Growth in Journal

It’s been while since I wrote publicly a reflection of my life.
Having children makes us adults. I don’t care about anything a non parent has to say- about almost anything with the exception of their experience of being a child. This isn’t my opinion. It’s an objective phenomenon that can be observed empirically and ubiquitously not just in all peoples, but in other animal species as well. A non parent cannot think about the future as a parent does. A non parent cannot have substantial interest, invested value, or basic motivation to care, in how their behavior affects others. And, this is my opinion, non parents, or people who don’t want to be parents, are weirdos. No, I’m not talking about unchosen infertility or even those who can’t for some other reason be a parent but otherwise would. Those people may still parent, or parent to a large degree, their neices and nephews and orphans and the almost endless list of children whose biological parents need assistance. No, those people are not non parents. They may be unfortunately relagated to the sidelines, but they’re there, cheering on the team. What I am talking about are people who are non parents by choice, deed, and principle in action.
A non parent is consciously and willingly admitting their values are destructive, and cannot be substantially reproduced by any unbiased actor. Non parents are unapologetic nihilists. Non parents are destructive, anti-life, and hedonistic. And, non parents do not want to change that. By definition, they are revolted by the idea of parenthood because it would make unavoidable the confrontation of their (chosen) destructive nature.
Becoming a parent changes people. It has changed me profoundly.
When our firstborn was an infant, I confronted my own nihilism. I came face to face with my destructive nature, and rooted out the source. I became a willing pupil to what my infant had to teach me, through parenthood. I became an adult; I cleaned out the vestiges of childhood that still gathered dust in the attic of my psyche. The guards of those dusty treasurs were my parents, jealously and with petty viciousness, they sought to prevent me from cleaning my house. Being an adult means confronting the real people in all their virtues or lack thereof, and clearing away once and for all the idealized versions that my child self used to protect me from those same evils.
Now that our secondborn is an infant, I as an adult am confronting the evil outside myself in the world. It would be impossible to confront outward evil without first confronting my own inward evil; for what in the world would I have to stand on? How could I, or anyone, possibly apply a standard that isn’t universal? And without first knowing myself clearly, honestly, and with absolute rational empirical reason? If I don’t know what I look like, a mirror will easily fool me into believing I am seeing the world. I would mistake myself for the world, and the world for myself.
It is an incredible journey. I feel born again. And born yet again. Even though I am an atheist, I am not atheistic in my deep and abiding love and gratitude for this experience. I am humbled by the lessons that these pure, vulnerable and beautiful living souls have bequeathed to me.