The selfishness of propagating one's genes

I have been considering having a child for some time now. But I cannot bring myself to burden an already vastly overpopulated world with the bastard son of 1000 maniacs. My only option is adoption.

A question that is perpetually vexing me: Why do people choose to have their “own” offspring when they can, instead, adopt an unwanted, homeless, doomed child. Surely the process of evolution has eliminated (temporally, at any rate), the need to further one’s genetic heritage in some type of “survival of the fittest” paradigm?

This post is in no way meant to offend my beloved fellow Forumosans, nor to question their integrity as regards their beautiful children. I’m merely enquiring why people would choose to perpetuate their genes rather than honorably changing the world of some needful, unwanted waif.

An incongruous analogy, I know, but: “NEVER buy a pet, adopt an unwanted one instead”. Does this maxim not ring true for humans too?

[quote=“jimipresley”]The selfishness of propagating one’s genes
This post is in no way meant to offend my beloved fellow Forumosans, nor to question their integrity as regards their beautiful children. [/quote]
Right, you meant selfishness as a compliment. :unamused:

There’s probably a hardwired instinctual drive/ emotional reward for unleashing one’s own spawn. Such a genetically self-interested reason is, no doubt, a stronger/ more primal consideration than “honourably tending to good of humanity as a whole”, whether or not it’s logical, better, or in the best interests of the species.

[quote=“Maoman”][quote=“jimipresley”]
Right, you meant selfishness as a compliment. :unamused:[/quote][/quote]
You tell me why it’s not selfish. Give me a moral justification for choosing spermicidal mania over charity. I’m just asking, Mr Maoman, not judging. Perhaps the thread title is a little provocative, but that was my intention. Apologies if it offended anyone, but this is a serious issue on my mind at the moment. And yes. I do think it is a little selfish.

[quote=“jimipresley”][quote=“Maoman”][quote=“jimipresley”]
Right, you meant selfishness as a compliment. :unamused:[/quote][/quote]
You tell me why it’s not selfish. Give me a moral justification for choosing spermicidal mania over charity. I’m just asking, Mr Maoman, not judging. Perhaps the thread title is a little provocative, but that was my intention. Apologies if it offended anyone, but this is a serious issue on my mind at the moment. And yes. I do think it is a little selfish.[/quote]
I think you are being disingenuous. You said: “This post is in no way meant to offend my beloved fellow Forumosans, nor to question their integrity”. Now you’re saying it’s meant to be provocative and you think it’s selfish. That’s questioning my integrity. Now make up your mind as to what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, and I’ll decide if I want to engage.

Also, another question I have: If you’re the father, how can your child be “the bastard son of 1000 maniacs”? Wouldn’t that be more likely if you adopted?

OK. Point taken. “Bastard son of 1000 maniacs” was a dumb Nightmare on Elm Street pun. So, answer my question: Why would/did you choose to have your “own” child/ren when you could have adopted instead?

Most people don’t plan it specifically, I guess. You have to pass criteria to adopt, anyway. Anyone can make a baby, however awful they are. It’s expensive and difficult to adopt. Sure, it’s a good thing to do, but again, it’s not something humans are predisposed towards doing in quite the same way (otherwise we’d have evolved to get an orphaned Congolese baby delivered nine months after we had sex).

It’s dumb, innerlectually, but it’s what people are fundamentally designed/evolved/whaddeva to do. You think too much. Yes, the world is ‘overcrowded’, no the world does not need yours specifically. But hey, as long as you don’t act like too too much of a fuckwit (love it too little, love it too much), maybe your kid will contribute to the world? Chances are it won’t, but hey, it’s not worth giving up on, surely? The glass is half full!

Having taught for years, I find 95% of parents’ attitudes to their kids repellent, and here in Britain there has been such a cultural shift that it’s now OK and not risibly selfish or socially unacceptable to say ‘My kids are are the most important things in my worrrrrrrrld’. Trying walking into a classroom of kids like that. Depressing isn’t the word. As a journalist put it in an article I read recently; ‘In these uncertain financial times, their child is the only thing of value they have that they didn’t buy with a credit card: you have to sympathise’. Many parents are like inexperienced teachers. They assume that everything they do has an effect and that they make their children happy.

jp, you are kind and clever. How bad could it be? And if it is bad, they can clear off when they’re teenagers, no harm no foul. :wink:

I’m not having more kids* but do I sometime feel the pull? Hell yeah. I also get asked to justify myself as a 34 year old woman constantly. I know I find other people’s children emotionally draining and boring. Medical uncertainties make it not impossible, but certainly emotionally unpleasant to keep trying. My emotions/brain think(s) not, but my hormones think otherwise. But if I don’t, then really, what was the point of me? Everything else is just vanity. The trick is not to make your kids an extension of that vanity.

  • I know I don’t have any: think about it.

