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Children

  
  

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astrojax69
20:14 / 17.02.05
what part of the genetic bond between biological parents and offspring is translatable into a necessary psychological bond?

and for that matter, what kind of psychoogy does the parent / child engage in having no continuing relationship with each other? what advantage does the socialist 'everyone raise every kid' bestow, evolutionarily? what advantage the 'bring up your own' bestow?

i must admit though, culture, if this is what it is [and not biology] is pretty strong - about six or seven friends/close asociates have had kids in the past few years, all of whom changed radically in doing so - the gene for parenting can be so well hidden!

i have none of my own, so how can i know?
 
 
PatrickMM
21:17 / 17.02.05
Taking it back to a bit earlier in the thread, I just don't see how having a child can be construed as selfish. It's basically giving up your own life for 18 some odd years to care for another person. It's giving your time and giving your money. There may be some people who have kids to fill a void in their life, but for the majority, I think raising a child is an act of giving up self.

Now, maybe this giving of the self is motivated by unhappiness with one's current situation, and they figure that having a kid will give them a purpose they otherwise lack. But, I wouldn't call that being selfish.

But, I don't think it's selfish to not have kids either. It's just choosing a different path in life.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
21:56 / 17.02.05
To start with, thanks muchly to Smoothly for grasping onto the core of my, admittedly, glibly written piece.

In response to reasons why people would leave a child with a carer, and I can certainly see the logic in all of them, here are my initial reponces:

I can understand how people do, in part, define themselve through their career, and how it can be important to "keep yourself in the game" but, and I admit that I say this as a young(ish) person who has no intention of having kids, I feel that if this is how you are thinking then you are not giving yourself up to raising a child. Surely, if you intend to breed, your offspring should be not only the single but the ONLY important thing in your life for as long as they need you.

When it comes to money, I feel that as far as being ready to have a family goes, if you will have to rush straight back to work then you are not ready in financial terms. Looking after a child should mean providing for it both financially and emotionally. On a more specific note, I have often heard my aunt complain that her salary only just covers what she pays in child care. Pick that one apart if you will.

To me the important part of parenting is the raising, not the genetic mixing, of a child. Surely to be a parent means to educate and guide a child. This is a full time job and not, in my opinion, that the state should pay for but one that a couple should budget for before thay breed.

(IMHO - and I'll say again that I personally have no interest in having children myself, which may well colour my view...)
 
 
Olulabelle
22:57 / 17.02.05
I can understand how people do, in part, define themselve through their career, and how it can be important to "keep yourself in the game" but, and I admit that I say this as a young(ish) person who has no intention of having kids, I feel that if this is how you are thinking then you are not giving yourself up to raising a child. Surely, if you intend to breed, your offspring should be not only the single but the ONLY important thing in your life for as long as they need you.

Breed is a really horrible word. I don't think people who have children see themselves as rabbits. Breeding implies having children purely for the sake of continuing the species and that's not why people have kids. They have them for many different reasons and I don't think that's one of them.

I have a gay friend who calls heterosexual couples 'breeders' and I think it is deliberately emotive language which implies a scornful view on the whole issue. Children are not the only important thing in a parent life. They are terrifically important, but so also is the parent themself.

Obviously I am not advocating leaving your child with a nanny 24/7 but early evening childcare, or even daytime childcare for a period of time should not be viewed as a bad thing.

When it comes to money, I feel that as far as being ready to have a family goes, if you will have to rush straight back to work then you are not ready in financial terms. Looking after a child should mean providing for it both financially and emotionally.

Well then. Shall we just forbid all those who are not high wage earners from having children? Are the people who live in Findhorn and run a sustainable community not 'good parents?' Are the people who don't believe in high wages and would prefer to work for charities not good parents? Surely their philosophies on life and the things they can teach their children outweigh the (mostly excellent) daytime childcare they fork out for in order to follow their laudable life paths. There's a very big difference between not being able to look after a child financially and having to go out to work in order to bring up your child to the very best of your financial ability.

Why is 'Leapworld' springing to mind here?

I find it really hard to debate things like this with people (not to be rude) who have no real clue about the subject. It's rampant and misplaced idealism brought on by no direct experience of the subject, half-arsed A levels in Sociology and by listening to too much 'Trisha.'
 
 
alas
01:16 / 18.02.05
if you intend to breed, your offspring should be not only the single but the ONLY important thing in your life for as long as they need you.

