2012-02-03 – Procreation
– Feb. 3, 2012
Conversations with Monjoronson #41
Topics:
The process of finding suitable mates for procreation
Further enlightenment on the best ages for having children
The education and training of procreative couples
The commitment of marriage
Is marriage necessary for having children?
How is the education and training to be accomplished?
The educational process begins at home
Families where both parents work
The need for good nutrition
Conception norms on advanced worlds
Birth control
The responsibilities of having children
Avoiding over population in the future
What is the ideal family size for the current generation?
Selecting the sex of the child by preference
What is causing the low frequency hum?
The harm in making assumptions
Advice for curing the common cold
TR: Daniel Raphael
Moderator: Michael McCray
February 3, 2012
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we give our thanks for once again having the opportunity to be in your ever present light and love, to have the experience here on Urantia of contacting spirit with our intent of seeking and finding guidance for ourselves and our brethren. We also give thanks for our Universe Parents and for our Avonal Son, Monjoronson, who attend these sessions so faithfully and lovingly. Amen
MMc: Good morning, Monjoronson.
MONJORONSON: Good morning. And how is the world for you today?
MMc: Well, I’m a little bit tired around the edges, but we are going to muddle through, I think. I hope it is perfect for you as always.
MONJORONSON: Yes, as always. Shall we proceed?
MMc: Is there anything you’d like to say to us before we go on?
MONJORONSON: Not today, thank you.
The process of finding suitable mates for procreation
MMc: In our conversation #39, you made some statements about co-creative design teams and the procreative couple. I have some questions about your statements. You said in response to a question asking about uplifting the genetics of Urantia, that you—the larger you—are involved in an effort to uplift generations of humanity through the bringing together of those individuals who are not only of superior intelligence, but superior moral character, those whose heredity is conducive to the generation of the more evolved next generation. Will you tell us a little bit more about how we should go about the process of choosing procreative couples?
MONJORONSON: I think you missed my point—that is our job, that we, through the influence of Thought Adjusters, through the influence of midwayers and celestial angels and teachers, provide individuals in their earlier years before they are procreatively suited with ideal options in their mind for a mate. We, as always, do not command that these choices be made, as always they are presented as options for the individual to choose. Your minds are very amenable to our influence, and so you are given options for your ideal partner. This coming together occurs as individuals socialize and move about in their lives, and there is also an attraction, an attractive force—it is actually not a force, it is a frequency of your being that has to do with your intuition and your consciousness—where you perceive another, even a stranger, who you just saw across the room as a possible mate, and so you introduce yourself and you proceed in conversation from there. This is how this comes about. Does this answer your question?
MMc: Yes, it does. The answer is a little surprising, but yes, it does answer my question.
Further enlightenment on the best ages for having children
You said that the procreative couple, which “may be as young as 18 years old, but we would prefer the couples, age 22 or better, and 28 would be better still, and age 30 would be even more superbly oriented towards individuals having children.” I believe I understand why, up to a point older is better, but I am hoping you would enlighten us a little more.
MONJORONSON: There are several factors involved: one is that the spurious nature of youth does not lend itself towards being good parents or being good partners. There is still the inclination to experiment in life, to discover and to continue to try to satisfy the curiosity of childhood into young adulthood. Further, in the age of the 20’s, the individual is engaged in life experiences, making decisions for good—and for not—and which contribute or do not contribute to the course of their life. It is a process of learning what works and what does not work, such that by the time the person is age 30, they have explored their educational options and have begun to engage a career and begun to prove productive. At this age, individuals begin to look around at their peers and their life situation and wish to discover what it would be like to be in long-term partnership and to raise children. This is another part of the curiosity satisfaction curve that occurs in individual’s lives. You will notice that there may be some curiosity in the middle-aged people and the elderly, but this is not to the incredible degree of youth. So, the curiosity factor must be worn down in the teens and twenties such that their curiosity becomes more attuned to the stability of society and the individual.
