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Originally Posted by filtherton
I don't think you understand what you're talking about on this particular issue. You think that helping, teaching, counseling are all things more meaningful and worthwhile than having kids, which is funny, because if you had kids, or were even remotely able to understand what having kids is about, you would see that having kids can be all about helping, teaching, counseling and more.
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It's amazing how, no matter how often this subject comes up, someone comes along and personifies the "all-encompassing cosmic knowledge" that parents seem to think making a baby bestows upon them. Because somehow I, being the
retard that I am as a childless individual, cannot possibly grasp what having a kid is about. Yeah. Ok. Once again, it's "I have a kid, therefore I know everything and you don't know shit- you don't even have the ability to understand".
You seem to be implying that I'm unaware that parents are helping, teaching, and counseling their own children, which is asinine. Everyone knows that. Once again, it's "I have a kid, so I know everything and everyone else must be clueless." Excuse me all to hell for not engaging in the very
pedestrian act of pumping my sperm into a fertile woman's vagina.
Maybe I should give it a shot some time, though, because apparently making your sperm fertilize an egg makes you a goddamn
genius. Parents teach and help and counsel? Thanks for the tip, Einstein.
Perhaps you will understand my tone if you ever realize (though I have no hope for it for most people) how much you condescend to people who aren't parents.
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Your post amounts to you lamenting the fact that people are so naive in believing a particular thing to be meaningful while suggesting multiple other things that you naively think are meaningful.
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I don't think I ever mentioned anything about being naive, nor did I imply it in any way. What I said was that many parents subscribe to the belief that making a child is somehow the most meaningful thing a person can do.
As to the second part... you think teaching, as a profession, isn't a meaningful endeavor? You're teaching many, many times more than one child. You're actively contributing to the educational rearing of tons of children, not just the one you have at home. You think helping people- the homeless, the sick, the elderly- isn't meaningful, isn't important? How selfish does a person have to be to truly believe that raising a child- one single person- is more meaningful than helping many, many people? Raising your child is your responsibility- helping others takes more than implied responsibility... you have to actually give a shit about other people, and care enough to do something.
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...In your book it's bad to idealize childrearing but not teaching. That doesn't make sense. Why should one expect teaching to be more fulfilling that raising a kid? Why should one expect teaching to be more fulfilling than taking a crap? Why shouldn't one expect teaching to be a dreary exercise in facilitating rote memorization?
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I never said it was good to idealize anything, let alone teaching. You also aren't reading me accurately- my comparison to other endeavors was not that it is a universal truth that x or y profession/endeavor are always better than having a child for each individual person. What I said was that having a child isn't the most fulfilling thing
a person can do- meaning, obviously, that we as people are capable, in general, of much more meaningful things.
Fulfillment is a personal feeling- not everyone would enjoy teaching, for example. This is not to say that because you don't like to teach, having a kid is more altruistic or more meaningful. Everyone finds different things fulfilling- my point, however, is that if you find raising a child to be "the most fulfilling thing
a person (obviously meaning 'anyone') can do", you are sadly mistaken and deluded.
There are many things that are just as meaningful and fulfilling for different people. Teaching, helping, counseling are
examples of these different things in which different people may find varying levels of personal fulfillment- but many, many people will find these things more fulfilling than some people find having a child... which makes the assertion that childrearing is the most fulfilling thing in the world, to be patently false.
I'm also disappointed that you closed out your sermon with an absurdly crude hyperbole like "Why should one expect teaching to be more fulfilling than taking a crap?" Must be a breeder thing.