One family systems theorist I read awhile back said, "In the modern world, the child has replaced the village." Meaning, that many functions formerly served by villages, by "tribal" or clan connections, are now expected to be fulfilled by a child. We became this oddly "child-centered"' yet childhood denying culture, I think, over the course of the 19th century as work became defined as "stuff men do for pay outside the home" and the home became a hallmark card. This is not healthy, in my opinion, for either adults or children.

Second, and back to adoption but only briefly, to say that in anthropology, in the 1980s a guy named Schneider asserted, in a basic deconstructive mode, that kinship is a strictly cultural, not a biological imperative; that there's no evidence that "blood genealogy" so central to our culture precedes and provides a model for "adoptive" relations.

Judith Modell says every baby has to be adopted at some level. Adoption, is, arguably primary: once any infant is in the world, some adult need to claim it.

Finally, and then I'll shut up: above a ways, people were talking about sex as if the only two options were 1) pleasure and 2) making babies, and suggesting that 1 is advantagous because of 2. I disagree--that's a view that I think essentially derives in our culture from Aquinas. Because the main purpose of sex is: survival by the formation of intimate human connections, without which we will surely die.

Humans do not come into the world as individuals; we come into it as frail little mortals utterly dependent on other humans. And we require deep and lasting bonds with other humans throughout our lives in order to survive. Technology obscures and alienates these connections. Physical intimacy=survival.
 
 
Sax
06:23 / 18.02.05
Surely, if you intend to breed, your offspring should be not only the single but the ONLY important thing in your life for as long as they need you.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh dear. And I haven't even had my first cup of PG Tips yet.

Only 24 you may be, Lord Henry Wootton, but your fictionsuit appellation rather gives away the fact that you don't seem to be living in the current century.

As Olulabelle has already pointed out more eloquently than I have time to right now, "breeding" (which, if we're going to use that word should perhaps also be used in conjunction with "mating" to refer to sexual intercourse)does not, in the modern society which we have lovingly crafted, mean that either parent should have to spend ten hours a day alone with their children.

Bonding takes place in the first few minutes after birth and, I would assume, pretty quickly upon adoptive parents meeting the child they are to take care of.

While, in an ideal world, both me and Mrs Sax would love to spend all day at home playing with our kids, that isn't really viable if we want to have a roof over our heads within the next three months.

As the hunter-gatherer of the family and the slightly higher earner, I go out killing mammoths on a daily basis while Mrs Sax is still on her six month maternity leave (at £100 pounds a week, fiscal fact fans!).

However. Mrs Sax has a career, just as I do. She is intelligent and far better educated than I am. After her six months are up, she is planning to return to work full time and, indeed, take up a promotion that she has been offered.

Two kids at day nursery? You wouldn't believe how much that is going to cost. Most of Mrs Sax's wage, to be honest. But despite the fact that she comes up against head-shaking and nay-saying on a daily basis from people who believe that children simply cannot be loved or develop properly unless in the company of a parent during the daylight hours, she is determined to fulfil her potential and reclaim her life.

As Olulabelle has already said, it really is an invigorating experience spending a full day with a crying tot and no adult conversation other than the ones you hear between the presenters on CBeebies.

Our kids are not dumped on people who don't care about them, and they don't want for love or attention from us. But despite the fact that we chose to "breed" and that the overriding opinion is that we are failing in our duties by passing on the care of our children to other people, we feel it is important to continue to live our adult lives as much as we possibly can. It works for us, and for our kids; sorry if some people think it's a bad thing.
 
 
Loomis
07:50 / 18.02.05
I don't understand your antipathy to external childcare Lord Henry. I think it can be excellent for a child to be socialised and experience interaction with other children as well as other adults besides their parents. Is it really better for a child to be isolated for the first five years of hir life with a personal slave, or to learn to share and compromise and experience the joys of interaction?

Although in the past societies have treated children as adults earlier than was healthy (eg. sending them up chimneys and down mines at a tender age), I would imagine many people would agree that we've gone too far in the other direction in our current society. Parents who dare to allow their child to interact with anyone but the (narrowly defined) family are treated like heartless criminals when in my opinion they're giving their children a valuable education in what it means to be human.
 
 
Pingle!Pop
08:56 / 18.02.05
Finally, and then I'll shut up: above a ways, people were talking about sex as if the only two options were 1) pleasure and 2) making babies, and suggesting that 1 is advantagous because of 2. I disagree--that's a view that I think essentially derives in our culture from Aquinas. Because the main purpose of sex is: survival by the formation of intimate human connections, without which we will surely die.

Humans do not come into the world as individuals; we come into it as frail little mortals utterly dependent on other humans. And we require deep and lasting bonds with other humans throughout our lives in order to survive. Technology obscures and alienates these connections. Physical intimacy=survival.

