5 ms·

Was it ever considered such a great joy or just another of life's many tasks?

• jimbokun 3y ago
  In old literature, being "barren" was seen as a heart breaking tragedy for women. And countless references to children as a treasure and a blessing.
  • munk-a 3y ago
    This may be a bit of a depressing point but, for a long time in western society, a women's role was accepted to purely be a mother and caregiver. When you say "was seen" I think it's important to clarify that it was seen that way from the point of view of society - society certainly impressed this view on women raised within it but I don't think we can disentangle the taught behaviors from natural behaviors. Some of these beliefs still stretch into the modern day in really toxic ways - my sister-in-law (a tenure track professor) got a lot of flack from tenured professors who had deferred having a family until the window had closed when she had to duck out of a semester for maternity leave.
• seneca 3y ago
  The idea that having children is a joyless burden is very modern, and very specific to certain subcultures. "Great joy" is the default position.
  • stormfather 3y ago
    This is perpetually self correcting. The societies which don't take joy in having children die out and are replaced by those that do. Surely this has been happening for millennia, and the reason that we see most societies as being pro-natal is survivorship bias.
    • mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Yep. Western secular society is dying and we are just reading the tea leaves as it tries to find out where it went wrong.