The selfishness of childbirth

A parent is neither selfish or selfless by definition. They can be one or the other. Like most other groups of people, it's foolish to generalise about parents.

 

I completely get that my hubby is adopted.


I don't know about being selfless, does letting your daughter live with her father and not seeing her again because her father is an ass and ended up taking her away in the end and I haven't seen her in years..... Is that selfless?

I let her go because that was what she wanted, I was thinking of her happiness not mine.

 

why not respond to stink foots post?

 

I shall, very soon. It's just easier making a one-line post, stinkfoot's will need more

 

I feel too much responsibility to have a child.

 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions as the saying goes.

Child should always come first? Just because that seems right, doesnt make it so. If if were true then that would mean all good parents only produce good children, all bad parents only produce monsters. Which is not the case

This is more obvious when the apple does fall far from the tree, with all good intentions the parent is simply not going to understand the child.

The brutal truth is that within reason doesnt make a difference what the parent does, aside from providing a stable healthy environment. The child is always going to learn more from same age peers, and is justas likely to learn from the parents, not what to do, how not to behave as the other way around

If you get to 3 years old and have already worked out Santa is a load of shit but keep up the act becuase you know if you let your parents know you know, you'll get less presents and that you can proxy any bad behaviour with fake tears when they say Santa wont bring you any presents this year, and they are dumb enough to fall for it, and at the say time half the other 3 year olds are doing the same thing, the other half are still struggling to work out the complexities of cutlery usage. Then you learn from then on in, who to fake it with and later on why...that other half are like that because of the cruelty of evolution, but also cos their parents did too much for them for too long

 

Whilst that is of course true, it still doesn't change the fact that a good parent should do all they can to give their child the best start in life. If the parent does that and the child still turns out bad, then that of course isn't the parent's fault. If they however don't do that, then regardless of whether the child turns out good or bad the parent is still selfish rather than selfless. And if you're not prepared to put your child first, you shouldn't have it in the first place. How any potential child may turn out regardless, doesn't negate that fact.

Then as I stated earlier, that is the parent's fault, and not the child's. Although this does depend on whether the apple falling far from the tree is actually bad, or simply different. If a parent has issues accepting a child that is vastly different from how they envisioned, it is their fault. Different does not equate to bad, just because some can't handle it. The child does not ask to be born, and so is therefore blameless if the only thing they've done to upset their parents is be different from what they were expecting them to be like in the future.

Well, in my own case, I defied my peers just as much as my family. Although I was bullied right from the start of my school days, as it was very obvious that I was different to the other kids. I didn't want to fit in anyway, but I couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to. Generally speaking though, I would agree that a child is more likely to learn from same age peers, as they do from their parents. Which is why some kids who have perfectly good parents can still go off the rails. It is true however, that if a child has bad parents, they are more likely to choose the wrong path in life, regardless of peers' influence. And are also more likely to be swayed by negative peers' influence.

A lot of parents do the "do as I say, not as I do" thing. They expect you to behave a certain way, but then behave in the complete opposite way themselves. That sends mixed messages, and a child is more likely to copy their parent's actions, if those actions are contradictory to what they are telling their child to do. Most children copy what they see, not what they are told.

I think that is far too generalistic...

 

I repped the OP because it attacks the Christian pretense of selflessness, but I come from the opposite perspective. I think people aren`t selfish enough. I would love to see people going, "I feel like having a kid, let`s do it."

But, the vast majority of childbirth I see is "accidental" --- in keeping with the great Christian tradition of being hypocritical and passive-aggressive about anything concerning sex.

For real, technology offers us four different chances to make decisions about childbirth. You`ve got your condoms, your pills, the day-after pill, and abortion.

And yet, most people have children and get married because they failed to plan or make clear-cut decisions. That disgusts me to no end.

My sister for instance, told me straight up that she got married for no other reason than she got knocked up. I`m sorry, but I fail to see how I could respect anyone who acquires a child and a marriage out of an inability to make firm decisions. Especially, my sister, whose mom is a doctor and a feminist, and middle-class. She`s had every opportunity not to be a ditzy chicken-head, yet she`s always been. And she also didn`t get enough exercise, so in addition to it all she looks disgusting. Join the ranks of the pile of spineless, gooey female flesh in the world...

And that`s how most families start...Then after the fact they will say it`s love, and it "just happened", and it was natural, etc.

And, like everything involving the L-word and selflessness, it`s a hypocritical rationalization after the fact. Hypocrisy is in most homosapiens' genes.

 

Generalistic becuase it is general.

The foundations of the nuture part are all in those first half a dozen years.

The gene lottery, followed by the luck of prenatal development, followed by everything thats mapped out in early childhood development.

Its impossible for a parent to understand whats going on in a 2 year opds head if they have no recollection of the way they thought at 2

Its impossible for any parent to keep ahead of a 2 year old, their brains are learning, working, thinking a lot faster than any adult. This is the case with every single parent

Or redundancy of any adult or parent is built in at the biological level, its just simply not possible for any adult to learn at the rate a young child does

General, becuase that applies to everyone

Edit; that was in response to IS, but I,m on a tablet, so couldnt be bothered quoting

 

I think you'll end up working out that with your sister it was the other way around, got knocked up so she could get married, guilt trip the poor guy into holy matrimony.

Remember, just becuase she says that to you, doesnt make it true. Which version is going to make her sound better in your eyes. Her version makes it sound like she didi it for the child and that hubby was so lucky she was prepared to bear his child.

