What prompts personal growth?

A blogger* recently said that in not having children, she had lost the chance to do things better, or differently, or the way that might have worked with us way back when. I can understand that. We all want to take lessons from what happened to us, and make things better. But there’s a danger in this. I’ve seen someone raise their by deliberately doing the opposite of that which her mother did. They didn’t seem to realise that they weren’t actually choosing to do this freely, but were taking a kneejerk reaction out of resentment. But in trying to rectify the “wrongs” done to them, the best interests of the children were sometimes lost.

The aforementioned blogger also said that she felt she was missing out on the mental thought and maturation involved in this process of assessing her upbringing and then raising children. I can definitely see her point. It seems that, when parenting, it might happen organically, as and when specific childhood stages were reached. But it could also occur at times of crisis, with many competing demands for time and energy, or when we found it least convenient. We just never know. So I don't think it would inherently be an easy or natural process to go through when parenting.

Of course, I don’t think you need to be a parent to be able to think about and deal with the issues of our childhood. Because, in my experience at least, I see a lot of people who don't grow, who never deal with their past or their issues, and who even hide from it. Perhaps without even realising that. And I know (from discussions in the comments) that the original blogger knows this too.

Personally, the fact that I couldn’t have children, and the need to process the grief of that, meant I had to really think about my own values, then to reevaluate my life, and find meaning in other ways. It has meant that I've thought about a whole raft of issues and ideas about myself (including how I would have parented) that my friends who are parents just haven't (or hadn’t at the time) necessarily had to do. They might have had a life that has worked seamlessly for them so they don’t question it, they might not have had the time or energy to search their hearts and minds, they might have been too afraid to confront feelings of emptiness or confusion, or they simply lacked self-awareness, never really knowing why they were bitter or angry or sad, or knowing in fact that they were actually bitter or angry or sad.

The thing about a situation that changes our lives, or changes the way we expected to live our lives, is that we can’t avoid confronting it. But still, the extent to which we do will depend on many of the issues above – self-awareness, inclination, time or energy, and courage. It doesn’t happen automatically to parents, and it doesn’t happen automatically to those of us who can’t be parents. We all have catalysts - whether it is having children, or NOT having children. The key is not to denigrate our own catalyst. Absence can be a catalyst to growth, just as presence can be.

Ultimately, I think if we're going to grow, we're likely to find a way to do that regardless of whether or not we have children. And I suspect, simply by posing these thoughts, the original blogger is way ahead of many in this regard.

*  This is by no means a criticism of the blogger's thoughts - I completely understand where they are coming from. It's more an extension of her thoughts, into my situation.