The education and training of procreative couples
MMc: You said these sustainable designs must include the education and training for these couples who plan to have children, and to do that in a holistic manner. I assume that the first step that the co-creative design team would make in education of these couples, is pointing out that marriage is a commitment, and for the procreative couple that commitment is for raising children. Do you feel that the couple should make this commitment before they are married, and before they have children?
[Daniel: It is awfully long. You have probably about 4 or 5 questions in there, Michael. Could you break that down? In simple terms, what was the question?]
The commitment of marriage
MMc: For the procreative couple there is a commitment for raising children. Is part of their marriage commitment to … should they make this commitment to raising children before they are married?
MONJORONSON: You make the assumption that children are begotten only with married couples. The reality of society is such that individuals make choices consciously or unconsciously to have children. The advent of children coming into a relationship is oftentimes quite accidental and unfortunate. You would not be dealing with a whole society if you required children to be born to married couples. It is better to deal with reality of your society as a whole, rather than to those who have commitments of marriage before having children. I will let you ask the next question.
Is marriage necessary for having children?
MMc: I believe what I was asking was, do you feel that a couple should commit to marriage before they commit to having children?
MONJORONSON: One does not necessarily precede the other.
MMc: I understand that.
MONJORONSON: Part of the education that must be invoked in the design for sustainable marriages is the thought of having children, or not to have children. Being married does not require people to have children; having children does not require couples to be married. The intention of our work at this point is that children would be brought into the world consciously, deliberately, with an intention of fulfilling their lives to their greatest and maximum potential if possible.
The marriage quotient is another issue, which does not necessarily relate to the morality of having children out of wedlock. It may seem strange to you, but billions of children have been born throughout the duration of human existence, out of wedlock. Marriage is only a recent invention of society and of tribes, and would be seen as a contractual relationship for tribal and clan purposes. We agree that commitments of marriage are worthy, but are not necessary as long as the individuals are faithful to each other and the commitment of the relationship. There has been so much burden put upon marriage and having children that they have been seen to be very difficult in most societies.
MMc: Your answer is obviously correct, but obviously not what I expected. I believe that there should be a commitment to raising children by the couple who have the child. Am I correct in assuming this?
MONJORONSON: I hesitate in answering your question, or your statement, because it makes several broad assumptions. Let me point those out, if I may. The first assumption is that the individuals who have conceived this child are competent. Secondly, it assumes that they have made a decision to bring this child into the world, with an intention—or even if it is as simple as to bring a child in to share the family experience and to share the love that they have. Those two assumptions alone are enough to draw into questions your belief. It presupposes that you already have in place a society that teaches couples to consciously avoid conception until they are ready. There is much work to do in your societies before that can happen.
The ideal situation is this: That two mature individuals with good minds and spiritual continuity and integrity, and sound bodies and gene structures, would choose to conceive together to bring a child into existence, to improve the family relationship and to improve the quality of their society. Again, having children is a contribution—or the opposite—to the sustainability of a family, a community and society at large, and even a civilization. There is no guarantee that having a child will ensure the longevity of a growing and maturing civilization.
The reasons for having children millennia, centuries and decades ago are much different than they are today. Now, children are a choice, and so the choice is to have children or not. The next evolutionary step of a maturing society is to understand the reasons for having children at a much deeper level, and that children would make a contribution to the maturity of the parents to learn parenting skills, just as your Heavenly Father enjoys and appreciates being the Father of all humanity, throughout the universe. Children provide a learning and growing experience for the parents, as much or more than for the child. They have been children themselves, and now being a parent helps complete the circuits of their personality, to become understanding and sympathetic with the paternal and maternal energies of the Creator. So, you see, your question raises many problems for me to grasp your assumptions. Let us lay bare those assumptions and remove them, so that we can answer clearly your other questions.
MMc: I guess in my question, I’m looking towards the ideal. What is going to be the ideal situation? And I realize the ideal is not often seen at this point. Hopefully, it will be seen more often as time comes, but at this point, we have a hodge-podge and I don’t think that the ideal has yet been seen on Urantia.
