© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• Wealth and children are the adornment of this present life. The Koran

Think. Do you really want children? Or do you think you ought to have children? Do you “wonder what it would be like?” That's not enough of a reason to have children. Do you want to separate yourself from your parents and prove you're finally grown up? That's certainly not a very good reason to have children.

If you're going to bear or father children, as with any other big decision in life (and I can't think of one bigger), you should be sure that you're thinking and acting freely. There is only one acceptable definition for the term “wanting children.” That is, you want to create a home and spend a good deal of your time and emotional energy raising, educating and nurturing your children. Anything less is unfair to those small human beings.

Any pair of biologically intact human beings of opposite sex can create a child. Babies are being mass produced as you read this—in every corner of the world. Having a child in itself takes no imagination. To give a child a genuine life is another story.

As with marriage, parental and societal pressures to have children are severe. They reach very deep. So in deciding whether you really want to be a parent, you've got to build yourself up strong. No problem here. It never hurts to build yourself, to know yourself.

Children are born, then they stick around, projecting their needs, expecting them to be met. Money isn't the key to everything in child rearing, but I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world without it.

Want to get an idea as to how much responsibility you'll have when you have a child? Look at this book and everything in it. If you agree with my philosophy of building yourself, you'll want to pass it and values like it on to your kids. That means you take the time to sit down with them. Still, every danger to free thought and free action that you perceive in the outside world will also buffet and seduce your children. And you can't be sure of always being there to filter out all the noise. Are you up to it? And do you really want it?