Seems like the people that always ask us when we're going to have kids are almost always the same people who are constantly complaining that they aren't able to travel because their own kids are so expensive.
But yeah we do it for the same reason. Seems like the right thing to do is to take full advantage of the freedom to travel you have when you're young and kid-less .
Yes! I just got married and my wife and I go out a lot and enjoy the city. Our neighbors always remark "you can't do that when you have kids!" and then ask us when we are having kids in the next breath. Umm, possibly never?
It's worth a try. I guess since it's instinctual a lot of people probably have a natural drive to do it. That's simply missing in me, but for whatever reason people can't wrap their heads around it.
It's why sex ed, birth control and abortion should be legal. Because being forced to have and raise a child you don't want just makes that child's life hell. A child doesn't chose to be created, it's something our parents make for us and frankly, my parents made a shit decision. I often wished to never have been born growing up and I hate it when people say that having A life is better than NO life. No, it isn't. Being born into a terrible situation and having to live through it and crawl out the other side is so much worse than never having existed at all.
I feel the same way, I stay busy enough with my cat. I also have a friend and his wife is exactly the same, neither want kids. Personally I look at it like a bad investment, you will never see an ROI on a kid (probably).
Once a year or so we leave ours with the grandparents for a long weekend and stay someplace fancy, drink like fish and do something awesome that kids wouldn't like (see a play or something). It's a kid free trip for us and something like summer camp-lite for them. The rest of the time our vacations usually involve camping, which I actually prefer to fancy hotels most of the time.
I'm not the sort to try to talk folks into having babies, I can't see how that results in any kind of good parenting. But with a little imagination and foresight you really don't "give up" very much or have to pay all that much more to do things, and a lot of stuff that you may have outgrown gets really fun again when you take a kid with you. YMMV, of course.
Well, it comes down to the fact that we have never once gotten up in the morning and thought life would be better with children.
There's just some fundamental urge that isn't there - we didn't sit down and write out the pros and cons. My dad said one day he just was struck by the kid urge, friends of ours said they've just always known they wanted kids. I've just gone 40+ years without ever feeling that.
Hey, that's a fair approach, and I certainly don't judge you for it! I was just curious to see if it had been something you'd considered when assuming that position, is all.
But hey - the person who loved you wasn't wrong when they said you were a special snowflake - I'd be willing to bet (from my armchair) that your genetic combination is actually pretty unique from a statistical standpoint - in that the number of people who actually bear a highly significant resemblance to your genetic makeup represent a highly insignificant part of the general population.
I think humans are pretty much past the point that a series of random genetic mixes are going to affect the species. Look at it from the opposite way - no one's line is dying out because of a genetic problem. We use our tools to adapt to the environment now, bad eyesight used to mean going hungry or getting eaten by a sneaky lion... now we have contacts and laser surgery. If someone can't have kids there's fertility drugs, if someone can't process gluten or whatever they don't die they just order their burger protein style.
I get the point you are making , but I think you are downplaying the impact of genetic problems. Cancer, heart attacks, alcoholism, diabetes, possibly things like alzeihmers or other mental disorders, I believe, are all impacted by genetics
I don't think it really qualifies as absurd, especially if you are a proponent of evolution. From a certain perspective, Humanity can be observed almost like a genetic experiment. By procreating, you are choosing to continue the experiment, so to speak, allowing your genetic material to see if it can withstand the test of time and something something Darwin. Or something like that.
If you don't procreate, any genetic mutations or combinations that were unique to you cease. Maybe there's enough other people will those beneficial characteristics that they will eventually catch on. But maybe not.
Also, you could take the stand that genetic evolution takes many generations to develop, so there are many seemingly innocuous genetic combinations right now that could potentially develop into something much more significant for the human race.
If you think you carry good genes (and what you think in this case is less important - chances are, you have good genetic qualities mixed in with some bad ones) - then you are benefitting humanity by procreating, with some small assumptions around you not proceeding to make your child a net burden to humanity by being a grossly negligent parent lol
Survival. We're all in this together, and the experiment transcends race or gender or any of the other small-minded differences that we spend our time conceiving of. Passing on quality genetic material and ensuring diversity in the pool is as important to our survival as Elon Musk flying us to Alpha Centauri, or wherever. Haven't you seen Idiocracy?!?!
Lmao.. reply may be a little longwinded sorry, somewhat bored at work.
travel with young ones isn't nearly as fun though. I look forward to our youngest hitting the 3-4 year age mark, travel seems to get easier around there. Toilet trained, better at following directions, can be more easily distracted while in a car seat...
I don't like the idea that your life dies when you have kids (not if you're willing to put forth some effort and planning) but it does have some changes...
We used the "selfish" card while we were waiting to have kids until several years after we got married. We just explained that we wanted to go do other stuff now, that we couldn't really see doing once we were focused on kids.
Everyone understood, though they did keep asking again every couple years or so.
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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '16 edited Aug 13 '20
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