Sorry, but I do find this assertion rather alarming. Because, while I'm certainly not going to suggest that sex can't be beneficial as far as forming intimate relationships are concerned, what you've written seems to suggest that it is the only way of establishing certain essential relationships.

Humans and other closely-related species do, of course, tend to build up strong social bonds, but I think most would agree that there's usually something qualitatively different between, say, such social bonding mechanisms as grooming and the like, and actually sleeping with someone. And to say that those who, for whatever reason, do not engage in the latter are missing something essential to human life is something I'm not particularly comfortable with.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
09:27 / 18.02.05
Let me start with a couple of appologies. I'm still trying to get a lot of this sorted out in my own head and, mixed with a couple of beers I had before I posted last night, I realise that I came on far to strongly. Also, I genuinely did not mean to use the term 'breed' in any loaded way so please take it as interchangeable with mate/procreate/give birth to etc.

The financial issue is a very thorny one, and one that, as olulabelle correctly pointed out, I am very poorly equipped to tackle. I will simply say, and this is not a full defence of my statement but something to consider: socio-economic background is still the main factor in predicting academic achievement. This does not mean that we should start demanding to see paychecks before we allow people to have children, but it is something that every prospectic parent must take into account.

As regards my antipathy to external childcare my problem is where I see it leading. Something that really worries me at the moment is Labour's plans for 'wrap-around child care' in which a parent can drop off their child at school at 8am and pick them up as late as 7pm. That means the some children will be being raised by the state for 11 hours a day. For me this is inevitably going to lead to an erosion of cultural diversity.

Sax, this is not an attack at you, but I noticed something in your post which reminded me of things I hear for a lot of parents. You state both:

While, in an ideal world, both me and Mrs Sax would love to spend all day at home playing with our kids

and

it really is an invigorating experience spending a full day with a crying tot and no adult conversation other than the ones you hear between the presenters on CBeebies.

As I said, I come across this alot. It strikes me as a contradiction and one that I would really like to understand.

Sorry again if I pissed anyone off, I'm still finding my feet.
 
 
Sax
09:35 / 18.02.05
Sorry, I should have explained that a bit better. I meant that we'd both ideally like to be at home together with the kids, but when one parent is at home alone with the chillun it can get a little wearing.
 
 
Sekhmet
15:38 / 18.02.05
This thread is starting to do that thing that scares me away from the Head Shop...

Imagine having this childcare-versus-stay-at-home debate with your spouse. I've had it more times than I can count. I was brought up in childcare and educated in public school; I started "pre-school" daycare at age three because both my parents were college students with day jobs. My husband, however, had not only a stay-at-home mom, but a partly stay-at-home dad who worked merely across the street from their home. He was also homeschooled for most of his childhood.

This has given us drastically different views of the efficacy, benefits and drawbacks of different syles of child-rearing. We both believe our parents did well by us, and we've turned out as fairly well-balanced people with surprisingly similar interests and personalities.

We've more or less come to agree that the primary conditions that must be met for proper childhood development are, first parental involvement, and second, peer socialization. A child raised by "the system" may not do so well, unless the parents stay involved in the child's life and activities - keep track of their development, help with homework, encourage learning, know their friends, spend time with them, stay interested in what they think and feel. Parents must take an active role in raising the child, not expect the daycare or the school to do it for them. Likewise, a home-reared, home-schooled child may end up a social misfit, unable to interact with people their own age, unless parents make an effort to socialize them, possibly through classes, social activities, team sports, scouts, church, or other organizations.

Common sense, perhaps, but apparently more difficult to put into practice than it might seem.
 
 
alas
20:14 / 18.02.05
what you've written seems to suggest that [sex] is the only way of establishing certain essential relationships.

Well, oops, that isn't precisely what I meant, but I can see the hint of this implication in what I wrote. I was trying to be more concise than usual and to spend less than a page, for a change, explaining my position. Oh well--this is the headshop! Short posts be damned!

I don't see sexual activity as the only way to create human bonds; I do see it as a particularly powerful tool in the human social interaction repetoire for doing so. Perhaps THE most powerful tool we have of connecting with another human--arguably: I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

We engage in sex for fun, sure lots. But we actually _quite rarely_ in the scheme of things, engage in sexual activities with the expressed intent of making babies, Especially depending on how you define "sex."

I am thinking not strictly of intercourse, which is a heterosexist model of sex. When I say sex, I'm thinking of a range of human behaviors that are likely "pleasurable" but almost certainly and always involve some degree of intimate physical connection--which varies depending on how "intimate zones" of the body are conceived. I think it can even simply involve the viewing of a part of a body that a culture has declared intimate; that is normally kept covered. (Maybe there's a better term?)

