I was talking with a friend recently and was gobsmacked when he told me he doesn’t have the mind to have children. My first thinking was that he may be impotent. But I decided to ask him why he wouldn’t want to have children. That was when he told me that children are bad investment.
Come to think of it, are children some form of investment? If yes, are they good or bad investments?
Now let’s attempt to put these in their perspectives; first, a man would have to strive in some cases to make his wife pregnant. The woman would be given extra-care and attention depending on the kind of husband she married and the size of their bank account. She would carry this baby (in some cases, babies) for 9, 10 and for some 11 months. The labour and delivery periods are periods of life and death for mother and child while her husband on the other hand paces up and down the hospital ward (or indeed where ever she is delivering), this is also dependent on the kind of man he is and the kind of job he does.
After delivery comes the period of recuperation for the mother and diaper period comes hand-in-hand with this. Some parents do exclusive breastfeeding for six months while others do it for three months; I have heard a mother said she stretched her own to twelve months. Lactating time is a rigorous and laborious time for every good mother. This is a time she can’t go far without the baby, even if she does, she’d have to spend extra money- in the case of day care. This is also a season when good fathers try to cut down on other activities in order to lend a helping hand in the home-front- depending on the size of his bank account.
There are nights parents go to bed and don’t find sleep there because the baby’s cry wouldn’t let sleep come. There are days the baby would be sick and parents don’t know what makes them sick and, this sadden the parents, affects their moods, affects their jobs and affects their accounts.
There are days of indecision on the school to send this child. While this is being considered, their bank account is also being looked into. And the child is eventually sent to school and also graduates from the university with a good grade and, the unimaginable is not only imagined, but happens…. The child dies. Would that be a good investment?
Would all the above reasons, rigours and painstaking efforts make an individual infer that raising their own offspring is a bad investment? I think life is bigger than that!
Disappointing enough, that friend I talked of is not alone on this lane of life thinking that life is simply putting money into stocks and expecting dividends. Even though some children do grow up to take care of their parents, I sincerely think the road of life is much larger than the myopic and self-seeking lane such individuals thread on.
Life should rather be lived to impact others and this cannot be done effectively without giving oneself. I see life as a candle, burning, that others might have light because some others have also burnt for us to have ours. In any case, every individual came from another, hence, the word ‘offspring’.
The virtue of true living is said to be giving and not expecting anything in return and if something is returned, you thank God for it, but if nothing is returned, you still thank God because you too would have partaken in the affairs of the living.
As I end this piece, I wonder, whatever happens to the joy of being a parent!
