What do you think about the sacrifices parents make when they probably had their children for selfish reasons anyway?

”...deserve some sort of special respect when they signed on for exactly that responsibility when they chose to have a child?”

I think this is worded kind of oddly. I don’t know anyone that acts like they “deserve some sort of special respect”, but most of the people I know have all sorts of things to say about major life choices. It’s not unusual to hear someone say that they don’t like when their spouse does this annoying thing or that they work hard to maintain a certain lifestyle for their (maybe child-free) family, it doesn’t seem to me like they are expecting some “special respect”?

It’s just life. Whether things are a choice (as most American marriages also are these days) or not, we tend to talk about them, positive or negative.

If they are of the bent to make a high drama event out of the things they’ve chosen to do, they are probably going to do it about all other things as well.

Is that sort-of what you meant? If not, I’m sorry.

I’ve read this question and details 5 times, and I have to admit that I am struggling to understand exactly what you are asking here. I suspect my confusion might be around “special respect”. Could you elaborate?

I don’t think you’ve reserved your thoughts on the matter. Just sayin’

I don’t expect a blowie when I show up for the job I applied and interviewed to get if that is what you are getting after.

Special respect from their children. I don’t know exactly how to word it. Like a child owes their parents I guess? Like when a parent gets annoyed that their child is being a pain in the ass or ungrateful and the parents rambles about how they brought the kid into the world and that they gave up things to have children. That sort of thing.

@JLeslie – I’m not sure I have ever heard this from a parent. Do you have a particular person in mind? Is this a thing?

@hominid You have never heard a mother say to her child she suffered through ten hours of labor when she is frustrated with their behavior?

Or, a parent expect to be called and visited by their adult children or even taken care of, because they raised the child?

^ No

Yes! I have heard parents going on about how they struggle to provide and how tough life is, but I have also heard a kid answer back saying: ” Well then you should have kept your single life and not gone in for all these responsibilities!”. I am not saying the kid was right to answer back rudely to the parent, however, there is a grain of truth in the answer.

I’ve told my kids I brought them into this world, and I know how to take them out.

^^ Like that?

I don’t think parents deserve special respect for having and raising children, period. It’s their responsibility to do so whether the pregnancy was planned or not. If they chose to have and keep the child, it’s their duty to raise it.

My mom always lays a guilt trip on me – “after all I’ve done for you…” – yeah, I was your kid and that was your job. I’m not impressed. Pretty much anyone can be a decent parent. You don’t get a trophy for taking on your own responsibilities, sorry.

I never thought that my wife and I had our children for selfish reasons. We looked at their birth as an opportunity to raise healthy responsible adults.

Part of being a parent is putting your children first in your life which sometimes means getting up early, working extra hours and going out in horrible weather just to keep a roof over their heads.

Once you hold a little one in your arms it is time to let go of selfishness

@JLeslie, your question (or what you are pointing at) is one that has puzzled me for a long time. I’m single and without kids, and it is a bit bewildering to see that disposition. I would even go one step further and say I also get puzzled by a parent’s desire for a “mini me.”

Where I’ve landed for the time being is that the parent’s thinking begins with “I want…” before a child even comes along. For example, I dated someone with a young girl who said “All I wanted was to be a mother.” Well, she was! You’d think she’d be elated. But she was also miserable because she had to share custody with a bona fide narcissist.

But closer to your point, that “I want…” thinking seems to carry with certain people even further, which leads to the expectations that you mention. It’s a really puzzling self-centeredness for which my best explanation is that it was there prior to the beginning and is never really overcome.

and kudos to you for not getting irate at people not understanding your question. My hair would be on fire by now. :-)

Well, now I’m differently confused. I think children should show their parents a certain amount of respect (in a stable, non-abusive family) whether they were planned or not.

The type of parent you describe: ” Like a child owes their parents I guess? Like when a parent gets annoyed that their child is being a pain in the ass or ungrateful and the parents rambles about how they brought the kid into the world and that they gave up things to have children. That sort of thing.” I think is just frustrated in a normal, family-interactional, way.

A parent that makes a bigger deal of that than is “normal” is probably someone who would display that behavior about spouses, employees, etc, anyway.

Actually, one step further from my 2nd sentence. I think family members should show each other a certain amount of respect.

@canidmajor Sometimes that sort of stuff is said in a half joking way; sarcastically. Sometimes the parent is dead serious. They feel their children are ungrateful. My MIL I think expects her kids to call her every day. She isn’t a very demanding mom or MIL in general, but she thinks children should show that sort of respect towards their parents. I mean after all she gave every day of her adult life to them basically.

Everyone should show respect to each other, not just family members.

I think you do expect your kids to show “special” appreciation for what you do as a mother, and that is why you might be confused.

@kevbo Thanks.

