A link from Amy’s Humble Musings yesterday took me to an article about a French woman, Corinne Maier, who wrote a book about why she regretted having children. One of her reasons is that children disappoint you.

Well. Duh.

Everyone will disappoint you if you hang around them long enough. And probably each of us has been a disappointment to someone else at some points along the way. We all have feet of clay, we all have faults, we’re all basically self-centered. In Bible terms, we’re all sinners. Children don’t come out of the womb with self-control and wisdom about how to act. Besides needing redemption, they need to be taught and trained. Left to themselves and their own instincts, they will cause shame.

This — the book, at least, and possibly the sentiment — seems to have been triggered by an outing in which the adults took the kids to a restaurant that the kids wanted to go to but the adults weren’t crazy about. Then the adults saw a museum they wanted to stop in, and the kids they didn’t want to be there and acted out.

Yes, that’s a normal selfish childish reaction. It’s also a teachable moment. It is through such times that children can be taught that the world does not revolve around them and that they can reign themselves in for a little while. If this kind of teaching is going all on through life, it won’t lead to a spectacular showdown as it would if you tried to teach them this all of a sudden after giving in to them all their lives.

Oddly, amongst the 40 reasons she lists for not having children is “To persist in saying ‘me first’ is a badge of courage.” She feels that a woman putting herself first (and therefore not having to deal with the “drudgery,” another of the 40 reasons) is courageous. But that same selfish “me first” attitude in her children is disappointing. There seems to be a bit of disconnection there. It’s ok, even noble for adult women to be selfish, but it is disappointing in children? The very quality she craves for herself she loathes in others.

“For the record, she has given copies of her book to both her children. Neither has picked it up, or paid it any attention.” That’s probably a good thing. I can’t imagine what it would do to their psyches. Ironically, the mother and her partner are psychiatrists.

Though she seemingly grudgingly admits, “you can have a meaningful existence having children,” her books strongly discourages other women from having them. “It is, she says, a means of shattering a national delusion, one that is damaging the lives of women, preventing them from progressing in their careers, keeping them from being creative and intelligent.”

Well, I happen to know many mothers who are both creative and intelligent, who take the time and care to raise and nurture and train little ones into responsible caring adults. Though it is often difficult and always challenging, it is a high and rewarding calling. Some would even say it is a joy.