Even aggressive dominance displays between fighting alphas can be a kind of sexual act in this broad sense.

So I'm pretty convinced that this drive to "know" someone else (kinda in the Biblical sense of the word), is at least as powerful, evolutionarily speaking, as either of those two elements in understanding human sexual behavior is the drive to connect to others. Mating behavior, sexual display between aggressors, part of a very powerful means by which most animals seem to create, understand, reinforce the social/power relationships between any two individuals.

And defined so broadly, there are very few people who do not engage in some form of sexual activity--although obviously I accept that some people do not. (Even masturbation, if it involves any level of fantasy is playing on this to some degree.)

Is that better? I suppose there is some danger of defining "sex" too broadly, but my current feeling is that defining sex too narrowly has been the bigger problem in our culture.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:52 / 20.02.05
Sorry to hit and run, this is a great thread, and I have much to say, but when more time is available. But for now

socio-economic background is still the main factor in predicting academic achievement.

Perhaps, I'm not entirely sure I'd agree entirely with this statement, but taking it to be true, you're assuming that a major concern for people deciding when/if to have kids ie those kids' future academic achievement?

One(but most likely from a set of particular cultures*) might want them to succeed in this way, but is that a reason for having them? I seriously doubt it.


*and in many other cultures/sets of circs, it might be totally and utterly irrevelant.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:54 / 20.02.05
oh and

< threadrot >

I *heart* you, alas. Will you have my babies?

(sorry, promise I'll be back with real content)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:59 / 20.02.05
The question of whether academic achievement is affected by socio-economic status of parents is a pretty simple one - yeah, it is. But I don't think LHW is really thinking through what he means here. He's seeing "academic achievement" as a shorthand for success, and thus ultimately, for the maintenance and improvement of socio-economic status. Am I right, LHW? Whether or not child gets degree is one question, whether or not child gets job that can only be got with degree another...

Which feeds into the fear of a lack of cultural diversity if a child is raised by the state for 11 hours a day... that seems to be a very fair and wise thing to guard against. But isn't limiting children to economically successful people and defining success in terms of a child's ability to function successfully within an academic environment _also_ threatens cultural diversity, by creating very narrow criteria for both creating and rearing of children?
 
 
Pingle!Pop
10:21 / 21.02.05
Is that better? I suppose there is some danger of defining "sex" too broadly, but my current feeling is that defining sex too narrowly has been the bigger problem in our culture.

Erm... possibly, but I'm not quite sure.

I'm still a little uncomfortable at any idea that people who are "lovers", whether that is defined as "people-who-physically-touch-each-other-in-ways-that-Western-society-would-call-'having-sex'" or "people-whose-relationship-contains-some-kind-of-sexual-implications", have a bond that people with other relationships do not have, or at least not as powerfully.

One could expand the definition of "sex" so far that it actually covers every kind of relationship, and indeed you've gone a fair way towards this in your post, but I'm not sure taking this to the extreme wouldn't render the word somewhat meaningless. For example, the original question of, "What drives people to form sexual relationships?" in the context of this thread (look, connection to the point of the thread! I'm not just rotting it beyond recognition!), where "sexual relationships" is seen as somehow relating to having children, would probably be fairly irrelevant if it were synonymous with, "What drives people to form relationships of any kind?"

The above is getting a little bit vague and rambly, but I think at the base of it is my assertion in my last post that there's something "qualitatively different" between a sexual and non-sexual relationship. Certainly, people are drawn to relationships because of sexual factors where they'd otherwise have no interest in such a relationship; as someone pointed out in a Conversation thread recently (I think the "Break-ups" thread), there are an awful number of people in sexual relationships who aren't even friends with their partner.

So, while I'd be happy to define "sex" as having as potentially broad a meaning as one wishes, allowing for any number of different ways in which a relationship could be in some way sexual, I'm not so happy at the idea of prescribing sexuality as being a factor in any/every relationship, or of saying that those relationships without this factor are somehow missing out on something.

... I hope that all makes sense... none of it's meant as any kind of an attack, but I do want it to be taken into account that there are truly asexual - however one might define that word - people in the world, as well as plenty of people with asexual relationships, and don't think their relationships with others can be considered "lesser" in any sense than other people's.

... On the whole, "Why have children if they're only going to be poorly educated or not do well in the world?" debate: what are all those African people doing? How could they be considering bringing new people into the world when they're obviously not going to acquire a first-class Western education? How selfish!

