In past centuries, the freedom to pursue personal growth and happiness was limited by the pressure to fulfill personal duties. The most obvious example of this was cultural abhorrence of divorce, but there are others as well. Andrew Lang’s nineteenth-century retellings of traditional folktales involve many stories in which newly-successful adult children return for their aged father (who has neither supported them nor even treated them nicely) so they can whisk him off as a member of their happily-ever-after household. The need for the child to respect the parent was so culturally ingrained that this ending satisfied generations of storytellers.

Parenthood turns our societal love of individuality on its head and demands the kind of commitment that has been discarded in other facets of life.

Currently, of course, we value individual autonomy to the point of seeing each person as a self-contained unit who must be free to remain faithful to others only so long as he or she believes that doing so is compatible with personal happiness.

Yet in spite of our devotion to autonomy, mothers are not allowed to trade their children for others with whom they are more compatible. Women are not supposed to sit around at play dates and admit that they dislike their children. The fierce anger and condemnation raised against adoptive parents who give up troubled children demonstrates public shock at the idea of “divorcing” a child. Parenthood turns our societal love of individuality on its head and demands the kind of commitment that has been discarded in other facets of life.