Angel Season 3: Becoming a Parent
The moral case for knowing what it takes to be a parent before becoming one.
Becoming a parent is a weird experience.
For so much of people's lives, they really only have to focus on themselves and to a lesser extent the people around them. If you're lucky, it's your family and friends. Most of these people however can take care of themselves if necessary. So when it comes right down to it, you're looking out for yourself and whoever you might not want to lose, like a family member you love or the person you've fallen for and possibly married. These people mean the world to you and you wouldn't want to live without them if you can manage it. You want them to be okay and to have the things they need to survive. You're willing to help them get the things they need which hopefully they can get for themselves when you're not around. This is at the heart of growing up and learning to be an adult.
Previously in this space, we've looked at what it means to grow up and become an adult, to leave childhood behind and find a way to make adult decisions. But what are those ideas for? Who are you making adult decisions for? Why is it important to think in such terms? One of the major reasons is to ensure that you live in a functional society where people are able to exist with each other. Another is so that those who come after you can grow up in a world where they can learn the right lessons and become like you, or someone like you. Assuming you're a good person anyway. The best way to ensure that those who come after you are like you is to have one yourself. To become a parent.
“I'm his only family, my job now is to be everything for him.”
This is very much where we find Angel at the beginning of season 3. He is on the verge of becoming a parent even if he doesn't know it right away. In part he's able to get to this point because he has made the transition from a young adult who doesn't really understand the adult world, to someone who has learned the lessons of his childhood and become the kind of person who can make adult decisions even when they're incredibly difficult. He's no longer thinking in the kind of head space that would lead him to divide the world into good and bad only. That there are shades of grey. It's only in this way of thinking that you can really be a parent. Mainly because your child isn't something you can put into such simple categories. They aren't good or bad. They haven't even been able to make such a decision yet, so it would be unfair to hold them to such a standard.
“Every child born carries with it the world of possibility for salvation or slaughter.”
Becoming a parent is different than having a child. Anyone can have a child. They can create one simply by having sex without any kind of protection at the right time. Or the wrong time if you're not looking to have a kid. Just because you're a father or mother, doesn't mean that you're a parent. You can create a child if you want but you don't have to be a parent. Not everyone is meant to be a parent. They just don't have it in them to put in the time and energy that's necessary to take care of a child.
“Look at it, can you smell it? This world, this horrible world. Why would anyone want to bring a baby into it?”
“To make it better maybe?”
“Or to destroy it finally.”
“Why is it everyone insists on planning my son's future before he's even born?”
“All right then, how's this? It doesn't have a future. Not with me. Angel, I can't have this baby. I can't let it out. I can't. I know it wants to come out, it's ready, I can feel it. I can't let it because... because...”
“You love it.”
“Completely. I love it completely. I don't think I've loved anything like I've loved this thing that's inside of me.”
“You've never loved anything Darla.”
“That's true, 400 years and I never did, until now. I don't know what to do.”
Darla is perhaps the best example of someone who probably shouldn't become a parent if she can avoid it. Even if she might want to be that kind of person as a result of finding herself pregnant and the emotions it brings out of her. Ultimately she understands that in the long run, she can't commit to being a parent in the long term. The fact of her being a soulless vampire who is only out for herself and her own pleasure makes it impossible for her to care for the baby she's carrying. She proves this in part by the fact that she tried to get rid of it before focusing on what she has to do to carry it to term. Unfortunately, she can't and so she turns to who she needs to as a way of finding out what's going to happen next.
“Born out of darkness to bring darkness.”
“Great so we're saying my child is the scourge of mankind?”
Only someone who is truly committed to being an adult can have the kind of commitment to have a child. In large part because it requires you to commit your whole life to it. When you have a child, that's the end of you as an independent person. Your entire life is now very much dedicated to the person you've created. Someone who is completely and utterly dependent on you for everything. There is no point at which you stop being a parent. Even when your child grows up enough to start accepting responsibility for themselves and growing up, you are still going to be the person they turn to. It's your job to be there for them under any and all circumstances. The best you can hope for is that you will have someone in your life, maybe more than one person, who can do part of the work with you.