MONJORONSON: I beg to differ with you. There are many new couples of procreative ages who are deliberately delaying their marriage or their partnering to conceive children. This is occurring in more mature and evolved societies, as time goes by. This does occur and it is the best situation that can be arrived at so far. As far as procreative couples are concerned throughout the breadth of your human population, yes, it is the exception, but it does occur and is one that we support and encourage and the guardian angels particularly are attentive to nurturing those family situations, so that those children of those couples would grow into maturity and choose to delay to have their own children until they are wiser and more stable.
How is the education and training to be accomplished?
MMc: You mentioned the education of these procreative couples. How will the education and training of these couples be accomplished?
MONJORONSON: It will be as your society chooses. There would be standards for educating teenagers who are in the age where they could become sexually active, and these are the individuals who would receive the training early on, and it would be repeated and would become a requirement before they would be certified to raise children. This, of course, is in a much more evolved society than your own, as your society sees this as ‘none of the public’s business to become involved.’ However, the morality of a sustainable civilization requires that the conception of children be allowed and permitted by those who are best prepared to become parents and make a contribution to a functional and loving family, and to a supportive community and civilization itself.
It would become part of the educational paradigm or design of a sustainable family and community. It would be an aspect of the education of a society, where there is a broadening of the realm of education and responsibilities of education. Your society does not see education as contributing to sustainability or not—it is not even a consideration to bring sustainability into the realm of education, or the philosophy of education, or the purpose of education, and this must change. You must see a much deeper philosophical development of the purposes of life and the facets of life, which would include conception, bringing children into existence and how they are raised and by whom. If you have this in mind, you see how primitive your society is today, how it is not much more evolved than tribes of centuries and millennia ago. Even some of those clans and tribes had a much more evolved moral perspective of who would be a part of that clan or tribe, and who would not.
MMc: So at the moment, the duty of the education is on the shoulders of the parents and the couples themselves, as I understand it. Would you agree with this?
MONJORONSON: In contemporary times?
MMc: Yes.
MONJORONSON: Again, I would say au contraire, that many couples and parents foist the education of their children onto public agencies and do not see themselves as part of that. You, however, are educated and come from a socio-economic and educated level, which is much removed from the ordinary of your society. You see this education as a responsibility of the parents, which is exactly where it must be placed, and where it must remain. Parents are responsible for the maturation and socialization of the offspring that come to them. This is quite onerous and is quite a burden for all parents, when they see it this way.
That brings the value and the burden of having children into much greater alignment between the value of the child and the value of the participation of the parents in raising that child. That is why having 2 children, or 3 at most, is the greatest burden possible for a family. Very few couples are capable of rearing 4, 5 or 6 children responsibly, so that these children are given an adequate moral, ethical and familial education experience before they leave the home at age 4, 5 or 6 to enter public education. That is one of the things that is greatly in error about your society today. You have separated and segregated the roles of the specialization of education and health and religion, apart from the family. The family truly is the source of education for all these fields and more.
The educational process begins at home
MMc: How would you suggest that we amalgamate the educational system within the family, or health, religion and all the other things that you mentioned?
MONJORONSON: Explain ‘amalgamate’ in your mind.
MMc: Bringing together and mixing up. Bringing together within the family all of these various educational programs.
MONJORONSON: The education of children begins at home. Let us imagine that we are in the future, and the parents have been taught about family dynamics, about religion, about education, medicine, home practice and all the other facets that one needs to enter into the public social space of society. In this situation, at least one parent remains at home until the last child has left home, on his or her own. Two parents working apart from the home every day, whether it is 2 weeks after the child is born, or 2 years after the child is born, is not a socially sustainable process. The earliest that both parents can be apart from home is when the last child is away at an educational setting, and when that child returns home, that parent would be there. Part-time employment would be an option for that parent.
Parents would be prepared in these fields before having children; it would be part of their certification process to have children. This is a responsibility that the parents are aware of, long before they became sexually active, or came into a partnership or were married. Education is primary to the parents; it is primary to the family setting. Socialization that is done by education, apart from the family, or by an institution is insufficient to socialize the spiritual, mental and intellectual, physical, emotional and social attributes of the child. These are best done in a family setting by the parents who provide the role models for the child that they will emulate in their own life when they become old enough to have their own children. Does that answer your question?
