Children

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Apollonius
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Children

Post by Apollonius »

Somewhere, probably in several places, David P. Goldman has told us that those who do not have children will learn to regret it. You can look up the exact quote. I’m sure that I got the spirit, probably the exact wording, right.


When do we learn to regret not having children?

At age 20? 30, 40, 50, 60?



Here’s something else I’m too lazy to look up right now, but that I’m sure I’ve read several places. About half of the people who have children regret having had them. Well, it’s not like I believe these polls. Maybe the respondents were just feeling like getting a little revenge by ticking that box on the questionnaire because of some awful thing their kid (s) had done.


Anyway, I’ve probably poisoned the thread by going negative.


Go ahead and write anything you like about having children, good and bad.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Children

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Having children can change your entire viewpoint on life. For me, experiencing truly unconditional love and becoming responsible for something which would exist after my death completely changed my outlook on everything.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

I doubt that Goldman is right. Those who do not have children may never learn to regret it. They just die. Children inherit the future. So the future belongs to the people who have children not to the people who don't.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Parodite
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Re: Children

Post by Parodite »

I think people take "having" children too seriously. And I don't expect to "continue to live" via my children and children's children so I have nothing to loose, really...

Do "we" still exist after X-years at all? Depends with what "we" you identify with. I take the lazy stance of biology; we is the human species that can procreate among each other, making many a rabbit's colony jealous.
Deep down I'm very superficial
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Parodite
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Re: Children

Post by Parodite »

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [The Tunnel of Love, 1954]
Deep down I'm very superficial
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Endovelico
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Re: Children

Post by Endovelico »

Depending on how well you have raised your children, having had them will:

1. Contribute to evolution
2. Contribute to speeding up evolution
3. Contribute to slowing down evolution

:D :D :D
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Apollonius
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Re: Children

Post by Apollonius »

All the single ladies – Kate Bolick, The Atlantic, November 2011
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... dies/8654/





This article speaks at length about black women and college-aged women, both of whom the author sees as groups whose behaviour reflects the trend that is establishing itself generally.

Less than one third of black women who have had children are married. Indeed, marriage prospects for black women are so bad that for many it is accepted that marriage will never be part of their life (hence, in part, their disproportionate disapproval of gay marriage). They are better educated than black men, and indeed, women of all races are now a majority in colleges and universities in the U.S.


As this implies, their economic prospects are improving, even as the appeal or possibility of marriage declines.


Why do women in these circumstances choose to have children? Here’s a working hypothesis: The men in their lives are fleeting relationships. They recognize (or hope) that their children will continue to love them as they age.



One of my best women friends has had better luck than many. She’s been officially married once, and after that fell apart, had a good relationship that lasted for years, although ultimately the two separated. One time, a few years after the first marriage ended, she was in pretty desperate financial straights and applied for welfare. The agency told her that in order to receive more aid, she needed to sign a document which would allow the province to go after her former husband for child support. She wouldn’t sign. I always respected her for this. She told me “it would break him” *. This guy is smart, and can work when he gets motivated, but he’s a marginal man, too independent to hold a regular job, maybe a little too crazy.

A lot of guys are like this. Look at it cross-culturally. In societies worldwide, only about forty percent of men have children, whereas over ninety percent of women do. Looked at historically, most men are not in an economic position to support children. Women are monopolized by a few powerful men who are involved in polygamous relationships.

Some societies, notably Jewish, Christian, and to a great extent, Chinese cultures adopted philosophies / religions to disallow polygamy in order to democratize marriage, that is, provide the opportunity for low-born men, even slaves, to marry.


But now we see marriage, or at least supporting children, to be a great and unsustainable burden for men. We’re back to a situation where two thirds of men have a great deal of trouble just surviving, and supporting children is simply out of the question.

Are we headed towards increased acceptance of polygamy? What about the majority of men, who are likely to find their prospects grow dimmer and dimmer as robots take over their jobs as bus drivers and forklift operators?