*Ahem*. Sorry.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
13:32 / 21.02.05
Haus, I think you've about half got hold of what I was trying to say (my fault though, I'm still not explaining myself as well as I would like).

I focused on academic achievement for a few reasons. Fisrt, I do not dispute that there are many forms of success which are in no way linked to academics. However, many are. Ultimately, whilst the prospective parenets many want their child to succeed in an area that is unlinked to academics, this isn't really the point. This child will grow into an individual who will be free to choose how they wish to succeed. It strikes me that the role of the parent is to give their child the widest possible range of options when this decision is faced.

Second, figures exist in this area. Whilst prospective parents will hear plenty of anecdotal evidence as to what is good or bad for raising kids, and this should not be ignored, in terms of academic achievement solid facts are available and have to taken into account.

I also want to pick up on the cultural diversity point but I'm posting from work so that will have to wait.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:07 / 21.02.05
Second, figures exist in this area. Whilst prospective parents will hear plenty of anecdotal evidence as to what is good or bad for raising kids, and this should not be ignored, in terms of academic achievement solid facts are available and have to taken into account.

Okeydokey. Could you present them?

I'm still seeing a problem here. You say:

It strikes me that the role of the parent is to give their child the widest possible range of options when this decision is faced.

However, it doesn't seem to me that this is about the children. It's about the parents. You have stated that a parent's role is to give their child the greatest possible chance of academic success, and thus the greatest possible number of choices upon entering adulthood, and that the most academically successful children are those of wealthy parents. In which case the only way for a parent to be a responsible parent is to make sure that they become wealthy before having children. This, however, is more easily said than done, I suspect - if wealth was simply a matter of choice, and if wealth was the prerequisite for successful childrearing, then all parents would presumably choose to be wealthy, even if all wealthy people did not choose to be parents. Reversed, if people who are not wealthy don't have children, we end up with lots of academically successful children and some problems with cultural diversity.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:56 / 21.02.05
Indeed.

The definition of 'opportunity/achievement' you're working with here seems to me to be very narrow. What about emotional closeness between family members/emotional smarts/fostering self-esteem/making children feel loved& self-confident. I'm sure the parentz/future parents around here can think of a whole lot more that they'd want for their children.

And, even given that perhaps some people do have the opportunity/choice to become wealthy (and these are in the minority, so cult. diversity is already reducing), in western societies, the middle-class (which is where your definions sound very rooted, to me) choice is often *between* time and money.

To amass wealth, unless inherited, usually takes up large parts of a person's time, time which they might wish devote to being with their children. There's a trade-off there.

And here, we're talking about relatively incredibly priveliged people. As Sax describes above, even within this privelige, it's much more usual to be negotiating an uneasy compromise between the many demands of parental responsibility.

I guess I'm not sure if I'm hearing a trace of 'non-wealthy people shouldn't have children', which may not be the case. But if so, that I find worrying/short-sighted.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
16:09 / 21.02.05
As regards figures to back up my argument I found some helpful stuff at www.statistics.gov.uk. It's not the best designed site I've ever come across so below is a link to the figures for GCSE achievement (2002) against socio-economic background which clearly demonstrates the link I mentioned above.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7304&More=Y

I see the point that you are making, Haus, that one cannot simply choose to be wealthy. However, there are things that can be done: Deciding to put off having children for a few years, by which time one could expect to earning more, getting more qualifications to boost your earning potential, or actively saving up before having a child are all things that could be done by the majority of prospective parents.

Also I'm not sure that I see you link between lots of academically successful children and some problems with cultural diversity. Could you explain your reasoning to me?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:42 / 21.02.05
Well, think it through. All your academically successful children are academically successful because their parents occupy a single socio-economic bracket - the "higher professional". A single socio-economic bracket, by definition, will have a finite subset of cultures within it. For example, there will be no street cleaners, very few poets or artists, almost no nurses, no weavers or crofters, no fishermen, not many social workers... You have a disproportionately large number of white children, because a disproportionately large number of white parents are wealthy. You have a lot of stockbrokers and lawyers, and not many farmhands or community leaders. And so on.

Of course, you have to decide where to draw your lines. If you are simply saying that it would be nice if people did their best to put some money away before having a child, then I couldn't agree more. But that is not the same as occupying the "higher professional class" - a street cleaner could put away a big chunk of wages and remain outside the "higher professional class". So, your suggested remedies do not entirely talk to the statistics you are quoting, as far as I can tell.