Families where both parents work
MMc: I believe so, yes. This is obviously not the norm in the United States at this moment, as both parents are working in order to supply most households with enough of an income to sustain themselves. It is only in exceptional households where one parent is a caregiver while the other parent is working.
MONJORONSON: This is primarily due to the acquisitive, materialistic standard of living that the vast majority of your population has assumed. They are over-burdened by debt and encumbered by the physical, external ‘necessities’ that they seem to feel are necessities of their life. However, a home can be quite simple and it is not dependent upon how big the house is or how many cars are there, or how big their television set is. The best families have very few physical accoutrements of prosperity. These are distractions from the primary role of parents, and it is quite opposite to the way it should be. Physical accoutrements do not support the evolution and socialization of children. They support only the physical necessities of life and living.
MMc: Do you feel that before the commitment is made by a couple to have children that they need to take all of this into consideration?
MONJORONSON: Most definitely!
The need for good nutrition
MMc: The need for good maternal nutrition has been well documented, but I see that you are suggesting good nutrition for the parents-to-be for sometime before becoming pregnant. Does the nutrition of the father also affect the outcome?
MONJORONSON: Yes, it does affect the outcome, not nearly so much as the mother, of course. Part of the consciousness of nutrition is simply in the consciousness, the awareness that there is a coming together of two individuals, to create a child, and that this commitment is as important for the father as it is the mother. The separation of roles is anathema; it works against the development of the whole child. The commitment of the father is necessary to the same degree as to the mother. Of course the mother is obligated by the fact that she will carry the fetus, the child-to-be, whereas the husband or father will not. It is therefore necessary for the father to take on the same commitment, even to the level of nutrition that they have before conception, the same kind of commitment and participation is necessary during pregnancy, during birth and afterwards, until the child leaves home, and then it is done rather at a distance.
Conception norms on advanced worlds
MMc: On advanced worlds, are there still babies conceived that are not purposely desired by the parents?
MONJORONSON: That would depend on the degree of advancement of the planet and the advancement of the socialization of those inhabitants. There is a vast degree of maturity in the spectrum of human existence on this planet and other planets. In the eventual distant future, yes, that is the case, but until then, there are children brought into existence which were unintentional. In those cases it is important that the parents become aware of the necessities of raising that child responsibly and capably for its social and spiritual development.
MMc: I believe you’re saying that the best option then is for the parents of the child to become aware of what they need to do and to make themselves good parents.
MONJORONSON: That is correct.
MMc: There is also the option of these pregnancies being aborted or being carried to term and the child being given up for adoption. Are either of those …
MONJORONSON: All of those options will continue to exist until a planet is highly advanced.
Birth control
MMc: In the Monjoronson Question and Answer session #91, 3/11/2010, reaffirmed your earlier statement that life begins at conception. It is not my intention to embroil you in the emotional/political mess we have made of this topic, but in session #91 you said, “There are no mistakes in conception, or in getting pregnant. It is simply the thoughtless disregard of making the conscious intention to avoid getting pregnant.” Has anyone asked you about what I’ll call ‘proactive birth control,’ and you call ‘making a conscious intention to avoid getting pregnant’ before?
MONJORONSON: What is the question?
MMc: Has anybody asked you about birth control before?
MONJORONSON: No.
MMc: Is it completely necessary for procreative couples to maintain a state of abstinence until they have made a conscious intention to conceive?
MONJORONSON: No.
MMc: Should sexually active couples make a conscious intention to avoid getting pregnant by utilizing a proactive form of birth control until there is a conscious intention to conceive?
MONJORONSON: Yes.
MMc: Is utilizing a form of proactive birth control preferable to the retroactive form of birth control, abortion?
MONJORONSON: Yes.
MMc: These answers may seem obvious to some, but the beliefs and actions of others vary widely. Would you like to comment on this?
