What is the purpose, in Western culture, of having children?

[Audrey]

My own reason is because I wanted children and a family - like you say in the poll. However, I often feel that for most people (including me) it's because there's literally a biological drive to reproduce and everything else we tell ourselves is just justifications for our need to fulfill that drive.

 

:iagree: with the bolded. It's biological. Any and all philosophical justifications for it are irrelevant.

[Audrey]

I agree, and with farrarwilliams' point-of-view.

 

This is so interesting to me. I think -- like practically everyone I know in real life -- that we humans (as well as everything else on earth) would be a lot better off if there were fewer people on the planet. It is interesting that almost everyone who posts here has an opposite view.

 

 

Not me. I think humans overbreed in a horrendous manner.

[renmew]

I voted based on what I thought you were asking (the conventional wisdom) instead of what I personally believe. I would say that most people today have children for selfish reasons, treating the child as essentially an expensive pet or trophy. That's why you see the rampant outsourcing of the work of actually raising the child. :glare:

 

I personally view babies as blessings from God and feel that motherhood is a vocation. Now, that doesn't mean that I think everyone should have kids (God has a plan for each of us, and that plan may or may not involve becoming a parent) or that parents have a moral obligation to bear as many children as they physically can. I do feel that married couples should carefully consider whether or not they truly have a serious reason to postpone pregnancy and not set artificial limits on family size.

 

The first page is as far as I got so far, so this may have been addressed by someone else already, but the above really hurt.

 

I have always had to work. My husband's job was never stable enough to count on. Plus, I brought home the family medical insurance. A lot of caring people have had a hand in raising my children, but I love them and had them for the same reasons other people do.

 

Several of my friends are SAHMs and they don't have perfect kids or anything. My house is just as clean, if not more so. We eat healthy, home-cooked meals. My kids watch less tv and play less video games. Am I still less deserving of children?

[chepyl]

My dad used to ask my sister and I the following:

 

How do you spell kid? S L A V E!

:D

 

I have always wanted kids. I just wanted the family.

[blondeviolin]

Ok, my number one reason is obedience to God. A close second, maybe even a tie is pure pleasure. I love having kids. I love having different ages and stages. I love how each child is their own person (even if it does drive me insane at times) . I love the hustle and bustle. I love hanging out with my teens and seeing who they are becoming. I love snuggling a baby and seeing a whole lifetime ahead for them. I just love having kids!!

 

:iagree: ...except my kids are all still young. :)

[stm4him]

Psalm 127

[EmilyK]

:grouphug: I feel like this too sometimes here.

 

The first page is as far as I got so far, so this may have been addressed by someone else already, but the above really hurt.

 

I have always had to work. My husband's job was never stable enough to count on. Plus, I brought home the family medical insurance. A lot of caring people have had a hand in raising my children, but I love them and had them for the same reasons other people do.

 

Several of my friends are SAHMs and they don't have perfect kids or anything. My house is just as clean, if not more so. We eat healthy, home-cooked meals. My kids watch less tv and play less video games. Am I still less deserving of children?

[akmommy]

My own reason is because I wanted children and a family - like you say in the poll. However, I often feel that for most people (including me) it's because there's literally a biological drive to reproduce and everything else we tell ourselves is just justifications for our need to fulfill that drive.

 

:iagree:

 

I didn't plan the first, but this would probably be the best answer for the second and third. Before I discovered that I was pregnant with my first I wasn't even sure I wanted to get married much less have children.

Edited February 15, 2012 by akmommy

[Tap]

Other....one child was a surprise...the other was due to our oldest begging for a sister (and since we already had one, we didn't want to wait too long for #2).

 

 

Ds17 was a surprise when we were 22yo. (Dh and I have been together since we were 18yo). He begged, begged and begged for a little sister ever since he could first talk. DD13 was the result of his desperate wanting to have a sister, and us deciding that if we wanted another bambino, we wanted to have them fairly close together. We were obviously willing to have a second child, we just hadn't really planned to have 2 kids in our early 20s. I had plans of going back to school, and our decision to have the kids derailed those plans. We lost a pgy at 22 weeks (when ds was 2yo), waited 6mths and then started again. Our 4 year gap in ages wasn't intentional, but due to ds's insistence of a sister, we continued trying after losing one pgy.

 

It may sound odd, but ds was desperate for a sibling. Honestly and truly desperate. It was like he was missing the other half of himself without a sibling.

