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CT CCXLVIII: CANCEL REDSOXFANS EVERYWHERE!!!!

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birdman said:
When I was of reproductive age I made a decision to have two kids for zero population growth and if I wanted more there after, I'd adopt. 4 months after my second, I got snipped to solidify that plan. I don't think I considered, seriously, adopting from the get go, and I'd suggest it is probably a cultural thing, i.e., the culture I was raised in, North East Irish Catholic, presupposed that everyone has kids, usually lots of them. It was like a base principle, so I definitely challenged that idea and departed from it, but only far enough to commit to zpg. I never put a lot of thought into whether or not I'd have kids, just assumed I would.

Having said all of that, I get a lot of personal pride and satisfaction from my kids regardless of their disproportionate consumption of resources compared to a kid born and raised Indonesia, so I completely agree that there is a level of selfishness to parenthood.
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This is a good and thoughtful post. Townie's too. It's a shame that ITC doesn't usually respond with the same generosity.

Your last line here was pretty much what I was going for, and I adopted ITC's language ("i.e. "self-absorbed")

Also, just a reminder that this is the chat thread and I'm not really judging, just thinking through an issue that has likewise been on my mind since I've been an adult.

Wanting to give your kid(s) the best possible life is laudable and right but also inherently selfish. Not having kids isn't selfless either. Just about priorities.
 
I would co-parent with townie, combine dna with Phan, and adopt Juice.


Did I do it right?
 
it's impossible to have the conversation without it feeling very personal, but I think the conversation around why people decide to have kids is pretty fascinating
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
it's impossible to have the conversation without it feeling very personal, but I think the conversation around why people decide to have kids is pretty fascinating
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I had my first kid because I love my wife and wanted to stay married to her. I had my second kid because my first kid was so awesome. I would have ab3rd kid but my wife isn’t down.
 
TownieDeac said:
i can't really square this
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I could be wrong. I'm sure most parents would sacrifice everything to better the life of their kid. But I'm thinking of a biological child as an extension of the parent(s).

the difference between my framing here and your post above (about how parenting has changed the way you think) is that I'm discussing the *choice* to have children and you seem to be interested in the act of parenting.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
you're asking people to justify a decision between procreation over adoption
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You said that choosing to remain childless for reasons about the future (climate change, specifically) was "self absorbed".

I pointed out that (in my opinion) choosing to have children is often also a selfish act.

You and others didn't buy it so I asked for reasons to have children that were not selfish.

I got one pseudo-biological answer, one about how difficult it is adopt, and a few about the experience of being a parent.
 
right, if you're making personal sacrifices to better someone else's life it doesn't seem self-absorbed to me. the kid could be a proxy for you to foist your expectations and image and personality and everything on to, but they're still gonna be their own person.

i think the amount that parents even thought about having kids has changed a lot over generations, as parenting age has gotten older and societal expectation has changed. it used to be more common for people to get married in early 20s, have a kid by mid-20s--feels like that has shifted later and the expectation that every married couple will have kids isn't so ubiquitous.

that said, i didn't do much thinking about becoming a parent. my wife is the $ person in our relationship, though there was never going to be a perfect time, she sorta knew when it was right.
 
On the opposite tip, my wife and I were reminiscing about how we used to just go take spin classes together after work before kids and now how impossible a dream like that seems so maybe kids suck.
 
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Yes, good points, and I was definitely making the assumption (in the context of this discussion) that having a child was a deliberate choice.

A point ITC sort of made with his post about unplanned pregnancies

It sounds like lots of people simply did it because that's what they assumed they should do.
 
mako1331 said:
On the opposite tip, my wife and I were reminiscing about how we used to just go take spin classes together at work before kids and now how impossible a dream like that seems so maybe kids suck.
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Even at Peloton headquarters they don’t call taking spin classes “a dream”
 
also it's not even about big picture lifestyle changes that a kid produces

the every day 24 hour grind of parenting is of itself a sacrifice of your time and energy and emotional wellbeing

don't want to belabor the point too much as there are definitely aspects of parenting or the choice to have a kid that are very selfish
 
BeachBumDeac said:
Even at Peloton headquarters they don’t call taking spin classes “a dream”
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yeah that was supposed to say after. and all that will probably change as they age a bit but for now free time isn't really a thing.
 
Back in college, I read the E.O. Wilson book Sociobiology and in the introduction he says: "The organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA." ...and it really blew my mind.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
yeah the whole 'i can't have kids b/c of climate change' argument seems pretty self absorbed
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wakephan09 said:
But having kids is also a pretty self-absorbed thing to do
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Just to point back to the posts that started this discussion.

We've kind of moved to using "selfish" rather than ITC's original "self absorbed" which read to me more like a critique of snooty, entitled, liberalism ...

rather than an observation about values or time- and energy-commitment necessary to raise a child.

This is what I was pushing back against because of course parenting requires sacrifices.
 
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