The responsibilities of having children
MONJORONSON: Having children is a tremendous responsibility, primarily for the mother, then the father, and not so ironically upon the child that comes into existence. Children become adults best when they are wanted, needed, desired, nurtured, supported and cared for until their adulthood. They are using birth control methods as the responsibility of sexually active individuals. There is responsibility to themselves, to the child and to society. Having sexual relations with a loving partner is a natural course of human existence. It is something that is regulated in animals because they are only in estrus during certain times of the year. Were this not so, your world would be overrun with animals, and there would be no humans. Humans, on the other hand, are sexually active all the time, once they become of age. How they engage in that is a responsible decision that they must make and must be taught and educated to make. Delaying having children is a responsible outcome of being sexually active.
We do not see the sex act as an action that is lascivious or pernicious. It is something that occurs between two individuals and is a bonding mechanism. Sharing physical love is an extension of their love for each other, the engagement of bodies that become ‘one’ in this act of love. This is the best outcome of sexual activity for those who do not choose to have children yet. It is a reality of being human and to deny that denies your humanness. It is responsible to delay having children and it is responsible to make choices about with whom you share your body. Your body is, of course, the temple of the God presence within you. It is your responsibility to treat your body responsibly and to treat that relationship with the God presence within you responsibly. With whom you share that is a decision that is also a responsible decision to make.
Avoiding over population in the future
MMc: Thank you. After World War II there was a tremendous surge in population, known as the ‘baby boom,’ as folks tried to replace the soldiers lost in war. Once our world has the large decrease in population that is anticipated, how can we control the tendency to procreate rapidly in order to fill the gap as we did then?
MONJORONSON: You make another erroneous assumption today, in assuming that the individuals after the war came together to replace the soldiers who were lost. This simply is not so. Your people may be patriotic, but this is not the simplicity of that decision. The decision is that people have been apart during wartime and have done without sexual partnership, and when the opportunity arises when they return from war, that they engage in this loving activity and this is what occurred. It is much like having these mini-blooms that occur in wintertime when the couples are snowed in. Sexual activity occurs more frequently, and of course more children are conceived during that time. I would be glad to answer your question if you would ask it again, please.
MMc: How do we control the tendency to increase our population after the large decrease in population that is anticipated?
MONJORONSON: First of all, through education, and not superficial education, but education to the point of understanding where individuals thoroughly understand the responsibilities of begetting children. Second, having readily available birth control methods for those individuals who are sexually active. This means that these facilities or these methods are accepted and readily available, there is no guilt or shame involved in that availability. It is a responsibility of society to provide it to individuals. You will not have a sustainable society without it! Therefore, the determination of how birth control is available is a factor of your social sustainability that must be considered—has to be considered—in order to bring about a sustainable society. This is the beginning. How that is instilled is up to your family, your community and your society, but to have your head in the sand, as a society, is simply ignorant and primitive and does not speak well of the maturity of your society until these issues are responsibly resolved.
Let me add, however, that we do not see this as an allowance for promiscuity or libertine attitudes towards sexual activity. We see sexual activity as a personal, loving responsible activity that must be reserved until the right partner is available. That may mean that that individual is 14 years old and sees this individual as being responsible as a sexual partner, or it may be 24 or 34. It is important that that reality be instilled in your people/population, so that this is not seen as a process of developing guilt, for there is no guilt involved in this, when it is done so responsibly and lovingly, in accord with the sustainable concepts and education that they have been given. Not telling children about their sexuality is simply naïve, ignorant and primitive by your society, families and parents. The realities are that children come into their sexuality at an early age and must be informed and educated about this, long before that era of their life arrives.
MMc: Considering the over population situation at the moment, is there an ideal size for the family at this time?
What is the ideal family size for the current generation?
MONJORONSON: At this time?
MMc: Yes.
MONJORONSON: To answer that question, you would have to be more specific for a given population or society in a nation, and understanding of the birthrate in your society, and the rate of replacement, and the rate of attrition that occurs in your society. If you stopped having children for one generation, for 25 years, the world would still be over populated, but then you would have difficulties in bringing children into existence who were responsible to replace those, or to maintain your population. The question you ask is most difficult to deal with on a global basis, but for a couple who wishes to have children, we advise no more than three.
