But shouldn't all of us on earth give the best we have to others and offer whatever is in our power?

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.

Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly.

"all parents were, by the law of nature, "under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children" they had begotten; not as their own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them."

But what we plant it must return to us.

It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.

The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practicing present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendants may live under their shade … never I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include, not only the companions but the successors of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us … as to us; we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.

It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future's world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.

Children were meant to be gifts. The physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman. And for that love, all manner of sacrifice could be borne.

My kids have so much, and it's the only way I can teach them that there is a responsibility to their life that comes with being lucky. You give some of yourself to others.

If you wish to have children, please do something for the world you will bring them into. That will make you someone who works for peace, in one way or another.

If we would mend the World,
we should mend Ourselves;
and teach our Children to be,
not what we are,
but what they should be.

If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.

We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear.