Transcript of To Be a Father Is to Sign Another Being’s Sentence | David Benatar

First, a warning. This video isn't pretty. It isn't uplifting, and it's definitely not for everyone. What you're about to hear hurts. It confronts. It won't let you sleep easy. If you prefer fairy tales just to get through the night, stop now. But if you've got the guts to face raw truth, no filter, no romance, then listen. You didn't have the courage to face the void. So you manufactured a distraction. You called it legacy, miracle, gift. But what you really did was push another innocent soul toward the same abyss that eats you from the inside. And the worst part, they'll thank you for it. Bringing a child into the world is an act with deep existential weight. It can also be an act of brutal selfishness dressed up as love. You pass on your hopes and your traumas. You give kisses and hugs and along with them anxiety, chaos, the fear of death, and the pain of being conscious. A child is born into a collapsing world without ever asking for it. And here's the question no one wants to face. Did I do this out of love or because I couldn't stand my own insignificance? You grew up hearing that having kids is beautiful, a miracle, the most important thing in life. And you believed it. You believed it because everyone around you repeats it like a mantra. As if placing another human on earth were some kind of redemption. As if that erased your mistakes, your frustrations, the silent defeats you carry on your back. But the truth, most people don't want children out of love. They want them out of fear. Fear of dying and being forgotten. Fear that their existence won't leave a mark. Fear that everything ends. And no one even remembers their name. So what do they do? They dump that weight on someone who hasn't even been born yet. They call it legacy. But what legacy exactly? Your name, your bloodline, your beliefs, your scars. You want to keep existing through someone else. Not because you've got something truly valuable to leave behind, but because you can't stand the idea of disappearing. And here's the irony that someone, your child, will carry your last name and the pain that comes with it. They'll grow up trying to understand why they feel so anxious, so insecure, so guilty even after having everything. And maybe they'll never discover the source wasn't inside them. It was in you. in what you carried and transferred, in what you pretended to have solved but slipped into every lecture, every scolding, every absence. The fantasy of legacy is this, a poetic way to perpetuate your own pain and still feel proud of it. You don't want to build a new story. You want someone to keep writing yours, even if the pages are stained, even if it never made sense to you, even if it all started with the same mistake. being born into a world no one chose. And the crulest part, the cycle continues. Because one day your child will feel that same emptiness. They'll fear dying alone. And they'll think, "Maybe I should have a kid leave a legacy." And so the pain goes on, beautiful on the surface, smiling and hereditary. You think you created a child. What you really created is a mirror, a living, breathing reflection walking around your house, showing you every day who you really are. Not what you post, not what you pretend to be in public, what you hide even from yourself. Every insecurity you never faced, every unresolved rage, every fragility you covered with a tough guy shell, all of it one day will stare back at you through the eyes of the child you brought into the world. Parenting isn't about what you say. It's about what you transmit without noticing. Your child will absorb your silence, your impatience, how you treat other people, how you treat yourself. They'll learn from your reactions, not your speeches. And when they start acting in ways that irritate you, scare you, or disappoint you. The most honest question you can ask is, "Where did they learn that?" Most of the time, the answer is from you. You spent your life trying to be better than your parents, swore you'd do everything differently, and then you repeated the pattern. Because the pattern isn't in the words, it's in the wounds you never healed. What isn't healed gets transferred invisibly, automatically, silently. You can give love, affection, a roof, and food. But if your soul is contaminated by fear, guilt, or frustration, your child will feel it. They won't have the words for it. They won't know why. And that's where it gets messy. The more they admire you, the more they'll copy your errors. The more they try to become you, the more they'll fail the same way. One day they'll look in the mirror asking why they're so lost, so confused, so emotionally burned out. And maybe they'll never realize it started before they were born. It started with someone who wanted to be a father, but was never man enough to face his own pain head on. Raising a child isn't just caretaking. It's having the courage to become a man worth being copied. Because like it or not, they will copy you, even if they swear they never wanted to be like you. You swear you'll protect them, that you'll keep the world from hurting them. And at first, you believe it. Parenthood begins with promises. You hold that small body in your arms and feel like nothing can touch them. Time passes and life doesn't respect promises. It doesn't care about bonds. It doesn't honor emotional vows. It shows up quietly. Sometimes at school, sometimes in a cruel comment, sometimes in a loss, sometimes the first time they're afraid to sleep alone. Then you start to see what you never dared admit. You are not in control. You can put bars on the windows, install cameras, book therapy, pay for the best school, love them with everything you've got, and still you can't stop your child from suffering. Suffering doesn't need permission. It doesn't knock. It just walks in, sets up shop, and eats from the inside out. You'll watch them insecure, rejected, fighting to be accepted, hiding feelings so they don't disappoint you, asking, "Why am I like this?" with a lump in their throat. You'll blame yourself, try to fix it, do everything you can, and none of it will stop life from being cruel at some point because that's life. Cruelty in routines clothing. Pain dressed up as growth. Trauma rebranded as lessons. The crulest part is knowing you signed them up for the game. No manual, no guarantees, no certainty it would be worth it. Fatherhood is often the illusion that you can shield someone from a world you can't even handle. And no, you can't. Pain always slips through. It always finds a crack, always hits the weak spot. And when it hits, it'll hurt you more than it hurts them. Because then you'll understand you weren't the shield. You were the channel. You opened the door. You pushed them in. You thought love would be enough. But love doesn't hold back chaos. It doesn't stop death. It doesn't cancel existence and your child will have to face all of it alone even with you right there. You say it was for love, that you always wanted to be a dad, that it was your dream, your mission, your reason to live. But what if that desire was never about the other at all? What if that dream was about you? Most of what people call love is just a prettier version of narcissism. You wanted someone to call you dad, to look at you with admiration, to give you pride, to follow you, to repeat your name, to replay your story. You wanted a silent mirror to validate you. Someone to make you feel important, special, necessary, and if they loved you back, even better. Because a child's love is blind, loyal, dependent, emotionally moldable. You can deny it. Say it's an exaggeration that you just wanted a family. But think, how many times did that desire show up after a personal crisis, after failure, after a hollow season? How many times did you want a child not to give, but to receive? To fill a hole you never had the courage to face, to play hero after feeling like a loser, to live through someone else what you never dared to live yourself. Paternal narcissism is subtle. It hides behind nice lines like, "I want to give them the best. I want to teach values. I want them to be better than me." But deep down, it's still about you. Your need to feel useful, seen, loved. And when your child starts making their own choices, straying from your image, refusing to imitate you, your love gets tested. Because real love doesn't demand mirrors. It doesn't demand copies. It doesn't demand continuity. Narcissism demands all three. That's where so many parents lose themselves. They start charging, manipulating, pressuring. They reach for the old it's for your own good script when really it's just ego pain. Pain from no longer being the center, no longer the hero, no longer seeing your reflection in someone else. That's why so many parent child relationships end in silence. Not for lack of love, but because the love that was given was never free. It came with a mirror. And when mirrors break, they cut. You cry at the birth. You melt at the first cry. You're enchanted by first steps, first words. You say it was all worth it. And forget one thing they never asked. Not once. They didn't sign a contract. didn't make a choice. There was no chance to say yes. They were thrown here in the middle of a world you don't even understand in a sick society full of contradictions, fear, and absurd rules no one can trace back to a sane source. And even without asking, they'll have to accept. They'll have to study, behave, work, compete, be useful, produce, pay bills, get a social security number, follow laws, handle rejection, frustration, injustice. They'll have to learn loneliness, loss, despair, anguish. They'll have to swallow other people's deaths and the knowledge of their own. Why? Because someone decided for them. Someone thought it was beautiful. Someone said it's the natural cycle of life. Ironically, that same someone also suffers, also feels lost, also thinks about quitting sometimes, but still had the nerve to repeat the process, to push one more person into the same abyss. And if one day your child breaks, if