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Is having children selfish?
- Thread starter Departure Song
- Start date
Saith
New member
Wait, apart from just wanting kids, what other reason is there to produce offspring?
I'd have thought wanting to bring life into the world is the least selfish (and only) reason to have children. The only other reason to concieve that I can think of is so that your country has a higher population after a nuclear holocaust (or maybe to recieve extra child benefits or something).
I'd have thought wanting to bring life into the world is the least selfish (and only) reason to have children. The only other reason to concieve that I can think of is so that your country has a higher population after a nuclear holocaust (or maybe to recieve extra child benefits or something).
Mirry
New member
I agree that there is a natural instinct in humans to want to have children and propagate their genes and such. I think, too, that that's a bit selfish... People would rather have their own children because they have THEIR genes rather than adopting somebody else's child... which, as I've said, I find perfectly natural; but things that are perfectly natural tend to also be selfish. Because it's human nature to look out for number one, right? :3
Is this a bad thing, though? I don't think so. Yes, I think it's selfish to want to have your own children... and really, if you think about it, even wanting to adopt a child is selfish. It may seem altruistic, but really... why would you have children or adopt a child if you didn't think you'd get anything out of it? You wouldn't.
It may help to know, though, that I would argue that any human action is inherently selfish. So I wouldn't say that wanting to have children is any more selfish than not wanting to have children. Whatever choice a person makes, he believes he's acting in his best self interest.
Is this a bad thing, though? I don't think so. Yes, I think it's selfish to want to have your own children... and really, if you think about it, even wanting to adopt a child is selfish. It may seem altruistic, but really... why would you have children or adopt a child if you didn't think you'd get anything out of it? You wouldn't.
It may help to know, though, that I would argue that any human action is inherently selfish. So I wouldn't say that wanting to have children is any more selfish than not wanting to have children. Whatever choice a person makes, he believes he's acting in his best self interest.
Cloaked
New member
Is it selfish to ensure that your genes are passed on, and that any advantages your personal genetic template may grant are perpetuated?
No.
Is it selfish to have so many children that you can't feed them all, all because you don't want to use birth control for religious/personal/etc. reasons?
Yes.
China has instigated a 'One Child per Family' law that is coming to an end soon (source), so it is not 'selfish' to have children in an overpopulated country as long as you're careful about it. If the birth of your child stopped other people procreating, then yes, it would be selfish.
No.
Is it selfish to have so many children that you can't feed them all, all because you don't want to use birth control for religious/personal/etc. reasons?
Yes.
China has instigated a 'One Child per Family' law that is coming to an end soon (source), so it is not 'selfish' to have children in an overpopulated country as long as you're careful about it. If the birth of your child stopped other people procreating, then yes, it would be selfish.
Dannichu
Tragically unbeyachted.
Yeah, but you can hardly say that the One Child Policy wasn't without its problems. I'd argue that it's pretty selfish to leave your newborn baby girl to die because a male child would socially be better for your family.
Cloaked
New member
I never said it didn't have it's problems, and I certainly wasn't suggesting that the single child law be implemented anywhere else. However, the problems were mainly due to Chinese tradition, and the way the entire thing was implemented.
Source is the very same article.
The suggestion I was skating was more involved with being careful to only have a single child, if you wanted any at all.
Source is the very same article.
The suggestion I was skating was more involved with being careful to only have a single child, if you wanted any at all.
Mirry
New member
How is this not selfish? How does perpetuating your genes and what you perceive as genetic advantages benefit anybody other than yourself? The idea that passing a little bit of yourself on to a future generation is a gift to society just sounds arrogant to me. And even if it somehow WOULD be a gift to society, I doubt that that is anyone's true motivation for having children.
Well, I'm sure you've all heard the phrase, or variations thereof:
"No son of MINE is going to (insert act)!"
"You're going to college; my child will be educated!"
It can be thoroughly argued that absolutely everything any human does is inherently selfish; as stated above, it's only perfectly natural. When it comes to children, parents raise and sculpt their children like marble statures into what they want them to be, and then when a child threatens those boundaries, the parent feels threatened. The child is a direct reflection upon the parent's ability to raise, and thus, a parent projects his selfishness through his child.
I'd elaborate more if desired, but I think the point I'm trying to make is shown.
