Do you want kids?

[Caligastia]

Yep, we agree (edit: to Caligastia)

This was part of my response to my mother, who called me selfish for *maybe* not wanting kids. She was upset... because I might leave her selfish desire to be a doting grandmother unfulfilled. Heh.

I may yet have a kid. If I do, it will be because my wife and I decide that the good stuff we stand to get out of it outweights the difficulties, risks, etc., such that we want to do it.

-Arrian

Agreed. Calling people selfish for not wanting kids is unhelpful, to say the least. If you really believe they are selfish, then maybe it's best that they don't have kids. There are far too many selfish parents out there already, and kids who are suffering as a result.

[Blaupanzer]

Time has passed for that. I feel like slapping my forehead and saying "I could have had kids!" like that old V-8 commercial. That wouldn't be fully honest, however. My wife and I decided not to have children in the late 70's and never looked back.

Ben, at the risk of stirring up certain rabble, why are you surprised? Most humans want to reproduce and a significant proportion succeed.

[Caligastia]

Only because producing too many offspring leads to the collapse of the local environment (which to humanity is the entire world) and teh death of the species. Producing too many offspring is as bad as not producing any.

I don't think producing too many offspring, as far as humans are concerned, has quite the certainty of extinction as producing none. Extinction would be less likely than mass killings - the lesser of two evils, perhaps.

[Jon Miller]

Of what benefit is it to society to create one more resource-hoarding organism who will almost undoubtedly do a thoroughly replaceable job that only has meaning within the specific context of our society and then die after 80 years?

Resource producing organzism as well. The only thing that can enable other organisms to become productive, and to care for other organisms that need care (including yourself). And it isn't like they will do a thoroughly replaceable job and die and be meaningless in 80 years, unless they are too selfish. If they aren't too selfish, they will have kids, who will produce, and so on... creating a lot more productivity, happiness, and other such good things. Also, it will encourage soceity, biology, and the culture to flourish.

It isn't a deadend, like you paint in your nihilistic statement. In fact, if you don't beleive in God and some sort of afterlife, it is the only thing that might not be a deadend.

It doesn't matter for how many it's true. What matters is that there are multiple ways to give back to society, and having children is only one of them.

Having children is the main one, and I have never talked to someone who was against having children who was giving back to society at the same order of magnitude. Being a scientist, even being a doctor is piddly compared to what a good parent does.

JM
(Notice that I am saying too selfish, that is because all of us are selfish to some extant or another.)

[chequita guevara]

And, while Che took it to the extreme (hey, it's Che), the reality is that people have kids for selfish reasons. Hell, I believe that they SHOULD have selfish reasons. Otherwise, how are they going to be able to put up with the downside?

-Arrian

Of course I took it too the extreme. I took Caligastia's post and reversed it. Blah blah blah, having kids is the greatest thing in the world, it's truly human, only parents can know how wonderful it is, blah blah blah.

And no, Asher, I'm not sterile. As I've written multiple times, we chose not to have children. If and when we decide we're economically capable of raising children, we will adopt someone's unwanted kids, rather than bringing new human beings into this world, as well as burdening the planet with our genetic experiments simply to fulfill our own emotional needs.

[Lorizael]

Being a scientist, even being a doctor is piddly compared to what a good parent does.

Notice the qualifier good. I think most parents are crap and produce crap children.

[Caligastia]

Having children is the main one, and I have never talked to someone who was against having children who was giving back to society at the same order of magnitude. Being a scientist, even being a doctor is piddly compared to what a good parent does.

That's kinda hard to quantify, don't you think?

[Caligastia]

Of course I took it too the extreme. I took Caligastia's post and reversed it.

You said all parents are selfish, which is not the reverse of what I said. Please don't distort my words.

[Jon Miller]

A lot easier than you would think on analysis though.

Productive/etc people produce more productive/etc people. So it extends...

As a scientist, I produce some understanding about the universe. Because I am not Einstien, it is small. Because it is about the universe, then someone else could do it to the same effect. Because our understanding is always increasing, if my work has importance at the end of my lifetime then I have done good work.

Likewise, a doctor is continuing life. Yeah, that can produce a good 60 years or so. But that is only 60 years, as I have pointed out... children have children themselves, they grow, they expand... it is a lot bigger space then the limited individuals that you can heal as one person.

Now a teacher is a bit better, particularly if they are one of the rare ones who changes bad, non-productive people to good, productive people. Because these productive people will extend their productivity to others, and likely have kids themselves... and extend it to their kids.

And yeah, I agree that good parents generally have good kids, who have good kids themselves.

But anyone in the US has much more chance at opportunties then peopel of many other countries. And even bad parents osmetimes produce good kids. I mean, if you are starving or have the AIDs in africa, then there isn't much to happen but for your kids to have a miserable existence and continue that. However, even kids in the US who were raped by their parents/etc become productive and wealthy people here.

