Having kids: Unethical?

I feel the same exact was as you do. Having my own family is important to me. That said, my biggest concern about adopting children is that often you become a foster parent and the child no longer feels like he is part of the nuclear family once he finds out he is not blood. It takes good parenting to keep an adopted child close through your entire life. I understand everyones situation would be different. At this point, i would like to have 2 of my own, then later adopt too more.

 

It depends on the person. In my case, no. In your case, yes.













KIDDING

 

Spare organs with higher probability of matching.

 

From talking with people who have biological kids and adopted and/or foster kids, one of the things I hear is that with your biological kids, the love and connection you feel is instantaneous and incredible. With foster and/or adopted kids, you have to learn to love and connect.

 

nice post, mathloom. i agree pretty much on all counts. i think it takes a lot of heart to deny your biological impulses (desire to procreate) and help out kids that otherwise wouldn't have a loving parent. adoption is an amazingly selfless thing.

i will rep you again once i spread some more around.

 

This is very true. With average parents having a child creates instant bonds with them. As they grow you gain a history. Adoption is a wonderful thing and I've thought about it myself as well after we finish having our children.

With adoption it's meeting a stranger and hoping that they fit. It's continually trying to work on things and love them. Some of us have more patience than others to do such tasks, I'm not sure I'm one of those.

 

Adoption

 

I'm honestly kind of shocked to see someone bring this up. Nothing could be more emotional to people than their own children; meanwhile, it seems that very few ask the type of questions you're asking.

Mrs. B-Bob and I love spending time with the children of our friends and relatives, but we've decided not to have any. I refuse to pass any judgment on those that choose differently, but for *us* the massive # of humans, consumption of resources, and the current ongoing mass extinction on the planet *did* play a role in the decision. Perhaps a relatively small role.

The only thing that gets me is when people refer to us as selfish for not having our own biological children. I kind of get where they're coming from, in that we have more time to ourselves than parents do, but we're not very selfish people. I do celebrate the decision of other people to have kids; I just wish they didn't sometimes see the project as a huge favor to the world. It's a mix of course, with nearly 7 billion and counting.

As for adoption, a wonderful thing to do, but I've just seen too much negative data, up close and personal. Several cases of people literally having to give up on the project, with kids in juvenile detention, etc. I think I'm just biased by that; there are many wonderful examples out there too.

I prefer to do work with organizations that support kids, and now I'm looking into coaching youth sports. We're training our dog to be one of those dogs that visits sick kids in hospitals also -- she's really good indoors and takes to training easily. Of course, I also spend my career trying to educate kids (18 yr old kids.)

 

There is a special place in heaven reserved for adoptive and foster parents. That being said, having biological children is an amazingly selfless thing as well.

 

I'm with B-bob but less mature. I just didn't want to be responsible for providing for them , commit all my time, or stressed about their pain, injury or death either. Mostly, I didn't ever want to change diapers.

Population overload was a factor too. I say by all means have one, maybe two, but more is wrong. And adopt all you can handle.

 

You're human. Sometimes it's okay to give in to your personal wishes even if you know that you're being selfish in doing so. At least that's what I tell myself when I think about the decision I made when facing this exact issue.

If you can overcome that selfish desire and adopt kids instead of having your own, then good for you, you'll still end up with amazing kids that you love completely.

 

I was actually thinking about something like this yesterday. Is it wrong that I would like a bigger house, when each of my children has their own room, but there are millions that are homeless? The same thing could be said for the food we waste.

I married into my oldest son, and am in the process of adopting him. My youngest son is my biological child. To be honest, I feel no difference in my connection to either. It really makes no difference for me.

Having a biological child was a lot for the experience. I wanted to go through everything with my wife. It was wonderful, and one worth having.

 

Ah, but I think things would be extremely different had our oldest been 3 when we met versus 6 weeks old. You stepped into parenting and began to love him and treat him as your own. His age made it easier I believe than say if he was as old as he is now.

 

Thread title fail? I get your point, but... anyway.

I would say it sounds like you have unresolved issues for how you feel about your role in the purpose of having a family. Nothing bad, just unresolved.

Adoption is a noble thing, no doubt, but I think doing it as a service to humanity/society can create potential pitfalls that could prove at times to be counterproductive at the very least. It sounds like you have had real feelings about having family/children of your own, and have strong feelings about the greater good in regard to caring for a child in this world, as well as being unsure in general if kids will one day be right for you whether they are your own blood or not.

I don't know how old you are, but it really just sounds like you aren't ready for kids, and you say as much. What I can say, is that raising children for external reasons such as "the greater good" seems to be a heavy burden, and raising children is heavy enough as it is. Perhaps both would be good for you? Perhaps neither. What I can say is that you appear to have an honest assessment of your feelings, and I would propose that when you make your decision, it will be under reflection of what is right for you and your potential child(ren).

 

^I like this response. Raising kids is a personal and emotionally vested decision.

You're not making or having a baby to raise the next Messiah.






Unless you're Yao Ming's parents.

 

My wife and I felt the same way, Mathloom discussed the same issues a few years back.

But we took it a step further and recognized that we were both too selfish to want kids... ever.

Which makes me made me wonder. Which is more selfish: not wanting to spend the rest of your life wiping the bum of someone else, or not wanting to bring your own spawn into this world when there are a multitude of children that would be better off if they were adopted.




Oddly enough, I was reading about immortality today and it ended up referencing The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. (That also led me to discover where the term 'meme' came from, which seemed to me to have sprung up from no where recently. Apparently not!)

 

That's what scares me. In extreme cases, I'm afraid that the kid would use the "you ain't my real parents" card. No matter how good of a parent you are, there's always that natural yearn to be with your biological parents.

 

That and many other things could happen, but part of being a parent is to love them no matter what twisted or selfish thing they do.

 

The rub is, we won't have anybody to wipe our bum ... life is a circle, from diapers back to diapers.