I think the word "exceptionally" arises when comparing with other animals, the amount of effort a human child needs from its parents and family until an advanced age is unprecedented in other terrestrial companions.
Google images for “monkey attached mother”.
I assume that those who "group" us based on similarities on the behavior and manner we raise our offspring must have use some logic to the process.
We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are.
From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory Bateson, in which babies might have evolved to be more and more dependent, because having more and more invested caregivers produces fitter offspring.
Parenthood is a self-inflicted sabotage and I cannot understand how come there are so many parents bearing children worldwide.
1. The Gardener and the Carpenter: Alison Gopnik, Erin Bennett: 9781536617832
one might call it a survival bias
Because the best thing you can do for the world is to raise children well. If they raise theirs, etc. its a cycle of good over thousands of years, that will have more positive impact than anything you could do in your life as an individual.
Is to not have any children so the population gets back down to sustainable levels
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
When some people stop procreating and educating the next generation, the world population does not simply go down. Instead it gets replaced by those who do continue multiplying.
You want people who will care diligently for their children to have them. Not people who will be largely indifferent to them, whether they're smart or dumb.
The Musk 'I'll have ten and scatter them to the wind with bags of money, the odds will take care of the rest' strategy is not really one that works out well in real life.
Your second point is true, of course.
One of the many reasons I have carefully avoided making any children over the years is that I already had my fill of child-rearing by the time I left home, through looking after my younger siblings. I wonder what your experience with this was.
Kids aren't something you owe the world, and Idiocracy is just a movie.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3064328/mike-judge-on-the-10th-a...
> because if stupid people have more kids, there will be more stupid people.
You are implying that their kids will necessarily be stupid, which is not so- as per the Mike Judge quote, nurturing and environmental factors, which may included adoptive parents but is far from limited to such, may produce alternate outcomes.
> When some people stop procreating and educating the next generation, the world population does not simply go down. Instead it gets replaced by those who do continue multiplying.
Just because there will be other people who procreate says nothing about the rates in which they do so, that does not guarantee world population will not continue to go down regardless.
So we have to stop the ones who can't stop themselves, fine.
Who will do the work required to care for the elderly population?
And if not healthcare is another 15%. But you probably can shave off a little from all those numbers if you exclude the time devoted to desperately trying to sell things to each other in the economy of abundance.
100 billion aborigines would pollute less than a handful of western oligarchs
Maybe instead of having more children as the OP notes, we can take care of the tens of millions of neglected ones we already have, or try to work towards providing a healthier environment for those who are already here. The idea that we need more, when we're currently screwing up the ones we have, is silly.
And there's a lot less strain when moving out of nuclear family structures. It all becomes easier for the children and the parents.
I'm happy for you if you're happy to have children. That doesn't mean people without children aren't as happy as you.
I was pretty darn happy as someone who got to go read a book each weekend at a coffee shop and workout 3x per week. I eventually had a kid and I no longer have hardly any time for the stuff I used to love to do. Kids need constant assistance and have their own growing pains. Despite all that, it's given me a richness and depth to my life that I can't put into words. I get to experience raising someone with all the ups and downs. This has given me a kind of wisdom I never knew I didn't have. I could go on and on for days.
"A lie parents tell themselves to justify their decision"? Not at all (at least for 99% of is I'd wager). It's terrifying, but I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't trade the feeling I get from getting a hug from my kid or that first time they read a book for a combined $50B dollars, immortality, super inhumane intelligence, and movie star good looks.
this kind of mention is only ever asymmetrical -- generally in the direction you mentioned -- but i'd like to mention that being a childless adult with a long term relationship (or not) is also a unique perspective that very young parents / couples will never experience.
I had plenty of friends in school that mothered/fathered children at the age of 14-17 -- they won't get to experience my life, either -- they were busy with trying to provide for a child.
Both experiences are equally valid and unique, but for some reason we only ever speak about the one side of the coin 'missing out', as if the parents can just sort of surmise what they missed out by having a child; I'm sure that's not the case, just am i'm sure I could never understand what having a child is like -- I just wish there was a bit more understanding from the other side of the aisle that any perspective unlike your own is unique in its' own right.