Now personally, I think it all doesn't matter much if you don't pass some of it on to others who can than pass it on themselves. People should be taking their wealth and helping the people in Africa/having children, etc. But even in the cases of a deadenend, the person in the US will have produced more than the person in Africa.

Note when I say good I am staying away from the moral/religious meanings of good (although I think that if you are good in that way, you will be good in the way I mean). I mean good for soceity, productive, happy, and all of that.

JM

[Alinestra Covelia]

Having kids used to be a really sound financial move. By the time the parents enter into their seniority, the kids will have entered into their majority and be able to help support the parents. That thinking dominates much of the East Asian and Indian "large family clan" mentality. My grandmother had nine kids and they all helped send money back to support her in her old age. A little from each kid was enough to keep her comfortably well-off.

However...

In today's society, the focus is forwards. People generally do not pursue a "more is better" attitude towards family size. And those who do have kids tend to focus on them, and not on their aging parents. (Nor, generally, is it necessary for them to. Financial planning with most workplaces includes retirement planning, so the children are free to take care of their own family upon majority.)

Plus, the amount of education that's needed to make a person competitive in the employment industry is quite a bit higher now than it used to be. My grandfather started working at a newspaper in Taiwan when he was 16 and ended up as a major stockholder when he died, leaving behind a small fortune (disbursed among a large number of children, admittedly). The days of that happening are over - or at least, it happens a lot less these days than before.

So you let yourself in for 18 to 25 years of financial investment when you have a kid. That's fine if you can absorb it. Too many people cannot, and refuse to admit this to themselves, trusting only in some sunshine theory that it will all work out okay.

Also, you are legally liable for your kid for a term of years, ranging from 14 to 21 years depending. This means not only is there a minimum level of input you must make (never leaving them at home, meeting minimum safety standards in various situations, etc.) but you are also presumed responsible for whatever output they create. This puts you in the position of great liability and responsibility, one that is arguably unprecedented in any other situation. I believe even spouse-to-spouse relations will not impute legal liability between the spouses to the degree that they will do for kids.

This also works the other way too. Whatever you say will, for all intents and purposes, be binding law upon your children. No other modern relationship is as unilateral or as one-sided as that between parent and child. The parents' conduct and manner with the children will set a precedent for acceptable behavior to an extent that few other authority figures can match. Again, too many parents take this too lightly, which usually defaults into a "do what I say, not what I do" scenario. This rarely works.

Finally, you are expected to invest emotionally in your child. You are expected to put their own wellbeing on the same level, if not better than, your own. I have the most problems with this. I am a firm believer in respecting other people's autonomy, and in not foisting any pressure on an individual to do something they don't want to do. The parental-child bonding that occurs may make a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but it goes against my personal belief of "help myself first, then help those I hold dear, then those I can afford to help". It's at heart an irrational, essentially gut-feeling-based emotional response in people, and in my opinion it gives rise to various equally irrational political support bases for things that lead to anti-gay and anti-sex-education initiatives. (This is getting into a whole other discussion that I don't think really fits into this thread. I will clarify by saying that these and other conservative initiatives make perfect sense from a parenting perspective and fit well within a household if desired - it's the projection into public society that I find problematic.)

I have heard that parenthood is something that cannot be adequately measured purely in terms of hard economic benefits. Like playing sports or enjoying a fine piece of music, it's at heart a "soft benefit" or "intangible benefit" that you cannot rationalize financially. I accept that. I also accept that an intangible benefit has positive effects that are just as real as tangible ones, though they're harder to quantify.

But it's not for me. For me, the hard calculus works out as a winner every time. I don't begrudge other people the right to have children and raise them, but I do hope that they'll take a few hours (days... weeks... months... years...) beforehand and sit down and think things through thoroughly before doing it. The tangible consequences may not as important for you as they are for me - but likewise they shouldn't be a mere footnote to the decisionmaking process either.

[Jon Miller]

See, from a selfish perspective I for the most part agree with AC.

My argument has been that people who aren't having children are for the most part selfish. I agree with AC that if you are selfish, that you shouldn't have children (or should have only 1). It's just not economically efficient.

JM

[Caligastia]

Great post Alinestra. You strike me as a very intelligent, thoughtful person.

[Lorizael]

Yeah, except there was no sexual innuendo in the post.

[Caligastia]

[Q Classic]

My suggestion to you and others like you:

Adopt

JM

I've actually considered this. At this moment in time, though, I wouldn't be able to provide a suitable home, so it's something I'm putting off for a while.

If I'm currently incapable of providing the best situation possible for raising a child, there's little worth in making the attempt at that moment.