Children; the ultimate pet

[Guest]

So there’s no way of avoiding reading about Michael Jackson these days, unless you don’t read the papers at all. The latest in this already annoying which will carry on until he gets stuffed and lifted up on a Las Vegas hotel roof top to overlook America, is that his two oldest kids aren’t his at all.
He never shagged that woman, she was injected (or whatever you call that kind of non-copulation in English) with sperm from a man not MJ.

This got me thinking.

Having children is not a right, it’s a gift. I think all of you will agree with me on this one.
Now, there are, of course, couples who can not get children, couples who need to resort to having someone else’s semen pumped into the woman, or who adopt, or whatever else I can’t come think of now.
Isn’t that kind of egotistical, to put it very crass, blunt and just straightforward?

I’m not judging people who, say, adopt a child. It probably sounds very rude and idiotic upon first reading, what I bring up here, but isn’t it quite an egotistical act, or a sign of it, when you start to go beyond what nature grants you?
You want a child.
For instance, if you really, truly loved that child who you wish to adopt, what you’d do when you’d find one who couldn’t be taken care of his/her mother/father, you’d invest all that time/money to make sure that child could remain with his/her mother/father.
That would be the bigger kind of love, but it’s not about that, is it?
It’s about having a child of ones own.

I’m not out to provoke here.
I’ve had the thought myself, that with the right partner I’d adopt a child.

I’m strictly talking about it from a sense of how it’s often done, this bringing a child into ones life, done out of a quite selfish kind of view where it reminds me more of someone bringing a pet into the household, rather than a human family member.

That’s the image I get when I read about M Jackson and his kids, anyway. He lost Bubbles, and brought in a set further up the evolutionary ladder, still pets.

[Bored Of Education]

Children; the ultimate pet

Okaaaayy

I’m not judging people who, say, adopt a child. It probably sounds very rude and idiotic upon first reading, what I bring up here, but isn’t it quite an egotistical act, or a sign of it, when you start to go beyond what nature grants you?

Conversely, you could argue that there are so many millions of children that are orphaned or in need of families that bringing more children into the world instead of adopting is selfish. You could but I wouldn't for reasons I will go int oin a minute.

For instance, if you really, truly loved that child who you wish to adopt, what you’d do when you’d find one who couldn’t be taken care of his/her mother/father, you’d invest all that time/money to make sure that child could remain with his/her mother/father.

In most cases, social services spend a lot of time, money and expertise in doing all they can to keep the child with their natural families, as it is the perfect solution, but they can't. Therefore individuals can't do anymore.

That would be the bigger kind of love, but it’s not about that, is it?
It’s about having a child of ones own.

Of course it is. All child rearing is selfish to a certain extent. I wouldn't argue that adoption is any less or more selfish than any others.

Foster care is the exception in that it is predominately unselfish

[G-Man]

Children; the ultimate pet

Oh dear. There's a helicopter on the roof of the American embassy in Saigon, waiting just for you, ganja. You might want to get on while you can.

[Bored Of Education]

Children; the ultimate pet

He says he's not out to provoke and I, for one, am taking him at his word

[pebblethefish]

Children; the ultimate pet

I'd argue that, in my case at least, I only could love a child of my own. My daughter knows that she was a mistake (she has done ever since she was old enough to do maths, and work out her parents' ages when she was born), but also knows she has two parents who love her and would do anything for her. I know that I would not have been the same with any other child, so I'd guess that that's the reason in a lot of these cases.

Doesn't explain Madonna, mind, but that one's on another level.

[Bruno]

Children; the ultimate pet

I think I've reached more or less the opposite conclusion of pebbles. I didn't feel as though I'd grown to love my child so much because he's mine per se; it was more to do with his being a child.

I'm sure it wouldn't be 'the same' with an adopted child; but it's also not the same with a second child of your own. I doubt there'd be any deficiency of love, especially if I nabbed one early enough on in its life, because there's a whole lot of winning you over by force of personality and complete helplessness in the infant/toddler years.

One thing you come to realize is that the child is really mainly 'yours' because you're totally responsible for its surviving one day to the next, not because it's carrying your genes. And because it will respond to how you treat it. Think how susceptible to influence you were in grade school, by your classmates, by unfamiliar experiences, and by dint of your own insecurities, and magnify that a thousandfold.

[Ginger Yellow]

Children; the ultimate pet

I kind of agree with Ganja for once. I've thought a fair bit about this in the past, and I certainly can't come up with any non-selfish or narcissistic reasons why I would want to have biological children. Now, obviously once a child is born, parenting becomes a very selfless thing (not that parents can't be narcissistic, especially by proxy). But the desire to procreate (as opposed to foster or adopt)? Let's hear some counterexamples.

That said, I do think having children is and needs to be a right, pragmatically. The consequences for privacy and autonomy of making it a privilege are pretty horrific, not to mention the incentive structures it can create.