More about 'freedom' vs 'committment/responsibility' in making the decision to have a child
Following on from my last post, how do we move to seeing the interdependence of both freedom and committment - instead of thinking it is an either/or choice? When I work with clients who express fears that having a child will mean an end to their freedom or independence, I get them to look at what the positives and negatives are with each pole. What is good about freedom? What is not so good? What is good about comittment? and then, what is not so good? This is called mapping the polarity. And it's important because usually, we tend to favour one pole - at the expense of the others. Sometimes, when we are so fiercely committed to freedom - we reject responsibility or committment - but that means we are rejecting what is good about this place, this pole.
In terms of figuring out if we want to have a baby or not, I believe we want to (as much as possible) make this choice from a place of wholeness. When I do this exercise with clients we explore how they can have more integration and flow between freedom and committment - so that they can access both and know that they can 'lean into' the pole of responsibility without losing the best bits of freedom. And then, we look at the decision to have a child again - when we do it from a place of integration, we might still decide to remain childfree. Or we might decide to have a child. BUT we know the decision is coming from a place of wholeness - not because we haven't integrated a pole or because we are fearful of losing something important to us, to losing the freedom we all need to be fully human.
In terms of figuring out if we want to have a baby or not, I believe we want to (as much as possible) make this choice from a place of wholeness. When I do this exercise with clients we explore how they can have more integration and flow between freedom and committment - so that they can access both and know that they can 'lean into' the pole of responsibility without losing the best bits of freedom. And then, we look at the decision to have a child again - when we do it from a place of integration, we might still decide to remain childfree. Or we might decide to have a child. BUT we know the decision is coming from a place of wholeness - not because we haven't integrated a pole or because we are fearful of losing something important to us, to losing the freedom we all need to be fully human.
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