Are your children your strength or your Achilles heel?

‘To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them:…’

If you ask parents, the first thing most are likely to tell you is that they are the best thing that life ever handed their way and that their life would have been immeasurably poorer if it hadn’t included these kids. I feel exactly the same way about my brats.

However, once you have become a parent, does that make you take better decisions or worse ones? Does it lead you to stand for what is right, fight for doing the right thing not only in your personal life but across all spheres of life, or does it lead to your cowering and hunkering down in order to protect them?

As an example, let’s think of Nazi Germany. In that country, at the time that Hitler was rising to power, let’s say you knew what the system was doing to Jews. Would being a parent change your decision on what you decided to do and in which direction? Would you raise your voice and fight against this oppression, because you want your children to learn to stand up against what is wrong? Or would you stay quiet and tell your kids to be quiet because that way you can keep your nose clean and your children out of trouble? Would the possibility of adverse consequences make you more or less likely to do the right thing? If it’s the latter, how would you reconcile your conscience with your actions?

Should you bring up your children in the belief that life is unfair, life is unjust and they should suck it up or should you teach them to do the right thing and keep tilting at windmills? In a system which rarely takes the side of that which is right, there’s a pragmatist and an idealist fighting inside you. Which one should you root for and why?

I’ve recently been going through a dilemma in which I have to weigh my idealistic instincts against my protective/ pragmatic instincts. And there is a huge amount of family pressure to tow the pragmatic line, simply because life with 3 kids, 2 dogs, ageing parents and EMIs is too full and too limited in terms of time and resources to allow one to take on the system which can’t be guaranteed to do the right thing, get embroiled in legal action or face hostile neighbours. The family pressure comes with the best intent, and past experience of having had to suffer the unfairness of life. I get it. There may be nothing to be gained by flinging our puny selves against a wall. The rational part of me gets it.

But the emotional part of me, the one that is my voice, resents it immensely. I feel like I’m compromising with the truth in order to buy peace. But it’s external peace because then I’m not going to be at peace with myself. I’m not going to respect myself. I’m not going to be the same me, but a dull, cowed down, beaten sort of me. The next time, it’s easier to not even try to think about the right thing but just march quietly down the path of least resistance. The next time, it’s clear from the beginning what the path is. The next time, it’s easier to do the wrong thing…

And I’m not sure if this is the example to set kids who are going to go forth into an ever-more complex and unfair world. I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a parent if that ultimately results in becoming a lesser human being than I was before I had to worry about consequences.

If on the one side, parenting brings joy, it also lays heavy responsibilities on us. Teach your children the right values, we’re always told. The best upbringing is one which makes your children into good human beings. What is a good human being – one who stands up for the right thing or one who keeps quiet to keep the peace? Values come from the parents, we’re told. Which is the right set of values? It’s easy to know what the right thing is in an academic discussion. But when push comes to shove in this uncertain world, how you act determines what values you are passing on to your kids.