Bringing children into non-ideal situations

amother

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 10:35 pm

This is related to the thread about single motherhood. Some insist that children shouldn't be brought into less than ideal situations. The extreme version of this belief is antinatalism, the belief that it is wrong to have children altogether because you know that they will suffer in life. Others say that one should have children even if the situation is not ideal. The extreme version of this would include having children even in situations such as a bad marriage or a known genetic issue.

amother

Sapphire

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 10:41 pm

CYLME

amother

Smokey

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 10:51 pm

Say what? Consult your local medical examiner? Why? Who died?

amother

Sapphire

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 10:54 pm

amother [ Smokey ] wrote:

Say what? Consult your local medical examiner? Why? Who died?

Consult Your Local Medical Ethicist.

Rubber Ducky

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:34 pm

If we all waited for "ideal" situations, how many people wouild have children?

amother

Salmon

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:37 pm

There's a lot of space between the two extremes. And most lives fall in the middle. No one knows what the future holds, but that's life.

dankbar

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:38 pm

amother [ Smokey ] wrote:

Say what? Consult your local medical examiner? Why? Who died?

maybe it was aborted, bc it was decided it is not an ideal time/sitch now

zaq

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:38 pm

Rubber Ducky wrote:

If we all waited for "ideal" situations, how many people wouild have children?

Nobody. The human race would have ceased to exist, since from the time Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden there had never been such a thing as an ideal situation.

amother

Emerald

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:48 pm

Rubber Ducky wrote:

If we all waited for "ideal" situations, how many people wouild have children?

I must be really naive, but I think plenty of us.

Or maybe I just have a very shallow vision of what ideal situation means.

amother

Ecru

Wed, Nov 13 2019, 11:50 pm

So how "non-ideal" do things need to be in order to make it a bad idea?

Children getting murdered at birth = not enough of a reason (see: Egypt)
Entire communities getting exterminated = not enough of a reason (see: Holocaust)
Extreme poverty = not enough of a reason (see: almost every time period)

Perhaps only if the children themselves will be making the situation worse, as opposed to being simply born into it, would it seem like it should be avoided?

amother

Mistyrose

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 12:08 am

You need to categorize what "non ideal sitations" are.
1. Famine
2. War
3. Parents who hate each other
4. Poverty
5. Parents who mildly dislike each other
6. Parents who have health issues

I mean, the list could go on and on.
Some situations are worse than others.

If the child will make the situation worse, then yes, you should probably try to avoid having another child.

Here is a real life story I am personally involved in.
Woman over 40 with several children. She freely admits that her husband doesn't contribute - all parnasa and child rearing issues are on her shoulders. Both of them are uneducated. he "learns" and she works menial jobs. They are living on the poverty line.
Each child has different issues - some major health issues which necessitate multiple hospitalizations. Some school/learning issues.
They are all undernourished. She basically subsists on coffee and bread. Her kids are all very skinny and don't look well fed.
They have no car. So when her child is in the hospital it basically takes a full day for her to go visit the child via public transportation.
She wanted another baby and actively made that happen. She admitted that. She got sick during the pregnancy and had to stop working, the baby was very small and was born early. After the birth she could not work at all. The baby is in public daycare full time because she's not well enough to take care of it. Her older children are obviously suffering more than they were before. The family is surviving on welfare and handouts. I promise I am not exaggerating this.
All details are true.
All outsiders who saw this unfold agree that this child should probably not have been brought into this world.

amother

Sapphire

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 12:13 am

amother [ Mistyrose ] wrote:

What's your involvement?

amother

Wine

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 12:38 am

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

What's your involvement?

Why does that matter?

amother

Sapphire

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 12:40 am

amother [ Wine ] wrote:

Why does that matter?

Why did you mention you are personally involved in the 'real life story'?

ora_43

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 1:42 am

amother [ Ecru ] wrote:

(Was there really no heter for BC during the Holocaust? Pretty sure that, where it was relevant, you would have had a lot of people avoiding pregnancy...)

(also, I believe that during times of drought, abstinence was mandatory. that doesn't cover all types of extreme poverty, but there wasn't a blanket rule of "extreme poverty = not a reason")

The situations you mention have a common factor: they were situations that affected the entire community, such that if anyone in a bad situation hadn't had babies, nobody would have had babies.

And another: they were external issues, created by anti-Semites, or nature, or poor national-level leadership. Not something the community could fix.

So actually, I think it's fine that couples today avoid having children for reasons that are seemingly much less serious (and halacha says the same - very few rabbis, if any, say that birth control is completely assur). There's a crucial difference between "I, ora_43, should not have a baby right now" and "no Jews should have babies for the foreseeable future."

ora_43

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 1:46 am

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

Why did you mention you are personally involved in the 'real life story'?