Selecting the sex of the child by preference
MMc: Is it ethical for parents to attempt to use scientific means to have either a boy or girl, if they have a preference? Or if they already have several of one sex and want a child of the opposite sex?
MONJORONSON: We find that the maturity and intelligence of most people of your planet do not have the wisdom to make that decision, and that it is best left to chance or statistics. If they have three girls, then they have three girls; if three boys, then they have three boys, for surely there will be another couple somewhere that has three of the opposite sex to balance things out. The choice of having a preference for the sex of a child is egoistic, that the parents have the wisdom of the Divine on their side in making that choice. We do not consider [you] that capable yet.
What is causing the low frequency hum?
MMc: For the last six to nine months, there has been heard over the Northern Hemisphere, at least, a series of mysterious low frequency sounds. Will you tell us the source of these sounds?
MONJORONSON: These sounds are not new. They have been in existence for centuries, if not millennia. It is an outgrowth of physical phenomena and now it is an outgrowth of human technology. You are acquainted with what marine oceanographers call “mega-waves,” yes?
MMc: Yes.
MONJORONSON: And that these are truly one wave. Waves are like vibrations, and they are self-reinforcing, such that when there is a coincidence of waves cresting, where the oscillation or frequency of the wave of several frequencies coincide, then you end up with a mega-wave or a ‘sneaker-wave’, which can be highly destructive, even to the largest of ships, and this phenomena is not isolated alone to the ocean, but also to your atmosphere. Were you to live on a farm, away from cities, whether in the northern or middle latitudes, or southern latitudes, and you heard no noise made from any machines, you would hear a vibration in the air—you could hear this with your ears. It is a natural phenomenon that has occurred and is very natural. It is not supernatural; it is not caused by extraterrestrials; it is not caused by a national government, but simply the accumulation of multiple vibrations that magnify themselves when they come together. Sounds may be chaotic, they may be harmonious, they may be discordant, but they are natural.
MMc: Thank you very much. I don’t have any more questions for you today, sir. I wish to thank you for coming and being with us, and being so candid in your answers. Know that we genuinely love you and that we hope that we have helped a little bit to educate the public in some of the things that we bring to them here.
The harm in making assumptions
MONJORONSON: Yes, and I thank you personally, Michael, for your capacity to bring candid questions to the table. I will continue to take you and others to task about your assumptions, because these are the foundations that give air to [mistaken] reasoning and logic in life, and make developments in life seem so irrational. You have spoken of a topic which no one has quite so forthrightly engaged before, and I appreciate that. And so, I hope my drubbing of you would be ameliorated by my praise for what you have done today, and I thank you.
MMc: I understand that I have made certain assumptions about the topic, and I’ll try to go back and look at those assumptions and examine them and see if I can perhaps open the book a little bit further, so that I might read into your answers what you would like us to see.
MONJORONSON: Most certainly, and I want you to understand the reasons for my objection to the assumptions, is that even if I or we accepted your assumptions through the answer I gave, we would be reinforcing the assumption of the readers and listeners, and we would be then supporting the errors of thinking, both of yourself and perhaps thousands and millions of other people and we would be in grave error in doing this. So, we must start from a clean slate each time. Do not be afraid to ask your questions, and if I sense or see an assumption in them, I will point that out, and I ask that you take no offense to this, please.
MMc: I take no offense, and I simply agree that if there is something within the question that needs to be further questioned, that you will open up those assumptions so that they might see the light of day, and that we might examine them clearly. Thank you.
Advice for curing the common cold
MONJORONSON: Yes, that is one of the main purposes of my conversations with you and the readers is to bring clarity where confusion prevails. I wish you to have a wonderful week ahead, and that your physical illness would be healed. I simply urge you, with each breath you take, breathe in the light of God and the presence of those who support you in every way, and your illness will be dissipated quite quickly. Thank you and good day.
MMc: Thank you, sir.
