Having kids: Unethical?

I'm with you on that. Despite my little mini-rant, I don't consider parents to be unethical or bad people due to the reasons vaids_13 listed. Everyone acts selfishly, and if having your own kids is something you want, I see no reason not to go for it like most people do regarding their desires. It doesn't make someone a bad person.

I was mainly speaking in regards to the parents with the holier than thou attitude like they're doing a service to humanity by popping out children and actually living up to the responsibility of their choice.

 

My significant other and I had no plans to have children and were really enjoying our freedom. Yes, when you have kids, they may as well give you a form to sign that says, "From this moment forward, your life is no longer your own," because it is true. Oddly enough, when we reached that age (really when she reached that age) where biology was damned close to making children no longer an option, we changed our minds. Why? Both of us come from small families. Lots of one and two kid families, especially the last couple of generations. We were facing the very real chance that our contribution, the family contribution to the gene pool would be gone forever if we didn't have children. That the family lines just might disappear. Thinking about that, looking around at all the bloody ignorant, stupid people in this world, it seemed criminal to let that happen. So we didn't let it happen.

 

Hey, cute baby!

Too bad it has to die someday.





(last comic standing I think)

 

Don't have your own kids then. But don't judge/condemn others for doing so.

Adoption is great. But would you be doing so to emulate Brangelina?

Case in point - My brother and sis-in-law are always saying how they would love to adopt kids to "help the world" but can't afford to do so because of the costs of getting a kid out of Africa. When I mentioned that they could easily become foster parents for the many parent-less kids in America (and get help financially) they say that's not their "thing". It is apparent that they profess these desires to "help the world" out of arrogance rather than a true altruistic leaning. I seem to have quite a few of these childless "do-gooders" in my social circles. All of them never actually adopt anyone and don't donate their time or money to any charities - and lavish their dispensable income on small dogs that they bring to parties. ( I live in California )

BTW - you could also sponsor several thousands of dollars worth of kids instead.

A lot of the poverty-stricken kids do have parents and your dollar would probably get more bang for its buck that way. It's tax-deductible - just like kids.

 

Status or prestige dominates everyone's thinking.

There's no reason to assume that having children is immune to that.

 

I don't think he really means that birthing kids is unethical, unless you want to look at it from an overpopulation-of-the-world point of view, but rather he is saying that having kids while consciously neglecting the potential of adopting kids that are already here and could probably benefit from your parenthood more than your regularly birthed kids is what is unethical.

Not saying that I agree, but the way you reworded his argument made it come across weaker than it is.

 

I think if one defines selfishness as unethical, then yes having children could be construed as unethical. There is no selfless reason why one would want to bring a child into the world... after all, how can you want the best for something that doesn't necessarily have or need to exist?

The desire to have a child is just that, a desire. Why do people wait so long to have children? Why do they wait until they're "ready?" Because having a child has just as much to do with them as it does with the child (obviously). Yes, you need to raise the child, you need to take care of it, you need to give your attention to it. This can be construed as selfless, sure. But you brought your desire to fruition, and some see that as a selfish act--and note that this discussion is about have a kid, not raising it.

There are those who can make the argument that there are unplanned conceptions that result in birth, so that can't be considered a desire to have a child. My argument against that, however, is how ethical can it be to bring a child into this world in which you either don't want, or haven't planned for, or both?

However, adopting an already born child doesn't exactly delete the stigma of selfishness either. No one adopts a child on a purely moral whim. Those who do, could never prove it anyway. And those who consciously do it for its morality, can again, be construed as being selfish.

As I stated earlier, if one considers selfishness to be unethical or immoral, then yes, having children is unethical, but adopting children can be just as unethical or immoral. If it means anything, I am of James Rachels' philosophy of believing that humans are not always selfish. It just so happens that in this case, selfishness is difficult to circumvent.

 

I don't think there's much judging or condemning of others going on at all in this thread. (Not saying you were saying that, just thought it was a good thing and worth pointing out.)

 

qft and was thinking how to word it when you posted this, and I think I contributed to the blurring of the line unintentionally in my post. Well put.

 

To be fair I judge and condemn.

 

I didn't really mean to come off as that harsh. =)

Thread title is sort of harsh though.

It does seem to me that the "overpopulation" of the earth seems to come from poorer-nations/social classes (chicken or egg?).

