to form babby, or not to form babby

In my case it has merely saddled me with a huge ordeal which within another 6 decades will be of no further consequence, which I’ve been having panic attacks about for 20+ years.

Maybe ILX is just a front for /r/childfree.

As you can see, I don't have anything intelligent to add. I'm at a point where my wife and I are actively talking about having a kid (we're both only children, so anything more than one is beyond our ken) but given our current financial prognosis it seems mildly irresponsible. Then again, fuck stories like this one and the high rolling motherfuckers who make them possible in the first place:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/05/pregnancy-vermont-paid-parental-leave-abortion-difficult-decision

the universe can't experience itself subjectively in four dimensions unless it creates life, obv - you're doing the machine elves a favour by being conscripted into birth

this is canon

All is headcanon anyway tbh.

the birth canal is vagcannon iirc

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1145661889889931264/MQ2NtxYn_400x400.jpg

I'm 45, my wife and I have been together since 1994 and got married in 2001. We always kind of wanted kids, and started deliberately trying after a few years of marriage. It didn't work out, and we went through ten years of various fertility treatments before stopping short of IVF because we both felt there was something structurally wrong and it would be a incredibly expensive failure.

After we stopped pursuing medical interventions, we spent about a year pondering if we really wanted kids after all. We had two couple friends - one with (at that time) 2 young kids, and another who were intenionally childless art professors. I don't know what exactly made us pick sides, but we went with the chaos and terror of kids over the ability to travel and sleep in and do basically whatever we wanted whenever we wanted - which I miss dearly at times but don't think would have been good over the remainder of my life.

We went through an agency, were picked by a birth mother, and adopted our son at birth - we were in the hospital when he was born and took him home with us. The first year was kind of a blur, as adapting to a new baby schedule at age 40 after years of very little responsibility to anyone else was very hard and my depression amped up pretty good - I emphatically do NOT recommend having kids to fix your depression as I spent a lot of time thinking about how much of my life I had wasted because what did I do with all the free time I used to have? How could I have been so lazy / dumb / shiftless before? And when would I ever have time on my own again?

He's five now and is an actual person with opinions and preferences and habits and quirks. It's still exhausting, but in a different way - like constantly arguing about how shit that they don't want to do needs to get done, often the same things EVERY FUCKING DAY OVER AND OVER, and he's smart and coherent enough to argue and lawyer his way around things in a way that is both endearing and maddening.

As for adoption, I almost never consider that he doesn't share any of our DNA - he's our son, but he grew inside someone else and he talks casually about things like "when I was inside XXX's tummy". He looks a lot more like me than my sister's kids look like her or her husband, and people often have severe cognitive dissonance when they find out he's adopted. We're always questioning nature vs. nurture and it's really hard to tell what's what - he does and says a lot things the way I do, does and says other things that his mother does, and does and says things neither of us do and I can't tell what came from where.

Overall I'm very glad we did it - my life is really different now but I don't know what it would have been without him. I'm more social and outgoing and likely to talk to people than before, as carrying an adorable baby around strapped to your chest causes people to approach and talk to you and you also can now bullshit with other parents easily. I'm closer to my parents and inlaws now (including physically - we moved back to our home state for jobs that happen to be much closer to where they all live). He's smart and funny and loves music and Legos and drawing and other stuff that all comes straight from me, and he's also a lot of work and some days it's unbelievably hard. 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. Everyone has their shit to deal with, and this will be his and hopefully we can prepare him for that.

As an aside, his birth mother is 25 now and is incredibly pro-choice and I love it - she had two babies, adopted one and kept one, and is very quick to tell people that it was her decision and to force anyone into doing what she did is unconscionable.

Of the various communities and quasi-communities I'm in, ilx is - by a wide margin - the one that is most hostile to / dismissive of / boggled by the topic of children and parenting.

It's a recurring phenomenon in the Guardian comments section too. Every time they publish an article touching on the topic of procreation, it's like an alarm goes off at the Antinatalism HQ.

What I want to know is what good is it to a baby to be born?