So, again, why do women have children? Increasingly, it’s not just an accident. It’s usually quite premeditated, even if one of the people involved didn’t think about or agree to it.

Who should look after children? There are almost no examples of societies where men do this (I can’t think of one). Some people are convinced, usually from ideological grounds, that responsibility should be “shared”. But who shares? Husband and wife? Taxpayers? What if all the taxpayers are women because they are the only ones equipped to hold a good paying job (this is the world of the future)? What if men who care for children are continually suspected of being child molesters (one good reason that most men will have nothing to do with young children)?


These are just some thoughts and some questions. Of course I have my own opinion, which is that there are far too many people in the world, and that having children in a world where prospects are so bad is probably morally reprehensible. On the other hand, who will look after you when you are old? Robots? Will we learn to love robots and will robots learn to love us?




* I’ve also witnessed, much more commonly, exactly the opposite: women who went after everything a man had and then on top of that, got the court to not even allow their former husbands visiting rights.
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Children

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

First off, don't build robots to take over jobs as fork truck operators and bus drivers. That is tactically stupid and socially irresponsible. Just because they don't have jobs doesn't mean they just go away, we have too much of that problem already.......

I see society becoming too specialised and too limited. We have too few people specialised to do too few things over a limited range of circumstances. People are brittle and do not have the resilience and flexibility to engage each other in marriage and to raise families. There is lack of optimism and in the belief that life can't be broken beyond repair. It's not whether the economy needs glassblowers, some people need to be glassblowers; that's who they are, that's what they're happy being employed to. The economy looks at people as a raw material, degraded even from social capital in the marxist sense, and not the reason why an economy exists in the first place.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/opini ... rkers.html
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

Enki wrote:I doubt that Goldman is right. Those who do not have children may never learn to regret it. They just die. Children inherit the future. So the future belongs to the people who have children not to the people who don't.
I don't think that the future "belongs" to anyone, with or without children.

Children mostly inherit their parents beliefs and prejudices ~ 90% of which are pure nonsense.

The probability that anyone's precious little snowflakes will have some significant impact on the future is vanishingly small.

Almost all will spend their lives at some worker drone role necessary to maintain some level of human civilization, but that's it.

I would argue, along the lines of Matt Ridley, that it is the propagation of ideas that matter:

When ideas have sex
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

Typhoon wrote:I don't think that the future "belongs" to anyone, with or without children.

Children mostly inherit their parents beliefs and prejudices ~ 90% of which are pure nonsense.

The probability that anyone's precious little snowflakes will have some significant impact on the future is vanishingly small. [./quote]

Every single person on the planet has significant impact on the future with absolute empirical certainty. If you have been born you have an impact. 'significance' is of course highly subjective.
Almost all will spend their lives at some worker drone role necessary to maintain some level of human civilization, but that's it.
Which is impact. My children and their generation won't be worker drones that much because those jobs will mostly be performed by robots.
I would argue, along the lines of Matt Ridley, that it is the propagation of ideas that matter:

When ideas have sex
And this is precisely what I was referring to. Parents have more influence over the nature of the next generation's beliefs than non-parents.

And I don't mean this in terms of ideology. But the fact that my daughter is learning ballet, gymnastics and karate means that she will have a greater knowledge of kinesiology, and by extension so will her children. I can spout any sort of ideological babble that I want to, it will pale in significance to the kinesthetic awareness that she learns as a result of studying those artforms for her entire childhood.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

Enki wrote:
Typhoon wrote:I don't think that the future "belongs" to anyone, with or without children.

Children mostly inherit their parents beliefs and prejudices ~ 90% of which are pure nonsense.

