bills? Who will you leave your baby with? Your mum? Your granny? What kind of relationship will you have with your baby? Babies grow up and one day they might not recognize you. Coz you abandoned them. This will hurt and who will you blame? 

Have protected sex. Seek, long and work to have a baby when you know you can provide what they need and give them the love they deserve. Every one would love that. If you din’t get that while growing up, at least be the one to give on to your kids that kind of love. Let no one lie to you that a child comes with what they need. It’s not only by Gods grace but also by hard work that we pull through. 

I know that parenting is the hardest “job” mothers and fathers do without receiving a check. Trying to juggle work, their individual selves and so much more. Still I think we can avoid so many struggles, worries and heart aches if we search within ourselves before making that decision of having a baby. 

I give credit to all parents who are duly there for their kids. Loving them unconditionally and not seeing them as a burden. I respect those who make no excuses with their kids after failing in other aspects of life. We all fall with or without kids. We stand back up wipe off the dust and move forward. 

Let us have this conversation.

Bless y’all