filtherton

It's amazing how, no matter how tangential to any sort of child specific topic, you bring up the fact that you don't think having children is meaningful in any sort of way and find a way to criticize everyone who has ever had children for no apparent reason whatsoever. Seriously, i can see that chip on your shoulder through the internet, and that's not even possible.

I wasn't claiming that making a baby bestows upon me some cosmic knowledge. I was claiming that your claim that there is a difference between the meaning provided by child rearing and the meaningfulness provided by teaching and counseling seems to imply that you aren't aware that raising a child involves teaching and counseling and helping. I concede that you do know shit, just that your description of what it means to be a parent is completely different from my experience of what it means to be a parent. The only things you could have possibly derived about what it means to be a parent could have only come from thought experiments. Apparently you aren't very good at thought experiments when it comes to the subject of parenting.

I never said you didn't know shit, but feel free to tell yourself that it it helps you to justify to yourself your ridiculously self righteous tone.

Well, i apologize for taking what you said at face value.

I only assume people who don't have kids are clueless about kids when they say shit that implies that they are clueless about kids, which you did. By the way, does bill hicks know that you stole his routine? He had a pretty good one about advertisers, too.

Maybe you should try taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and realizing that you're not thinking rationally about the implications of what i said. How exactly do you keep your mod status anyways? I would like to talk to you how you're talking to me, but i'd probably get my post edited.

It's not condescension to correct someone who spouts off about something when they clearly know little about it. Though i could see how it would make you feel better about being wrong.

Yeah, see, not having a child, you can't really talk about how meaningful it is to have a child. Sorry, you just can't. That doesn't make you stupid, it doesn't make me better than you, it just means that you can't claim to know how some things feel having never experienced them for yourself. For example: I can't claim to know what it's like being a black man in mississippi in the 40's because i've never been a black man in mississippi in the 40's. For me to claim to understand what that's like is absurd. It is even more absurd to get all self righteous when someone calls me out for pretending to understand what it's like being a black man in mississippi in the 40's.

Well, first you have to get beyond your irrational expectations about what all parents think about child rearing and actually read what i said. I said that no one thing is meaningful to everybody. Having a kid, teaching, helping homeless people, all these things are meaningful to some people, but not to others. How many horrible teachers have you had? I've had several, and they all tend to discourage learning. They all apparently derive little meaning from the profession.

You apparently find meaning in clinging tightly to mental caricatures of breeders. I might find meaning in teaching, maybe not. I can tell you that being a parent, to me, is pretty fucking meaningful, and i can't imagine much of anything being as meaningful.

Depends on the person and depends on how you derive meaning. I am confused as to how you define it.

So you think that meaning is defined externally? That i can't both define what is meaningful for myself and have that definition be valid? And you're implying that i'm arrogant?

It seems like in the first part you're saying essentially that each person finds fulfillment in their own way and then you go on to say that anyone who finds child rearing to be the most fulfilling thing for them is deluded. I think that perhaps it is you who is a bit deluded. You're taking something that you yourself seemingly admit is completely subjective and claiming that people who don't happen to come to the same conclusion as you are somehow wrong. Do you see how that doesn't make any sense?

It would be patently false to say that everybody will find child rearing to be the most meaningful thing they've ever done. I don't think anyone has made that claim in this thread, though, which makes your statements in here seem rather odd.

Yeah, you're right. It must be a breeder thing. You can only understand if you've fertilized an egg. If we have mods to look to as role models on the tfp, well then, i must say that analog, you are a beacon of calm, respectable open mindedness for all of us.