The probability that anyone's precious little snowflakes will have some significant impact on the future is vanishingly small. [./quote]

Every single person on the planet has significant impact on the future with absolute empirical certainty. If you have been born you have an impact. 'significance' is of course highly subjective.
Almost all will spend their lives at some worker drone role necessary to maintain some level of human civilization, but that's it.
Which is impact. My children and their generation won't be worker drones that much because those jobs will mostly be performed by robots.
I would argue, along the lines of Matt Ridley, that it is the propagation of ideas that matter:

When ideas have sex
And this is precisely what I was referring to. Parents have more influence over the nature of the next generation's beliefs than non-parents.

And I don't mean this in terms of ideology. But the fact that my daughter is learning ballet, gymnastics and karate means that she will have a greater knowledge of kinesiology, and by extension so will her children. I can spout any sort of ideological babble that I want to, it will pale in significance to the kinesthetic awareness that she learns as a result of studying those artforms for her entire childhood.
By this line of reasoning, one could also argue that her ballet, gymnastics, and karate instructors will "have more influence over the nature of the next generation's beliefs" than parents.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

Typhoon wrote:By this line of reasoning, one could also argue that her ballet, gymnastics, and karate instructors will "have more influence over the nature of the next generation's beliefs" than parents.
Only because her parents chose to influence her beliefs by facilitating the learning of those skills.

I am certain that my kids will have the belief that the world is a wide open playground with a vast panoply of options open to them because they will have had enough broad experiences to know how to access a variety of different mechanisms.

Today, I go to meet with Occupy the Farms about the acquisition of food resources for the movement. Then hopefully I can make it to a pre-production meeting for a video series we're making. Right now I leave to scout locations for that video shoot at the Society for Ethical Culture.

In addition to Ballet, Gymnastics and Karate, when my daughter is older, she will have spent some time on farms growing food, so she will know this is an accessible skillset. She will also know the basics of how to produce a video series and that if it's worthwhile she can get top talent to work with her. I'll teach her how to run a benefit party, the networking, the operations, and how to get the tax deductions for anyone who helps her.

Somehow I doubt she will rebel against the value of knowledge.

In my experience values are determined by the set of opportunities one perceives as being available.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

Enki wrote:
Typhoon wrote:By this line of reasoning, one could also argue that her ballet, gymnastics, and karate instructors will "have more influence over the nature of the next generation's beliefs" than parents.
Only because her parents chose to influence her beliefs by facilitating the learning of those skills.

I am certain that my kids will have the belief that the world is a wide open playground with a vast panoply of options open to them because they will have had enough broad experiences to know how to access a variety of different mechanisms.

Today, I go to meet with Occupy the Farms about the acquisition of food resources for the movement. Then hopefully I can make it to a pre-production meeting for a video series we're making. Right now I leave to scout locations for that video shoot at the Society for Ethical Culture.

In addition to Ballet, Gymnastics and Karate, when my daughter is older, she will have spent some time on farms growing food, so she will know this is an accessible skillset. She will also know the basics of how to produce a video series and that if it's worthwhile she can get top talent to work with her. I'll teach her how to run a benefit party, the networking, the operations, and how to get the tax deductions for anyone who helps her.

Somehow I doubt she will rebel against the value of knowledge.

In my experience values are determined by the set of opportunities one perceives as being available.
It'd equally probably that she'll go work on Wall Street.
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

Typhoon wrote:It'd equally probably that she'll go work on Wall Street.
Since Wall Street probably won't really exist by the time she has a career, I'm not concerned about it. And I don't man in the sense that there will be an economic collapse or anything, just that a lot of those jobs are drying up since the market is online and doesn't need to be centered in downtown Manhattan anymore.

