Birthing Babies Without a Plan
The Human Species and Their Myths and Illusions
Do you ever wonder why we celebrate the birth of a new child when we do such a poor job of taking care of the children we already birthed?
Don’t get me wrong, I get the science behind the instinct to procreate. I thoroughly understand that humans are merely animals, just another species, living on this planet swirling in space. We didn’t get to choose to be born and we have little control over what we were handed at birth, good or bad. Just like my little backyard rabbit who has graced me with her presence for four years, however, humans are born with strong instincts to survive. We act on instinct and emotion much of the time rather than logic. Our big brains can actually hinder us at times. I get that.
BUT …
How much pain and suffering must we witness before we figure out that helping to alleviate human suffering is our responsibility if we truly want to live in a society that cares about children?
I’m not sure that we do. Want to live in a society that cares about children, that is. Collective progress is too damn slow to believe that the vast majority of humans really care about each other like we want to believe we do. The selfish gene is pretty, pretty, pretty successful at dominating the conversation. The list of I wants and I need is loooooong. And, the nature of the beast is to hoard not share.
Even though other humans, even humans with little babies, are fleeing countries where war, hunger, and desperation abounds, most countries are very hesitant to give them a safe space. They’re often even resentful of these fellow humans toting their little babies.
Go away! You’re not eligible for free food. Even if we throw tons of food in the garbage every day, we aren’t comfortable sharing it with you.
Throughout the years, the unbelievable number of humans who have suffered and died from starvation, bombs, poverty, bad governments, and even churches should give us nightmares if we have even a drop of empathy in our bodies. Granted some people don’t. Have a drop of empathy in their bodies, that is. But even those that do are unwilling to help because their long list of I wants and I needs is on their mind almost 100% of the time.
I’ve got mine. You get yours but leave mine alone.
Clearly there’s no higher power looking down from the heavens trying to intervene on behalf of all the new babies that just entered the world either. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that no god has ever fed a hungry child.
Humans do that if they choose to do so.
If not, the child starves to death. That’s right! A little baby dies a painful death after a painful birth because no one really gives a shit about babies.
It takes a human to step up to the plate and feed all those babies we keep bringing into the world. If we don’t do it, there are no miracles. Saving babies requires sacrifice and hard work.
Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Isn’t it?
I mean some humans don’t think that certain other humans are actually humans. Do you know what I’m talking about? There’s this us against them mentality that goes back, well, maybe to cavemen days. It was centered around the instinct to survive.
Maybe we’re just cavemen with cell phones.
Yeah, I think that may be true. We’ve evolved technologically but not so much socially.
So, we rely on the antiquated tools that we carry in our bag of survival skills.
War, hoarding, cruelty, the tribe, crude solutions, and persistent exclusion.
Oh, yeah! Humans love to exclude others. Especially the others that they have dubbed not human. It gives them a sense of power. It also allows the selfish gene to dominate our decisions and solutions. We love the us versus them state of mind because the myths our ancestors created while sitting around the fire at night are still pretty much the only philosophies we learned from our parents and now teach to our children.
You know… things like a god will take care of us if we pray loud enough and often enough.
And, our god is the one true god who is all-powerful and all knowing. So, we have a special assignment on this planet. Our tribe is not only THE humans but the other tribes are subhumans.
And there’s an endless array of subhumans even among our own kind. We separate into smaller packs within the tribe and struggle to then dominate one another. Yeah, bills get passed that harm and exclude others and bigotry thrives because we’ll dump on anyone who isn’t just like us.
Once again, we choose to not feed their little babies.
Let them cry. Put them in a cage even. Terrorize those little ones. We don’t care. Then we turn around and pray to our god for not only protection but personal prosperity.
Thank you, Jesus, for giving ME this beautiful home. God is good.
Right!!! (sarcasm)
Life’s a struggle. No doubt about it. We come into this world with the cards stacked against us. But we don’t do much to make life a little more bearable. I think we sabotage our chances of a good life.
Still, we celebrate new life like we mean it. In a modern affluent society even more so. It’s a little baby, we croon. Give me grandchildren, we beg. When will you have a baby, we ask. Find us husbands so we can have babies, we demand.
But don’t ask us to take care of those babies after they’re born.
Humans are a piece of work. I won’t lie to you when I say that humanity is not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t trust most adult humans as far as I can throw them. I don’t know how an aware person can easily choose to bring another life into this world. We know so much more than our ancestors. Heck, we know more than my parents did in the 40s and 50s.
There are too many babies in the world that need to be fed, nurtured, and given a safe place to grow up. Why doesn’t that bother us?
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
