Dear Javier,

My therapists claim that my urge of getting kids, the desire, the deep longing stems from my vulnerable inner child. The main reason I long for having kids is to protect them, save them and give them the love and caring I never had.

I believe this to be true. It appears you see your becoming a father as the only way to heal and sort of rewrite your painful childhood. I’ve been trying to tell you that the real way to heal is to heal your inner child – to give him that what you haven’t received in your childhood.

I’m grieving my childlessness, my inability to heal myself, to be “normal” and to be a loving and caring “family man”. I know this doesn’t make sense, and sounds empty-headed, but I’ve been grieving for my “loss” for decades and the wound will never heal.

You don’t need to have a child of your own to heal. In fact, if we depend on our children to heal, we won’t do them justice and won’t be good parents. We first need to heal and then we’ll be able to be good parents, who won’t transfer our wounds on to them.

If you’d heal, you would even have a chance of becoming a parent,  since you’re not an old man. But do it in proper order –  first heal, then seek to have a child whom you can truly and properly love.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.