If she hadn't, people would be asking 'but how do you know that's what really happened.'

I, too, can think of multiple people who had kids in situations so bad that social services had to get involved. I really hope we can all agree that an inability to provide kids with their most basic needs (food, protection from harm, not being abused, etc), due to personal emotional/mental limitations, is a reason to not have kids.

amother

Sapphire

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 1:51 am

ora_43 wrote:

If she hadn't, people would be asking 'but how do you know that's what really happened.'
.

Its not relevant if its true or not. Its a conversation about scenarios.

amother

Ecru

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 2:02 am

ora_43 wrote:

I wasn't trying to attack anyone for being on BC, I am not privy to their reasoning or that of their Rabbis. However, just because BC is PERMISSIBLE in a certain circumstance does not mean it is MANDATED.

If Torah does not mandate BC for times when newborns are being drowned or murdered for their blood, it means that Torah is okay (or supports) having babies in what I think is certainly not ideal circumstances. (I doubt that every woman did make efforts to do so, although those who did were praised.)

Jews have been having babies in extreme poverty throughout the ages. Not necessarily community-wide poverty, but living in a drafty hovel and struggling to put bread on the table poor. That is certainly a less-than-ideal situation, but I have never seen a blanket endorsement by Rabbis at any time for all of those in a certain income bracket to refrain from bringing more hungry mouths into the world.

During the Holocaust, probably many chose not to procreate. But many did have children, and those children are the survivors today. I read a beautiful story (though I can't remember where) of a family who had children during the Holocaust years, despite being criticized for it... and miraculously, the entire family survived.

Having children is not always a logical choice. But it might be the right choice regardless.

ora_43

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 2:11 am

amother [ Ecru ] wrote:

If Torah does not mandate BC for times when newborns are being drowned or murdered for their blood, it means that Torah is okay (or supports) having babies in what I think is certainly not ideal circumstances. (I doubt that every woman did make efforts to do so, although those who did were praised.)

That doesn't necessarily follow. We have rabbis, we don't pasken straight from sefer Shmot - especially since, like I said, that was a unique situation (the potential destruction of the entire Jewish people).

There are definitely rabbis today who have told people flat-out not to have babies in certain circumstances.

amother

Sienna

Thu, Nov 14 2019, 2:19 am

ora_43 wrote:

Very few rabbis would say that BC is completely assur for someone that does not want children and is coming for a heter. However, for someone who does want children, even fewer Rabbis would discourage them from having. We're the only ones who don't know how to mind our business and decide who should have children and who shouldn't. The rabbis certainly aren't doing that.

From a purely materialistic (ie absent metaphysical or otherwise subjective life purpose/meaning), almost all modern philosophers agree that nonexistence has a marked advantage over existence, and people are better off not being born. (I don't think that's why most Western countries have negative birth rates among the middle class population, as that is really more do to selfish reasons, but the lack of having any sort of purpose in life certainly does not encourage one to bring more children into the world.)

Jewish thought actually agrees with this concept, as we say that as far as olam hazeh is concerned, a person is better off not having been created. The fact that Hashem created is regardless, and we do not believe that Hashem is cruel, shows that we do not understand our purpose in this world, the definition of good and bad as it relates to the purpose of life, and by extension whether a person is better off not being created.

As a general rule, if you see a string that opens and closes the window shades, you're pretty safe pulling it to open and close the shades. However, if you see a lever and you have no idea what it does, tempting as it may be, you probably shouldn't pull the lever. For all you know, the results may be catastrophic. Being as we don't know why any child, or we ourselves, were deemed necessary or fitting to come into this world, we're probably better off not pulling the lever (or at least minding our own business and not going into our neighbors house and pulling every lever that we have no idea what it does).

Obviously, when it comes to family planning ourselves our own emotional and mental stability come first (chayecha kodem), but to judge other people for having children that we deem as irresponsible and unfair to the kids and society borders on heresy.

That's my guess what a local Orthodox Rabbi would tell you.

Obviously, a medical ethicist may tell you differently. They also likely have different views on euthanasia and medically assisted suicide than your LOR...

(Btw, I don't think the distinction between public or private hardship and others having children or not holds water logically, when you individualize it on a macro level. Either there's a purpose to kids being born/existing or there isn't. If existence is meaningless nobody should have kids, if it's purposeful then everyone should have. Having kids be the victims of our personal or collective egocentric desire to perpetuate our national legacy, absent any objective purpose, is both cruel and absurd. There cannot be a national purpose without individual purpose, because while there is a concept of strength in numbers and a whole being more than the sum of its individual parts as a unit, any multiple of zero will always be zero no matter how large.)