I'd only be disappointed if she went to work for Wall Street and was scamming people. But since she actually cares about other people, I am not worried. If she got into some kind of investment that grew positive things, I'd be all for it. I'm not anti-capitalist at all.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

Enki wrote:
Typhoon wrote:It'd equally probably that she'll go work on Wall Street.
Since Wall Street probably won't really exist by the time she has a career, I'm not concerned about it.
Hope over experience . . .
Enki wrote:And I don't man in the sense that there will be an economic collapse or anything, just that a lot of those jobs are drying up since the market is online and doesn't need to be centered in downtown Manhattan anymore.
Using the term Wall St in the concept rather than physical sense.
Enki wrote:I'd only be disappointed if she went to work for Wall Street and was scamming people. But since she actually cares about other people, I am not worried. If she got into some kind of investment that grew positive things, I'd be all for it. I'm not anti-capitalist at all.
All parents try to enculturate their offspring with their own belief system and values.

Some kids accept it all without question, while others go off on their own different path. I don't think one can predict which kid will or won't.

While this may be tough for the parents, it's probably a good thing for the species as a whole.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Demon of Undoing
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Re: Children

Post by Demon of Undoing »

Rules for my kids:

1) Don't go to jail.

2) If you insist on doing something stupid, be smart about how you do it.

3) If you're going to be stupid, you better be tough.

4) Gravity is not your friend.

5) Screaming doesn't make it better.

6) Patience isn't a virtue, it's a requirement.

7) The dog doesn't want you to wrestle his head. Pretty much ever.

8) Report all monsters to Daddy.

9) Humans are unpredictable. Try not to look them directly in the eyes, it scares them.

10) Be nice as long as you can manage it.
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

My simple guideline: Don't do anything that you would not want to read about in the newspaper or online the next day. Otherwise, knock yourself out.
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Typhoon
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Re: Children

Post by Typhoon »

Image
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

Typhoon As long as they value knowledge and compassion, I'm cool.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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cincinnatus
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Re: Children

Post by cincinnatus »

Having a child is much like life...full of positives and negatives.

On the negative...bye bye true freedom for about 18-22 years (and bye true freedom, I mean saying f-ck this lavender and moving to a cabin in the mountains and going Jeremiah Johnson). You now have a responsibility for a life you brought into this world. It's similar to the loss of true freedom in getting married, but with (morally) stronger binding commitment that comes with the child being a piece of you, vice a vow to love, honor and cherish.

One big positive is all it takes to erase the loss of "true" freedom...the first time your little girl hugs you and says of her own accord "I love you Daddy..."
"I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

Yea, kids are great.

I never knew fear like I knew fear once my kids were born.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Enki
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Re: Children

Post by Enki »

I just offered my kids a cupcake and neither of them wanted one.

WINNING!
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Children

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Indeed...... self-control and an introspective consideration of wants determines success, even more so than talent or intelligence.....'>.....
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
Ibrahim
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Re: Children

Post by Ibrahim »

The underlying change here is that children are now optional, which was not the case at any previous point in history. As such, all the issue really amounts to is a consumer choice. Do children best suit my desired lifestyle? Can I afford them? To make the consideration any deeper than that is to make it something more than it really is.

All the Spenglerisms on the subject are just ripped off from Steyn, and all both of them are saying is that the type of people we like had better squeeze out more kids than the type of people we don't like. But the idea that this is how the average individual makes the choice of having children is comical.


As for regrets? A person might regret having/not having children the same way they might regret any other consumer choice. "Never should have bought that condo." "W regret not getting a second car sooner."




bye bye true freedom for about 18-22 years (and bye true freedom, I mean saying f-ck this lavender and moving to a cabin in the mountains and going Jeremiah Johnson). You now have a responsibility for a life you brought into this world.
Many people ignore their children or don't even pretend to look after them. Speak to somebody involved with Family Court sometime, hear 100 depressing stories in 20 minutes.

Much like having them, taking care of them is also a choice. Except that it was always a choice.
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Endovelico
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Re: Children

Post by Endovelico »

We should realize, once and for all, that we are ruled by instincts, just like any self-respecting chimp. No matter how hard some of us may try, we are not going to succeed in replacing those instincts with reason. Wake me up in 100,000 years, please...
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