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Are you going to have children?
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Re: Are you going to have children?
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DelvianOracle
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Sep 13 07 11:14 AM
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I think a lot of our constructs for "health" are pretty artificial. Ideas of "responsibility" are similarly fluid. I believe that a lot of difficulty arises when we project our view of "good parenting" onto others... just a few caveats.
Reproduction is certainly a biological imperative. Despite not having any real want of children and being a gay man (making biological conception with any partner I'd choose a relative impossibility currently), I've had several moments in my life where the drive or urge to have a child has taken over. Many of these moments were times when I was overwhelmingly impressed by the sense of accomplishment that a parent would feel for the success of their child. Examples like a presentation during an assembly about some of the first black students to attend my nearly-all white and very upper class highschool come to mind. The parents of many of the speakers were still alive and in the audience, and I was emotionally overwhelmed by the courage and accomplishments of children who faced such blatant racism and inequality just to get an education.
Outside of the biological, I have a lot of beliefs about what makes a good and responsible parent. They range from financial security to teaching values for living in community independent of religious ideas that children just don't have developed enough brains to fully understand. And foremost, my ideas about good parenting involve a lot of sacrifice and putting others first. I question all the time whether I will ever be unselfish enough to really do a good job at that, and that's why the choice to have children isn't one I'm likely to make anytime soon.
I also worry in many of the same ways Jean did as she and Scott talked about children. To make the point more realistic, one of my favorite sociology teachers from college worried in this same fashion before having her first (and likely only... more evidence for that liberals breed less theory) child. Despite the ability of an accomplished academic and activist to impart inclusive, tolerant and forward-thinking ideas for a child, none of us parent in a vacuum. Our culture constantly bombards us with messages I worry about sending to growing minds... in short, I'm not sure this is the world I want to be bringing a child into. Not just values-wise, either. Our planet is changing; new estimates state that significant increases in global warming could produce disasterous effects even within the next 50 years... we'd all still be around by then, and our children certainly would. I worry that the world we pass on to the next generation is a world in crisis in a lot of ways.
Maybe it's my age, but the idea of "who'll take care of me as I age" isn't that salient for me. The difficulties I see with the aging process in my own family give me a heads up on what to watch out for, how often to see my doctor and what about, etc. I'm trying to minimize some of the problems my parents are having with their parents by preventing some of the poor care that led to them. A lot of that is based on lack of resources and rising costs of medical care, so the other thing my family and I are actively doing to help prepare for old age is saving and investing. In addition to an amazing set of benefits we get through the TIAA-Creff system, my parents (now far more financially stable than they were when I was born) are starting to place funds into accounts like Roth IRAs that we won't touch for several decades. By the time my parents are gone and I'm moving to retirement age, these accounts should provide more than enough money for whatever types of care I'll need. I'm less concerned about being lonely in old age than I am being resourceless
While I can't say I'll never want kids, I can certainly say that they aren't a part of my plan for the immediate future. I've met about as many gay partners that are interested in someday having kids as ones who aren't interested in it at all, so my concern certainly isn't about not finding a partner to do it with. I guess "we'll see" is my answer for now.
~Nick
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