Why do people want to have children?

I do not personally want to have children. I just like sex for the fun of it. I mean, the little brat would disrupt my ordinary daily life to an unforgivable degree. I dislike anything that would mangle my ability to get by and do things as I always have.

I, too, cannot understand why someone would want a baby the normal way. Adoption, I can understand.

edited 21st Jul '12 12:59:23 PM by NickTheSwing

I wouldn't want children because I'd be one of those parents who panics if the baby so much as sneezes funny.

"She was trying to walk and fell on her bottom! D: CALL THE AMBULANCE!"

Here's a copy-paste of something I said in an earlier thread:

"Adopting is an awesome thing to do. But having your own kid can mean a special connection from the mom from day -280 instead of day 1 or 0. To a lesser extent, same for dad.

Further, if you have your own kids, you get both the nature and nurture side of having a miniature you. If your significant other dies, you can see their eyes in your child, or hear them in their laugh - whatever genes they happened to pass on. It doesn't matter if nature is 10% and nurture 90% (though I find that unlikely), with the biological child you get 100%, adopted, at best, 90%.

And millenia of evolution is hard to ignore. Biological immortality is achieved by passing on one's genes. It is therefore one of the strongest imperatives. Lots of people enjoy following through on that imperative.

None of that is to say that adopting isn't an amazing thing to do, just that there are legitimate reasons one might want their own child."

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

Biological immortality is achieved by passing on one's genes. It is therefore one of the strongest imperatives. Lots of people enjoy following through on that imperative.

This is as bizarre to me as my arguments here are to most everyone else. What's so special about passing on your genes? Unlike awards and photographs and whatnot, no-one seems to care if the only thing of you that survives is some genetic code or what have you.

What's so special about passing on your genes? To most people, the thought doesn't really enter into their minds.

But the drive is because of "biological immortality." The only way your genes get passed on is if you have kids. The DNA sequences that exist today are hardwired to want to pass themselves on because those are the ones that made it to present day. So your average person doesn't give a damn about biological immortality, but the reason they're around is because millions of years of evolution made their genes "care." Which means that to many (not all, or necessarily even most) people there will be a closer feeling of connection to biological offspring than adopted ones.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

I want to have a kid "the normal way" so to speak. We'd never be able to manage it in the fashion that males and females can and would have to use evil science when it comes along, but it would be a child composed of us.

The "composed of us" part is what makes me want such a child and what makes in vitro an absolute non-option. I want to see what would occur if our genes were mixed together to create a whole new being. What traits the child takes from each of us and our families. It's also "us". In vitro doesn't offer that nor does surrogacy, hence why I refuse both. It's not that I particularly care about passing on my genes, but about seeing the combined wonder of our genes and to raise that being.

Adoption I want to do because I feel that children deserve homes. I want to save a child from being stuck in that system with no one to love them all because everyone wants babies. AND THEN RAISE THIS SPAWN AS MY OWN. To watch it grow slowly and with our effort.

The "watching it grow slowly with our effort" thing is a big reason why I want kids at all. I like taking care of others and I absolutely adore raising beings. For the moment I satisfy that desire with my various pets, but I'd like to take on the challenge of parenting a human.

edited 21st Jul '12 3:56:10 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

About the coma comparison.

That would be a necessary choice for an existing person. Having children in the first place is not. It's an optional choice for someone who only exists in potential with the only deciding factor (usually) being the parents desires.

Incidentally, there's no problem at all with adoption from an antinatalist's point of view.

edited 21st Jul '12 7:35:35 PM by zerohelix

Actually, the choice is not necessary. I could simply not do anything with my responsibility regarding his money. I could ignore the situation, and make no choice at all.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

I'm sorry, but Vericrat, are you trying to imply that an adoptee and his/her parents can never be as special as the bond between a child who is raised by his/her biological parents?

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

My point was more about the difference between action to help an existing person and action to create a person in the first place.

If you move the coma guy's money you have taken his right to choose for yourself. If you don't move it, he loses all his money. There's a down side either way.

If you have a child you have taken their right to determine their own existence for yourself. But if you never have the child then there never is a child who would think that they would rather exist. So there is only a down side if you have the child.

Also a choice regarding money is not really comparable to a choice regarding a person's existence.

A better example would be the question of whether you have the right to determine whether the doctors should pull the plug. Something a great many people would answer no.

Has anyone ever thought that there are certain trials people want to go through.

The trials of childbirth and childbearing. Raising a child from day one. Some people want this. Others want to raise a child that is not "theirs." They want to adopt and go through the ordeals of raising a kid that may not ever know his/her biological parents.

Some people just want this. They want to feel the pains to prove to themselves that they're strong.