 

DD5 is my great niece. We had nothing to do with her conception and did not plan to adopt.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Tap, tap, tap

[Shawneinfl]

I would say that it is God's design for his creation. And His design is such that having a family benefits us in many ways (such as the ones you chose for the poll), both practical and pleasurable. :)

 

This is the choice I would have picked, had it been available. I believe that - to fulfill God's plan/biological desire (put there by God) would be my real answer.

 

Interesting question.

[Crimson Wife]

She did say something like, "If Person A has 2 children and Person B has 8 children, which children get more parental attention?" She does seem to see it in simplistic, mathematical terms.

 

More attention is not always better. I was a complete control freak as a mother of 1. I watch home movies from when my oldest was a baby and I just want to slap myself at what a total Type A "helicopter parent" I was. While I've got a long way to go before I could call myself a Zen Mama at this point, I'm far less neurotic as a mom of 3 than I was as a mom of a single child.

 

It's been my observation that I am not alone in being this way...

[Alenee]

I answered "other" because I dislike the premise: "purpose" seems to imply "usefulness" and that bugs me--because it sets the value of the person relative to the person's usefulness.

 

My response is not on the list, so I voted "other." Love bears fruit; the love among the Holy Trinity resulted in creation. You can take it forward from here regarding the love between a man and a woman. Of course, there is also modern technology that confuses the question now...but love-giving and life-giving are tightly linked.

 

:iagree: To a TEE. I also voted other, without looking at why you were even asking. I think it was Elizabeth Elliot who said something to the effect that when you have children, you take your heart out and watch it walk around. There's the way she meant it, which was imo, that it's painful but good. However, if you assign it to something like I feel, it's along the lines of what Patty Joanna wrote.

[Crimson Wife]

The first page is as far as I got so far, so this may have been addressed by someone else already, but the above really hurt.

 

I have always had to work. My husband's job was never stable enough to count on. Plus, I brought home the family medical insurance. A lot of caring people have had a hand in raising my children, but I love them and had them for the same reasons other people do.

 

Several of my friends are SAHMs and they don't have perfect kids or anything. My house is just as clean, if not more so. We eat healthy, home-cooked meals. My kids watch less tv and play less video games. Am I still less deserving of children?

 

I apologize for making you feel bad- I did not at all mean to criticize families where both parents truly need to be employed to make basic ends meet. We were in that position ourselves when our oldest was a toddler. There are plenty of women out there who juggle a full-time career with being a very caring and involved mom to their children. My heart goes out to them because I've BTDT and it is HARD. :grouphug:

 

What I meant to criticize was the very different situation where the parents are self-absorbed, career-obsessed, and shirk their responsibility to actually raise their kids. They seem to treat their offspring like a fashion accessory a la the Hollywood celebrities :rolleyes:

[WishboneDawn]

I apologize for making you feel bad- I did not at all mean to criticize families where both parents truly need to be employed to make basic ends meet. We were in that position ourselves when our oldest was a toddler. There are plenty of women out there who juggle a full-time career with being a very caring and involved mom to their children. My heart goes out to them because I've BTDT and it is HARD. :grouphug:

 

What I meant to criticize was the very different situation where the parents are self-absorbed, career-obsessed, and shirk their responsibility to actually raise their kids. They seem to treat their offspring like a fashion accessory a la the Hollywood celebrities :rolleyes:

 

There's a middle ground as well. My sil and her husband both work full-time or nearly so. They don't need too financially. They're both involved and thoughtful parents with two great kids as proof. Some families can find the balance to make it work.

 

I don't think we could though. Me working would not go so well. The house is near to falling apart as it is.:tongue_smilie:

[Amy in NH]

My own reason is because I wanted children and a family - like you say in the poll. However, I often feel that for most people (including me) it's because there's literally a biological drive to reproduce and everything else we tell ourselves is just justifications for our need to fulfill that drive.

 

:iagree:

[emubird]

Because they're fascinating creatures. Because one's understanding of what it means to be human is enriched by having them around.

 

And if you do it right, you get friends for life.

[myfatherslily]

Cause they're so stinkin' cute, even when they drive me nuts. That's why I had kids. Purely selfish ;)

[stripe]

Am I still less deserving of children?

 

Certainly not. :grouphug: Motherhood being a "vocation" doesn't mean one does nothing else but stare at her kids all day long. You are still a loving mother even when at work or otherwise away from your children.

 

I am not sure how I feel about motherhood as a vocation. What I'd really like is a vacation.