Further, of course, this is only demonstrating the link between parents with high wages and high qualifications and the GCSE achievements of their children. I remain unconvinced that the only mark of good parenthood is academic achievement, or indeed that the only purpose of academic achievement is the largest possible number of career choices.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
17:37 / 21.02.05
I think our definitions of cultural diversity are bit different. I would not consider street cleaners or nurses to be cultural groups, they are simply occupations. On the flip side you will also find some lawyers who are devout christians, enjoy painting, and speek Fench, and others who never let go of their youthful communist leanings and spend their weekends doing charity work. I accept that there will be certain distinct cultures, travellers for example, whose views would be unlikely to be represented within this group but I do not feel that the loss of diversity would be as great as you appear to suggest.

I remain unconvinced that the only mark of good parenthood is academic achievement, or indeed that the only purpose of academic achievement is the largest possible number of career choices.

I completely agree that academic achievement is certainly not the only mark of good parenthood, it is one of many and one that I choose to explore for reasons mentioned above. As to the purpose of academic achievement I would say that it is about getting the best career. For some that will mean working towards a single goal from the age of 12, and for others the opportunity to change direction at 31. Ideally I would love for education to be about a lot more that that, but, atleast in the UK, I simply don't see it.
 
 
Shrug
19:10 / 21.02.05
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Well someone had to...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:03 / 21.02.05
On the flip side you will also find some lawyers who are devout christians, enjoy painting, and speek Fench, and others who never let go of their youthful communist leanings and spend their weekends doing charity work.

And would have gone to university, got a degree, spent a year doing a law conversion course and never acquired a criminal conviction. I'm afraid I find your contentions that only the higher professional class should be allowed to breed with a clear conscience and that this would have no impact on cultural diversity contradictory. The fact that you have managed to illustrate your example with purely middle-class cultural pursuits, which you have represented as somehow extremes - speaking French and being a Marxist - rather seems to prove this point.
 
 
doozy floop
22:48 / 21.02.05
A point well made.

Actually I didn't mean to put these examples across as extremes, just ideas. I'm interested in what you feel would be lost.
 
 
lekvar
23:04 / 21.02.05
Lord Henry, your logic seems somewhat circular to me. "Don't have children until you can afford to give them the opportunity to be wealthy enough to have children." Yes, I'm oversimplifying horribly, but you seem focused on one aspect of this. I have a question for you which is outside your current train of thought: What would you say to a couple who weren't planning to have a child but ended up with one anyways? What if the choice of timing wasn't theirs to make?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:17 / 22.02.05
Mod hat - Lord Henry Wotton, are you logged in as doozy floop by mistake? Do you cohabit or similar?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
08:17 / 22.02.05
Don't have kids. Would - will - have kids. The 'overpopulation' argument has often been a figleaf behind which the developed nations hide their energy consumption sins - although that may change as China comes online. Is the world a good place for them? compared to what?

I mean, obviously it's better for them than Venus would be. It's more dangerous in some ways than it was in 1930, because, you know, Nukes and random terror and so on. But then there's medical care and the rest.

Is it selfish? Well, that depends. I mean, you know the reactionary right breeds like a hive of randy weasels. (These are special apian weasels which build hives.) So unless we all want liberal notions to be demographically eased out of the democratic process, we have to reproduce.

I think, to be honest, it goes beyond selfish. It's a thing. It is a thing which humans do which makes them human, part of what makes us alive and so on. It can lead to selfish - "I shall exalt my kids and to hell with yours" - but it can also lead to altruism or wider "us" definitions: "we all have kids, let's make this okay for them".

I could wish that the physical process of producing them were less hard on the lady of the partnership, though. I worry about my other half enough as it is.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:57 / 22.02.05
So unless we all want liberal notions to be demographically eased out of the democratic process, we have to reproduce.

Ah - this is the Schuster-Slatt argument - that it is the duty of the intelligent to reproduce, lest the ignorant come to outnumber them. This presupposes that democracy, at its heart, has failed - that people do not vote for any other reason than their parentage, and as such the only way to maintain the primacy of the correct executive viewpoint in a democratic society is to get people with the right attitudes to breed. At this point I for one propose a liberal coup. We shall march to the doors of Parliament, break them down, and cry look, we'll pay for the damage.

One problem here is that procreation seems to make people, as a whole, more politically conservative. So, is there an algorithm or equation describing the optimum number of children a liberal can have before they begin to be inculcated with conservatism, and indeed a maximum number before, on the balance of probabilities, neglectful and (back to Lord Henry) impoverished parenting leads to bitterness, resentment, rebellion and the adoption of right-wing views?
 
 
lord henry strikes back
10:52 / 22.02.05
Well spotted Haus. Yes doozy and I share a roof, computer, etc. It was left logged on and I didn't check, my bad.

