I've never heard of men doing it, but I have heard of women bailing when they find out the guy can't have kids. Some people just HAVE to have their own. I don't get it. I wonder if subconsciously they feel they are with someone who is defective.
Pride, Parenthood, and Overpopulation
- Thread starter Tiassa
- Start date
I've never heard of men doing it, but I have heard of women bailing when they find out the guy can't have kids. Some people just HAVE to have their own. I don't get it. I wonder if subconsciously they feel they are with someone who is defective.
A fit of necromancy
A couple of things.
First, I'm reviving this thread for the sake of an update. Back in November, I noted in a minor digression that "We just lost our Tuba Man". The original point of the digression involved youth on the street. The perpetrators of Edward McMichael's murder were teenagers, and not even homeless.
On Friday, local prosecutors announced guilty pleas from three of the five suspects. Two of the youths face up to seventy-two weeks in juvenile detention, while the third is looking at thirty-six months.
It's a small measure of justice.
The other thing is that I now realize I left a number of posts hanging, most notably one of Geoff's. I have no idea how that happened; I'd have to check the record to see what else I was posting at the time, and frankly, it's not important enough to me that I should do so in order to make an excuse.
My apologies to all.
_____________________
Notes:
Staff. "Guilty pleas in 'Tuba Man' death". April 3, 2009. KING5.com. Accessed April 5, 2009. http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_040309WAB-tuba-man-pleas-TP.9d8ce120.html
A couple of things.
First, I'm reviving this thread for the sake of an update. Back in November, I noted in a minor digression that "We just lost our Tuba Man". The original point of the digression involved youth on the street. The perpetrators of Edward McMichael's murder were teenagers, and not even homeless.
On Friday, local prosecutors announced guilty pleas from three of the five suspects. Two of the youths face up to seventy-two weeks in juvenile detention, while the third is looking at thirty-six months.
It's a small measure of justice.
• • •
The other thing is that I now realize I left a number of posts hanging, most notably one of Geoff's. I have no idea how that happened; I'd have to check the record to see what else I was posting at the time, and frankly, it's not important enough to me that I should do so in order to make an excuse.
My apologies to all.
_____________________
Notes:
Staff. "Guilty pleas in 'Tuba Man' death". April 3, 2009. KING5.com. Accessed April 5, 2009. http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_040309WAB-tuba-man-pleas-TP.9d8ce120.html
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
Upon reading the first few posts, I tend to agree with Tiassa. It seems to me, that children, i.e., "your" children, from your own genes are a status symbol in this case.
How are the other two going to feel?, If they're living with their mother, if not then what?.
How are the other two going to feel?, If they're living with their mother, if not then what?.
If children don't need money, why do we have welfare and/or WIC?
That they just need love is kinda an idealist hippie sentiment.
Children have become a matter of pride. Pride for your religion or race, pride for yourself and your own status. My own sister in law won't adopt because she "doesn't want anyone else's throw aways" (mind you, both my brother and I were adopted). She wants to have her own despite having bad genes and a frame too delicate to have a healthy pregnancy.
Most people have children to boost their ego. When they can't have kids, that's a blow to them. One of my friends wives left him because she wanted to have kids really badly and he had already had a vasectomy and doesn't want kids at all. I knew a woman in Texas who's husband used to beat her when she couldn't get pregnant. Luckily she left eventually, she has two kids now with another man... in a interesting twist.
But it has to do with our status and a feeling of duty to mankind to propagate it as well. We think our genes are superior since we are all fantastic specimens of our species and it's important to breed. What people don't seem to understand is the importance of not breeding out of control to save the species. It's really our duty to do so, but we ignore that in favour of what our religion or ego tells us.
Jeez, what the hell is it to you if some people want to father/mother their own biological children instead of adopt someone else's?
If I had my druthers, I would prefer to parent my own flesh and blood before someone else's. The mother of this guy must have understood that, because she surrogated for him. These guys aren't contributing to overpopulation anymore than ANYONE who has natural births are.
If I had my druthers, I would prefer to parent my own flesh and blood before someone else's. The mother of this guy must have understood that, because she surrogated for him. These guys aren't contributing to overpopulation anymore than ANYONE who has natural births are.
And yeah, we have overpopulation in the USA..? Please. Tell that to the folks in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, N/S Dakota, Idaho, Oregon. We have plenty of arable land that may be tended to feed more mouths -- if we had more people. There's no food shortage in the USA. Saying we're overpopulated is delusional.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
It's probably the pride thing that gets me annoyed. Since when are children status symbols?
if the mother-in-law agreed to it, why is it a big deal. people choose to do risky, difficult things all the time.
when my dad remarried my stepmum wanted kids of her own. i don't think it was a matter of pride for her, some people think blood is thicker than water kinda thing.
why are you viewing it as a matter of pride to want to have your own children? if overpopulation is a big deal vote for one-child policy.
EmeraldAxe
Registered Senior Member
This is a tremendously weak argument. There is a thread on overpopulation in the science & society forum where solid evidence is given for its validity. It's certainly going to happen, the question is whether it is already occurring and if not, then when.