[Aelwydd]

That was a part of the lecture as well. I don't know for sure, but it sounds like the Professor thinks the error was partially in the Baby Boomers (of which she is a product, ironically), because that creates a "bulge" that is currently not well supported by subsequently falling birthrates. She would not contend that each generation thereafter should be larger, though, because people who use resources would be expanding exponentially. (HER view, not mine, just to be clear.) IOW, she would say, "This was our collective error - having a Baby Boom." She would not support having a bigger baby boom now to support the earlier "error."

 

If this is your professor's viewpoint, I would agree. A refreshing bit of common sense, IMO. She sounds like one cool frood.

 

I happen to believe that the world is not a buffet of unlimited resources, and as such, is not capable of sustaining an ever exponentially growing population. Overpopulation already exists in many regions; that's why there's so much famine. Too much farming of soil depletes it. I don't care how many acres one family has to itself; if it can't sustain food for people or animals, or if its water reserves are either too little or contaminated, then that piece of land cannot sustain even a small population, much less an exponentially growing one (which is how humans reproduce--exponentially).

 

Even modern techniques of improving fertility are predicated upon using naturally limited resources like nitrogen. Since we haven't figured out yet how to make alchemy work, we can't just go into a lab and whip up more of an element. When these resources are exhausted, guess what: the modern farming techniques so touted as being the answer to growing numbers are no longer feasible.

 

Deforestation worsens the problem, because it accelerates the erosion process, by which crucial nutrients needed to grow things are carried away and out to sea. Deforestation also contributes to more variant climes, because vegetation holds moisture, and moisture moderates temperature extremes. That can play havoc with the growing season as well.

 

So, we're burning the candle at both ends. We're increasing numbers while at the same time reducing or crippling the means by which to support them. At some point, if these conditions continue unabated, we will reach a critical threshold. Most likely, rampant disease, secondary to starving populations and destabilized regions, will kill off a significant portion of humanity, along with famine and lack of water.

 

This is why I'm so angered by the charge made by those who deny overpopulation even exists as a possibility, that people like me are somehow desirous of eliminating huge numbers of people in order to solve overpopulation. That's infuriating. It's because I don't want to see huge numbers of men, women, and children dying off that I wish we would wise up and become better stewards of our resources. Yet I have been accused of proposing genocide or eugenics as the "final solution" because I have a care about this very deadly situation humanity faces. IMO, it's the people who argue for unchecked, unsustainable population growth who are the ones courting a species-wide genocide--a genocide begotten of ignorance, selfishness, and pure denial.

 

I would also argue that those who claim that having several children is the "unselfish" choice, and charge those who limit their progeny to either one or two as being self-centered: look at the poll. The number one reason cited by far is a personal desire to love/be loved/share experiences. Not simple perpetuation of the species. Not religious duty. But the personal desire to feel loved and to love.

 

I have nothing against that--it's a great reason. But, I think that if you were to pit one's personal need to feel loved by multiple individuals, against the need of another to eat, drink, and to live, the former is a much more selfish desire.

 

Understand, and be clear: I am not saying people should stop having children, or should all resort to just having one or two kids. I am saying that people should reproduce responsibly. Such necessarily involves a community, or population-wise assessment. One family of 10 kids living in a water poor region does not present an undue strain on local resources. Having a community in the same water poor region, where 20%, or 40% of families are having 5 or 8 kids apiece, is not a very wise or sustainable reproduction plan--on part of the corporate group together, not just any one family.

 

Notice that not once have I mentioned or advocated a government policy or law to regulate this. That's because I think it's an unjustified imposition on people's private lives. What I am advocating is each individual community taking stock of its resources, and learning to live and reproduce within its means. Very much like each individual family should do. That's why I argue for education, and an emphasis on personal responsibility and awareness for how our choices affect not just ourselves, but others. IMO, individual plus corporate responsibility equals self-induced moderation, and cooperation between folks. Now, multiply that on a scale of hundreds or thousands of communities, and then regions, and then nations. We can prevent massive numbers dying in the future if we took such a measured, voluntary approach.

 

That's the ideal. The reality is, most people in the world don't have the means or the ability to restrict population, and many of those that do have the ability, either deny the problem exists, or simply disown any contribution to the problem. We in the West owe our high lifestyle many times over to the (often-politically and economically pilfered) resources we take from other poor regions. But that fact is routinely ignored or simply denied.

 

So, I'm very afraid that a radically reduced population becoming increasingly inevitable anyway, and it won't be voluntary or pleasant. And ironically, it'll probably be blamed most on those who either had little to no power to change things, or on "evil, sinnin' humanist, liberals, who brought down the wrath of God on us all," rather than on ideologies that taught irresponsible growth and consumption.

