GirlChat #379233
It is interesting, though I do have to disagree on some points. Childlessness is actually something to be extolled. Far too many people have children before they're ready to, and both parent and child's life suffers because of it. Only people who are ready to provide for their child's every need should have them. With a greater ratio of adults to children, children would also receive more attention too.
One might look on not having a child as denying a potential life, but taken to it's fullest extent, that concept simply fails. Every adult female can have a child once a year. Assuming 15 fertile years (more, but take into account deaths) you could multiply the population of the earth by more than 7 times in a single generation, if we simply bred non stop. Unacceptable. Many people don't control their breeding. Those who do not breed do so in lieu of caring for the children who exist (despite their irresponsible parents) by not further burdening the earth and overincreasing the population. This is to avoid the starvation of the species and suffering that incurs with overpopulation competitions. The sad thing is, this leads to evolution which favours genetic tendencies for irresponsible sexual behaviour. All we can do is attempt to control this somewhat through spreading memes. The virtues of not having children is one of them. If people choose not to have a child simply due to selfishness, fine, good, because anyone so readily swayed shouldn't have one anyway. Most people have them due to selfish irresponsibility and lack of foresight anyway. Another thing that should be stopped is valuing women only as breeders, and valuing a life only by the passing of one's genes and raising of one's genetic family. This is a horrible thing. The reason is, that these ideas are passed on to the children. Choosing to demean your life to breeding (and this is different than caring for children, which can be done through adoption, teaching, volunteering, etc.) is your personal choice, but by passing that value system onto a child, you greatly limit their potential for personal development and personal value, and contribute further to overpopulation. |