So this is along the same lines as a spouse who talks about how much s/he sacrificed to marry and give up a single life where s/he didn’t have to consider the needs and desires of a spouse?

@canidmajor Maybe. I don’t regularly hear that sort of thing. If a married person said that to me I really would not have much if any empathy for that. I have never heard a married person use the word sacrfice in that way. The parent thing I actually have more understanding for.

I think it is a certain type of person who says/expects those things. I have heard married people speak to each other that way (and I always wince) more than I have heard parents speak that way to children.

It’s the “Mother-as-Martyr” syndrome, which I have not run across personally or certainly ever felt myself. Jewish comedians have traditionally made jokes about it.

I have no real experience with this and have only seen the stereotype in the movies or on tv. I have never seen this with any friends or family. I think I would probably call out my own mother if she said anything like this. She never would though. She also knows that the respect is there without even asking or needing proof of it. That care she gave us will be reciprocated when she is elderly.

@gailcalled: Good point.

That’s ok – I’ll sit in the dark.

Hahaha, @janbb, in our not-Jewish household we referred to it as ECMS (Early Christian Martyr Syndrome).

@janbb: I remember that joke! My Jewish friend’s mother used to love when I did the whiny voice “Never mind, I’ll sit in the dark!”

Google “Jewish mother jokes.” (Or don’t.”)

Q: Why do Jewish mothers make great parole officers?
A: Because they never let anyone finish a sentence.

Q: Why are there so few Jewish mothers who are alcoholics?
A: Because alcohol dulls the pain.

Q: What did the Jewish Mother cash dispenser say to her customer?
A: You never write, you never call and you only visit me when you need money.

Q: What is a genius?
A: An average student with a Jewish mother.

My mother expects special praise for adopting a child with some invisible special needs (emotional/intellectual). It fucking pisses me off.

She would never admit that she has such an expectation.

No parent I know & certainly not myself, behaves in such a ridiculous, counter productive, bullshit manner.
The whole thing sounds like something someone dreamed up just so they could whine about superiority complex, irony much.

@ucme Your avatars don’t match up again!

@janbb I know, I like it like that

The “mother as martyr” syndrome exists and is alive and well in my mother (who, thankfully is no longer in my life) and my mother-in-law (whom I see almost every day).

It’s what happens when you (the parent) fails to build a life of their own independent of their children. They are resentful of where that has landed them (but will never admit it), they get much of their identity by being the victim (never ask my MIL how she is), and they traffic in guilt and shame.

What’s the difference between Italian mothers and Jewish mothers? Same guilt, better food.

(^^ and precisely which one prepares the better food, speaking of starting a war?)

@cookieman you just described my MIL. I forgot about her… she’s the exception in my case.

Well, would you rather listen to a “poor, poor, pitiful me” rant about sacrifice, or would you want to see such a mother abandon her children to be raised by relatives? Most people who complain about their state in life still do the responsible thing.

Anyone deluded enough to believe these days that childbearing will garner social consideration, recognition or even respect, has my sincere sympathy. I find it astonishing that the birth rate in the country doesn’t hover near zero. But then again, the proliferation of casinos alone is a fair indication that people are less than rational when it comes to sensible decisions. Nothing short of a heroin habit can compete with the decision of parenthood in shoving middle class folks toward poverty. We’re living in a society where short term profit so dominates existence, that any thought of investment in infrastructure has been all but abandoned, and the rusting of bridges or crumbling of highways is a joke compared to the decline of the State’s regard for its children. I suppose kids are the one “luxury” item available to all of us regardless of our credit worthiness.

All reasons for having children are selfish.

Um…well, the only time I play the pregnancy / labor card is when I want my kid to do something, like help me unload the groceries. But it’s all in jest.

I don’t feel I deserve any special consideration for having had them with no drugs whatsoever! God it hurt!

What I don’t get is why some people keep having more kids when they obviously don’t enjoy or even like the ones they have now.

What do you know? And I always thought having kids meant you got free slave labor!

Probably either he can’t keep it zipped or she doesn’t want to say” no”.

Well, that too @snowberry! But they’re the ones making all the mess!

I get what you’re saying as well as what @gailcalled mentions.
I too do not agree with making oneself into a martyr and playing the self victimization card over CHOICES one has clearly made.
It is like complaining about having to do ranch chores when one CHOOSES to keep horses and other animals. If you don’t want to be “saddled” with shoveling the daily manure of the beast don’t bring home the horse. lol

Same goes for parenting. I never felt like I was sacrificing anything raising my daughter, I was happily invested in being a good parent for all the right reasons and have known plenty of parents that were raging narcissists and unhealthily invested in their offspring as some sort of egoic measuring stick of how grand they assumed themselves to be. Gag!

@johnpowell Come now – our entire civilization is based on a series of blowjobs.

