This came up in a discussion with my 9 year old son this morning: How would the world be different if people laid eggs in insted of giving birth to live young?
Probably much more equal parenting roles, as either sex could incubate the egg (which might also evolutionarily lead to both sexes being able to feed the newly-hatched as well).
Animals which lay eggs don’t nurse the babies, so either parents could feed it equally well.
So the whole gender roles would be different, since there would be no reason for mom to be more vulnerable while pregnant or have to stay home and nurse the baby.
Turtles lay eggs and don’t really parent at all, if memory serves.
NO BOOBS!!!
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We’d probably have a lot more "octo-mom"s and her ilk.
Am I a people?
No, you are a chicken.
Was I just born?
No, you were hatched from an egg.
Are eggs born?
No, eggs are laid.
Are people laid?
Some, but most are chicken.
An egg that’s big enough to house a full-term human baby is going to be pretty large. It’s not coming out of the average pelvis. Our babies would either have to be less well-developed when they hatch (smaller egg) or our bodies would have to be very different so that a woman could pass an egg that large.
Abortions would be quite simple.
A woman can work right up until she gives birth. If she laid an egg, I doubt she would carry it to work with her, so she would have to stop working right away unless she had someone at home to watch it. It’s possible that we as a society would think that it is OK to leave an egg unattended.
I bet in the old days someone would have to stay home in order to keep the egg warm. But I’m sure by now you could easily buy the ‘ComfyEgg2000!’ so they both parents could work while the egg is kept warm at home.
I think I really like your kid!
We’d have a lot of debate over if it’s legal to smash your own eggs, lots of eggs would be stolen by women who can’t lay them, and men would find new ways to insult each other for having to stay home with the eggs all the time. Oh, and if we were really egg-layers, men wouldn’t have external penises.
Monotremes do. They’re the most primitive mammals - platypus and echidna - and their females do secrete milk for their young. Presumably if we laid eggs, we’d resemble our closer relatives the monotremes more than our more distant cousins the birds or reptiles.
Yes, we’d probably have even smaller and less developed babies than we do right now. (Although the bright side of this would be a much briefer and less burdensome “pregnancy” until the egg is laid, so it might be a very fair tradeoff!)
We might look at cannibalism very differently. “I’ll have Joe’s kid, over easy, with a side of toast and a cup of… um… Joe.”
True. However, allow me to point out that echinoderms have NO BOOBS!! Thus supporting my previous point.
And delicious.
You know that the chicken eggs we eat are unfertilized eggs, right? You’re not going to make a very good omelet with a fertilized egg.
OMELETTES ARE MURDER!!! WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE YOLKS??!
It’s not overtly obvious that I’m postponing getting real work done today, is it?
Sigh. The correct response would have been, “what do you mean? Abortions are already delicious!”
If my wife laid eggs, she’d have to hide them. I bet my dog would get them, and either run around with them, or actually eat them!