My mother didn't have any particular desire to have children, gnu...so I don't think that not having grandchildren has been much of a mental burden to her... ;-) My father, on the other hand, was eager to have children, because that was a big thing to him...continuing the family line and all that. He was very traditional, and he certainly would have wanted grandchildren. He wanted to have three children, my mother wanted zero children. I have to wonder if they ever discussed it before getting married! If so, my father probably got the wrong impression. They ended up with one child...me.

Now, my mother was well able to commit to raising a child...once I came along...but her original idea before marriage was not to have any children at all, and she wasn't the least bit worried about "breaking the circle of life". It just didn't work out quite as she had planned, and she adapted.

As for me, I think the circle of life is spiritual, not physical, and I don't think everyone has to have a child to complete themselves or keep that circle whole, but that's for each person to work out for themselves.

I think I've lived before and will live again, and again, and again after that. Therefore I don't need to achieve some measure of immortality or continuance through fathering children in any one physical lifetime. I've seen examples of people living remarkably gifted lives, but not having children, and it seems to me that they are doing just as much for the circle of life as other people are doing, because it's how you contribute while you're here that counts.

I do understand that for most people their children are the light of their lives, I get that, and I respect it fully.