My dear BC, astute and concise as always. :heart: Must disagree with you however. The maternal “pull” seems to me to be merely an evolutionary incongruity, much like tonsils and appendixes(sic?). The morality of the issue is what intrigues me most.

I agree that it is biological in essence. All things on this planet re-produce. Wether it is a desirous act or what simply appears to us to be essential re-production.

Two friends just had a baby. They went through a pregnancy together, the birth, and now squabble over who the child looks more like. So there is some couple bonding which takes place prior to birth, which is another factor why couples choose their to make their own.

Other thoughts: Other people are just shitty aren’t they? Having you own seems much nicer to many people than raising someone else’s stock.
Would it be better to adopt after you have your own child first? The poor kid has already been dumped by its family, does it now need you fucking up its life. (not you JP, but YOU the potential adopter.)

I reckon it is a shame that Descartes and Linneaus were born so far apart in time.

Morality is bullshit. If you give pretty much any person the option between what they want on a visceral level and what their ‘morals’ say is right (not even talking about others’ moral codes, just their own), they will create a story that fits every time. That’s OK. I wrote this in another thread, the one about your partner cheating. Our logical brains are the smallest part, not our instinct: it’s simply post Renaissance vanity to assume otherwise. What does ‘I made a conscious decision to …’ actually mean?

Nobody would ever say ‘my child was a selfish choice and a waste of resources’, because … they won’t. Simple as that. There aren’t any whys, which is how the world keeps turning. Some people need to create a family/environment that they can control, or because they think they can do a good job, or because they love their partner, or because they just got knocked up and were stuck with it. Others feed themselves by being ‘good people’ and adopting. The reasons are never all good or all bad. They also aren’t that important.

If you want a baby, make a baby. Try not to be an arsehole near it, and try to minimise its effect on others and you’ll have done two good things that most people don’t.

[quote=“jimipresley”]OK. Point taken. “Bastard son of 1000 maniacs” was a dumb Nightmare on Elm Street pun.[/quote]I didn’t get it.[quote]So, answer my question: Why would/did you choose to have your “own” child/ren when you could have adopted instead?[/quote]It’s cheaper and more convenient.
And the desire to pass on your genes is how species survived. Ones with no desire to pass on their genes, like pandas, won’t survive. It’s part of evolution.

But isn’t that “instinct” redundant?

I think it’s a pretty good snapshot of mankind’s development as a whole that collectively, we have not risen above these simple mammalian instincts. I don’t think we’ve evolved beyond our simian ancestors very far at all really.

[quote=“jimipresley”]The maternal “pull” seems to me to be merely an evolutionary incongruity, much like tonsils and appendixes(sic?). [/quote]As is the desire to eat a lot. People who eat a lot were more likely to survive periods of less food. But we still have the genes, had them for millions of years. It takes a lot longer than a few decades of adoption availability to get rid of that desire.

[quote]But isn’t that “instinct” redundant?[/quote]Yes it is. Still got it though.

[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”]

Mr Fluffy, I respect you, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I think it’s less “instinct” and more religious socialisation.

I don’t think flowers desire to reproduce. Some evolutionary lines are happy accidents. Also many trees only survive by living in a relationship with a fungus. Their reproduction relies solely on a symbiotic relationship. So no desire there. The ability to reproduce is present in all living creatures, but I disagree that there is an element of desire present in all reproductive cycles.

Well, yes and no. Maybe the urge to transcend our humanity is what makes us human?

How is adoption a hugely different urge? It’s still a way of recreating that small family scenario for our own benefit.

My aunt (She died a few months ago) had four of her own children, yet fostered close to 100, on long and short term. When she died, she had four Angolan brothers living with the family. As she got older, she took more and more kids from very damaged backgrounds in African countries who had been smuggled into the UK, taught them to read, helped them get through being in tough inner city schools and really took care of them. At her funeral, her ‘own’ kids, her 20+ nieces and nephews, her ex-husband and more than 40 teens, 20 and 30 something people from allover stood in the church (there weren’t enough seats).

That’s the real way to help and I wish I were a tenth of the person she was. But she did have her own kids too and a huge extended family, which is apparently common for people who foster.

Anyway, my point is, if you want to ‘help children’, creating new ones, or adopting one or two for yourself isn’t much use. Why not train to be a social worker, or do aid work? If you want to have a baby or adopt a baby, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with that. And as you are a self-aware person, you can do your best not to be a fuckhead about it.

It’s way more fun than adopting.

Well yes. Have sex, or convince a panel of people, over a period of months, that you are ‘just like them’. Hmm.

I don’t think flowers desire to reproduce. Some evolutionary lines are happy accidents. Also many trees only survive by living in a relationship with a fungus. Their reproduction relies solely on a symbiotic relationship. So no desire there. The ability to reproduce is present in all living creatures, but I disagree that there is an element of desire present in all reproductive cycles.[/quote]Plants don’t have instincts; but if they did, they would be sex maniacs.