If you can afford to have kids, I see no moral dilemma. Kudos to those that actually adopt though.

 

Its just strange sometimes the things we consider ethical and unethical. Selfish, unselfish, whats good for humanity, what's bad for humanity.

The most selfless act we can do as people is have a mass voluntary euthanasia, rid the planet of the viral germs we have become to this planet, have a leaner, cleaner population and existence. Get rid of all the massive wasteful overhead. Or do away with the ruinous element that CREATES the terrible product - US. The humans themselves.

Everyone wants to go to heaven, but doesnt want to die to get there.

Before we do away with all natural birth and have all TRUELY PLANNED births by insemination, or humans born outside the womb, why not dabble in the what will be RARE phenomena known as having your own children.

Before even that gets taken away. Just dont make them a nuisance to everyone else

And donating your organs to science might be just as beneficial to the greater good as adoption. (They'll be able to figure out how to artificially raise humans quicker that way )

 

To play devil's advocate: if a kid in America is going to consume (roughly?) 10x the resources and generate 10x the waste and pollution as an identical kid in the developing world, is that worth thinking about? The planet is finite.

I'm still pro-kid overall, but more than anything I'm pro good conversations like this, and I'm pro talking about child-rearing as one option among many for living a good life.

OP, I'll say this. To really enter middle age without kids or adopted kids is a little bp;d, even in a vibrant urban environment. In the last 1-2 years, all of our friends finally joined the kid wagon, so the social scene changes pretty dramatically. Keep that in mind.

This leads to what I think would be one of the worst motivations for having kids: "what else are we going do?" That's how grad. school happens too. :grin:

 

If you want to be consistent on that thought, I suggest that you move to the developing world and stop consuming.

 

Not procreating is considered an acceptable compromise.

Myself, I don't have kids cuz I'm chicken sh**, plain and simple. :grin: If I wasn't, I'd arrogantly want to produce progeny in my own image that I created. Just like trillions have done before me.

Though do you look at a mother or father's family portraits and think look at those SELFISH people, putting a strain on the rest of us. Bleeding the earth of its resources. (Okay in SOME cases, yes. But overall?)

The one rationale is, indeed, all living organisms tend to live within their environmental limits for ecological balance. Humans should do the same. We sense the rivers are running dry, so don't reproduce within that.

But how do you prevent the undeveloped from repeating the behavior of high resource consumption? Before we pass away, slip them all a copy of "Inconvenient Truth"? Are they better off as they are not knowing about ANY of the tech that got us here? Should the world follow China's 1 Child example?

Ah, forget even having kids. Curse our PARENTS and ancestors for even bringing US INTO this hellhole.

 

The urge to have children of ones own, when there are plenty of children w/o good homes already alive is a selfish urge. But that doesn't necessarily mean that its a bad urge.

The goal of life, biologically speaking, is to create more life. As humans, our goal is to get as many of our genes into the next generation as possible. We do that by making babies. This isn't always a conscious thought, but this behavior is evolutionary advantages and heritable. They are cute and we love them, but that is why we make them. Not so much for their benefit, but for our own.

Life is competitive....only the fit survive and in order to survive, as a reproducing species, you have to have babies.

However, there is nothing wrong with adopting a child and giving that child a good home. It takes a very special person to do this and to actually love that child.

*****

All that being said, I don't feel that having kids is unethical. It is a necessity for our survival as a species. Yes we value passing our own genes over the genes of another, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Life is a competition and although we as humans have an ability to rise above our biological urges, for the most part, that doesn't mean that we have to view such urges with contempt.

Its all part of the game baby. Idk about y'all but if I have to play the game,
I'm playing it to win!! :grin:

 

I still don't think it's morally wrong for Americans have children. I also wouldn't go out and conjecture that poor people are OK to have kids while rich people aren't.

If you want a change in lifestyle? That's another issue.

Isn't most of the overpopulation problems coming from third-world countries? I may be wrong.

 

I don't know why this is even an issue. If you want to raise a kid, and can procreate, then have your own kids.

Since this is a sports board, this is the analogy I'll make. Having your own kids is like rooting for your own hometown team. No matter how they do, you root for them, support them, love them. There's a bond that simply cannot be expressed clearly in words. Adopted kids is like when the Oilers leave and you need to pick someone else to support. It just feels a little off. Even if you grow to love them, there's still a distance that comes from your own human instinct.