 

But, even if all of this is untrue, and I'm wildly off my horse, I still would not be having several children. Even if God had accorded humanity unlimited resources in the earth, he certainly didn't accord unlimited resources to my family. He's given me a portion, and I'm content to live within that, rather than attempting to grab more for myself and live "beyond my means."

 

Condemn me for that if you wish, but I won't make apologies for carefully managing what I have, and being content with what I have. It's so much more than most people in the world ever know or enjoy.

[Aelwydd]

Cause they're so stinkin' cute, even when they drive me nuts. That's why I had kids. Purely selfish ;)

 

I agree, they are friggin' cute!

[Sahamamama]

We had our first child --9 months & 7 days after the wedding -- because we were too horny on our wedding night to care. :D After she was born, she was so cute. She was the universe's cutest baby. Yes, she was. :toetap05:

 

Then I had cancer, and that changed my life. And when that was "over," I asked my husband, "Would you like another one?"

 

He said, "Hmm.... I need to think about it."

 

I looked at my watch and said, "My clock is ticking, and so is yours. You have ten minutes to decide."

 

We were blessed with twins.

 

The purpose? :confused: We wanted children. That was the purpose of having them.

 

Next question: Why did we want children? Because they start off being deceptively adorable, like puppies and kittens. :glare: It's part of the conspiracy.

[Aelwydd]

We had our first child --9 months & 7 days after the wedding -- because we were too horny on our wedding night to care. :D After she was born, she was so cute. She was the universe's cutest baby. Yes, she was. :toetap05:

 

Then I had cancer, and that changed my life. And when that was "over," I asked my husband, "Would you like another one?"

 

He said, "Hmm.... I need to think about it."

 

I looked at my watch and said, "My clock is ticking, and so is yours. You have ten minutes to decide."

 

We were blessed with twins.

 

The purpose? :confused: We wanted children. That was the purpose of having them.

 

Next question: Why did we want children? Because they start off being deceptively adorable, like puppies and kittens. :glare: It's part of the conspiracy.

 

 

I love this post. It is awesome. So very awesome. :lol:

[beaners]

I love children. I love them, so we have them. I'd also like to think that my children will make the world better than it would have been without them in it, but I'm not sure yet which child will solve which of the world's major problems. ;)

[mommymilkies]

Because they're fascinating creatures. Because one's understanding of what it means to be human is enriched by having them around.

 

And if you do it right, you get friends for life.

 

Perpetuating the species? :confused:

 

What would be the point, in a post-modern society, if everyone stopped having kids?

:iagree: I get REALLY fed up with the overpopulation nuts who tell me I'm killing the world with my children. I'm an animal. I am driven to reproduce. And even if that drive didn't turn on in me, I would want them anyway because they are fantastic. I love children. I want tons of them. They are amazing in every way. How about instead of people pushing everyone to have 0-1 kids (and our ridiculously family-unfriendly culture), how about we do our best to encourage those who WANT kids to have them and allow resources so everyone is able to make that choice?

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I don't think it can be just one answer. I think there are multiple factors involved. In Western culture there are many reasons for having children not just one.

[Georgiana Daniels]

My Human Geography professor asked this question, as we were talking about population pyramids. Professor is apparently more of the liberal mindset and in favor of reducing population growth in post-modern countries. I do not share that mindset, but I still think it's an interesting question to ask. Quite a few students did seem actually stumped. What is your own primary reason for having a child or children?

 

Poll to follow.

 

Goodness. :001_huh:

 

I haven't read the other responses yet, but all I can say is that people who believe that way can rest assured that at least one segment of the population will stop having children--but only because they will eventually breed themselves out.

 

The world actually needs more people--ones who are compassionate, motivated, and loving.

[cathmom]

If this is your professor's viewpoint, I would agree. A refreshing bit of common sense, IMO. She sounds like one cool frood.

 

I happen to believe that the world is not a buffet of unlimited resources, and as such, is not capable of sustaining an ever exponentially growing population. Overpopulation already exists in many regions; that's why there's so much famine. Too much farming of soil depletes it. I don't care how many acres one family has to itself; if it can't sustain food for people or animals, or if its water reserves are either too little or contaminated, then that piece of land cannot sustain even a small population, much less an exponentially growing one (which is how humans reproduce--exponentially).

 

 

 

What's a frood?

 

And don't worry, a population crash is coming in the two most populous countries. There aren't enough girls/women to sustain the population.