Bringing Babies & Children into Misery

Buddha recognized that this world is filled with pain, suffering and ignorance. Let's face facts! All babies are born different and this is where the problem of suffering begins. They grow up all in different circumstances but for the most part, that is in a filthy, disease ridden slums of poverty, set upon by all kinds of hooligans. Every single day we are barraged by a flood of news about wars, disasters, new diseases, famines, propaganda in the form of misinformation, economic woes and human shortcomings, yet we seem to be ready for even more. The world is also filled with distractions, especially in the more civilized regions, such as sports, shopping and gadgets. Many people would rather that there was no such thing as war, economic woes and a flood of other pressing concerns that plagues daily life. Many seek escape through drugs, booze and other means. Few seem ready to face the horror dead on and fewer still, to deal with it both for themselves and humanity. This is not for mere escape but an effort to achieve real solutions both for oneself and for all others. As the world is now, it is not fit for man nor beast. Why would anyone want to bring a helpless infant into a world of bombing, poverty, disease and perpetual ignorance? Why would they want them just to escape through consumerist methods?

Most parents genuinely want a good life for their baby and growing child, but this is a goal that is moving further away rather than getting closer despite all their efforts. Like the fox jumping in the vineyard, the luscious grapes are always just out of reach. In the end, they end up bowing to the ground hoping for a windfall. Every now and then, the good life appears to be almost attainable, but then it moves away again out of reach. This is almost predictable. For all their sacrifices, the end result is often alienation between child and parent. This is one of the psychological woes that are experienced by both the parent and the child.

Raising a baby is a demanding and difficult job and really demands full time attention, which, due to circumstances, most parents are incapable of providing. Babies and children are too often relegated to the care of almost complete strangers. Among the species, human beings have one of the longest child dependency periods ranging well over a decade. Yet, many parents are very much like infants, specialized in one avenue of knowledge and little else. If for any reason, their familiar life circumstances change, they are often incapable of dealing with the new circumstances. Yet, this is the kind of world we are emerging into, where the sum of life is a learning curve. Raising babies and children if even more difficult if you have to work and learn as well, which form part of the intervening circumstances. Despite all the valiant struggles, most people find themselves more behind than ahead. Grandiose visions for a better life for children become nothing more than unfulfilled dreams and what is worse, our absence does not make the heart grow fonder, but increases alienation between generations. Parents who consider themselves failures, attempt to live vicariously through their children, hoping for them to fulfil where the parents failed. The child all too often wants nothing to do with that agenda, having desires and dreams of their own. Both are caught up in illusion, but one would be hard pressed to convince either of that illusion.

As babies, we are all totally dependant and ignorant of the world. Parents themselves vary between being reliable and loving to totally dependant and also unreliable. Be that as it may, the parents are far from the only influence. Some babies grow up in an atmosphere of carpet bombing. Many grow up in squalor, filth and disease. More find an inequality of what they can expect out of life. Further, they are born in a multi-divided society with the chief division being of classes. In many societies, there exists a desire to have males as opposed to females. Given the nature of society, there are reasons for this. When considering bringing a child into the world, consider these facts!

• Uncertainty on all sides

• Bullying from all quarters from the top of society down to ones direct associates

• Unknown and known diseases, some of which can be caught and others hereditary

• Economic trends outside of personal control and even those in the personal sphere

• War and rebellions

• Sexism where males have more rights than females

• Predation of all kinds, from unwanted attention to pests

• Natural calamities like earthquakes, floods, drought, plagues, impacts

• Accidents

• Poverty, starvation, filth, homelessness, slum living, indebtedness

• Prejudice along a host of reasons due to differences and jealousies, victimizing targets

• Crime and gang influences

• Injustice and oppressive laws

• Substance abuse

• Political and religious intolerance and persecution

• Slavery

• Torture

• Pollution and toxic waste of all kinds from rubbish to nuclear hazards

• Breakdown in communication and interpersonal relationships

• Education and misinformation promoted as education and one's own knowledge base

• Lies and false flag operations

• Secret agendas of others, unknown and out of control

There are, no doubt other woes too, but the foregoing appears to be a who's who of what life would be like in hell. We all, more or less, have experienced the gamut of the foregoing. In some cases, girls have it tougher than boys. In some cultures it is forbidden for girls to be educated and when a man and woman is caught in adultery, it is the women that pays the penalty, often death by stoning, and not the man. In China, the one child policy has caused a dearth of girls where the population has become skewed to the male side with far more boys than girls. The long held old Chinese concept of boy equals big happiness and girl equals small happiness is behind this in conjunction with the one child policy. Elsewhere, whole societies have been destroyed by forcibly taking the children from parents and re-educating them. Almost all of us have experienced bullying, whether we were bullied or were doing the bullying. Let's be honest! When was the last time you were not intimidated by a disgruntled boss or a peace officer who approached you? Bullying extends from the home front all the way up to foreign policy where we attempt to coerce other nations into what we want of them by war, threats of war or by blockades and economic sanctions. In fact, there was a recent incident where economic sanctions weakened the economy of the target nation and the results were cheered by those imposing the sanctions. They were actually celebrating the fact of making children starve and get ill due to weakening the economy of the target nation.

Many of our problems and those that are imposed upon the new born, are of our own making and can presumably be corrected. Notice, that in the foregoing categories, there is only a few that are not of our doing and that is natural calamities, accidents, disease and pestilence. But we have managed in some cases to use disease as a weapon of mass destruction. What does that say about us? Why would you bring a baby into the world with the certain knowledge that others have these designs for you and the helpless baby? Would it not be better to concentrate on making a better world, if not for yourself, but for the children that will inherit whatever we make of it? Consider well what you do by bringing a newborn into misery. It would be better if we concentrated on the essentials first before wishing hell on innocents even if they were the inadvertent product of a moment of lust. There are many things that can be done and some situations are being addressed, but not enough. Many people are learning to recycle. Iceland has brought its economy under direct control of the people and it is booming. But this is a country of only 300,000 people and the rest of the world is in an economic morass. More people are protesting injustice and war. Some of them have been jailed for protesting government foreign policy the promotes war and economic sanctions that not only makes children suffer, but animals and nature that has no relation to our destructive ways. These non combatants are more victim than we who design and participate in such activity. Then there are those who think and meditate on such questions, seeking answers to the medley of problems swirling around them. We offer our solutions are are too often ignored or at best ridiculed. This is not a joke, but a very serious issue! It would be terrible if sense was only gained one day when the newly murdered bloody baby in your arms leaves you screaming in torment. Resolve now to fix the issues that can be fixed!