People romance about their children long before they are born-long before, and long after. They name them and rename them. They see them as their second chances, "a chance to get it right this time," as if they were able to give birth to themselves. They have children to compensate themselves for the things they didn't do or didn't get in their own early life. They conceive be- cause they feel impelled to make up, to a nonexistent person, for a loss they themselves have suffered. Children are born because their parents feel the defects in themselves, and want to mend them; or because they are bored; or because they feel that in some mysterious way it is time for children, and that if they don't have them their selves will begin to leak meaning away. Some women have babies to give a present to their own mother, or to prove themselves her equal. Motives are seldom simple and never pure
( Hilary Mantel )
[ Giving Up the Ghost ]
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