Ideally this person is the one you've had that child with but at the very least you need someone who is just as committed as you to the cause of making sure your kid doesn't grow up without you or them. You want this not just because this person can take some of the responsibility away from you, at least temporarily, but also because it's easier on both of you and your child to have more than one person taking care of the little one.
“It scares me, if anything like that every happened to Connor I don't know what I'd... I love my son.”
“Love can be a terrible thing.”
“I used to think that, I used to think that love was... something that swallowed you whole, ripped you up inside. But you know, what I feel for Connor, even that fear... it's, it's not terrible, it's beautiful.”
Angel's friends and co-workers give him a lot of that support. He can count on Gunn, Fred, Lorne and Wesley to be there for Connor when Angel can't be. When he has to do the important work of providing for his son. Making sure that even though Connor is completely dependent on him, at least from the early days of when he was born, that he has everything that he needs to make it through the day. Cordelia is probably the most direct help that Angel gets. Not only does she support him in the same way the other members of Angel's team does, she gives him the emotional support he needs. Knowing him as well as she does, Cordelia pretty much becomes a surrogate mother to Connor, taking the place of Darla who can't be there for obvious reasons.
They're trying to give Connor everything that he's going to need because they want him to grow up and become a good person. Because of course there's no guarantee that he will ultimately grow up to be a good person. For a lot of Angel's life and some of Cordelia's life, not to mention the many people they're working to help, they aren't the best people themselves. It took them a long time to be the type of good person they are today. Which is in part where Holtz comes into the picture.
“My hate kept us alive.”
“Hate gets a bad wrap sometimes. It can keep you alive when nothing else will.”
“Yes, I found that I had to stay alive that I might pass on my legacy of hate. But something happened in that place... something changed. Amidst the most unspeakable ugliness, the hate turned into love. Love for a son. Hate's not enough, I found that love is far more powerful.”
Holtz and his impact on Connor's development is what happens when you don't necessarily have the kind of support system that Angel, Cordelia and their friends are trying to provide for him. The motivation of someone like Holtz in taking Connor and ultimately raising the kid from a place that isn't about love. His entire focus is on trying to turn Angel's son into someone who will hate his own father. Sadly, Connor can't know how Holtz has affected him in any serious way. He was only a baby when things went down and he was taken away. From Connor's perspective, Holtz and the way he approaches the world is the only thing he's ever known. He could only live the way he was raised. On the other hand though, Holtz knew exactly what he was doing and chose to do it anyway. He chose to turn Connor into a weapon and so of course that's what Connor grew up to become. A destructive force in the world, to the point that he's literally known as The Destroyer.
Because of this, Angel lost his son and had to find a way to go on without him. He had dedicated his entire life to ensuring that Connor would grow up and become a positive force in the world. Largely due to how much destruction he's been able to cause in his centuries long life. Angel wanted to believe that his final legacy in the grand scheme of things would be creating hope and helping people rather than the pain and suffering. The body count he has left in his wake. Holtz took that possibility from him and it naturally destroys any idea he has about the potential for better, at least in the short term.
“I think he was going to be left handed. The way he'd hold onto your fingers, his left hand always squeezed just a little tighter. Kid had a grip, he was gonna be a southpaw for sure. You live as long as I do you eventually lose everyone. I'm not saying you get used to it but, you expect and you deal. But he was just... he was just a little... You think you know something about living just because you have this really long life, and that's all you really have, I mean in my case anyway. Then one day you wake up and you have something else.”
“A future.”
When you struggle with this truth, you still have to find a way to go on. To find a reason to fight knowing that your children might not be the hope that you wanted them to be. That they have just as much potential to become a force for darkness and destruction. But also may want the world to be a better place. It can all become too much, but a way still has to be found. A way to struggle past the pain that you feel at the loss. Maybe even create a better world out of it despite the tragedy that your children might not create the great society you hoped for.
But we'll get into that when we examine season 4, which is available for paid subscribers now. The final season is also available for paid subscribers.
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