"No son of MINE is going to (insert act)!"
"You're going to college; my child will be educated!"
It can be thoroughly argued that absolutely everything any human does is inherently selfish; as stated above, it's only perfectly natural. When it comes to children, parents raise and sculpt their children like marble statures into what they want them to be, and then when a child threatens those boundaries, the parent feels threatened. The child is a direct reflection upon the parent's ability to raise, and thus, a parent projects his selfishness through his child.
I'd elaborate more if desired, but I think the point I'm trying to make is shown.
Cloaked
New member
I wonder where you inferred that from? I don't remember explicitly stating that passing on genes was a 'gift' to society. However, let's run with that.
It's possible that a single mutation in your genetic structure could, for example, unwittingly make your offspring the sole survivor of a plague that hasn't happened yet. Do you know that your genetic template has that advantage? Of course not, since the hypothetical plague doesn't exist yet, and if you don't produce offspring the genetic advantage would be lost. Before you blow this argument off, since one person couldn't possibly make a difference to the human genome, I'd like to point you towards a possible parallel; to whit, blue eyed people all had a common ancestor. (source)
With that in mind, is it selfish to want to pass on genes? Yes, undoubtedly, but I'm not talking about individual motivations. I'm talking about the oft trotted out 'survival of the fittest' schtick. The more variations in genetic structure there are in the human genome, the more chance that someday one of these random fluctuations will prove to be the difference between survival and extinction.
Secondly: how does passing on your genetic information benefit you, the progenitor of the offspring, exactly? Would you refine your argument so it isn't as vague, please? What, precisely, are the benefits to the individual passing on their genes?
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Mirry
New member
I think you must have missed the last sentence of my post, where I said that even if somehow your reproducing would end up benefiting society, that's not really what one typically has in mind as a motivation for having children. My argument isn't that it /couldn't/ be beneficial to more than just the individual, merely that if this happens it is more often accidental consequence than anything.
Passing on your genes doesn't exactly make you healthier or anything, but I'm sure that every mother and father feels a sense of satisfaction in finding similarities between their children's appearance and their own. If there weren't some sort of pride involved in having your "own" children, I'd imagine that adoption would be rather more popular than it is. So basically, I'm saying that although having children won't make you live longer or any sort of benefit like that, it generally makes people happy. And if you're having children because it makes you happy, I'd say that's a rather selfish reason.
Besides the motivations of "I want a child because it will make me happy", there could be social pressure to have children (like, "I won't be a full member of society until I reproduce"), or perhaps the desire of having someone to take care of you when you're old. Also children generally love their parents, so having someone who will love you unconditionally is, I'm sure, another big motivator. And, some people probably just enjoy taking care of and being around children, and feel like that doing so is a useful way to spend their time.
I'm not saying that these are BAD reasons to have children -- indeed, they're the only ones I can think of -- but they are, nonetheless, selfish, because the parent expects to gain SOME benefit from having kids.
Can you think of any circumstances in which a parent is not somehow benefited by having a child? Even if the reason is, "I accidentally got pregnant and my parents won't let me have an abortion", by having the child you expect to appease your parents and have them approve of you once more, which is a selfish motivation. I could go on and on with similar scenarios and explain how the motivations, at heart, are selfish ones, but hopefully you get the point by now. :3 EVERY decision we make is one that we think will ultimately be for our greater benefit (otherwise we would make a different decision); having children is no exception.
Passing on your genes doesn't exactly make you healthier or anything, but I'm sure that every mother and father feels a sense of satisfaction in finding similarities between their children's appearance and their own. If there weren't some sort of pride involved in having your "own" children, I'd imagine that adoption would be rather more popular than it is. So basically, I'm saying that although having children won't make you live longer or any sort of benefit like that, it generally makes people happy. And if you're having children because it makes you happy, I'd say that's a rather selfish reason.
Besides the motivations of "I want a child because it will make me happy", there could be social pressure to have children (like, "I won't be a full member of society until I reproduce"), or perhaps the desire of having someone to take care of you when you're old. Also children generally love their parents, so having someone who will love you unconditionally is, I'm sure, another big motivator. And, some people probably just enjoy taking care of and being around children, and feel like that doing so is a useful way to spend their time.
