(BTA) Eugenia, a tendency is growing in the most civilized countries, as well as in the most educated classes of developing countries: a small number of children or even their absence, as a family option. What would you have to say about this?
(EE) It is expectable and desirable. The Earth’s natural resources are being depleted, ecosystems are overwhelmed. The collapse of the fragile biosphere would be a real possibility and very likely in the short term, if a decrease in the rate of population growth had not begun to happen, or even a decrease in population density itself in some regions of the planet. Here is a macro-analysis. This coincides, on the other hand, with the needs of attention, care and education that children and teenagers require for a healthy development and, in a world where parents have fewer children, this can happen more easily, because adults have more time available and more emotional space for their offspring, add to that, having children more for vocation rather than obligation, like in the past, as today couples are allowed to opt for not having children.
But this happens, as I said, precisely in the richest countries or the wealthiest classes of poor or developing countries like Brazil.
One day, this tendency will also reach them. These mega-tendencies of the civilization always appear in the most advanced environments, to then spread out around the world. It is what we see in relation to technology and other means offered by Science.
(BTA) But we can say that there are nations completely deprived from these blessings, as if there was a cordon between the developing world and them…
(EE) Yes, for now. Soon, the international community will realize the crying need of the rich to abolish the misery of the very poor, not only to preserve their wealth, but even their lives. Here is one of the big trumps of the age of terrorism (few usually see positive aspects in Terrorism). They have not yet reached this conclusion, but the longer they take, more tragedies will happen, until they bow to the facts: the great social and economic injustices that separate people and the humanistic necessity of overcoming this shameful disparity for mankind.
(BTA) What is the ideal number of children?
(EE) There is no ideal number. It varies according to temperament, psychological and moral structure and, mainly, the karmic programs for each individual. Therefore, each should listen to their intuition to know whether to have two, one or no children at all, or adopt a multitude of children in need, in a gigantic institution for abandoned children. The voice of conscience, the feeling of peace and accomplishment, or its opposite, despair, will make you see what must be done.
(BTA) What about those who believe it is an act of selfishness the choice of not having any children?
(EE) In depth, it is a very hasty and poor deduction. Obviously that there are people who are so self-centered that they cannot conceive sharing their lives with other people and devote themselves to the welfare of others or to love, expecting nothing in return. However, many of those who apply to the post, and indeed become parents, have exactly that profile and have children by convention, by the feeling of obligation or worst of all: to take emotional advantage from the relationship with their children, worried, for instance, with their own future in old age (expecting that their children sustain them later), or to compensate affective frustrations at interpersonal relationships with other adults. They are stingy souls that project their needs and frustrations on beings who cannot defend themselves properly, who can neither detect their true intentions nor process the destructive impacts on their personalities, still in formation. These parents bully, manipulate and turn, or try to turn, their children into puppets of their whims and personal dreams. It would be better that they did not have any children. Animals that are bred in captivity for slaughter are more harmless than they are. Besides, it is essential to consider the existence of the extreme opposite to this psych-moral condition, the other end of the spectrum, which goes from the unconditional generosity to the most hideous selfishness: some of those who consciously opt for not having children feel that they do not need to produce them biologically, for they have many, psychologically. More advanced spirits, in the pathway of evolution, see children in need of care and support, guidance and affection everywhere, in adults, elderly, rich or poor, educated or ignorant. For each of them, they have a portion of affection from their large capacity to love, developed through numerous reincarnations beyond the human average on Earth, and spread this love by handfuls, becoming pillars of entire communities, with their mature view and presence of generous and elder souls. It would be not only unfair but also incoherent, to fit them in the category of selfish, since they often forget about themselves, sacrificing unspeakable joys of forming a family, in order to serve the multitude of unknown people, who usually consist of beneficiaries that forget the blessings received from their devotion.
(BTA) Anything else to say about the subject?
(EE) No.
(Dialogue held on May 18, 2004.)