And since I make it a rule not to blog about drama (of any kind) I’m just gonna ask for your two cents on a debate I had with a friend of mine.
I asked this friend if he ever wanted to have kids (someone earlier had asked me this and I wanted to get other people’s opinions) and he told me that, while he wanted kids, he preferred to adopt rather than have kids of his own.
When I asked him why he wanted to adopt, he replied that he thought bringing a child into this world when there are so many kids already without parents would be selfish.
This struck a chord with me (because it sounded like he felt there was something wrong with that) so I told him that I thought he was wrong: having a child isn’t selfish; it’s a natural & reasonable desire.
He relented a little, saying that maybe “selfish” was too strong of a word, but he insisted that having children served no other purpose than their own self-serving desire to have kids. Adopting, on the other hand, can spare a child from the foster-care system and improve two lives instead of adding one more to this over-populated earth.
I reiterated that wanting a child of your own but he kept insisting that it was only selfish / self-serving. I wanted to argue otherwise but, not really wanting kids myself, I couldn’t think of a way to diffuse his logic. (I know it’s flawed, but I just can’t see how!) Every other person I’ve asked has said they wanted them for “selfish” reasons too; they all basically wanted a little version of themselves to leave behind after they died.
(Interesting side note – Socrates (or Plato writing as Socrates) argued that having children was a way of achieving immortality and that this was the whole biological purpose of love – survival of the species. He also argued that another way of achieving this same kind of immortality was to be remembered as having thought of a great idea)
After thinking about it for a while, I can only come up with one reason to have your own child that isn’t entirely self-serving – to please your parents by giving them grandchildren.
I guess they *are* kind of cute, aren't they?
Anyway, as I said before, I just wanted to ask for your two cents with this post - what do you all think about having kids? Is it "selfish" / "self-serving" to want kids of your own? Is it wrong to be selfish in that way?