I think we should teach young people that it is ok to not have children. There is nothing wrong being child free and it ought to be the default for most people.
if the replacement rate today is 2,3 children per couple, then when half of couples don't have children the others need to have more than 4 children. in an environment that is not supportive of having children this is going to create a two class society.
better to spread the load.
also, having children late also means that more children per family are needed. so you can choose between having 2 children when you are young or having 3 or more when you are older. (i don't know the actual numbers but i think you can get the idea)
so i disagree that teaching young people that not having children is ok. we need to teach them the opposite, and most importantly, we need to teach those that do not want children of their own, that they need to actively support those who do have children instead.
we need to create a child friendly society. and we can't do that without everyone contributing to that.
oh, no. I want the population to decrease. Please do not have more children to "offset" me not having any children. That defeats the point.
I want fewer people to have children. I also want the people who have children to have fewer children. In fact, I am against this whole idea of "reproductive rights". Nobody should have a right to have as many children as they want. There should be a cap in the number of biological children a human can have.
If you want to see what that policy leads to, look no further than China's one child policy and the horrors that came with enforcing it and what is now occuring to their economy.
If you're concerned about population control, you'll see that it naturally goes down with industrialization like what is occuring all over Europe right now. There's no need to move to a forced system that will lead to human rights abuses.
Of course if you express the opinion you find parenting to be basically another duty you must fulfill to the best of your ability despite finding little to no joy from the task, it will be taken poorly. So you internalize the lie, buy into it the best you can to pretend to yourself you don't have an opinion that makes everyone hate you, because apparently parenting is the one duty that is 'wrong' unless you find it satisfying.
Feels like a bunch of people got the 'dope' that makes parents feel emotional rewarded from the insane amount of labor it requires, others internalize the 'lie' so they have a way to respond to others in a socially appropriate way.
The duty of being a parent however, just comes with so much expectations from society and therefore within yourself - It is super hard to find freedom within that duty, to then actually find your relationship to your child, the specific richness and depth it can be for the both of you.
So in that regard, saying „I don’t find that in there for me“ is just as good and right as any other point of experience.
i have been struggling with this too, especially because i had quite different expectations going in.
but the thing is that what gives you joy very much depends on your own expectations, and you can change those. i believe it's the same thing as with a job. there are people arguing that you should love your job, and if you don't you should not be doing it, while others claim that most people don't have a choice but to take a job that they don't enjoy.
finding that joy may just take some searching.
i think the primary problem is expectations of others. i may be lucky, that i do have a supportive family and partner that do not push any specific expectations on me, so i am free to find the enjoyment where i like. and a strong part of that for me is that i enjoy that i have been given this responsibility and am able to take care of my family to the best of my ability. in other words: i wanted this life and i am thankful to have gotten it, even if it turned out different than i thought it would be.
The main expectations I am driven by are to provide the child with adequate resources to thrive, to not neglect the child, and to give them a good footing to navigate this life. I'm not sure if these are expectations that can reasonably be relaxed, I'm just pretty much resigned I'm in for a long slog to provide these for the good of the child at great effort to myself whether it pleases me or not -- the circle of life I guess.
I'm arguing about whether having children is above every other kind of happiness.
Don’t take GP’s statement as a projection onto you. Take it as one’s projection onto their own self. That said, this (GP’s statement) has been the general consensus of other parents I’ve talked to. So I wouldn’t discard it so flippantly.
That doesn’t mean literally everyone would be happier with children, of course.
However, what I'm arguing is not "having children makes me happy."
It's "having children is above every other kind of happiness."
Think about that for a second. What does that statement say to a person without children? To me, I hear that if you don't have children you're literally wasting your life. It's a denial of every other thing people find joy in.
Why would you say that? I can only think of two reasons:
- You're an asshole trying to feel superior to others
- You're unsure of your decision, so you have to put everyone else down
If you have any other reasons then let me know though!
3. I’m merely describing my experience and don’t really mean anything regarding you at all.
I think the main communication barrier between childless people and parents is that it's an experience far removed from anything else we do in our lives, so it is very difficult to grasp if you haven't been there.
Parents know that there will be times when raising your kids is the most meaningful thing you've ever done, and there are other times when it's a relentless slog that is grinding you down. It is both, and perhaps it is neither.
As a childless person you may read the above and think I'm stupid or deluded, but I bet most parents will nod in understanding, because they will have experienced something similar.
That would be pretentious to make such a claim. But I have not seen a claim like that be made in this conversation thread.
People have expressed having children has enriched their own lives. That doesn’t mean you can’t enrich your life without children, nor does it mean literally everyone with children feels enriched.
I lived for 33 years before having a child and nothing - absolutely nothing - ever brought me more joy than something as simple as my daughter’s stupid grin when I’m on my back and she’s above me, ready to pounce.