@gailcalled: Kugel vs. Lasagna

Let your tummy decide. ;^)

@cookieman Why not both?

@janbb: Ooh, a noodle mashup.

@cookieman With cookies in between.

@janbb: Well sure — to cleanse the palette.

It is easier, gastronomically (or do I mean gustatorially) speaking to add vegetables to lasagne than kugel, isn’t it? Spinach and mushroom kugel?

Vegetable lasagna with zucchini and summer squash is pretty yummy, @gailcalled.

I don’t expect my kids to visit or call me because I gave birth to them. I (will) expect them to visit and call me because I’m awesome of a greatness that inspires awe.*

Duh.
*Edited for @gailcalled. ;P

Another example I thought of (@hominid this might be something you heard before) is immigrant parents sometimes are credited with sacrificing everything so their children can have a better life. I’m sure they do want their children to have a good life, even a better life then they had, I am not saying they don’t, but they probably wanted to get out of dodge for themselves too. When their child has a better life, a more prosperous life, specifically money, then does the child owe it to their parent to use their money to give their parent a better life financially? Pay some bills or move them out of where they live now to a better place?

I do place a lot of importance on family bonds (assuming there is no abuse, I am just talking about a typical family situation) and that involves sometimes doing things because you know the other person needs it or wants it. Maybe you don’t need to call your mom every Sunday to feel close to her, but if it is the minimum for her to feel loved and appreciated, probably any child can manage it.

I wouldn’t call it sacrifice necessarily, but I think most parents do always have their children in their thoughts when they are raising them. They often do what they think is best for their children, even if it means they would prefer not to have to do whatever the thing is at the time. Anything from baking cookies, working an extra job so they can attend a better school, reading Curious George 349 times until she moves on to a different book, putting her art all over the house, taking her to your MIL’s house when you really don’t get along with her very well. Those things a parent does should at minimum make us care about their happiness. For a lot of parents there is at least some part of them that ties their happiness to their children. It’s horrible when it is extreme, the burden on the child, even an adult child, it can really suck, but I thinking having some sort of appreciation for what your parents did or tried to do Is a reasonable thing. I think it helps the adult child too, because focusing on those things can make the child themselves happier.

Like anything, I think any extreme is bad. There is some sort of middle ground that makes sense to me.

Having said all that, I think most people have their children for fairly shelfish reasons. The child doesn’t ask to be born. The person wants the experience of being a parent, or they have what seems like some innate drive to procreate. Some think well into the future, worrying that when they are older there will be no one to help take care of them, or that it would be very lonely without children. They feel there will be something missing in their life, their own life, if they don’t have children. I don’t think many people in the US feel they need to have children to better the world or keep the human race going. Even parents who adopt, they adopt usually because they want children.

@JLeslie – I’ve read this ^ many times as well, and now I’m feeling quite dull. I can’t comprehend exactly what you are asking or saying here. There are many different concepts that are blended together in a way that is proving difficult to parse.

Is this a question about credit and blame? Is it another question about why humans procreate? Is it the beginning of a conversation about what constitutes “selfish”? Or is this an attempt to define “sacrifice”?

I suspect that you are not asking for a scientific explanation of why we procreate. And I also suspect that you will agree that “selfish” is a term that means very little without defining it. I may have missed it if you have already.

Have I heard a saying about immigrant parents and “sacrificing everything so their children can have a better life”? I suppose I may have – in some book or commercial or something. But I can’t seem to tie this to any of the very complex, undefined, concepts you have raised in your comments (“credit”, “sacrifice”, and biology). Maybe you could elaborate.

@hominid Forget it. It isn’t very important. My entire answer above is not directed at you just the immigration example. The rest is for those who care about my opinion. @Janbb thought I already showed my hand in my question, but I don’t think I did. I knew it would be interpreted that way, because it was so hard to word it in a neutral manner, which is exactly why I said I would hold my opinion, so people didn’t read too much into the question.

I think you are being more analytical than necessary. You’re not alone in not understanding my intention with the Q, but many others did get it, and also made jokes about it, which I think are totally in line, I am not criticizing the humor and sarcasm sometimes asssociated with the subject.

I didn’t answer as I don’t get the gist.

For me there was too much gist, which kept getting more complicated (see @hominid).

All living organisms obey the biological imperative:

”..the urge to procreate is an involuntary and unconscious biological drive which first emerged as an inherent property of living cells and is echoed in the upper levels of organization of multicellular organisms”

@gailcalled Yes, however the biological imperative should have stopped about 6 billion people ago. haha
I have joked for years that evolution is dragging it’s feet.
The human brain does not mature until age 25 but we can start reproducing at 11 or 12 often.
It’s high time nature catches up and shifts this around to brains maturing at 12 but not being able to reproduce until at least 25. lol

@cookieman “The “mother as martyr” syndrome exists and is alive and well in my mother (who, thankfully is no longer in my life) and my mother-in-law (whom I see almost every day).

