I just started thinking the other day about children. Why do we feel inclined to have them? I mean, thinking practically, they don’t do anything for you. You have to spend tons of money and time on them. They cause frustration. etc, etc, etc. Is it just is some sort of evolutionary mechanism that causes it? You know, to carry on the name or to work the farm? Or is it, as the Christian would say, to symbolize the unquenchable love that God has for us, we feel that we need to love something as well? Do you get what I’m asking?
Strong biological forces molded by evolutionary processes cause us to just wuv cutsey-wutesy ittle bitty babies.
Strong biological forces molded by evolutionary processes cause us to just wuv cutsey-wutesy ittle bitty babies.
I don’t.
Me neither. Babies are for suckers!
Depending on circumstances you find yourself in a place where you want to impregnate females and they want to be impregnated and well, there you go. It’s not just an “oops” thing or a simple orgasm with a motile, sentient female either. When you’re having good sex with an intelligent, sexy, responsive woman you often find yourself wanting to impregnate them down to the core of your being even if that’s the least convenient thing to happen. It’s like your brain and body are saying “this is a certified high quality female - Go mode systems on!”
It’s a raw, animal thing like pravnik said, plus you get the tax deduction or the CS payment as the case might be.
Ah, but how do we know how many people actually do want to have children? We can’t assume that every person who is a parent actually wantedto be one. We don’t know how many pregnacies are started on purpose and how many are unintentional.
Say, is this really a general question? Maybe it should be in IMHO?
Eek! Tell me that is not really true? :eek:
Of course it’s true. What do you think a man having great sex with a woman he loves and admires is thinking in the deepest recesses of his primal passion when he’s making love to a woman and is in the throes of ectasy and on the edge of orgasm?
Hint - it’s not “No babies! No babies! No babies!”
A man wants to possess this good thing he’s interacting with and everything about it. There is a primal urge to make babies not just have sex for the sake of sex.
I agree this might belong in IMHO, as I am going to start my response off with the following…
I think…that it probably has something to do with biological needs. Animals have certain instincts, as do humans. Not letting the human race die out is one of those instincts.
It’s funny, I was thinking of starting a thread along these lines, but somewhat different, as although most women do at some point “feel their biological clock ticking” or feel the need to have a child, I have absolutely no desire to pro-create. I want my siblings to have children so that I can spoil my neices and nephews, but that instinctual motherhood thing just ain’t me.
Therefore, I would have to say that for some people, procreation just comes naturally, instinctually to them. And others feel that procreation isn’t for them.
I think we can all agree that sex is somethign that most people like to do and babies are a ‘byproduct’ of that. as for:
this is not nessessarly true. they are your hope for the future of mankind, they hold all your unfufilled dreams, they are what you could have been if you were only ‘guided’ right, and finaly and most practically they are the ones who will change your diapers if you raised them right.
Not only that, they provide an outlet for emotion. Some people actually have a desire for love that only a child can quench. I’m not one of those people. However, I find that my daughter provides me with plenty–a constant source of amusement, pride, fear, nervousness, anxiety, love, frustration, and every other emotion known to man. She’s sort of like a really cool video game or interactive toy. The only drawback being that you can’t turn her off when you’re “done”!
To paraphrase Samuel Butler, adults are just babies’ way of making more babies.
I can corroborate this. This is one reason people don’t use condoms every time. It’s a component of basic human urges that AFAIK proponents of sex education rarely take into account.
I still think “eek” though. Hey - ain’t it lucky for me I am not indulging in such amusements just now!
“Always look on the bright side of life…”
It’s got nothing to do with having children, IMO.
It’s about having grandchidren, G-d bless them!
Bingo. If any of your anscestors ever had babies, you have a genetic likelyhood to want to do the same thing.
We want to have babies because if we didn’t want to have them, we wouldn’t be here.
That simple.
I think astro has something there. I can attest that sex is more intense and satisfying when you know it’s ‘uncovered’ and you want it that way. Man, what a rush.
And there’s a real satisfying thing about watching them grow and learn. My mom told me once, “Babies are annoying, noisy, distracting things that no one in their right mind would ever want to have anything to do with…until their yours. Then they’re the most fascinating thing there has ever been on earth.”
And she was right. It’s by far the most gratifying project I’ve ever undertaken.
Well, my first thought was “good eatin’,” but that may just be me.
Mrs. Sublight and I have just recently decided to throw away the condoms and start trying for a kid. While I can’t even claim to understand the thinking that goes into her decisions on far more mundane matters than this, I know that for me, it was just a feeling that “this is what I’m going to do” and all my earlier resistance to the idea had faded away.
And Jonathan Chance is right: the sex when both of you want to have a kid is fantastic.
I have to agree that sex when you’re hoping for conception feels different emotionally.
But the OP has me intrigued, too. We are probably stopping with one child. Most of my friends have more than one. I am intensely curious about the decision-making process to have another child–how it happens, what you feel, how you decide the timing.
So even though I have a child, I have the same sorts of questions.