As a budding psychologist with little restraint and plenty of opportunity, I’ve found myself irritated with answers to several questions that I feel warrant more consideration than they are given when I ask.
Some people brush them off as unsettling, if harmless, ‘what if...’ type questions. Others have given me answers quick while getting progressively more angry with each one. A woman I asked got so upset that she had her husband threaten to beat me up for asking her about the ‘psycho-baby question.’
Even I’ve spent much time agonizing over all the possible meanings of the answers that people give, everyone from my mother, to some close friends, to random strangers. The conclusion I’ve reached is that people are selfish, but in a way that they aren’t accustomed to.
Think about this: Why did you have children? Barring a mandate from god, I’m willing to bet it was because you wanted to, because you wanted a family.
I’m not saying that child-rearing isn’t a noble endeavor, but it seems that the motives are less than altruistic. Be honest, do we really think our children are going to cure cancer? To decipher time travel? To answer the question of existence?
Now think about this: What if you knew with absolute certainty that your first child is going to be murdered before he or she is twenty-five. The specifics only dictate that it’s the most agonizing and excruciating death you can imagine. You don’t know where or when, only that it will occur in the future. Even if you have more than a single child, the first born will be dead. Will you still have the child?
If so, why? I’ve heard parents say they would die for their children, but would you willingly send someone into a death you wouldn’t wish on someone else?
Now consider this: Your first born child is going to grow up to be a serial murderer. Regardless of how you choose to raise the child, he or she is going to horribly kill 17 or more people before age forty. Would you still have the child?
If so, why? Would you be willing to face his or her victims in court and tell them that you knew this was going to happen, but allowed it anyway?
I’m interested to hear how you all answer.
I could give myself a headache with the infinite possibilities.
I have three; the first and last unplanned. But I gave birth to all three because I wanted them, and because I felt given this opportunity I could put three good people into a world in need of them.
But the questions you ask have infinite possibilities. What if I knew my child would die the horrible death, but that death would turn out to be the one with enough evidence to stop the murderer who killed 13 before and otherwise bound to kill 25 after in the same horrible way? Before I had any one of them, I might have thought I would still choose to have them. But now that I see their faces and know what their little arms feel like around me, I’d have to say screw you guys, save yourselves!
What if I knew one would be a serial killer? Well, who would that child now grown kill? Would s/he kill innocent people, or would s/he take a liking to killing child molestors? Some of the possibilities would sway my decision.
When I was young, I befriended some kids others would look at and feel sorry for because they had to live the way they did. But you know what? Every one of them were happy to be alive.
Another thought I have is this: If in the future some catastrophic event occurs that wipes out 5.5 billion people, then people like me will be heros, as we will have ensured the number required for the survival of the human race. Heh.
Most importantly, a person who throws out a post like this is obviously curious about what is in the minds of people—and regarding a pretty tough subject. I think that is an excellent psychologist in the making.