I can't really understand why this thread is still going on, I mean, if people want to have their children the typical way, let them, and if they want to adopt, let them, and if they don't want kids, let them. It isn't very hard.

I don't see the argument that having kids is wrong or selfish, especially the thought that you're "wronging" the life of the child you produce because they may not have wanted to exist...? Like, oh, sorry for not offering goat blood at the top of the nearest mountain peak while the planets were aligned to discuss with my possible-may-be-future-children on whether now is a good time to have kids.

Really, sorry, because there's literally no way to determine something wants to exist or not before they exist. We can assume, however, that biologically speaking, people generally want to exist, so really I don't think wanting to reproduce is any serious crime against anything.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

No you can't simply assume that they would want to exist. The existence of another person is not your right to choose just because they can't choose for themselves.

edited 22nd Jul '12 4:17:13 AM by zerohelix

So you keep saying. So we keep disagreeing.

I dunno. If I somehow learned that I've been adopted (bloody unlikely by now, but whatever), that would not change how I feel about my "adoptive" parents. However, I would also want to learn more about my biological parents, and, if at all possible, establish a relationship of some sort with them.

After all, I'd owe them my existence, and as I see it this establishes a huge debt of gratitude towards them; and furthermore, if they had been in such a position not to be able to take care of me and gave me to adoption instead of aborting me*

or keeping me and treating me badly, they made a right call that cannot have been easy to make.

Now, I am not saying that all adopted children must feel in that way; but that's how I would feel in that circumstance.

Personally, if at all possible, I'd like to have some children of mine, in the plain biological way — sure, I could adopt, but as I see existence as a good thing I see generating new existences as a natural and good thing. If for any reason I or my companion could not have children, I'd definitely be willing to adopt. And I would see these adopted children as my own; but I would understand (actually, expect) that they would eventually want to have a relationship with their original family too.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I notice that a good brunt of this thread's argument is composed of people arguing about the rights of mere sperms and eggs

*labels this thread as retarded* I have nothing meaningful to add to this thread, simply because most of the anti-natalist side is too nonsensical

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

It's not your right to choose because the consequences will not affect you. They will affect the other person.

It's theft. It's theft like taking anything else.

I find the idea that a person can own money or property and all kinds of things but not themselves very upsetting Carciofus.

And I don't like it when people say there's a simple answer, when in fact, if they read through the thread they would see that said simple answer has already been brought into dispute multiple times.

Sorry if I'm sounding rude, but it's getting on my nerves to have people repeating the same questions without trying to offer an explanation as to why the answers were wrong the first time.

edited 22nd Jul '12 4:28:31 AM by zerohelix

We are not talking about sperm and eggs. We are talking about the sentient human beings that they will become.

Don't be so rude.

edited 22nd Jul '12 4:29:57 AM by zerohelix

And who are you to determine what kind of future any or all offsprings face? You use that as a tangent to repeatedly sweep kick those who want to have children normally at their shins, but for no rightful reason other than to say 'the suffering they will face'

Sex, impregnation, gestation, pregnancy, labor, water breaking, birth, growth. We have followed this cycle of life all these years of evolution, and we are not about to start paying further attention to your flawed reasons

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

Case in point.

The entire purpose of my arguments here have been to establish that suffering has nothing to do with it.

You obviously haven't read through the thread.

edited 22nd Jul '12 6:13:43 AM by zerohelix

We've also been killing each other in territory disputes for countless millions of years before we even became human.

Something is not inherently good because we've been doing it for a long time.

edited 22nd Jul '12 6:14:04 AM by zerohelix

The consequence will affect me, and the other person. But in any case, just because something I do affects another person it does not imply that it should be outlawed. Basically everything that one does affects others: by writing this, I am affecting (to a very small degree) everybody who could read it, but that does not make it unfair in any sense. Case in point, you say that you find my ideas upsetting; and frankly, I have a very low opinion of the point of view according to which a person "owns himself" in the same sense in which I own my own socks.

But obviously, no one of us is doing anything wrong by "affecting" the other by pointing out that we object to their positions.

Also, "theft" is a very specific concept: in brief, it refers to taking someone's properties away from them. It has nothing whatsoever to do with generating a person.

edited 22nd Jul '12 6:51:04 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I mean theft of rights. If one believes in them.

Since I do believe in a person's right to own oneself and to determine whether they themselves should live or not, I find the idea of another person deciding, without consent, whether that person should live, to be like theft.

edited 22nd Jul '12 7:11:28 AM by zerohelix

"Theft of rights" is a bit of a misnomer. If, say, I punch someone in the face out of the blue, I am certainly committing a crime and infringing on a right; but I am not committing a theft.

edited 22nd Jul '12 7:09:14 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

In a theoretical sense that could be considered a theft of their right to good health, safety etc...