Nick, I'm relatively sure that you did not mean it this way but, as someone who does not intend to have children, I am slightly worried by your assertion that having babies is a thing which humans do which makes them human. No biggie though.

I don't see overpopulation as a 'figleaf' when it comes to energy consumption. I see it as one major factor, the others being individual greed and short sightedness, which contribute to this problem. Whilst having less children should not be seen as a panacea, all of the above factors need to be dealt with, I don't think it should be discounted.

Just to get this straight now, I would like to separate this post somewhat from my previous ones. I do not mean to say that it is poor people who should specifically be the first to stop having children. As I have stated before, I see the finacial question as one of many that prospective parents need to consider.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:21 / 22.02.05
I think, to be honest, it goes beyond selfish. It's a thing. It is a thing which humans do which makes them human, part of what makes us alive and so on.

Yes,but what does that mean in the context of this discussion?

I share hw's disquiet, to me this formulation universalises having children, places it 'above' discussion. and what does this mean in terms of a division between those who do and those who don't? (this is actually something that my sister, who has just had kids, has said she feels now.)
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
11:53 / 22.02.05
This presupposes that democracy, at its heart, has failed - that people do not vote for any other reason than their parentage

Well, try "hasn't succeeded yet" and broaden parentage to include the (broadly) resultant socio-economic factors, likely cultural bias etc. and that's not an entirely bankrupt position. I don't like it much, but I think I'm on record as saying fairly frequently that I think we don't (yet, please Dear Lord, yet) have a society which has an informed and intelligently self-interested electorate. You're right, of course, that I was being slightly flippant about this (perhaps a consequence of having opened a Conversation thread at the same time, and possibly because I was still trying to get the image of Sax's unstoppable sperm standing on a parade ground in serried Special Sperm Forces ranks out of my head).

I suspect the answer to political conservatism in parents is frank accounting. I read something the other day which rang a bell with me: your labour creates a surplus of one hundred thousand pounds. Your boss takes two thirds, and pays you one third, of which the government takes a quarter. So you vote for the party promoting the rights of bosses, because that's where your money comes from, rather than the power of the state, because that's where your money gets wrenched away too... Perhaps there's a similar calculus with kids - a Parent's Dilemma, if you like; my kids are safer in a world of equality and trust than they are in a world of extremes and fortified housing.

Lord Henry - I don't mean that one can't be human if one decides not to have kids or can't have kids for whatever reason; just that for those who do have the desire it tends to be pretty fundamental. It goes a bit beyond selfishness as a manifestation of putting one's own desires ahead of the similar desires of others, and into the territory of pathological amoralist egoism or even 'selfish' in the sense of 'selfish gene'. I find 'selfish' a bit judgemental and a bit mild for what's going on.

I don't deny that overpopulation is an issue, especially in the context of local overpopulation or what might be thought of as population distribution; however, the idea that the Earth cannot support the numbers we have, or even a considerably higher one, given more intelligent management (for example, weaning us off our addiction to beef), is (last I checked) simply untennable. It's a figleaf, therefore, for those who would rather avoid discussions of consumption and economic dominance. It's also an issue which leads into discussions of birth control and safely bogs down in arguments about theology, and hence can be used by anyone of malign intent to hobble a discussion. I'm not suggesting that it's always that, but it certainly has been in the past and will be again.

Yes,but what does that mean in the context of this discussion?

I share hw's disquiet, to me this formulation universalises having children, places it 'above' discussion

It's not above discussion, but I think it's mistaken to deny the profundity of the urge where it's present; to try to shackle reproduction to cerebral discussion without acknowledging its animal content has a whiff of Brave New World to me. There are some things you won't capture in words. So as you engage in the calculus of selfishness and discussions about rights and wrongs of reproduction, biosphere, population and consumption, you have to leave a place in that space for happy apes and an aspect of this subject which may not be susceptible to analysis. It's possible that to ask why we want children is as futile as to ask why we make tools or why we're having this discussion - because it's one of the possible structural pins of what we are. Not everyone does it. That does not diminish its fundamental importance, nor its importance to them - as this thread demonstrates.

As a footnote, there was some stuff Tom was interested in a couple of years ago which suggested (if I remember) that a tendency to homosexuality was a useful trait for the genepool to carry because it could create altruistc members of the group - disaffiliated from the specific parental engagements, yet entirely bound up in the group life.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:22 / 22.02.05
Having said which, to tie it together, people who live in yurts tend to consume a lot less energy than people in the higher professional class, so should we not be encouraging _them_ to have more children and we to have fewer?

