Comments on: wanting vs. saving http://courtneymandryk.com/2009/05/20/wanting-vs-saving/ personal website hub Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:42:27 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: tobias http://courtneymandryk.com/2009/05/20/wanting-vs-saving/comment-page-1/#comment-1505 tobias Fri, 22 May 2009 20:24:56 +0000 http://courtneymandryk.com/?p=246#comment-1505 thanks a lot. Now I'm going to need at least 8 years of analrapy or psychoparalysis to figure out what I want. thanks a lot. Now I’m going to need at least 8 years of analrapy or psychoparalysis to figure out what I want.

]]> By: lady madonna http://courtneymandryk.com/2009/05/20/wanting-vs-saving/comment-page-1/#comment-1504 lady madonna Fri, 22 May 2009 20:22:48 +0000 http://courtneymandryk.com/?p=246#comment-1504 jeebus. how do we any of us make a decision in this world with so much to painstakingly consider? and wait -- I thought it was you who knew the right thing to do. pains taken or no, all you can ever do is creep up on this one, and hope to scare out of it what you think is right, b/c it will never ever offer it up easy. jeebus. how do we any of us make a decision in this world with so much to painstakingly consider?

and wait — I thought it was you who knew the right thing to do.

pains taken or no, all you can ever do is creep up on this one, and hope to scare out of it what you think is right, b/c it will never ever offer it up easy.

]]> By: Preeta http://courtneymandryk.com/2009/05/20/wanting-vs-saving/comment-page-1/#comment-1502 Preeta Thu, 21 May 2009 12:05:50 +0000 http://courtneymandryk.com/?p=246#comment-1502 Oh, Courtney! What an amazing post. I got your e-mail and will reply to it separately, but I just wanted to say right here how much everything you say here resonates with me, even though I have never come close to seriously considering adoption. I have thought about it in the abstract, and I so very much agree with both your questions and your conclusions. There is a big generational/cultural gap, in my family, between my parents' generation -- who *did* have children because they wanted someone to love them, to recognise their sacrifices, to take care of them in return, to support them financially and morally in their old age -- and my generation, who is having children because, yes, we simply want to experience this, to learn from it intellectually, emotionally, biologically, all of that (and yes, the gap makes for a very sad conflict of expectations between these two generations, but that's another story. Before I got pregnant I tended to downplay the biological part of the learning, but now, after these nine months, it really does seem to me that that in itself would have been a valid reason to do this. I have never had this kind of chance to get to know my body, and perhaps more astonishingly, to know it in so many completely *new* ways after more than thirty years -- why should this count less than intellectual growth? Am I just trying to justify the selfishness of reproduction to myself? Maybe. But I have done other things just to experience them, because I thought the experience would be meaningful and would deepen my knowledge of myself, so why not this, when, like you, I think we will be decent parents? To me, there's nothing unpoetic about the choice you made, and who cares if outsiders who haven't thought about all this very much coo or tsk or do something else? Certainly the way you have thought and written about it is immensely poetic. And yes, the decisions are complicated. Have you read "The Peter Singer Solution to World Poverty"? It's an essay you can find in dozens of anthologies -- your last paragraph brought it to mind. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it, since you are already formulating all these questions. much love P Oh, Courtney! What an amazing post. I got your e-mail and will reply to it separately, but I just wanted to say right here how much everything you say here resonates with me, even though I have never come close to seriously considering adoption. I have thought about it in the abstract, and I so very much agree with both your questions and your conclusions. There is a big generational/cultural gap, in my family, between my parents’ generation — who *did* have children because they wanted someone to love them, to recognise their sacrifices, to take care of them in return, to support them financially and morally in their old age — and my generation, who is having children because, yes, we simply want to experience this, to learn from it intellectually, emotionally, biologically, all of that (and yes, the gap makes for a very sad conflict of expectations between these two generations, but that’s another story.

Before I got pregnant I tended to downplay the biological part of the learning, but now, after these nine months, it really does seem to me that that in itself would have been a valid reason to do this. I have never had this kind of chance to get to know my body, and perhaps more astonishingly, to know it in so many completely *new* ways after more than thirty years — why should this count less than intellectual growth? Am I just trying to justify the selfishness of reproduction to myself? Maybe. But I have done other things just to experience them, because I thought the experience would be meaningful and would deepen my knowledge of myself, so why not this, when, like you, I think we will be decent parents?

To me, there’s nothing unpoetic about the choice you made, and who cares if outsiders who haven’t thought about all this very much coo or tsk or do something else? Certainly the way you have thought and written about it is immensely poetic. And yes, the decisions are complicated. Have you read “The Peter Singer Solution to World Poverty”? It’s an essay you can find in dozens of anthologies — your last paragraph brought it to mind. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it, since you are already formulating all these questions.

much love
P

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