I think I remember someone saying something about the ecology of families… or maybe he was just saying that people who have children are ruining the planet. I have written about my thoughts on parents and the reasons people choose to have children before so I won’t revisit that particular hedge row this time out, but I will say that the world is starting to get the point.
I wonder if I can convince some people to start conducting drive-by norplant shootings in the ghetto?
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Listening to: New Radicals – You Get What You Give
via FoxyTunes
Good for these couples — they and you most definitely have a point.
Course, I have children and have already contributed to the destruction of the earth- no going back there. But I can stand on the sidelines and cheer others on.
Have children or don’t, makes no difference to me. However, I think these idiots are little more than attention whores.
Besides all the selfish reasons you listed for having kids, you forgot one of the biggest, and I can’t believe you skipped it, being an Darwinist kind of guy. Survival of the species. We’ve all got it, right there next to self-preservation. So really, having kids isn’t just about our ego, it’s about millions of years of encoding, pushing us to reproduce and preserve our place at the top of the food chain.
On the other hand, just think about how well off the planet would be if everyone was sterilized and we all died off in a generation.
The real up side to that would be we wouldn’t be forced to watch any more presidential debates.
Actually, I have touched upon the idea of procreation as survival instinct before. Its a load of horseshit. The instinctual drive to procreate has been slowly, but assuredly, driven from our genes. To suggest that there is an instinctual drive to procreate to ensure the survival of the species is a cop out… again, it also suggests you are seeking plausible deniability… or at worst, trying to escape from the idea that you have control over your own biological needs/wants and any children you do spawn are the result of a force you are unable to control. No one has children because of an instinctual drive today… they have children because they either make a mistake, or choose to have them to feed their ego. Even you Frank, with your two kids, can’t possibly tell me that you had no choice in the matter.
Yeah. . .human beings have an instinctual drive to HAVE SEX not procreate. There is a difference.
Actually, I don’t believe a word of what I wrote about instinct. You both know I am the farthest thing from a Darwinist that exists. I just found the argument interesting. It really makes no difference to me if people choose to have children or not. I have two children, both very much planned, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And the truth is, it is the least selfish thing I have ever done. I intentionally do things that harm me to make sure that they are taken care of.
I live in an area that I dislike, work for less money then I could make elsewhere, and agreed to slightly more child support then I could have gotten by with, all because of them. These are all my choices, and I have no regrets.
It doesn’t make much of a difference to me either, if people choose to have children or not. I do think it is somewhat irritating, however, when some people go on and on about our responsibility to protect the earth yet they have multiple children.
And I will also say that when I first heard this whole argument from Ed that people choose to have children for selfish reasons I didn’t want to believe that, but the more I thought about it and the more I tried to come up with a reasonable argument against it the more I realized that he is right. People have children for selfish reasons. What other reason is there? Course, NOW maybe you do things for your children that harms you, Frank, but the decision to have them in the first place is a selfish one meant to benefit you in some way.
Yes, my original point has always been that having children is the most selfish thing you can possibly undertake. Regardless of what you do FOR them, ultimately the reason you had them had nothing to do with THEM… it had to do with YOU and your needs. You don’t choose to have children because you want to provide for them, care for them, nurture them, offer them unconditional love… those feelings/ideas come to you AFTER you have children. No Frank, you had children for one of three reasons…
1. Because your relationship had progressed to the point where you just decided raising a family was the next step.
2. You felt, perhaps subconsciously, that you could right the wrongs that were done to you, vicariously through your children.
3. Because you forgot/chose to forget some form of contraception.
I think you’re an intelligent guy… for a war weasel 🙂 but if you think for a moment your decision to have children was an altruistic one, I am gonna have to call bullshit.