My parents have had a terrible marriage for basically as long as I can remember. I have been anticipating their divorce on some level since I was about 11 (I’m now in my late 20s), and I don’t know why they don’t just pull the plug. In fact, I don’t even know why they got married in the first place; they don’t enjoy each other’s company, they don’t have congruent ideas or tastes on basically anything, they’re basically incompatible in every way.
I think they both would have been better off if they had split up early, never gotten married and never had children together. They should have married different people, or just not gotten married at all.
The obvious implication of this, of course, is that I shouldn’t have been born. This does cause me some existential discomfort. Thoughts occur to me like, “Why do I care so much about the future? Why do I pay so much attention to politics? What’s the point of advocating for socialism or trying to work towards a better future? I don’t have kids, I can’t have kids*, I don’t think I should have kids, and I don’t even think my parents should have had me. In a better timeline, I wouldn’t even be here anyway.”
*(I had a vasectomy a few years ago)
I would like to feel a bit more assured about all of this. What do you think?
I feel you a bit on that when I think about the history of my own parent’s relationship (I’m my mother’s therapist basically). I can’t get them to make each other happy but, I can at least do my part to bring some happiness for them as part of my own familial relationships. So that relieves some of the guilt that I’m some sort of fetter on their lives.
I guess what moves me forward from all this is that I’m here regardless and I want to live, grow, and love before I’m no more. To belong, be fulfilled, and be at peace at the end of it all. Everybody should have the opportunity to live a full life while they’re on this earth, including you. That’s what motivates me at the heart of my left politics, the pursuit of that indescribable feeling of wholeness when everyone is being their best self in their best life and I did my part to make it so.
With regards to kids, you might not be having your own biological children but, as I tell myself, there are still plenty of children out there that need folks to help them like they’re their own biological parents. That doesn’t just extend to foster parenting but, also to the political and community side of things. Community wise, even helping the families of trusted friends with their children via babysitting. And policy wise, people fight to see better policies so that these kids can grow up to be fulfilled adults. I guess the point in all that is that, regardless of if they’re your biological children or not, helping to foster the growth of the next generation can be fulfilling in itself, by way of that feeling of wholeness I mentioned above.