Parenting & Family Quote by Hazel Scott

Parenthood, in Hazel Scott's hands, becomes less a sentimental milestone than a moral audit. The line hits because it flips the usual script: we expect the child to come with a built-in purpose, or the parent to improvise one on the spot. Scott insists there will be a moment when improvisation fails. A kid will ask the blunt, destabilizing question - not the biology lesson, but the existential one: What am I doing here, and what did you want for me? Her answer is bracingly adult: if you don't know why you brought a life into the world, you will eventually be forced to hear your own confusion out loud.

Calling it "marvelous" is doing quiet heavy lifting. It's not triumphal; it's relief. The marvel isn't that children are born, but that a parent can meet that question without flinching, with something sturdier than tradition, accident, or ego. The subtext is accountability: having kids isn't a default setting, it's a choice that deserves an explanation that can survive scrutiny from the person most affected by it.

Scott's context sharpens the edge. As a Black jazz pianist and singer who fought segregation and testified during the Red Scare, she understood what it meant to justify your right to exist in public. That pressure seeps into the quote: the "reason" isn't just personal fulfillment. It's a story about dignity, survival, and intention - a parent trying to hand a child not only love, but a usable narrative for living in a world that will interrogate them anyway.