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Originally Posted by Halifax
That's a rather cynical view of human nature. And that really is where this issue of whether it is right and proper is decided. I do not subscribe to a reductionist theory of evolutionary biology. We are the product of a scientific process, yes, but that process is itself a product, and therefore we have a purpose beyond the mere propagation of genes. Now, of course there isn't such as a thing as a 100% pure, totally selfless motive, but the admixture of selfishness with selflessness does not mean that selfishness is somehow the dominant and default factor.
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I maintain that there is not one human action or interaction that is not selfish in its base. We choose based on what makes us most content, be it a career, philanthropy, parenthood, a partner, you name it. Conversely, it is human nature to deny it.
There is no GOOD reason to have kids except to keep the human species going. Hell, that might not even be a good reason.
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Originally Posted by Halifax
I'm not saying that a person can't be. I'm saying that a person shouldn't. And again, that's not some dictate of my own or matter of personal preference on your part. It's inherent in the nature of being human. Nor am I putting parents in some special category. All I'm saying is that obsession with raising children, in making children one's sole object and consummate desire, is no better than taking money, power, or pleasure to be that sole object and desire. But of course, I am criticizing an extreme, so my criticism would doubtlessly need to be moderated to the same degree to which that extreme is modified in practice. Again, there are no pure or unmixed motives, in either direction.
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How a person wishes to be defined is a personal trait and some only want to be defined as a parent. It is not up to anyone else to say they shouldn't.
"Obsession", as you call it, is no different than a goal. If one's goal is to be a doctor, should they abandon that if they don't have college funds or maybe failed high school biology? I am certainly not going to tell them they have to abandon that notion. Not my place nor my concern.
So if I want kids, can't make them at the drop of a hat and adoption attempts failed, I can still desire that goal and go for it. I have a few friends that also went through the frustration of not becoming a family. One finally adopted her children, another had twins, same age as mine, with less time spent in fertility treatments and a third had her first with treatment and a second without. We are all parents, we all had a goal and we all achieved it the best way we could.
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Originally Posted by MSD
Continuation of the species is, necessarily, one of the strongest natural instincts (and I would argue that it surpasses preservation of the self) and an evolutionary trait that has been selected for in the ancestry of everyone alive. I think it's unreasonable to expect people to want to adopt instead off producing their own children. It's human nature, plain and simple.
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I don't know that I agree with this. There are many who don't want to procreate and never will. Whatever parental instinct that may exist in some just never materializes in others.
I have been told by some that we shouldn't adopt, but have our own. My feeling was "why"? I wanted a family any way I could get it. Hell, I thought I wouldn't be married, but I knew I'd have kids.
My in-laws that adopted their boys are no less a family because their kids didn't come from blood and no one has thought they were any less family than anyone else. Ironically, of six cousins, only two brothers are of the family bloodline and they don't have the family surname. The other four do and none of them are blood related. But in the end, we are family.