Rahula does not mean fetter, that is a later insertion by a self congratulating monk

Someone went onto r/buddhism and asked if they should have children, or that would lead to attachment. I see a little red when "attachment" is used, because it's a useful and powerful concept in modern psychology. 

But they mean clinging to sense pleasure, not the healthy child need. OK. I propose Buddhists stop using the word "attachment" because the other sense of the word is primary, stronger, more important and interesting. (I'm pretty sure I picked that up from the culture of Triratna, but I guess I'm owning it now. I honestly don't think I'm original, but I googled "Rahula doesn't mean fetter" and I just got all the articles that spout that terrible idea, thus I have to add it to the dialectic of the internet.)

Nobody was giving the opposite view, so I stepped in and tried to articulate why having children isn't a death sentence to the move towards enlightenment. 

The spouting of doctrine and cant was pretty difficult to bear. One person actually purported to be the voice of the Buddha. 

First off, a human isn't a fetter. They are a subject with feeling, not an object in your way. Maybe attitudes are fetters, and maybe some people can't see the long term affect certain ideas.

And yes, there is a dance between engagement and retreat, and retreat is vital to the spiritual life. But I also feel it's important to think for yourself and not just spout doctrine without processing it through the human who says it and the humans who hear it.

There's plenty of stuff in the canon that needs to be interpreted, updated, modernized. In a good way.

A human is not a fetter, I think that Rahula should not be seen as a word for fetter. If it really was at that time, and I'm not convinced that is true, then maybe it's a mistake in our times when humans have a certain dignity and everything isn't about finding your hierarchical place in the universe. That was the caste system and the Buddha rejected it.

Spiritual individualism is to be avoided when it harms others. There are so many instances where the Buddha brings in the family to make sure things are right, that he's not out of disharmony with the larger society. He didn't want a family to stop giving money to a rival sect, he thought that would create disharmony. He thought about the welfare of others, not just putting his methods forward. There is a time and a place.

The "great I am" is not the spiritual endpoint, and when you steamroll a human being to get your imagined spiritual ends, that's a sign things have gone off the road, lost their way.

I'm very much into the spirit of the dialectic, every thesis has an antithesis, and the veracity of a statement is about the vector it takes in relation to other ideas, and the opposite idea also has some truth in it, often. Discussion is the life blood of the spiritual life. 

Fusty doctrine defense feels hollow, unliving. Breathe some life into the teachings. Whenever I heard a statement that feels changing, I am more interested to investigate and discuss. I like books that have the title like Why I am Not a Buddhist or What the Buddha Didn't Teach, I'll be interested when I get a chance to read those books. I think there is a place for challenging provocative statements.