I'm not saying that these are BAD reasons to have children -- indeed, they're the only ones I can think of -- but they are, nonetheless, selfish, because the parent expects to gain SOME benefit from having kids.
Can you think of any circumstances in which a parent is not somehow benefited by having a child? Even if the reason is, "I accidentally got pregnant and my parents won't let me have an abortion", by having the child you expect to appease your parents and have them approve of you once more, which is a selfish motivation. I could go on and on with similar scenarios and explain how the motivations, at heart, are selfish ones, but hopefully you get the point by now. :3 EVERY decision we make is one that we think will ultimately be for our greater benefit (otherwise we would make a different decision); having children is no exception.
Cloaked
New member
A non benefit of having a child? Why, that's easy. A parent has to give up at least 16 years of their life in order to raise the child. That's without the possibility of said child turning into a deplorable little monster, which happens all too often these days.
Lets put that aside for the moment.
The other 'benefits' involves sleepless nights when they're a baby, many hours of toilet training, noisy kids when they're toddlers, worry from childhood diseases, headlice (and let's face it, what child never picks up nits?), inability to go anywhere at all without the child, etc.
I haven't even touched on the rebellious phase of the teens.
All of this set against your few benefits of potential happiness which, let's face it, depends soley on the child in question not growing up to be a little turd. Also, in today's society, do you really think that an ageing parent wouldn't simply be carted off to an old folk's home to spend their declining years?
Lets put that aside for the moment.
The other 'benefits' involves sleepless nights when they're a baby, many hours of toilet training, noisy kids when they're toddlers, worry from childhood diseases, headlice (and let's face it, what child never picks up nits?), inability to go anywhere at all without the child, etc.
I haven't even touched on the rebellious phase of the teens.
All of this set against your few benefits of potential happiness which, let's face it, depends soley on the child in question not growing up to be a little turd. Also, in today's society, do you really think that an ageing parent wouldn't simply be carted off to an old folk's home to spend their declining years?
Mirry
New member
Certainly parenting isn't all roses and gardens, and not everybody succeeds in raising their child to be an outstanding citizen. Perhaps the parent might have regrets later on if things don't go well, but when the decision "let's have children" is made, the notion in the future parents' minds are that yes, it's not always going to be good, but it's going to be worth it in the end for us. Just because you might make a decision that doesn't make you happy 100% of the time doesn't mean it's a decision that's not beneficial to oneself.
Let's look at another scenario. Say I decide to go to college. Yeah, it's going to be hell sometimes pulling all-nighters studying and I'm not going to ace every exam -- hell, I might even end up dropping out and not getting that diploma -- but I make the decision to go to college because I think it's going to benefit me in the end.
It's the same thing with people who want to have children. I don't think anybody is under the delusion that having children is a perpetual party, but the thing is that people who want children think it's WORTH IT FOR THEM in the end. They don't decide to have children because they're going to have to go through hell sometimes raising them, they make the decision based on the good parts -- the good parts being the parts that make the parents happy, which is, thus, a selfish decision. Nobody decides to be a parent thinking, "well gee, if I have kids, I'm not going to get enough sleep and I'm going to have to change dirty diapers and put up with lippy teenagers! What a treat!" They think, "if I have kids, I'm going to have so much fun playing with them and taking care of them, and when they're grown up and someday reward me for all my hard work, I'll be a truly happy person". (Not that everybody thinks the same thing, mind; I'm just giving an example.)
Let's look at another scenario. Say I decide to go to college. Yeah, it's going to be hell sometimes pulling all-nighters studying and I'm not going to ace every exam -- hell, I might even end up dropping out and not getting that diploma -- but I make the decision to go to college because I think it's going to benefit me in the end.
It's the same thing with people who want to have children. I don't think anybody is under the delusion that having children is a perpetual party, but the thing is that people who want children think it's WORTH IT FOR THEM in the end. They don't decide to have children because they're going to have to go through hell sometimes raising them, they make the decision based on the good parts -- the good parts being the parts that make the parents happy, which is, thus, a selfish decision. Nobody decides to be a parent thinking, "well gee, if I have kids, I'm not going to get enough sleep and I'm going to have to change dirty diapers and put up with lippy teenagers! What a treat!" They think, "if I have kids, I'm going to have so much fun playing with them and taking care of them, and when they're grown up and someday reward me for all my hard work, I'll be a truly happy person". (Not that everybody thinks the same thing, mind; I'm just giving an example.)
