danielmiessler.com - Latest Comments in Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

presto — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:45:18 -0000

Haha, I can't believe this. Comment I left on your "why the future will think we're primitive" Definitely applies here.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

sccott — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 23:10:12 -0000

Also Important point, I do NOT disrespect some one else's choice of not having children. It is their choice.

But seriously think about the question "Are you truly selfless in everything?" About meat-eating, resource wasting, selfless work, also selfish need for sexual pleasure?

If you are not truly selfless and call someone else selfish, would it be appropriate to call such a person a hypocrite?

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

sccott — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 22:57:34 -0000

According to me it is as simple as just a choice.

I want to have kids to literally to extend my bloodline and my ancestors.
What's selfish about that? It is just a choice the same as choice of not having children.

If you really care to be selfless, do you think about pain animals go through when you eat meat?
Do you care about how much water you waste when you take a shower, or keep the lights, tv on?
How many times in the past 1 year, have you done selfless help/voluntary work?
Do you drive a clean green car or fuel guzzler?

I can go on and on about "selfishness" list of things.
Very very few people would be truly selfless in everything.

PS: I commented because I am offended with comment that having kids is selfishness! Having kids is either a choice or a need.
if having kids is selfishness then fucking would be selfish too! Be a celibate, if you are not having kids!

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

charles_rathmann — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:55:13 -0000

Stumbled across this post from your thing on Edwart Tufte, who is one of my heroes.
I grappled with these questions myself for decades. Eventually, my wife and I adopted two children, one through an open adoption and the other from foster are. There are no self-serving reasons to do even this, but if one takes a humanistic view of it, there are very strong reasons to go this route.
My suspicion is that thinking on children has not kept up with technology. Now that we have the technology to both prevent and encourage children, they may be seen as a consumer product. You can have them if you want them. But I see the child has having the parent rather than the parent having the child. That is the way it feels to me, anyway.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Sara — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:06:43 -0000

You have encapsulated my feelings on this subject perfectly. I am at the point in my life where many of my contemporaries are starting to reproduce. I try to avoid the topic as much as possible, because I am well aware that my opinions on the subject would be considered highly offensive to most people. I have been asked countless times, "why don't you want kids?" but I am implicitly forbidden from asking the opposite: "Well, why do you WANT to have them?" I can give a million and one valid reasons why I don't want to have children, and why it might even be WRONG to have them, because I have spent a great deal of time thinking on the subject and carefully considering the implications of my decisions. If humans who choose to reproduce did the same, we might not live on such an overcrowded, dirty, and dangerous planet.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

April Cragglemire — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:08:27 -0000

you can't outbreed stupid. Give up.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

J. David Requejo — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 12:30:53 -0000

I am unsure as how I cam up with this idea... but reading this post and some comments... I thought that maybe the "nature" reason is not only strong but far stronger than I first thought. We are after all members of an evolving species and even though we are quite special, since we may pass our characteristics by means other than reproduction (we have ideas, and texts, and childless people still inspire today's thinking and decisions) maybe you should not deduce that bringing a child into this world is selfish, but simply important, since you have absolutely no idea of the consequences of not bringing one will have towards humanity's future, you should maybe put your money on instinct and have at least one, probably better two, unless you can offer a really good reason not to. And be the best dam parent you can! (if you prefer to adopt, it's ok... or if you think you'd be a bad parent, or don't want to, then maybe you shouldn't since the result for the kid could be negative) but in general you should tip the scales towards the natural order since you truly have no idea of the consequences, do your biological purpose just in case, and do it as you best can since you are also a human with it uniqueness into learning and education.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

dfbb — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:56:14 -0000

Typical male and yet I guarantee you will impregnate a woman at one point in your life. Perhaps you have or will get off the hook if she damns her soul to torment by having an abortion or opting for adoption, but truthfully men don't care, the guilt is not on them, there's so many ways to exploit a woman's nervous mindset you just impregnated into breaking up with her due to her own fault in your mind, you can make anything up, it takes a man to step up to the plate. You can claim the baby isn't yours you can claim she's cheating, so many maury povich ideas. The question is, have you or will you create life and what will you do when that happens, will you man up or pussy out and say life is evil?

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Code42 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:43:36 -0000

If all the compassionate, logical, responsible people - who intend to raise their children into compassionate, logical, responsible people - stop having kids, the only ones *left* having kids are the ones not compassionate, logical, or responsible, and most likely raising - or all to often not raising - their children the same.

As many orphans as there are, I don't believe there's an orphan for every couple that wants a kid. (Years long waiting lists for new babies seem to bear out this theory.)

You really have a few issues here that are being mixed up together, like: 1) why should ANYONE have kids, 2) why should anyone have kids when they could just adopt, and 3) when is it selfish to have children. The answers to all these questions are not the same.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Dave — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:38:03 -0000

Are you people trying to keep humanity stupid? First of all, overpopulation is not in the modern developed world anymore. Countries that have 4+ kids, such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, those are the countries where people should not have kids, and those are precisely the countries where your kind of blog is not read. There's nothing wrong with having 2 or so kids. You'll have someone to hangout with when youre older, you'l have a reason to invest in society, that whole miracle of life thing instinctually brings out love and compassion in human parents, and you might be able to educate some other humans to be intelligent, kind people.
Adoption is good, but again, instinctually humans are better providers for children who look like them. I know that sounds racist, but its just fact. Deal with it.
Anyway, I can see some of you being selfish and thinking that staying celibate is the way to go. From what i've heard though, children help maintain marriages, and they help ward off depression in adults older than 30. So do puppies. I understand that. But still, its kinda silly for the more intelligent people in the world to NOT have children, out of some strange delusion that they're helping the world in the long run. They're not. They're actually giving a disproportionate power to rednecks who have 3+ kids each. :/

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Kenneth Benjamin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:27:27 -0000

I'm coming way late to the game here, but for the record, reproduction is our only 'purpose' in life.