depression comes, anxiety hits, emptiness swallows them, if they can't fit into the machine, do you know what people will say? that they're weak, that they need help, that they need to bounce back. No one will remember that maybe, just maybe, they never wanted to be here. That maybe they're just reacting to the absurdity of being shoved into a life they didn't choose. Life turned into an obligation, a burden to be carried with a smile. And when you say my child is my life, all it shows is how you used them to anesthetize yours as distraction, borrowed meaning. But their meaning, who gives that? How do they find it? Will they even want it? Or will they spend their whole life wondering why they were sentenced to exist? Because that's what many call birth, a sentence with balloons. You might truly believe you're giving love, that you're doing your best. Maybe you are. But love isn't what you feel. It's what you transmit. And what you transmit isn't always light. Sometimes it's pain. Pain you barely notice anymore because you've lived with it so long it became part of you. That random blowup. That insecurity that makes you control everything. expectations disguised as I believe in you. The guilt you've carried since childhood and never faced. All of it bleeds into your parenting through the look in your eyes, your tone of voice, words thrown carelessly, loaded silences. Your child doesn't understand nuance. They feel. And what they feel is what they learn. You can say, "I love you," a thousand times. If what they feel is fear, confusion, anguish, or loneliness, that's what sticks. Love isn't a word. It's an emotional experience. If that experience is poisoned by what you never healed, it leaves marks, invisible scars that shape how they see the world, relate to others, and see themselves. That's how the cycle repeats. Because one day your child will grow up and repeat. They'll act without knowing why, feel without being able to explain it, carry baggage that isn't theirs. It's yours. It came before them. It was passed down in silence, in habit, on autopilot. Inherited pain is the hardest to identify. It comes disguised as normal. It travels with traditions, customs, and those phrases everyone repeats. That's just how it is. It was like that for me. It'll be like that for them. Back in my day, it was worse. And so, you don't heal. You hand it off. With all the love in the world, but you still hand it off. That isn't love. It's emotional automation. Fear dressed as care. Desperation dressed as protection. You can't stop all the world's suffering. But you can stop passing on what hollowed you out. To do that, you have to stop romanticizing fatherhood as an emotional cure. Because when love carries unresolved trauma, it turns into sweet tasting poison. You plan everything. Pick the name with care. Decorate the nursery. Choose the school. Buy books, toys, clothes. Create a safe environment. Make plans. Project dreams. and you think it's enough. That if you parent with love, values, and healthy boundaries, your child will be happy. But the world doesn't read your plans. It doesn't care about your intentions. The world is indifferent, cruel, unpredictable. What you fear most will happen sooner or later. They'll get hurt, not because of you, despite you. Their heart will break. They'll be left out, rejected, mocked by someone who barely knows their name. They'll trust the wrong person. They'll be treated unfairly, and you won't be able to do anything. You'll watch from a distance, angry and helpless. You can try to fix it. You can't prevent it. That's when the bitterest truth of fatherhood hits. Love doesn't shield. It just gives you more reasons to suffer. Because now the pain isn't only yours, it's theirs, too. Every wound they carry, even when the world caused it, will rip through you as if you'd swung the blow. Because you put them here, you threw them on the minefield. Watching them stumble through life's explosions destroys you. It doesn't change the fact existence hurts. And no one can guarantee a pain-free life to another human being, especially one who never chose to be here. You can teach resilience, ethics, strength. None of that stops them from being targeted by what they don't deserve. Pain doesn't check if you're ready. It just arrives. And when it does, you'll feel guilty even if you did nothing. Because deep down, you did. You brought them here. You thought love was enough. You thought the world would be fair because you try to be fair. That's not how it works. The world doesn't measure character before it punishes. It doesn't weigh kindness before it wounds. It just is. And that's enough to wreck any promise, any sense of safety. When you bring someone into the world, you're placing them in a place where injustice is the rule. The only justice is knowing that in advance. You watch them playing, laughing, making a mess, and think it's all fine. Childhood is light, magical, simple. That's how it looks when you've forgotten what it felt like to be a kid. Behind every smile, there's a question they