formed babby because I needed someone to go to Disneyland with
Go to Disneyland with kids and you'll be furious at the single childless adults taking up space on the rides and adding to the queuing time.
― fetter, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:35 (four years ago) link
oh I will :)
unless it's Alfred cuz I assume he would offer me a negroni as recompense, like a gentleman
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:36 (four years ago) link
Fuck you I’ll go to Disneyland alone and swear and get told off by a monorail employee if I want
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:37 (four years ago) link
tl; dr: My wife and I had kids because we thought/hoped that the kids we made could add more magic to the world.
More gentleness, more art, more laughter, more fun. More compassion, more empathy, more kindness.
Further, if people "like us" don't do it, then people "not like us" win. And rest assured, they want to.
Personally I want there a larger proportion of kids parented by people who value kindness, tolerance, inclusion, creativity, empathy, and sustainability. At the same time, I want there to be a smaller proportion of kids parented by people who are driven by racism, sexism, greed, xenophobia, etc.
Is any of that at all helpful for the non-understanders?
xp thanks biz
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:38 (four years ago) link
"Other animals do it" doesn't strike me as a great argument. Non-human animals do lots of things I don't consider socially acceptable or helpful.
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:38 (four years ago) link
My wife and I had kids because we thought/hoped that the kids we made could add more magic to the world.More gentleness, more art, more laughter, more fun. More compassion, more empathy, more kindness.
This I can get behind.
This....what?
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:39 (four years ago) link
That’s a very instrumental attitude towards your own human children! xps
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:39 (four years ago) link
Ha! I'm still angry at the German guy who took up four teacups and filmed himself on an i-pad the whole ride
― fetter, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:39 (four years ago) link
ymp's argument is basically the one my wife made when i was more unsure than her about having kids and i found it persuasive
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:40 (four years ago) link
My dilemma, centrally, is that I don’t think people are for anything, and yet I don’t know what people are having children for, and when they tell me, they sound like bad reasons!!
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:40 (four years ago) link
arg
I want there *to be* a larger proportion of kids parented by people who value kindness, tolerance, inclusion, creativity, empathy, and sustainability.
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:41 (four years ago) link
Right, I think I was just thrown off by the framing of it as some kind of child-rearing war between opposing forces.
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:44 (four years ago) link
Simon - I am not saying "other animals do it" = "so should we."
In context it's just riffing off Tomboto's "by giving her life I’ve done nothing to my daughter that hasn’t been done to every other living thing."
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:44 (four years ago) link
the joy and terror of being a person is that people are for whatever they choose to be for - if they decide that making more people is one of the things that they're for then you're not obligated to agree with or understand their reasons
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:45 (four years ago) link
i don't understand why people like sport or eat mushrooms but i've made my peace with it
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:46 (four years ago) link
Otters (or whatever) don't miss the brunches they're not getting to enjoy; they understand they're in a species that has a biological drive to make more otters.
I think being broadly against all humans procreating is silly (and ultimately pointless), but invoking other species seems like a bad move. There are animal species that have multiple children and then kill the weakest, etc etc. I don't know otter society too well, but there are def animals that, should there only be enough brunch for one, will let their kids die.
― rob, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:48 (four years ago) link
i don't understand why people … eat mushrooms
FP'd.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:49 (four years ago) link
to open third eye iirc
― rob, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:50 (four years ago) link
i mean how else would i meet the machine elves
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:50 (four years ago) link
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:44 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
in no way do i want to get involved in what has become "having kids, classic or dud?" but id point out that tombot wasn't responsible for doing it to every other living creature so i dont see this huge point tbh
― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:53 (four years ago) link
as far as we know....
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:54 (four years ago) link
He's got a half-sibling (a few actually, but only one we're in regular contact with) who he sees once in a while when we visit the birth family, and at some point there is bound to be a lot of big questions and feelings about adoption and why his birth mom kept his younger brother but didn't keep him and I'm not sure how we're going to deal with it but it's all he's ever known so at least it won't be a shock to him
― kinder, Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:54 (four years ago) link
surely there’s stupid swill re child consent that involves, “hey we just put some cells in the same place, what they do is their biz— and if they want to dock on shore, seems rude to say no, but that’s up to the dock owner.”
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:54 (four years ago) link
See above; not saying other animals' behavior should be a model for our own.
Merely, if calling another being into existence (by forming babby) is a crime, then the guilt is pretty widespread.
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:55 (four years ago) link
Nonhuman animals mostly aren’t moral subjects, imo. I’m a chauvinist in this regard.
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:57 (four years ago) link
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fd1nao0k9edgivc.cloudfront.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2FDark-judges-spread.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:58 (four years ago) link
silby: I don't know what humans were ORIGINALLY "for," and I don't think anyone does.
But, given that humans exist already, what are they "for" now? Dunno but I know that they have made some pretty good funk records, post-impressionist paintings, and high modernist novels. They're also pretty good at making video games, vibrating sex toys, and sushi.