Should we use our brains and supersede our genetic programming? Yes, most definitely.

But, if you're going to ask why, understand you're asking something just one step away from "why do you exist."

I wrote all this up a couple of months ago in "The Meaning Of Life" here http://wisdomwebsite.com/th...

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Andreas — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:37:13 -0000

Hi Daniel
Interesting blog you got here. Do you think it is okay for some people to have children or do you think that all people should avoid it? I can't help but think it would be sad if mankind died out. But I do agree that it is very questionable whether it is moral to have children. Some people are obviously better suited as parents than others. I would love to have children if I believed that I would be a great parent and if I believed that my wife would be as well. Also, do you know if there are any other good blogs that have written about this topic?

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Steve — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:26:33 -0000

You may find the following book helpful in your consideration of this issue. It was written by a philosopher who argues against having children: http://www.amazon.com/Bette...

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Bernd Jendrissek — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:39:45 -0000

You mention pain. But my putative child will also experience a great deal of pleasure and/or contribute to the pleasure of others. I don't think that part is selfish at all!

Of course that doesn't address why that child should carry MY DNA, and should not be, say, an adopted child. To me, the answer to that part of your question lies somewhere between the ideas:
* In 1000 years, the DNA of those who thought there are no good reasons, will no longer be around.
* I am sufficiently convinced of my own goodness (of whatever kind) that laying claim to X amount of future resources for my DNA deprives exactly one asshole-DNA child of the resources to exist. Let the mating game be the judge to decide whose self-belief is correct.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Yasmina — Sat, 28 May 2011 10:22:50 -0000

the proper term would be INSANITY, Einstein.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Ksid7213 — Wed, 11 May 2011 23:30:43 -0000

I generally agree but there is a big problem with this-that is who can guarantee that your children whom you decide not to have would not be the ones who will save the humanity from global warming/hunger/water shortage etc. It's the same with prohibiting disabled people from having kids-if that was the case we would not have S.Hawking F.Dostoyevskiy J.Nash and many more.So I think limiting number of biological children to 1 or maybe 2 and adopting the rest if 2 is not enough seem like a reasonable solution

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Sam — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:31:21 -0000

For someone who views themself as being a collection of electrical impulses, conscience borders on the absurd.
The only reason it may have evolved is to help society as a whole, but why should any one person not kill, steal, and rape?
It makes no sense to adopt when one can have their own child and connect with it more, or even to care for their own child outside of whatever enjoyable electro-chemical impulse providing care rewards with.

Having said that, I admit to being biased entirely.
It is obvious to me that G-d exists, and wants us to do good to others. I had children as a conscious decision to benefit others. Not group mentality, not selfishness, and certainly not a mistake. It is the same reason I run a youth group, and have taken other children into our home [and adoption is a possibility].

Good luck.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Tik — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:45:55 -0000

look closer at birthrate statistics and you'll see below poverty families have on average 5 children to the 3 children a middle class family to 1 child from a rich family.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

quest 19 — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:39:55 -0000

You are very wise. i've been pondering the same thing yet it's depressing to think about so i'm glad i found this post which vocalizes my feelings so well.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Jwest — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:11:03 -0000

This is a reason, I suppose, but not a good one. Most people's "data" is not important to the grand scheme of things. Wanting self perpetuation is merely selfish. Not valid when we're thinking in terms of social responsibility.

If by data you mean genetic material, then this is the biological argument. Propagating your genes in as many ways as you can. We're too intelligent for that now.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

James — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:30:51 -0000

Having children is a long-term backup strategy. Who's going to host, maintain and curate your data when you're gone? This was (and still is) a prime motivator even before data was digital. Your data is what defines you outside the confines of your own head. It is the sum of all your attributes - your works, your opinions, your history, traces of your interactions with others, their professed opinions of you, their memories of you, evidence of your life, and so forth. In the distant past, the data we left behind was ephemeral - mostly just memories and myth. Now, we leave behind vast quantities of data - and hence vast quantities of ourselves. Having children has always been about preserving what you can of yourself - to attain the best possible degree of immortality.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

Ann — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:59:33 -0000

Hi,

See Better not to have children:

http://journals.cambridge.o...

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

John Doe546 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:38:32 -0000

What you are suggesting - "advocate banning the disabled (of those disabled genetically and not through experience) from having children, because that improves the well-being of the overall species." - is actually Hitler-like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik.... This kind of thinking is quite dangerous. The disabled are humans as well and they should have the same freedom we enjoy - to have children - if they wish to do so.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

V! — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 08:33:33 -0000

That is an actual valid point.

Re: Is It Wrong to Have Children?

G00gl3456 — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 08:30:23 -0000

LESS people should have kids.