But that doesn't mean people should stop having children or even 'surrogating' as is the case here. But we would all be better served to remove the stigma surrounding adoption. It seems to be an irrational fear or some sort of arrogance.
Dsdsds replied: Originally Posted by Tiassa
What's wrong with adoption? Oh, right ... it's not "your" kid.
”
Right. It's not your biological kid. You can grow to love that kid as much as if it were "yours" but you will always wonder about its geneology when it gets sick or acts in a way that surprises you.
”
You've got to be kidding, right? Or have you gone off the deep end Tiassa? "
Or the adopted child may never get sick. He/she may outlive any kids you have or be smarter/stronger than any kid you could hope to have. The argument made by dsdsds drips of moral cowardice and illustrates yet again an inability of people to separate their emotions from the part of the brain that is essentially unique to humans: the part that allows us to think and make decisions rationally. You don't always have to do what your programming tells you to do to achieve a measure of happiness. But of course, I'm speaking for women now, without being a woman I can't begin to appreciate the impulses they feel to have children. It's a strong program undoubtedly.
I'd like to have at least one biological child, but it has less to do with how much I'd love the child and more with wanting the experience of carrying the child of someone I love. If I can't, I'll be bummed out for a bit, which will likely dissipate once I adopt my child. (Having a child has an odd way of healing the wounds of not being able to have a child; imagine that.)
I would NEVER ask my mom to carry a child for me. First of all, she'd shoot me. Second of all, just adopt your damn child and spare the kid a lifetime of weirdness and awful jokes.
I would NEVER ask my mom to carry a child for me. First of all, she'd shoot me. Second of all, just adopt your damn child and spare the kid a lifetime of weirdness and awful jokes.
Oom-pah
Updating a Digression:
One of the young men who pled guilty in 2009 to the murder of Seattle's beloved "Tuba Man", Ed McMichael, was arrested Monday night after an incident involving a bus driver. It should be noted that the police did not feel they had cause to hold him for refusing to pay a fare and preventing a bus from moving. Apparently, they are still investigating.
But it should be noted that Mr. Chambers allegedly bragged to deputies about murdering McMichael:
Oom-pah, Mr. McMichael. Oom-pah.
We miss you, man.
____________________
Notes:
Ingalls, Chris. "'Tuba Man' killer arrested again". KING 5. January 18, 2011. KING5.com. January 19, 2011. http://www.king5.com/news/local/Tuba-Man-Killer-Arrested-Again-114174119.html
Updating a Digression:
One of the young men who pled guilty in 2009 to the murder of Seattle's beloved "Tuba Man", Ed McMichael, was arrested Monday night after an incident involving a bus driver. It should be noted that the police did not feel they had cause to hold him for refusing to pay a fare and preventing a bus from moving. Apparently, they are still investigating.
But it should be noted that Mr. Chambers allegedly bragged to deputies about murdering McMichael:
As responding deputies were arresting Chambers, he bragged about who he was, according to Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.
"What he said was that, 'I was one of the people that stomped the tuba man to death,'” says Urquhart. “I only got three months. My attorney got me off. He'll get me off this charge as well."
Ed McMichael was known as "Tuba Man" to thousands of fans who paid him tips as he played his cherished tuba outside Seattle sports and entertainment venues.
In November of 2008, Billy Chambers was one of three robbers, all of them just 15-years-old, who beat McMichael. He died one week later from his injuries.
After serving a few months in juvenile detention, Chambers was released. He re-offended in a similar type of armed robbery last year. He’d been out of jail for only two weeks, after finishing out his sentence, at the time of Monday night’s bus disturbance.
(Ingalls)
"What he said was that, 'I was one of the people that stomped the tuba man to death,'” says Urquhart. “I only got three months. My attorney got me off. He'll get me off this charge as well."
Ed McMichael was known as "Tuba Man" to thousands of fans who paid him tips as he played his cherished tuba outside Seattle sports and entertainment venues.
In November of 2008, Billy Chambers was one of three robbers, all of them just 15-years-old, who beat McMichael. He died one week later from his injuries.
After serving a few months in juvenile detention, Chambers was released. He re-offended in a similar type of armed robbery last year. He’d been out of jail for only two weeks, after finishing out his sentence, at the time of Monday night’s bus disturbance.
(Ingalls)
Oom-pah, Mr. McMichael. Oom-pah.
We miss you, man.
____________________
Notes:
Ingalls, Chris. "'Tuba Man' killer arrested again". KING 5. January 18, 2011. KING5.com. January 19, 2011. http://www.king5.com/news/local/Tuba-Man-Killer-Arrested-Again-114174119.html
elte
Valued Senior Member
Tiassa, that comment about competing against nature and only cooperating with people sounds pretty perceptive to me. I mention it to you because that idea occurred to me recently, yet I'm not sure if or where I ever saw it explicitly laid out as a principle of human behavior. My hat's off to you for saying it three years before I mentally zeroed in on it. I desperately want to see humanity adopt it as part of an extremely simple religion.