don't know how to ask. Behind every tantrum, a pain they can't name. Kids feel everything intensely. They just don't know how to express it. They swallow it, hide it, turn it into behavior, into silence, into sleepless nights, fear of the dark, crying fits you don't understand. You scold them, call it drama, attention seeking, but it isn't. It's a forming mind trying to handle feelings that even adults can't carry. A brand new human trying to understand why people shout, why some disappear, why their chest hurts out of nowhere. You think that because they're small, they don't suffer. They suffer. They suffer from your tone of voice, from words you throw out without thinking, from being compared to their sibling, from your absence while you're sitting right there. They suffer when you're on your phone while they're begging for your attention, when you promise and don't follow through. When you demand emotional maturity from someone who can't even tie their shoes, they suffer when they feel like a burden. When they think they have to be perfect to be loved. And the crulest part, they'll still defend you, love you, protect you from criticism. Kids can't separate love from abandonment. Then they grow up confused, needy, anxious, self-punishing, chasing approval everywhere. You'll write it off as just the teen years. It's not. It's the echo of what they never managed to say. The pileup of pain they never managed to show. emotional silence that began in childhood and follows them for life. Kids suffer and they suffer quietly because they know if they speak you might not understand or worse you'll say they're overreacting so they learn to hide. To smile while falling apart to be strong but being too strong too early is just another way to break. You say you love without limits that you'd give your life maybe you would. But the unconditional love you feel isn't enough. It doesn't stop chaos. It doesn't block pain. It doesn't undo damage. Loving a child doesn't guarantee they feel loved. For love to be felt, it has to be understood, coherent, clean. Your love, genuine as it is, comes contaminated with what you lived, with what you never healed, with what you never understood. You love but you demand. You love but you project. You love and you get frustrated because you love expecting a return, recognition, gratitude, proof that they get how much you give. They don't. They just feel. And sometimes what they feel isn't love, it's pressure. The fear of disappointing you. The duty to match an expectation that was never theirs. Here's the paradox. You love unconditionally, but they have to earn it. You love totally, but only if they behave a certain way, walk a certain path, embody values you barely practice anymore. You say you accept everything until they step away from who you wanted them to be. Then love hardens into resentment and guilt because they feel that if they aren't exactly what you expected, they're not enough. So, they get lost trying to please you. abandon who they are to maintain who you want them to be. One day they snap, rebel, disappear, shut down, get hurt. You don't understand because you love because you always loved. You never saw that your love was attached to a reflection. They could be anything as long as it looked like you represented you. Confirmed that you were a good father. Real love doesn't demand mirrors. It doesn't want to copy. It wants freedom. Freedom hurts. It forces you to face the frustration that your child is an autonomous person. They will mess up, walk away, disagree, question you, and still deserve love. Loving a child is accepting they didn't come to complete you. They came to be who they are, even if that shatters your projections. You spent your life believing you'd do it differently, better than your parents. No repeated mistakes. You'd give what you never had. Maybe you nailed some of it. No one escapes their own upbringing untouched. What you lived left marks. Some you see. Others you don't even know exist. Those marks, even hidden, get passed on. Parenting isn't just action. It's energy. Presence. Absence. What you feel and don't say. What you say but don't feel. Your child will absorb it all. Internalize every look, every critique, every comparison. Grow up trying to prove something, trying to be enough, trying not to let you down. And when it's their turn, when they're holding a child in their arms, guess what? The same doubt, the same fear, the same I'm not ready, no one is. Because raising a human demands wrestling your demons first. Almost no one does. Most people push it aside, repeat, disguise, quote psychology books, keep stumbling forward, keep parenting from their own inner mess. Your child will try to get it right. Be a good parent. They'll feel that pain you know too well. The sense they're failing too absent or too present. not knowing how to handle the crying, the guilt, the fear of messing up. When they realize they're doing to their child what they swore they'd never do, they'll understand you. They'll also blame you because now they can feel the weight of