He seemed pretty happy with kids in The Inner Light, too. I think the whole “Picard doesn’t like kids” thing is just because he never raised any (thanks, Beverly!). He would have been a great dad.
It was his kids and his wife and his nephew René. René had recently died and the kids and wife never were but he evidently wanted them in some part of his mind.
He explains it to Troi in an earlier scene; he never felt obligated to carry on the family line because of his brother and René. When René died it wasn’t his own lack of kids he lamented, it was the loss of the Picard line. So in his fantasy there are plenty of progeny for that and of course René isn’t dead.
Counterpoint. His face when he sees he has kids in Generations inside the Nexus:
He seemed pretty happy with kids in The Inner Light, too. I think the whole “Picard doesn’t like kids” thing is just because he never raised any (thanks, Beverly!). He would have been a great dad.
Wait, those were his kids? I might be misremembering, but I thought it was a scene from his childhood.
It was his kids and his wife and his nephew René. René had recently died and the kids and wife never were but he evidently wanted them in some part of his mind.
He explains it to Troi in an earlier scene; he never felt obligated to carry on the family line because of his brother and René. When René died it wasn’t his own lack of kids he lamented, it was the loss of the Picard line. So in his fantasy there are plenty of progeny for that and of course René isn’t dead.
It isn’t exactly a well written scene though.