" Only through your children do you know yourself"

Hi there! It's good to see yet another child-free person on myLot. I think it was a huge blanket statement for him to say this. Perhaps this was true for him, but each person is different. Maybe having children is just what he needed, or maybe his main purpose in life is to be a father. I also have known I didn't want kids since my personal history of rational thought, and for a person to have kids just to try to "know" themselves is dangerous for both themselves and the kids. What kids want to be raised by people who never wanted them? No wonder you hear about women dumping kids like trash...I guarantee you that some person at some point told them what they've told each child-free individual: "It's different when it's your own child. You'll never know love until you're a parent!" I'm sorry, but having children is not a scientific experiment. For me, finding love and realizing that I had a gift for bringing joy to other people, particularly strangers, was how I found myself. In my late teens I started having an optimistic viewpoint and began to go out of my way to make people I pass by throughout my life happy, if only for a moment and only with a smile. As soon as I began doing this, I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to touch people's lives. My main goal in life is to leave the Earth a better place than it was when I was born here, and I don't need children to teach me that. Furthermore, having children would only take away from that. I wouldn't be able to volunteer or travel to places that need help if my time was spent with kids. I don't pity Martin Sheen, because I think maybe his statement is true for him. However, I do think he's very wrong in grouping all of humanity into one category. People are individuals, and to treat them as one group is wrong. I also want to mention that even though both you and I are child-free, you are also against marriage and I'm not; further proof that you can never put two people in the same group, and further proof that my experiences to "knowing myself" will be much different, as I expected, than yours. No two people are alike...Mr. Sheen may not be able to imagine life without children, while I cannot imagine why anyone would have children. In the end, though, everyone has to respect humanity and the fact that each person is an individual and is entitled to their own lifestyle.

Through the course of a lifetime, children will teach us many many lessons. Since they are half us, it's easy to see ourselves in them. We get a new perspective on ourselves and life through your child's choices and actions. I ran into an elderly lady. She made the comment that the best thing she done in her life was to have children and yet all her children were accidents. In making our choices in life, sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees.

No. I have three kids and I don't think they define me at all....did I grow up with them a bit....Yes. Do I love and enjoy them? Yes.....but I waited until after they grew up to really be who I wanted to be. Not that I didn't enjoy who I was when I was raising them.....but now I do my own thing. My job as a mom is never over.....but they are on their own and I am living my life for myself.

Ouch is the first thing that comes to my mind when reading this. I understand what he means by he didn't know himself till after he had a child. You can know yourself and what you want your whole life with out really knowing yourself deep down inside. A baby brings so many new things in your life. It changes you it re defines who you are in a different way. You never thought or knew you could be this way with a child. You never knew how much you could love some one so small that you had made or given. Men experience parenthood differently and most of the time at a different time then when a women does. Most women know they want a baby and who they will be with a baby but a father doesn't always know that. Its kind of like you know when you start a new realtionship a knew part of you kind of shows up and you never know that part of you was inside of you.

for me, not..though i may still young to say this..but i also choose not to be a mother.. we don't need to have a child to know ourselves..although, if we have our own child/children, they may be our mirror..because parents tend to see themselves to their children..and children always adapt whatever their parents inculcated to them..but it doesn't mean to know ourselves, we must have a child..

Children will get the character of their parents, we can cultivate some good character to them, but some character good or bad they will attain by birth it will not change from this we will understand ourselves it is only the reflection of the parents that is why Martin Sheen said this.

Sadly there are those who say the same about marriage. I made damn sure I knew who I was BEFORE I found a boyfriend, let alone got married. If I did not know who I was, I would not have gotten married. How can an incomplete person enter into a relationship, and bring anything good to that relationship, if they don't even have their own foundation in place? It baffles me!

No, you don't. But having a child introduces you to parts of yourself that you may never otherwise explore. That's my take at least, as a parent.

I think this is confusing too. I think people should really know themselves before they even start thinking of becoming a parent. So, it doesn't make sense if the realization of oneself comes afterwards. I think that's why some teens fail raising children because they have not grown to know themselves before their own child comes. Just an opinion.

I don't think thats what he meant. Let me try and explain. I remember a time before I had kids, I was so adamant about not having them, I was young also, so I get that part. But, making the decision to have them, and then having children, you do see things differently. I am in no way against abortion, I believe it is the woman's right. But children bring out different emotions you never knew you had inside. I think thats what he meant. In addition to that, anyone who does not have children or choose not to, does in no way mean you don't know yourself. That is a choice you and many other men and women have made. Look, I have kids, I love them with all my heart, but they can be challenging. If I was to do it all over again, I might opt for the choice you made. But I will never trade them for anything in the world.

I hate my mouse! I was just starting the second paragraph of this response when it flipped me back a page because I accidentally touched the wrong part of it. Now I'm afraid to touch it, so please forgive any mistakes. To try to recap in as few words as possible, I fell in love with my son long before we adopted him. Our bond developed through his daily visits, since he lived as a foster child next door. When it was likely he'd go up for adoption, we couldn't imagine life without him, so we adopted him and his sister, who lived in another home. Until meeting Jason, I thought I had no maternal instinct. Maybe God know I could not have handled a baby or a toddler. or maybe I could have and just wouldn't have known it until it arrived. But it didn't, and I got to skip those years. Maybe all our lives would have been better if we'd had them since infancy, but those are all might-have-beens. I did learn a lot about myself by being a parent, just as I might learn more about myself through a new type of job. But I think when people say you will get to know yourself better by being a parent, they may mean you may learn more about how others see you. Children are little little sponges, always absorbing what they see and hear. They learn a lot of behaviors from us we hadn't intended to teach them. They do as we do, not always what we tell them to do. So if you see a little girl playing house with her doll, when you observe her talking to the doll, you will see how she perceives you because she is imitating how you treat her. Children have a tendency to often imitate our worst characteristics, not our best. They pick up things we don't even notice we are doing and reflect it back to use when they play. We watch and are amazed that we are coming across like that. So what we learn is not always flattering. Sometimes the truth hurts. I would not become a parent just to learn these types of things. Maybe I'd rather not know them. But it may be what Sheen means.

I dont think its that we dont know who we are until we have kids so much as it is that who we are often changes after we have children. The reason it feels that children define us is because once we have children that they do. I think that it is great that you know yourself well enough to know that having children is not for you far too many people wait till its too late to figure that out and then there is an innocent child who is stuck with a subpar parent who regrets having children.