what was passed down. Even if you meant well, even if you loved them honestly. Pain that's passed on is pain that returns. Parenting becomes a mirror again. Unhealed pain turns into inheritance. invisible but present in every gesture, every absence, every silence. And the cycle keeps spinning until someone has the courage to stop and say, "I'm not bringing anyone else into the world to carry what I couldn't resolve." That takes accepting a hard truth. Suffering isn't erased by more births. It's interrupted by awareness. And awareness requires rupture. You believed love meant giving life. that love meant creating, protecting, teaching. That the purest love took shape in a child. Maybe the greatest act of love is the one no one claps for, no one posts, no one celebrates. Silence. No, the decision not to place one more soul under a burden you couldn't bear yourself. If you know what existence does, if you've cried over the meaninglessness, if you've thought about quitting, even surrounded by love, then you know living is heavy. Breathing can hurt. Thinking cuts. If you still insist that what you feel is love, then ask yourself, what's more loving? dragging someone into this confusion, betting it'll work out, or breaking the cycle and sparing a soul from the very thing you're still trying to survive. Most won't get it. They'll call you cold, bitter, pessimistic. Clarity isn't pretty. It isn't popular. It scares people. It smashes the myths we use to bear the weight of living. One of those myths is fatherhood as divine calling, sacred purpose, existential duty. Maybe the real purpose is recognizing the game is rigged and continuing to play just because everyone plays isn't bravery. It's collective cowardice. Fear of breaking from what looks natural. Nature also kills. Enslaves repeats. Maybe silence is the only ethical answer. The only way not to be complicit. The only way to love without forcing someone to prove being born was worth it. You can love fiercely, be present, devoted, honest. If after all of that you still look at the world and feel nothing makes sense, then maybe you already know the greatest gift you can give. Is the empty space that keeps one more soul from being dragged into this theater of repetition. It isn't surrender. It's compassion. A love so deep. It doesn't need applause. You did what you thought was right with love, with effort, with sacrifice. And still the truth remains. You put someone in the world to face pain you couldn't bear. You pushed another soul into a system you question yourself. To feel the pressures that crush you, the doubts that eat you alive, the fears that freeze you. And this person born from your desire will suffer. Wake up at night with panic they can't explain. feel anxiety before they even learn the word. Grow up comparing themselves, punishing themselves, bleeding inside without showing it outside. They'll try to be strong because they watched you pretend to be. Hide the pain because they learned big feelings are inconvenient. Carry guilt for failing standards that were never theirs. Try to be happy while silently wondering why they're alive. And even then, they'll love you, thank you, call you everything without understanding the weight inside, without being able to name the pain, even when they think quietly that maybe they never wanted to be here. That's the crulest part. The love they'll give you is the same love that will stop them from questioning their own arrival. They'll protect you from guilt, spare you from blame, defend you while breaking inside. You'll think you did everything right. You'll convince yourself it was worth it. A miracle. That love makes it all okay. But deep down, you'll know. You had a choice. You could have broken the cycle. You could have been the last in line. You weren't. You wanted to carry on, to live forever in another body. Now all that's left is to watch in silence as what destroyed you repeats. dressed up as routine, as family, as love. You didn't give life. You gave death on a delay. And you called it a miracle, a mission. Love. The truth is, you weren't trying to save anyone. You were trying to save yourself from your own insignificance. You believed that by creating another body, you'd find meaning. Meaning was never in the other. And because of that, they will suffer. They'll cry in secret like you did. Want to disappear like you did. Carry in their chest everything you never faced. And the most tragic part, they'll call it heritage. They'll repeat it all. Smile for photos. Hold a baby. Believe they're doing it differently. Make the same promises. Make the same mistakes. Believe it's love while passing on the same weight. Cycles don't break with speeches. They break with courage. In this world, courage is saying, "I'm not putting anyone else here to bleed like I bled. You didn't say it. You kept going and now it's too late. What you brought into the world has already tasted the bitterness of existence. And they'll keep tasting it quietly because children love even without understanding, without asking, without wanting.