So if I like all those things (and I do!) then it follows that I should endorse continued human existence. And - by extension - I endorse parenting, childhood, and arts education.
As for all other human endeavors (business, law, war, aquaculture, badminton, mathematics), well. I don't know what those are for but maybe they help form the basis of a world economy that allowed people to purchase Marvin Gaye records (among other laudable things).
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:09 (four years ago) link
qed: if you hate babies you also hate Marvin Gaye
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:10 (four years ago) link
baby: dont you do it
― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:12 (four years ago) link
i cannot speak to the purpose of babby outside of an attempt to obtain some kind of meaning in existence generally, and feel most other reasons are imagined, performative, or desperate. i also realize “some kind of meaning” itself may sound imagined or performative or desperate.
a decision to form babby in today’s world should involve incredibly broad acceptance of moral responsibility for its emotional and social health, and its general welfare, and all of our general welfare.
For “reasons,” i think bringing more than replacement-level kids into the world is inappropriate, but i am totally aware that quantitative “judgment” is practically arbitrary. given our family position and good fortune so far, we’re at societal norms, but i figure there is practically no fair moral merit to quantitative judgment from 0 to the middle of the curve imo, regardless my opinions of same.
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:14 (four years ago) link
i think just liking and wanting a baby is fine tbh
― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:15 (four years ago) link
man they can be utter magic.
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:16 (four years ago) link
confession: i have a three month old on my knee right now
― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:20 (four years ago) link
reviewing my platitudinous bs, i must add that for me, i wanted to share world with babby. aaaand, i loved sharing world and experiences with babby and toddler and kiddo to about 10y/o beyond even my imagjnation. and since then it’s been v good, often stressful as hell as they really start to impose their own wills.
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 17:29 (four years ago) link
What is not sufficient about all other humans, including children, that you personally are compelled to bring one into being
Feel you on this one, this is thought I had back when I was having internal debate on whether I wanted kids. There's more than enough ppl already.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:00 (four years ago) link
And this was my response to myself in that internal debate!
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:02 (four years ago) link
well, moreso the rest of that post than that specific line
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:06 (four years ago) link
but I also then think wtf do I care about the future of humanity, I'll be dead soon anyway, and in 4 billion years max the planet will be toast. cheers!
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:08 (four years ago) link
NB I don’t think there’s “more than enough people” per se in some Malthusian sense (and I don’t think you do either)
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:08 (four years ago) link
For “reasons,” i think bringing more than replacement-level kids into the world is inappropriate
totally read this initially in a sabermetric above replacement sense. of course my kids are above replacement value.
― by the light of the burning Citroën, Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:09 (four years ago) link
(you're right, I don't. Totally boggles my mind when I see traffic jam stretching to the horizon and think omg all of this material to make cars was harvested from the Earth, and this is just one tiny fraction of all the cars ever produced and then there's ships and planes and buildings and boxes of cereal and how is that possible??? so that's as close to Malthusian as I get)
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:17 (four years ago) link
that argument that a reasonable couple with good genes needs to have a baby to even out the babies being had by nutso evangelical racist bigots is definitely a thing. People are very into thinking about bébé polling numbers. i also do not like this thought process.
― Yerac, Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:22 (four years ago) link
ya I'm more in favor of just murdering the offspring of racist bigots
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:25 (four years ago) link
I don't think there were only two options.
― Yerac, Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:28 (four years ago) link
i dont like the “even out bad ppl babbies” thing, it’s like what, reverse euthanasia?
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:28 (four years ago) link
omg if i have a kid it's WAR will be triple digits, guaranteed
― greta van thunberger fleetwig (rip van wanko), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:32 (four years ago) link
wasn't trying to be snippy to you, Yerac
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:34 (four years ago) link
trump: “you are not the baddies, now go make some babbies.”
― in a mellow, balmy way (Hunt3r), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:37 (four years ago) link
oh I know! I don't take anything personally here. I barely know who is talking to whom since I am all sloppy with using xposts.
― Yerac, Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:39 (four years ago) link
My wife has been certain since she was a kid that she didn't want babby, we're 38 now and it's definitely not on the table. Having kids always seemed slightly unimaginable to me, since I'm an only child and was not around younger kids or babies almost ever. I never really wanted kids, but used to think it was inevitable and that I'd probably do it eventually if my partner wanted to.
Our life is very good, and we even have a decent amount of friends our age who don't have kids. There's an increasing number that do, of course, and the kids are great but it's also so nice to go home to a quiet house. I do sometimes wonder if I'll wake up in 10 or 15 years and feel like my life lacks meaning (like, will it seem silly to still be spending my free time slow improving at music?), but there's only one way to find out. Also I kinda think not? We're pretty good at appreciating small pleasures (like quiet, conversation, cooking, etc) and I think parenting would be disastrous for our relationship.
I do have one friend who definitely subscribes to the "cool + smart people need to have more kids, to balance out the dumb parents!" philosophy.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 13 February 2020 18:43 (four years ago) link