It’s what happens when you (the parent) fails to build a life of their own independent of their children. They are resentful of where that has landed them (but will never admit it), they get much of their identity by being the victim (never ask my MIL how she is), and they traffic in guilt and shame.”

Yup. This was my mother to a T. I don’t think she ever really forgave me for becoming an adult a building a life that didn’t orbit around her.

We put 3 of our kids through college all at the same time. It used up all of our savings, and we have massive debt from parent loans. The kids all know that our retirement will be pretty slim and that they are our fall-back. If we need a place to stay they’ll make sure we’re not homeless, just like we’ve done for them before.

This is NOT the same as having kids for selfish reasons. We gave and gave and gave until it hurt, and it still hurts, and will continue for quite a while yet.

@JLeslie You know I loves ya mama, but what “selfish” reasons are you referring to?

@Darth_Algar: Ah, I’m sorry. I’ve been there too. It’s an interesting club we belong to.

Glad the OP appreciates humor… I think most people have their children for fairly shelfish reasons. …rather than for the halibut?

Man, Corrie is trying to deal with that now. Her bf is 35 years old and is desperately trying to cut the apron strings because Corrie’s given him an ultimatum. It’s been a battle, one that his mother seriously opposes. He told Corrie he never realized how bad it was.

Better yet, @JLeslie, what would be an unselfish reason for having kids?

@Dutchess_III Someone said it above; having children usually starts with, “I want.”

An unselfish reason? I don’t know. I’m sure some people take in children when they had no plans for caring for a child. A relative dies (God forbid) or something similar to an emergency situation where someone steps up. Back in the day, and still in certain countries, women didn’t have as much control over ther fertility so they might not have articulated, “I want a child, or I want another child,” like we do today. They just wound up pregnant during their marriage. There are people still like this even in the US, they just let what happens happen and wind up pregnant. Probably for them the concept I am talking about doesn’t ring true, because they just wind up with a baby and then have to take care of it. I am not saying those people actually sacrifice more, or less; or want their children more, or less, than those who planned children. There are many happy accidents.

I remember my MIL saying to me she never thought about how many children she wanted. She just got married and whatever happened happened. My high school boyfriend’s mother once said to me that if she had had those little pills she never would have had so many children. She had 4 in 5 years, some miscarriages, and then 7 years after the baby had one more baby.

By contrast, my maternal grandparents, once married, waited 5 years to have a baby. She had two a few years apart, and then she stopped. My mother and her sister were born in 1943 and 1946 respectively. Back then I think a lot of the women in the US didn’t think in terms of planning children, but my maternal grandparents and their peers did. They wanted children. When my mom started trying she had a little trouble so she went to a fertility doctor, it was a very specific effort to get pregnant at that time. It wasn’t like ok the universe has handed you this little person who you never expected and now you have to turn your life upside down. It probably always feels like whether planned or not, but if you asked for the little person and made it happen, then how can you start saying things to the child like, “do you know all the things I do for you?” When the child is being ungrateful. That’s the parent’s job, to do all that stuff.

I understand where you’re coming from. Forced gratitude can be very damaging.

@JLeslie – Can I make an attempt to strip away some of the confusing aspects of your question here?

Skip the “selfish” stuff. I think that’s entirely unrelated (even from your perspective). “having children usually starts with, “I want.”” Everything you do begins with this. From eating a sandwich to helping your neighbor to taking a bullet for a loved one. Talk of this type is muddying the waters here and is likely causing some unnecessary confusion.

It sounds like what you are really getting at here is the following:

If you create a life, you have obligations to that person.

Since a person is capable of experiencing pain and suffering, and since you decided to create this person, your moral obligation is to do what is in your power to minimize pain and suffering while maximizing happiness. And if this is the job of the parent, then it makes little sense to bring up what the parent has done for the child in an attempt to elicit sympathy from the child.

Is this all you are saying here?

@JLeslie “My high school boyfriend’s mother once said to me that if she had had those little pills she never would have had so many children. ” Why didn’t she have BC pills? They were available then. I remember playing with the little dial thingy on my mom’s birth control pack as a little kid. I didn’t know what they were at the time, but I thought it was cool.

@Dutchess_III My ex-boyfriend was born in ‘65 and so that means his other siblings were born in ‘53,‘54,‘57,‘58. The first four born in Ecuador. It doesn’t surprise me that a Catholic woman in Latin America back then with hardly any education didn’t know there was a way to control her fertility.

I might be mistaken, but I don’t think birth control pills became available until the early 1960s.

Well, it would be the early 60’s when I played with mom’s dispenser thing.