While I’m sure not every parent feels the same way, I bet most do. I feel sorry for the people out there that would get the same feeling but will never experience it.
I suspect some of them are genuinely happy they had kids, some others are lying to themselves, and some others lie to others because they don't want to become pariahs when it's found out that they wish they hadn't had kids.
You can read the opinions of the last group on some anonymous discussion forums; they're real people.
What the relative ratios of these 3 groups are, I have no idea, and I doubt there's any way of finding out.
A child is a life long decision. You don't get to say "oh I was wrong" after a couple years.
Parents leaving their partner and their child behind isn't unheard of. Even women sometimes do so. Sometimes, children end up at the grandparents, and the woman tries to start over. Your claim seems to come from an idealized world.
I have no doubt that if you were to ask the people without kids on their death bed if they wished they had had them, they would say yes.
The Financially Independent Retired Early (FIRE) movement is very popular and it centers around focusing on the essentials so that you can quit working early. And that's just an example of one of the ways in which people escape the rat race.
Every parent was once a non-parent, and therefore can compare their own experience before and after. I'm sure parents are a little (intentionally) delusional at times, nobody wants to seem like a 'bad' or 'uncaring' parent. But to assume that the extreme majority of parents are lying about enjoying an experience that they've been evolutionarily primed for seems like flat-earth level reality-denial.
My issue is the implication that the joy of parenthood is above every other joy.
For comparison, you don't see programmers claiming the joy of programming is superior to all other jobs. Mountaineers don't claim that you haven't enjoyed life unless you climb mountains.
Why? Because those things are obviously joyful, but not accessible to everyone. Not everyone can climb, not everyone can program, but everyone can find their own joy.
So why do parents feel okay saying that? If you can come up with any other reason then please let me know because I'm still searching.
Put in different terms, there are many experiences which have an evolutionary origin. Disgust reactions to certain sights/smells are a near-universal experience, for example. Individuals that don't share these experiences (or who are attracted to them) are considered weird or degenerate precisely because they are so universal.
Sex is short-lived pleasure, dopamine. Family relationships are long-term happiness, serotonins.
i totally think that for some people having children would definitely not make them more happy, possibly many. it really depends on what gives you meaning, joy (obviously) and i think to a significant extent the setup within which you are having children. before i moved into this setup with the other families parenthood was significantly less joyful for me.
privilege is also a big factor. how much education and access to resources do you have so that you have the option to choose to work less than full-time for example?
Except that men become more important, especially for boys, but also as exemplars for girls, the older children get. Nurturing is more important earlier on, which is also the specialty of women. Men are generally terrible at it and generally hate it, while women tend to have a much greater affinity.
> We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are.
We must be careful with words like "love", because in our day and age, we have assumed a very reductive and immature understanding of it (as that which gives us pleasure or sensuous delight and "good feelings"). Love toward children is dominated by the hard work of charity. The aim is to guide a human being into adulthood for that other person's sake, for the sake of their true end, not for ourselves (hence the self-centeredness of thinking one is entitled to having children, resorting to all sorts of immoral technologies to have them). Disinterested charity, of course, has the effect of actualizing us as people, and nothing is as actualizing as parenthood, as that is our essential identity (one that can be exercised in surrogate ways, of course).
> babies might have evolved to be more and more dependent, because having more and more invested caregivers produces fitter offspring.
The major reason human beings require more investment is intelligence. Many species are born or hatched ready to go, and perhaps never meet their parents. Some require only a relatively short period of parental support. But human beings must go through a long period of formation. Intelligence is also the reason why we lack all sorts of anatomical features that other animals have. Why? Because intelligence allows us to pursue all sorts of ends, while other animals are quite limited in this regard. Thus, we lose the baggage and instead make technology, like clothing, that allows us to adapt to any environment. Fur or scales or whatever are far more limited.
> Parenthood is a self-inflicted sabotage and I cannot understand how come there are so many parents bearing children worldwide.
What a freakish statement. Sabotage of what, and how? If anything is being sabotaged, is it our nature to be parents by the culture of mindless, emtpy distractions of hedonistic and superficial consumerism. This antinatalism is an attack on the human person. It destroys the common good. Attack parenthood and you attack the raison d'etre almost all of the activity of humankind.
Huh? I'm confused how you reconcile this (seeming) attack on fertility treatment with the pro-natalist sentiment expressed later in your comment. Who or what principle is transgressed by what technologies?