Sunday, September 15, 2013

I am Abnormal

A comment posted to an article I read about marriage:

It's abnormal and selfish not to want a life partner or to not want children.

The universe invested in you heavily - someone cleaned your diapers, fed you, took care of you. Your parents, family, neighbours and teachers gave so much so you could have this life.

At very least - you should give back what you took - meaning 2.1 kids.

Of course, even a basic understanding of the fact that in order to life and thrive in this world, we need to have kids, would enable you to grasp the transcendental obligation to have kids.

Of course, not all of us can have kids. Many of us will contribute in other ways - but in the end, it is 'normal' to strive for partnership and to have kids.

It is abnormal to not do so.

The moment it becomes accepted to 'not bother' - then the greedy narcissists who want to take more than they have given, will have won, and humanity and all that we have built will evaporate very quickly.  

I think it's right -- the universe DID invest heavily in me...and for me to be too lazy to pay it forward is pretty crappy. I still don't want to have kids though.
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3 comments:

  1. LeslieSeptember 15, 2013 at 10:03 PM

    I feel like the time you're putting in to your nieces and nephews totally makes up for your lack of desire to procreate.

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  2. EricSeptember 16, 2013 at 8:16 AM

    I disagree wholeheartedly. When the person says things like "normal" "abnormal" "greedy", etc they are speaking from the lofty vantage point of their own set of values, social mores, and religious beliefs...which, chances are you might not share at all. The "obligation" to have children is solely in their mind. My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for years and it hasn't happened yet. It seems like they are trying to shame others to believe in what they believe in while also adhering to the adage of, "Well, I had to do this, so you have to as well."

    No.

    It also seems as if the speaker is unaware of the explosive growth in human population. Just because a few people don't want kids doesn't mean humanity is going to collapse. Far from it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

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  3. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2013 at 5:16 PM

    Ugh. I hope whoever wrote that was trying to be sarcastic. To me this sounds like narrow-minded social-Darwinist nonsense designed to make a wonderful person like my friend Elizabeth feel bad about herself. Concepts of "normality" and "abnormality" are only helpful for categorizing or diagnosing people. Sometimes this is great, like if you need to know if you're anemic. But these concepts are not helpful for choosing a path through life, because people and their lives have too many individual differences for such categories to be useful. Finally, I'd like to offer a list of selfish bastards who chose not to have kids but still managed to improve things for humanity: Mother Theresa, Jesus, Rosa Parks, Dolly Parton.

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