My daughter and I have often talked about various genetic traits like hair and eye colour, and height. And since her cousin recently had a baby which we visited a few days ago, she has more questions, as she heard us discussing things like birth weight and length, and while this was a relatively big baby boy and quite long, everyone was surprised that I had been an even larger and longer baby when I was born - despite being short now.
My daughter asked how it is possible.
Because, I was probably meant to be taller.
How does that work, she asked. So I told her that while I was unlikely to ever be considered tall based on the height of my parents, I got very ill when I was in my mid-teens with a stomach disorder. Dropping weight very fast and with a body unable to absorb enough nutrients, I just stopped growing. When I was eighteen or so there was a short period where I was relatively healthy, and in those couple months I grew a couple centimetres, but then got very ill again and didn't get any better for almost two decades.
I have broader shoulders than many people who are close to a foot taller than me.
I'd be considered a "stocky" build now. Now my daughter is interested in what this might mean for her, as considering that both her parents are short, she is small too. But, if I might have been a bit taller had I not got sick, will that affect her height? I have no idea. I can't even know if I would have been taller at all, but I have my suspicions.
While we are lucky to have the daughter we do, my wife and I wanted to have at least another child, but due to complications it wasn't to be. A few months after I had the stroke, a miscarriage took our second, and that was the end of having more. However, I mentioned to the new parents the other day, whenever they need some time or space away, we am more than willing to babysit for them. Not because we wanted more, but because it is how families and communities should be. As I see it, it is healthy for parents to get some time away, but more importantly, it is healthy for children to interact with different kinds of people, and it is healthy for extended family and communities to all be part of raising children.
Everyone wins.
Too many children these days are raised in relative isolation, where even grandparents aren't as active in the process. I think that this drives further disconnection and also impacts on future social network value, because many families rarely spend any "normal" time together. It is like the only time some families seem to see each other, is during special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, funerals. But the families that are the closest and are there for each other through thick and thin, are the ones who see each other regularly, where family gatherings are a common place, regular activity - not an event.
With smaller and smaller families these days to the point where having children is almost rare, coupled with less social interaction, communities are not only falling apart now, but aren't being built for the future either. Gone are the days of people just popping-in for a visit because they were in the neighbourhood, replaced by scheduled events that are hard to organise because they have to be fit into a hectic schedule of largely individual activity. Even siblings seem to barely see each other in many families.
I think it could be hard to understand for people who don't have a close family or don't have children themselves, to get the feel of how much value there is in raising children. Of course, the children are the future, but it also impacts on those raising them also, whether that be parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles, or friends. Raising children provides opportunity to teach and grow, as well as making time and skills relevant for others, outside of work, outside of external reward.
Somehow, I think we have forgotten what society means, where it is about companionship and friendly association. Instead, we seem to think about it as a system of trade, where we get what we want transactionally. Yes, social interaction is a trade, but it is quite different if considered in terms of building a community, or from the perspective of an individual getting what they desire.
In many respects, children are the social glue in society, because they are the ones that are innocent in the system and require protection. This protection is not just on the onus of parents, but the community as a whole, where the environment is built so that innocents can grow and take responsibility for themselves to be part of protecting the next generation. That protection is not just physical and emotional safety, but also learning development to continuously improve in order to face ongoing changes in an unknown future.
Without children, there is no future.
And when people do not consider the needs of children now and in the future, it means that they are going to live for themselves in the moment. So rather than being a protecting and building force, they are more likely to become a selfish and demanding force in society. And I think that we can see this in the behaviour of many people around the world, where satisfying themselves takes precedence, even if at the expense of others.
Maybe it is in the genes.
This is not about those who have chosen or are unable to have children themselves, but rather the larger meta of society, where people just don't seem to care about the factors and behaviours required to build a healthy community. It is like we have decided as a group that we are better off alone and getting what we want right now is of paramount importance. We seem to no longer care for the conditions we create, only for how we feel about what we have and what we do - even if what we have and what we do is part of the problem in creating conditions we don't want.
Perhaps if instead of satisfying ourselves, we took a global approach to improving the protection and education of children, we would create an environment where the next generation would be physically and emotionally robust, skilled, intelligent, resilient and socially and environmentally responsible, because they care for each other. And in so doing, care for themselves too.
A healthy society is one where individuals are healthy, because the community is healthy. And when society is unhealthy, I suspect that individuals are not healthy either. At the very least, there is a lot of room for improvement, because no matter how healthy an individual is, none of us live in a vacuum.
Not much life survives a vacuum.
Taraz
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