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Comment by xenocyon | Hacker News Reader

It may be shocking, but this is often what happens when people discover their monastic calling in adulthood. Buddha famously abandoned his wife and infant son when he decided to pursue his path.

Furthermore, some people have little contact with their children for even weaker reasons. The fact is that we are inclined to judge women harshly for actions which would hardly seem remarkable for, say, a male rock star.

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Eh, Steve Jobs still gets shit around here for the way he treated his first daughter (and rightfully so).

Are you talking about Lisa?

Are you comparing Steve Jobs refusing to pay child support for His daughter to Buddha?

> The fact is that we are inclined to judge women harshly for actions which would hardly seem remarkable for, say, a male rock star.

I don't think this is true. Walk-out dads are judged very harshly by our culture too.

Her children would have been way past childhood by the time she became a nun... like way past.

But being a parent doesn’t end when the kid turns 18.

The part where you live to fulfill their needs does, though.

It doesn't for many patents. Many people draw meaning from life through their close relationships.

I'd argue that fulfilling a child's needs is the bedrock to a more important parental goal — helping your children attain optimism in a world where many people lose.

Being religious is already enough though. Catholics attending mass are least likely to commit suicide amongst other outcomes

I would hope there is some middle ground between "live to fulfill their needs" and "seeing them twice in 30 years and never seeing your grandchildren".

By the time the offspring is 30, parents are free to make decisions for themselves. At that point, many children themselves left miles away and have only sporadic contact due to living independently. Or joimed army. It is absurd to talk about it as if they were 5.

There is be way to become nun or monk without leaving your parents, siblings, friends, literally everyone.

Depends on which monastic order you join. Some are extremely strict.

Completely agree about "abandoning" your adult children.

That was unfortunate type. I wanted to write "no way"

Hm, and I wanted to write "some are strict, some are not". So there is a way to stay in contact with your family, you don't have to join a trappist order!

I'm not sure this is true, the prime minister of the United Kingdom is literally a deadbeat dad. He went to court to disown one of his children and it's not public knowledge how many children he actually has.

That's complete and utter rubbish. He's had several relationships, and is clearly a philanderer, but no-one has any idea of the nature of his financial or personal relationships with his children, because they're private. He went to court to try to preserve that privacy.

Which bit is rubish? You haven't refuted my points with anything of substance. He's a public figure, if he wants privacy he shouldn't have run in national elections. He had an injunction on the McIntyre child, that sounds like disownment to me. "I love you, child, but nobody can know about you" He has no contact with any of his children apart from the new one, that's a deadbeat dad. We do not know how many children he has. Does he?

Of course he sees his children; there are plenty of documented occasions when he's been with them recently, and why would we know about the others?

Having an injunction on naming a child isn't disownment. It's protecting the privacy of the child. Name it, and now it needs police protection 24/7.

Your characterisation is way off track IMO, but it's a popular viewpoint on Twitter and in the Guardian.

> He's a public figure, if he wants privacy he shouldn't have run in national elections.

That's rubbish. His public life has nothing to do with his private life. The fact that he is a politician doesn't mean the public has to know about his relationship with his children. His public actions speak loud enough for people to judge his quality (or lack thereof) as an elected official.

I think the cultural gap between American and European on this point will probably never be bridged.

> He's a public figure, if he wants privacy he shouldn't have run in national elections.

Others have commented on how absolutely ridiculous and insane this is, but it also highlights one reason (among many) that we generally have such shitty politicians. If you believe that running in national elections should make every single aspect of your private life open to public scrutiny, don't be surprised if the types of people willing to run for public office only care about increasing their own power.

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