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| NO. INCORRECT. IN EVERY WAY. WRONG. |
It would also seem to me that we're equally inclined to kill one another. It would be naive to expect that humans got to live forever. But is it really naive to expect us not to go about encouraging and increasing serious, life-threatening conflict with one another as often as we do? Each and every single member of the human family owes every other member of the family the same rights to liberty, and health that they expect to enjoy. If we're not living in the type of world where we remember this truth, and practice it, then neither of us has any business bringing a new member into the human family.
I don't personally have anything against any child, or anyone's children. So if any parent-friends of mine are reading this I'll ask you either continue to read as objectively as you can - pretend for the next 5 minutes you don't have kids - or, if you can't possibly, even for 1 minute imagine your life without children then don't bother reading this. You'll just get butt-hurt and mad at me. And I'm not going to apologize to you for being a social philosopher, because you're not going to apologize to the planet for helping overpopulate it.
As far as I can tell, being a woman in New York, living in the United States as long as I have, everything costs money. Aside from rent, food and transportation take the majority of my dollars out of the bank. I don't really buy new clothes - because I have a uniform of leggings & tee-shirts and neither component is yet in shreds. I have a hard enough time keeping my bank account out of overdraft, while pursuing my life goals, and trying to be a more conscientious human being as it is. It's a good life I live, supporting myself, enriching my mind, teaching myself new things daily as I consider the world around me. My stresses are at a minimum and I'm responsible only for my actions, thoughts, and responses. I have myself to train, to feed, to comfort, and to discipline. And, as previously mentioned, I just barely keep this top spinning. So why would I dream of adding a miniature version of myself to the equation? Because I was lonely? Because I found a partner I loved and I was vain enough to want to see what our combination of genes would produce?
The idea of having children, much like falling in love, seems to me over-romanticized. I know, I'm one to talk. I romanticize nearly every part of my life, and I'll romanticize yours too - given half the chance. But seriously, parents are always like "It wasn't about me anymore," or "I took one look in [it's] eyes and I wanted to give [it] the world." Bro. Calm the fuck down. Little Baby Cartilage and Rosacea (not really, but it's funny right?) is not going to suddenly make you a better person because you found selflessness. That feeling is temporary, like the infatuation I feel for the two weeks before and after I bang a hot smart dude. You're into it. You're pretty solidly sold on your new Baby friend and those feelings of love and power (in this respect power is your ability to provide for, protect, and create a beautiful life/world image for). But you have only just begun to fail.
Baby friend is not going to make you a better human being. Baby friend is not going to stop world hunger, disease, war, or corruption. Baby friend is not going to save 10 year-olds in the Congo, running around with machine guns and knives strapped to their arms. Your Baby friend is not going to be altruistic and self-sacrificing to the greater good because you will not teach Baby friend to be that way. You want to give Baby friend the world, from the moment you looked into Baby friend's squinted eyeballs rolling up and down and all around Baby friend's eye sockets. But which world exactly were you hoping to give Baby friend?
The one where countries argue over their nuclear power, the type of nuclear power that's supposed to be able to essentially wipe out the whole planet? That world? Or the world where girls are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery? That one? Or was it the world where you paid taxes to a government that passed legislation that had very little to do with your interests, and instead promoted the monetary interests of corporate executives who overpriced things that you needed (like say, Baby friend clothes....)? Either of the worlds the world you wanted to give Baby friend? Because suddenly wanting to give tiny, helpless, unable-to-walk-upright Baby friend everything (the world) just because Baby friend popped out of you (either as super tiny half of zygote, or as completed Baby friend) pretty much sums up my argument that having and making Baby friends is vain and selfish.
Baby friend resembles you, and your family, and Baby friend will be what you've given to the world. Baby friend will love you for always because you gave Baby friend life. Is that all you did? You added to the population of an over-taxed planet, whose resources are pillaged by your corporate executive friends, and you continue to follow the undeniably failing model, thus teaching Baby friend nothing - save for conformity, and adjustment in so much as it conforms, and separatist ideals (let's not forget it is always us versus them). And you somehow think you've done something good and right, because Baby friend represents love, and hope, and the future? Irresponsible.
We are the love and the hope and the future right now. We are responsible today, right now, for making the world magnificent, or keeping with the flow-gram and letting auto pilot steer this ship into a rock formation. Like, what are we doing here?
Making some asinine claim that "children are our future," puts undo pressure on the next generation to somehow solve humanity's problems without any real foundation for execution. How can we expect them to think differently, to attempt new directions if we cling as hard as we do to the old structure? Unless you intend to teach Baby friend things like social responsibility, and you plan on equipping them with the knowledge that their action or lack there of actually shapes reality, there's no guarantee they're going to pick up on these concepts.
Our society only applauds individuality so far as an individual's uniqueness gets them PAID. You know and I know it. That is the pervasive legacy of our time. And you want to make a Baby friend and tell them that? Cool.
