Requirements for Eldership, Wisdom & the Question of Children

[pain]

How ya'll doing out there?

Alright so here we go.

I have heard that one of the requirements to be considered an elder; to become a "Nana" in life here as well as in life after physical death is that one is to have had children. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm assuming that it is also dependent upon how well you raise your children. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Aside from this, it is my understanding that an elder/ Nana is one who shows good judgment, exercises wisdom in his/ her decision making and is also a person who does good things; an altruistic individual.

Now, I understand that this whole thing is based on reincarnation. We gotta have children who also have children and so on in order for us to reincarnate into our own families.

However, I have an issue as it concerns this requirement in direct relation to wisdom.

I shall, here, describe a situation.

There is a turbulent relationship between a young man and a young woman. They have a child together. There is infidelity and there is physical violence, the latter to which the child is a witness. It is, in fact, the child's earliest memory. The parents divorce when the child is 3 years old. The mother, for all intents and purposes, abandons the child. The father raises the child. He is a man of brute force and this is how the child is raised. They have a tumultuous relationship based on emotional, psychological and physical abuse. This emotional, psychological and physical abuse continues even into adulthood. The child never returns the violence or the emotional or psychological abuse. Not so much out of respect as out of the simple fact that it is his father.

This child fell into a state of depression at the age of 13 and it has continued for 16 years. At the age of 15 he is kicked out onto the street by his father. He contacts his mother who says that she cannot help. He is homeless for a period of time. Following this he drops out of school and ever since has been in and out of jobs, the instability of his adult life being reflective of his childhood. You get the picture. Psychiatrists/ psychologists are of no help. Medication is of no help. Moreover as he becomes older, things that are now a product of the depression have now impacted upon the depression even more.

I'll get back to this, but for now a question.

Would it have been wise to simply not have a child if these are the conditions that shall entail the environment within which he would be raised?

Resuming;

One of the things that he ascribes to the depression is actually the fact that he is conscious. During the isolation he has spent the time REsearching and soul searching. He went through a lot of the phases that "conscious" folk go through and has eventually settled at African culture/ spirituality; his final hope. On more than one occasion and from different priests of different traditions (Yoruba & Akan) he has been told in divination that he will not be successful in life without the support of his parents. This is distressing because support isn't exactly their strong suit. He is also told that there is conflict between the 3 and he is the one that has to act as some sort of healing force between the 3 in order for himself to prospoer in life.

Normally, he has lived his life as an adult with the least possible amount of contact with his father, going years at a time without seeing or speaking to him. Hasn't seen his mother in 17 years. He initiates contact with both and begins to try to create and maintain some sort of healthy relationship with them. With the mother, it is pretty much light conversation; quite meaningless when one considers the big pink elephant in the room. They can talk about day to day things, life in general, football kwik. That's it. No harm no foul and in his opinion no real healing. He can sense that she's simply not ready or willing to address the pink elephant. He has pretty much accepted it this way as he has also been told in divination that the relationship between him and his mother will never be as it should.

The relationship with the father is the same. The emotional abuse is still there. The psychological abuse is still there and at nearly 30 years old now he has found himself at the receiving end of violence by his father.

One of his most recent divinations stated not only that he needed the support of his parents in order to achieve prosperity but that they also needed to apologize to him.

HA! Lol

Fat chance.

Anyway, the only way around this situation, as told in the divination, is that certain rituals needed to be performed/ sacrifices needed to be made with specific conditions and so on; rituals that cost MOE NAY!! Therefore, he's working on getting these rituals done; rituals to also help with his depression.

Final situation/ question.

Another one of the good/ bad things about depression is that one spends a lot of time dwelling on one's failures/ faults. He is painfully aware of his faults and overall condition; painfully aware of that which he does not have and that he needs. He is concerned with living a good life and being a good person. He is concerned with Sesa Wosuban and Suban Pa. He is one who lives for the fight against injustice though his personal struggles leave him wanting peace(to be away from the war), moreso often. He wishes to live the kind of life that would lead to him becoming a "Nana" one day not merely because he is a good person at heart but also because he wishes to reach whatever level is necessary to reach to be able to have the authority as an ancestor to possibly remain in the ancestral realm.

He has had unsuccessful relationships with women, some of it being a result of his own faults/ innefficiencies and some of it a result of theirs. He has no children. He wonders about and is apprehensive to the future of relationships with women and is terribly concerned that, like his parents, he may not make a good parent for a child.

And so, this time around, a young man realizes that there is a good chance that he may not be able to provide the stable and healthy environment needed to raise a child up successfully.

Questions:

Would it be wise of him, even as he seeks help in bettering himself, that he not have any children?

Can a person become a "Nana" without having chiildren?

Can a person become a "Nana" without having a lasting and meaningful relationship with a complimentary opposite?

Is it a mark of being unwise if you are unable to sustain a lasting and meaningful relationship with a complimentary opposite?

Can a person become a "Nana" by being wise and altruistic even though he/ she battles personal "demons" privately?




Asomdwee