Some Men Want Children for the Wrong Reasons but One Is More Shocking

I met Kaleb at a mutual friend’s naming ceremony. He had a cute dad-like face and he was incredibly great with children. He was reserved but funny.

When I saw him playing with the children who came with their parents for the occasion I thought he was a father to one of the kids.

Unfortunately, Kaleb has no child. He’s single and wants to remain so despite his heart yearning to be a father.

I was confused.

I could see his face was full of regrets. I was just a stranger so I guess he had reservations about disclosing his personal life to me.

We carried on playing with the kids. Towards the end of the occasion, we became friends and even exchanged numbers. I shared my experience as a single mother and my desire to have a son if I meet the right man.

I was building my conversation to give him the confidence to reveal why he was holding back on fatherhood when he’s so adorable with children. He looked responsible too.

But to my surprise, Kaleb had decided to be childfree for the most selfless reason I have ever heard.

He said his genes are dangerous to be transferred to his offspring. His father was paranoid schizophrenic and died by suicide when he was five. His mother’s genes have cancer. Some of his aunts died of either breast cancer, leukemia, or lymphoma.

He contacted a genetic counsellor who told him he had a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a schizophrenic and he didn’t want to risk losing his child to suicide or cancer.

I admired Kaleb for his decision. However, he says he’s open to adoption in the future if his wife is interested or being a stepdad if she already has children.

He’s thinking of the child’s well-being and doesn’t think it’s right to compromise the quality of life his offspring will have. It’s not every day you meet selfless people like him.

Most men think children are their legacies and won’t mind bringing children into the world despite their genetic disorder.

For these men, their success is linked to how many children they have and what they provide for their families. And when the man doesn’t have a wife or child, or cannot provide for his family, he feels lost and worthless.

I once met a guy who said his children are his assets — like his real estate and money. He admitted he regards children as bourgeois accessories and that a man without a child is a failure.

A 31-year-old Redditor was blasted for hating his 5-year-old daughter. He said from the moment the child was born he never felt any whim of being a dad.

He lamented that the stress of being a parent is unreal and relentless and that sometimes he cannot stand being around his daughter because of her “constant moaning, whining, needing, crying, and sass.”

The man wishes he would never see his daughter again because he’s not cut out to be a father. He said he misses his life before his daughter and the freedom he can never have back.

Another Redditor expressed how much she hates her fiancé for not caring for their sick child. The couple are both 31 years old and have a 4-year-old child.

The woman said her son complained of neck pain due to a fall he had that week. She needed to get the child to the hospital for examination but the fiancé tried to invalidate the child’s suffering accusing the child of faking his pain so he would sleep in their bedroom.

The woman insisted on taking the child to the ER but on their way, the child puked in the car and her fiancé got upset about the mess. He was more concerned about the vomit staining his car than the pain the child was going through.

Some men only procreate to extend their lineage. They don’t care about the values they instill in the child. They don’t care about the emotional support children need.

If it weren’t for the social expectations on men to procreate and prove the fertility of their manhood, most men would be childfree.

In fact, studies have discovered that more men are choosing to be childfree. It’s a surprise that the same men accusing women of being selfish for not passing their genes to their offspring are the ones turning down fatherhood.

I heard a 42-year-old man say his purpose for having a child was to find meaning in his life. He had lived eighteen years of his adulthood traveling and partying but felt his life had no purpose and thought having a child would give him one.

We shouldn’t be shocked to know that men procreate to protect their ego even when they can’t handle the emotional burden of being a father.

There are also men that have no paternal instinct to love and nurture so they see fatherhood as a burden, an inconvenience that steals their freedom.

A study conducted on men and women to reveal which gender expresses more interest in having children shows that are more likely to want kids because kids don’t disrupt their life as much as it does for women.

Men don’t give up their careers to raise children. They experience less emotional toll, and they don’t commit to care-giving as women do. And in the event ‘dad responsibilities’ threaten their peace and happiness, they abandon their children to their mothers.

This is why America is overpopulated with fatherless children. We have more deadbeats than involved fathers because men abandon their responsibilities to their wives and girlfriends.

So when I hear men say they want children because that’s the legacy they leave behind, I laugh at their absurdity.

How can a child be your legacy when you are not in the child’s life?

Some fathers only provide the financial needs of their children. They don’t spend time bonding and teaching their children ethical values that build good character.

Then we have the absent fathers who abandoned their children either intentionally or unintentionally, then show up years later when they are old, dying or have a life-threatening illness.

I think it’s ridiculous for men to assume they have a legacy simply by being the biological father of a child.

A child is a privilege, an additional advance you have over others, not a legacy. Our legacies are our values, our assets and our contributions to society. The memories we leave behind for your children are our legacies, not the human beings we created.

When you make your children your legacies you regard them as objects of possession. Having a child isn’t a guarantee the child will grow up to be responsible. For children who turn out to be addicts, criminals and murderers I wonder if their fathers are proud of their legacies.

Luckily, now more men are skipping traditional conceptions on marriage and children because they no longer feel pressured to provide and protect, with time this misconception of making children our legacies will phase out too.

…

Did you enjoy reading this story? Take a minute to leave a comment, I would like to hear your thoughts and subscribe to my newsletter so you get my next story in yo

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***

From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

***

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.