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, February 13, 2020 8:58 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

In my case

If I'm understanding you correctly via posts prior to these, you're accusing parents of being selfish. But you're viewing bringing a human life j to the world from a selfish angle too. You personally are unhappy and resentful for being brought into the universe "against your will" and so cast aspersions on everyone who brings anyone into it too. You're ignoring all the positive outcomes of the process due to your negative outcome.

I emphatically do NOT recommend having kids to fix your depression

yeah uh let me be clear that i was not being serious about that, please gentle reader do not try to spwan your way to better mental health

great post tho joygoat, thx

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/h5-0wgrWB9g/maxresdefault.jpg

I don’t care about outcomes really I’m not a consequentialist.

formed babby because I needed someone to go to Disneyland with

silby -

What I want to know is what good is it to a baby to be born?

Perhaps it will strike you as another non-answer but I think Tombot's post is fucking OTM:

by giving her life I’ve done nothing to my daughter that hasn’t been done to every other living thing

Right. A badger, or otter, or a gnat exists. There aren't like gnat parents agonizing over whether they were ready, or whether it was environmentally justifiable, or whether it would cut into their time for gnat brunches and gnat nightclubbing or whatever. The only difference with humans is that we can talk about it with one another and make it complicated and weird. 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.

My point remains that the sort of magic that we all claim to like (a great song coming on the radio, a really good glass of whiskey, a transcendent acid trip, a joke with old friends) is the result of billions of tiny little decisions that include people deciding to become parents and raising children. Even shitty parenting decisions can produce great art (cf. Philip Larkin). So even non-parents could spare a little gratitude for the people who decide to do it and try to do it well.

Now, I fully realize that the same thing could be said of all BAD art and all evil actions. That's part of why I can't get my thoughts under essay length.

ymp dropping booming posts itt

a while back my kids (5 & nearly 3) were wrestling on the bed, as they often do, and the older one was really irritating his little sister, like covering her mouth and saying things like "You have no mouth!! I don't know how you're going to eat!!". she was wearing a pig puppet on her hand at this time. suddenly she yells "OINK!!!" and smacks him across the face with the puppet. it made him cry but it also made me laugh so hard that it pretty much made the whole endeavor worth it.

I’m not complaining about people raising children, I don’t think? I don’t even necessarily think it’s bad that, at large, humans continue to have children. What I don’t get is being a specific person (and this is not a putative immoral imperative I’m trying to sketch out mind you) and looking around at all the other people on earth and…I don’t know! What’s the leap?! What is not sufficient about all other humans, including children, that you personally are compelled to bring one into being, at great moral hazard (as I think j. has articulated better than I could)?

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.

oh I will :)

unless it's Alfred cuz I assume he would offer me a negroni as recompense, like a gentleman

Fuck you I’ll go to Disneyland alone and swear and get told off by a monorail employee if I want

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

"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.

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.

Further, if people "like us" don't do it, then people "not like us" win. And rest assured, they want to.

This....what?

That’s a very instrumental attitude towards your own human children! xps

Fuck you I’ll go to Disneyland alone and swear and get told off by a monorail employee if I want

Ha! I'm still angry at the German guy who took up four teacups and filmed himself on an i-pad the whole ride

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

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!!

arg

I want there *to be* a larger proportion of kids parented by people who value kindness, tolerance, inclusion, creativity, empathy, and sustainability.

Right, I think I was just thrown off by the framing of it as some kind of child-rearing war between opposing forces.

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."

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!!

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

i don't understand why people like sport or eat mushrooms but i've made my peace with it

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.

i don't understand why people … eat mushrooms

FP'd.

to open third eye iirc

i mean how else would i meet the machine elves

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 (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

as far as we know....

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

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.”

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.

Nonhuman animals mostly aren’t moral subjects, imo. I’m a chauvinist in this regard.

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

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).

qed: if you hate babies you also hate Marvin Gaye

baby: dont you do it

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.

i think just liking and wanting a baby is fine tbh

man they can be utter magic.