Ruth Institute Blog

There is a lot to be said for cultivating stoic virtues.  The best people in the world, as far as I’m concerned are those that are determined to bestow upon others what they need.  And they will make their own wants secondary.

The pursuit of happiness is fine.  But assigning too high a priority to happiness and pleasure makes a person into a narcissistic jerk.

This article discusses how getting married and having children can make somebody into that kind of person.

And here’s where I wonder if we ought to re-examine our commitment to happiness. It seems to me that there’s possibly some merit — if we persevere and have the sense to learn from it — in the other-orientation that is (good) parenting. It’s fine to go through life happy, in other words, but I suspect we also want to go through life without becoming big fat self-absorbed jackasses. Children really help in that regard.

To be sure, there are too many parents who, despite their children, remain narcissistic nimrods. But the nature of parenting is to beat that out of you. There’s just no time to spend on ourselves, at least not like we would if we didn’t have babies to wash and toys to clean up, usually in the middle of the night, after impaling our feet on them.

People are inherently self-centered, and especially in a peaceful, prosperous society, this easily leads to self-indulgence that in turn can make us weak and ignoble. There’s something to be said for ordeals — like parenting, or marriage, or tending the weak and broken — which push us into an other-orientation. When we have to care for someone, we get better at, well, caring for people. It actually takes practice, after all. I’m still trying to get it right.

The world needs children.  Children need both mothers and fathers.  It is not always easy to have children.  It is not always easy for people to remain with the mother or father of their child*.   But the world needs people who will stoically accept the responsibility to bestow this upon posterity.

Along the same lines, it’s worthwhile to mention that the Talmud requires that a judge on the Sanhedrin (the Ancient Jewish Court) must have children.  This is because having children helps to cultivate the virtues a man needs to be an effective judge.  Now that our society has abandoned, in large measure, the virtues advocated by the Talmud, we are only now beginning to see what happens to a society in their absence.

* Before the histrionic squealing in the comments section begins, please note that abusive parents and spouses are an exception to this general principle.