(This post-posted; Nick has addressed this above, making the excellent point that the fewer resources each person uses, the more people you can fit on the planet)

Sorry.

Right. I'm back on diversity, I'm afraid. There are some useful comparison points here: often Barbelith threads start with a strong proposition the proponent of which amends to a weal proposition over time. In this sort of area, we have the idea of the "breeding exam" - which began with the proposition that people should be forcibly prevented from reproducing unless they could pass an exam, and asked what questions should be on the exam. After a lengthy discursus, this was amended to, in effect, "wouldn't it be nice if nobody ever got pregnant unless they wanted to have a child?" The reductio ad 'nonne benignum futurum sit'" is something to keep an eye out for, because it tends to lead to propositions that are uncontentious but unplayable.

In this case, the propositions are "the aim of study is to provide the broadest possible range of career opportunities" and "the best results from study are obtained by the children of 'higher professional' parents", with the (tenuous) extensions "the role of a parent is to ensure that their child is as academically successful as possible", and then "one should not have children unless one is a higher professional". Under the reductio ad "nonne benignum futurum sit", that becomes "wouldn't it be nice if people were well off enough to give their children the best possible start in life", with the subsidiary "wouldn't it be nice if people coudl know that if they held on a few years they would be in far better shape to have children". I think we can all get on those buses, but they don't really lead anywhere.

So. Diversity. Let's go back to your two lawyers. One speaks French. One does some pro bono work on the side. However, neither of them could possibly be scratching a living providing voluntary legal advice for Greenpeace and Legal Aid services, or indeed have been disbarred for a possession of marijuana conviction. In fact, noone who has committed to a badly-paid job in anti-poverty activism, say, can ethically be a parent. Nor can somebody who has stopped working as a lawyer and is instead living off the land. It is also worth noting that, as I believe I mentioned, "higher professionals" tend to be disproportionately white and ineluctably middle class. A lot depends on how you draw the culture lines, but I'd say that a generation without in most cases any experience of children their own age who are not white and not the children of people who belong to the higher professions (presumably management, law, accountancy, medicine, the upper echelons of the civil service and academia?), or of people who are activists or folk artists or primary school teachers is going to be a culturally poorer generation. There will also be some serious problems when somebody needs to get their toilet fixed.

So, I think you have two poles. At one, the desire for every child to be brought up well with well being defined in a manner that is culturally meaningful for you, and on the other the possibility that there may be ideas of being brought up well wherein well is defined in a manner that is not culturally meaningful for you. This might also be affected by how one defines a higher professional (a plumber?).
 
 
lord henry strikes back
12:29 / 22.02.05
I think we don't (yet, please Dear Lord, yet) have a society which has an informed and intelligently self-interested electorate.

Sadly, I think you are completely right. However, I occurs to me that this problem could be best tackled within the context of a smaller population. I'm still working this through in my head but it's to do with social isolation and how distanced people feel from the centers of power. I may have to come back to this point later on, but I think there is something there.

I would not deny that there is an 'urge' in many people to have children. However, you seem to be suggesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, that because it is an urge it cannot be acted upon rationally. Not to say that the two are completely comparable but there is also an urge to take revenge if you are wronged, yet our society expects people not to act on this urge.

Finally, I came across this a month or so ago:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6519

It is an article that suggests that the same genes that are responsible for homosexuality in men result in higher fertility in women and thus explains why this trait persists.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:41 / 22.02.05
I think it's mistaken to deny the profundity of the urge where it's present; to try to shackle reproduction to cerebral discussion without acknowledging its animal content has a whiff of Brave New World to me

I don't *think* I'm trying to do that, I'm trying to query phrases that seem to elide a bunch of a complexities into a 'it just is' statement.

Which is what we do here, 'it just is', is a perfectly valid statement, but not one, as you imply out of which much discussion can arise/doesn't fit these paradigms.

*Are* there ways of expressing the 'isness' of this desire, do you tbink?

Having children is a simple desire for some, but not all of those who decide/find themselvews parents

My sister has just given birth to twins, and when she and her husb spent several years trying to decide whether to have children, she commented that people couldn't deal with that.

People expected/advice was predicated on being sure, one way or the other (whether, in the case of choosing to have children, this decision weasn't to be acted upon for a long time, as is the case with several people I know)

So, to those who have (decided to) have children, I'm curious, have you alwasy wanted them, did the desire grow out of environmental factors being right, did you wake up one day with a burning desire to have them?
 
  

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