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
yes, having children is selfish, but so is everything we do in the end, only not having children doesn't pass on your genes so if too many people do this humans die out. is selfishness a bad thing? I doubt it. the self-perpetuating nature of genes, and by extension, the organisms that contain them, is only beneficial, or we wouldn't exist.
The question you want to ask is: is having children selfish with the eye on overpopulation and the huge demands they make on natural resources? that's a much more interesting question, and that actually brings up an ethical debate. because then you get into the whole "am I killing lives thing", "how much is a life worth", etc.
The question you want to ask is: is having children selfish with the eye on overpopulation and the huge demands they make on natural resources? that's a much more interesting question, and that actually brings up an ethical debate. because then you get into the whole "am I killing lives thing", "how much is a life worth", etc.
Well, yeah, everything that people do is selfish. For the purpose of this debate, though, that definition isn't very useful, because if everything is selfish, then the question being debated is basically "is having children something people do?" The underlying question of the thread is really "is having children bad?" (as I take it that selfishness is being given a negative connotation in the OP).
Already gave my thoughts on the overpopulation issue.
Already gave my thoughts on the overpopulation issue.
It seems that most have agreed that everything ever done is selfish. Indeed, for the purposes of this argument that really does undermine it, agreed there.
I found an interesting organization's website, just a little sidenote. VHEMT is certainly something to give thought to.
I found an interesting organization's website, just a little sidenote. VHEMT is certainly something to give thought to.
Ecch... can't say I have much sympathy for their arguments. The whole "the biosphere will return to its natural glory" thing sort of ignores the fact that the biosphere is virtually always teetering on the brink of collapse. Way back when there were the microbes that pumped the air so full of oxygen that they poisoned themselves and then the plants that sucked up so much CO2 that they nearly froze everything to death, for example. The idea that the biosphere used to be pristine or untroubled ignores the fact that successful life always runs as far towards the limit of what the earth can tolerate as possible before swinging back towards equilibrium, and that we are far from the only organism to ever have caused extinctions or significantly altered the world's ecology.
Which isn't to say that I don't think that humans don't need to be careful if we want to prevent huge ecological consequences that would be tragic, ultimately ending in a catastrophic collapse of our own species; however, I can't really sympathize with the argument that the world will "return to its former glory" without us. Life has never been about glory.
Which isn't to say that I don't think that humans don't need to be careful if we want to prevent huge ecological consequences that would be tragic, ultimately ending in a catastrophic collapse of our own species; however, I can't really sympathize with the argument that the world will "return to its former glory" without us. Life has never been about glory.
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Espeon
Mmhm...
Overpopulation is a rather concerning issue, however I think it's okay to have a child if you want a child provided that you can take care of it and raise it to become a healthy* adult. I think it's wrong when you have a child as a by-product of unprotected sex and are only taking care of it because it's your own child.
Personally, I really hate those stupid teenagers who go out and get pregnant before they're 20 because they don't really have enough money to support their child. Not only that but they're *probably* not going to be a good parent either. The kind of people I'm thinking of are usually smokers or drug addicts too.
The only reson I feel about this issue is due to the overpopulation dilemma though. The fact is that due to larger populations, there are a lot more people who can get badly injured. This is putting a lot of stress on hospitals; in particular the staff working there. The nurses and doctors can't keep up with the demand and people are dying as a result of poor healthcare.
*Healthy - Not in the free from disease sense which most people think. The definition of a healthy person also inculdes their ability to give to society and to provide for themselves succesfully as well as being free from disease.
Personally, I really hate those stupid teenagers who go out and get pregnant before they're 20 because they don't really have enough money to support their child. Not only that but they're *probably* not going to be a good parent either. The kind of people I'm thinking of are usually smokers or drug addicts too.
The only reson I feel about this issue is due to the overpopulation dilemma though. The fact is that due to larger populations, there are a lot more people who can get badly injured. This is putting a lot of stress on hospitals; in particular the staff working there. The nurses and doctors can't keep up with the demand and people are dying as a result of poor healthcare.
*Healthy - Not in the free from disease sense which most people think. The definition of a healthy person also inculdes their ability to give to society and to provide for themselves succesfully as well as being free from disease.