But what if that was the plan all along?

Contraceptive implants nowadays and for the last decade or so that are easy to get and which make it near impossible to concieve. No real reason for it to be accidental anymore, and those products have a next to negligible rate of side effects. Which wont match up with the number of women saying they cant take a fairly foolproofform of contraceptive due to the side effects.

But then again, I 'm very cynical, so everyone keeps telling me

 

Yes, and it`s funny you should mention it because that`s exactly what her father (and, my stepfather) has said.

You`ll get no argument from me there. And, that is why I put "accidental" in parenthesis and called it passive-aggressive.

And, you`re right, the guy did not want to get married. And, prior to meeting him, my sister had been "played" by another guy (who`s much more attractive than her husband) who just fucked her but wouldn`t hold hands in public, or call her a girlfriend.

And she was mighty pissed off about it, or pretended to be . Since she was a kid, her dream was to have a family, seeing her mother and father separated when I was 9 and she was 5. It was definitely traumatic for her, and I can see how she would stop at nothing to reconstitute the little household she once had.

Plus, the guy is a total doormat and puts her up pretty good financially. No wonder she doesn`t mind the fact he`s fat. And I knooooow (and have known since we were teens) that chubby is definitely not her taste in men! But, I suppose she has "matured." And, "what matters is the inside."

Luckily, I`ve never had that problem since I never saw my mom and dad together. And thank god! They are already a pain in the ass separate, I can only imagine I would have jumped off a bridge if I had to grow up with the two of them within the same house!

And...wham! Another baby is born because mommy felt needy.

Edit: I would bet money too that her husband was not tested before the "accident." Then, wifeys turn around and say prostitutes have STDs.

 

@Vanilla Gorilla: The last part of your message on the previous page which I quoted, does not apply to everyone. Hence why I said it was far too generalistic.

Despite agreeing with some of what you said in your last post (that was meant for me), it is true to say that some parents are more accepting of their children turning out differently to their initial expectations than others. Some can accept it almost immediately. Some can come to terms with it given some time and/or support, and some will never come to terms with it. It's also true that some parents are willing to adapt, and to learn different ways of thinking to accomodate their child if they have unique needs. Other parents either are unwilling, or unable to do this.

Generalisations are, in the main at least, lazy thinking. And there are several examples in this thread that prove that to be a correct assumption.

 

Implants actually come with a pretty long list of awful side effects. It's a piece of metal that changes the environment of your uterus. It's going to do something up there. That's why I don't have one. I was looking for an alternative after I kicked the pill last year, which I had been on for almost 10 years (and it was definitely starting to take a physical toll on me). I did a lot of research before I made my decision. Condoms suck, but pissing HRT into the groundwater and getting PID are worse, imo. Not to mention they all kill your sex drive. I guess that's one way to keep chicks from getting pregnant, although then nobody's really happy...
I'm not trying to come off as defensive, just trying to inform. Hope it didn't sound that way.
The point is, I can see why people wouldn't go for the alternatives, but why on earth they would turn to nothing at all astounds me. Why would you want to trap someone like that. Wouldn't you be trapped as well?

EDIT: Holy crap, they just brought back the sponge! Well, there's another alternative right there.

 

i only skimmed the thread. i was just replying to what you said in the post i quoted.

 

Well I wasn't to know that was I? lol I know from experience, that sometimes people just see what they want to see, rather than what is actually there.

 

I didn't read the whole thread because there was just too much of it. But I agree with OP, for the most part. I don't like the blanket-statement nature, that EVERY parent is the same, but in almost every case I've heard of wanting to get pregnant/unexpected pregnancy/parenthood, the driving force behind the whole ordeal is "I want a kid, because I think it's time for me to be a parent." No thought to whether they'd be able to give the kid the resources it needs, or whether they'd be okay making the necessary sacrifices.

Parents are hardly the same as other people. They (should) have different budgets, different social habits, altogether different priorities. When you have a kid under 25-ish, sometimes older, that's your identity. You're a parent, and nothing should come before the welfare of the child. You just can't have the same life as someone who's childless.

Also I posted this on another thread, but I hate how much parents think their kids owe them. Your kid never asked to be born, and when you use "I gave birth to you" as a method of instilling guilt, that's a failure in my opinion.

This is all coming from the perspective of someone with lifelong depression, of course. Almost every day I wish I hadn't been born, but if I say this to my family they get angry and quiet, sometimes even start to cry. Many many parents can't handle the thought that they've done something wrong as a parent, and that makes parenthood selfish to me.

 

@lugubrious: I can only agree 100% with everything you just posted above. Except that my mother admits that she should never have had me.

 

This is all very sad...

 

people can't be expected, not in sufficient numbers, to practice voluntary celibacy. nor can women be blamed for the fact that their bodies are made for making babies.

but there's no good reason something can't be done, to lower human fertility across the board, without bias or exception, that doesn't depend, upon a voluntary majority, taking measures that might be psychologically or sociologically difficult for them.

i too, am greatly annoyed, every time i hear someone say how wonderful it is, that someone has recently had a child, or is about to.

if people truly love other people, why would the want to inflict the horrors of overpopulation on them?
people who say how wonderful it is, for more children to be born, at a faster rate then older people die off, i think are lying to themselves, or just not thinking, what they mean by loving anyone.

 

Why is this stupid thread still alive?