What Are Children For?

Upon glancing at the cover and blurb of this book, I was excited. Why we have children at all, why we voluntarily take up the responsibility of another life, is a great start to a philosophical, sociological discussion. However this book turned out to be a bit of a let down.

Crammed with statistics, information about the how and the when of children, the how come, not much about the why. Why DOES our generation (and our race) feel the need to pop out kid after kid when many of us, especially in poorer countries, cannot guarantee them a better standard of living than ours? What purpose does having a child serve - to a mother, to a father, to the extended family? What role is a child expected to play in society? What expectations do the family and the rest of the world have from the child they have just borne? These were exciting questions that I as a teacher have occasionally thought about and debated as well.

This book, though it starts out with a brave question in mind and arms itself with all the statistics it can gather to defend its radical query - it ultimately does not deliver. These questions (and their answers) are surreptitiously buried under mountains of information. The authors (family members) seem to be quibbling amongst themselves rather than go deeper to the root of their questions. The will of the book to follow up on its own daring question is lost. Finally, I did not get my answers - neither did the authors.