I am irresponsible (but responsible enough to know this).
I’m impatient. I hate teaching.
I’m not a morning person.
I’m not good with commitment.
Kids seriously get on my nerves.
I’m not family oriented (love my family, but don’t want to spend much time with them)
…
Ah, you know what…nevermind. I’m sorry I opened this fucked up can o’ worms. None of my reasons would be valid to you and I don’t know why I feel the need to defend my choices to you, King Asshat. Please return to Castle Fuckup and resume your rule.
As for conservatives outbreeding liberals…so? Conservatism and liberalism are not genetically heritable traits, and a person makes up their own mind. I, for instance, am a liberal descended from a powerfully conservative family. Your argument means nothing.
People, reproduce/don’t reproduce: Your Choice! [Tommy Lee Jones] “I Don’t Care…!” [/Tommy Lee Jones]
Yes, it’s wrong to pressure people they way some families do. Its also wrong to be hair-triggered, reactionary and read things into what other people say.
Case In Point:
There was a co-worker that I got along with. She seemed smart and competent and we could BS about which coffee machine made better coffee in the office. (Please Note: this was Purely platonic and nothing else…just an office ‘friend’)
At the end of the Christmas party one year, we found ourselves walking the same way back to the building and we started talking about general stuff. I started talking about my kids (I often do). I said that I lived for my kids and that they were the best things that ever happened to me. [please note: only talking about me; your mileage may vary]
She shoots back a nasty reply that some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children and what right did I have saying that having children was so great. [Note: suddenly she’s not just talking about me, but she is most definitely Dissing me personally, professionally, as well as Dissing my kids.]
I ended up never speaking to her again after that night and she left the company soon afterwards.
Epilogue: Yes, I get it that some relatives/lovers/dogs named ‘Sam’ might be telling you over and over to reproduce and you’ve built up a lot of resentment over the topic. But if I’m talking about my kids, WTF has that got to do with you or your organs?
You don’t have a damn thing to be sorry about, pimaspinner. There are alot of us here in this thread and out in the world who have made the moral, ethical, and responsible decision to not have children when we know we don’t want them. Many of us suffer or have suffered through thoughtless attempts by others to tell us how much we don’t know ourselves and our own capacities and preferences. You’ve done nothing wrong.
Y’know, most of the things that I wanted to respond to in your post have been responded to by higher minds than mine. So I just wanted to clarify this one thing: I’m 21, unmarried, live paycheck to paycheck, have a mountain of debt, and have no college degree. I live in a small two bedroom apartment with a roommate, and the internet is my only true luxury. I’m minus a viable grandparent to help care for a potential baby now that my dad’s dead. Your post seems to imply that I need to have a baby RIGHT NOW, which is even weirder than the “you’ll change your mind” argument. Does it really sound like I would be able to give a child a good life, or does it sound like my baby would be sleeping in a drawer and essentially cared for by the cats while I’m at work?
And why would a baby of an uneducated, unwed mother be a better result than me getting a degree and dedicating my life to charity, or medicine, and potentially making millions of lives better? What about if I wanted to go into pre-natal care? That’s a lot of potential baby lives saved. But you’re saying that if I were to have to choose b/t giving my time and money for that kind of thing, or giving my time and money to raise one single child, the one child would be better b/c it’s mine? How incredibly ego-centric of you to think that your children are better than a large group of children, and it really sounds like that would be your decision.
It’s probably time you realized that everyone doesn’t have the same life as you. I’m certain that you make more money than I do at this point, and you seem to have a support network of at least a spouse, and probably grandparents and the like. There’s not a lot of that in Tokio-country, I’ll tell you.
But I’m aware that you’ll never change your mind, so I’m about done here. To all of you that raise children b/c you love to see your faces in them, or they make you feel like a kid again yourself, good on you. Have as many as you like, and if you’re a friend of mine, I’ll be the best faux-aunt they ever had, I promise. No baby shakin’ or anything.
To you, however, maybe you should learn to accept other’s viewpoints without sounding like such a judgemental prick. I’m behind your decision to fill your life with little footsteps, for the record. Enjoy it!
I’ve tried “Talk to your other son, you know the one who is both older than me and in a long-term heterosexual relationship”, but no dice.
Bob55, the reason people are being so horrible to you is that what you’re saying is dumb. It’s really that simple. You haven’t even managed to say why not having children is selfish. Being selfish is caring more about yourself than others; who are these others who are harmed by me not having children?
Ahh, I see the zerg rush has continued in my absence. You know, if I was flat-out wrong people would have ignored me long ago. But the fact that you actually take the time to address my “you are selfish” argument shows that really there is some deep-seeded hatred in many of you for the truth I speak. You really, really, really hate society for some reason or another, and feel that you must prove me wrong at all costs because it will in a sense validate your selfish and materialistic lives.
#44 was no response, it was senseless. I addressed #84 if you actually read my responses when I discussed the “fornication does not lead to conception” argument. But who’s not reading who’s posts now? Oh that’s right, evidently you. I didn’t address your gay comment because I don’t want to get off topic. But if you read my earlier definition of selfishness and needs vs wants, then yes, homosexuals fall into the selfish “need” category. They are only thinking of themselves.
OMG IT’S TEH PIT I MUST FLAME SOMEONE AND FLAME THEIR KIDS TOO RAR. Yes, you can use impressive words like “dickcheese” and tell someone to stick things into light sockets (which is on some level a threat and bannable), I bow to you. For that, you win the argument because I cannot compete with such immeasurable intellect. As for my intelligence, well that would be a Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology but hey, what do I know.
Yes, but you don’t have kids so it’s a difficult case. I know if you pushed one out you’d protect it with your dying breath. You’ve got 50,000 years of modern homosapiens behind that instinct.
Your wit is admirable. And my words hurt you because it’s a deeper truth that you cannot stand to face.
Whether or not they did is objective. Did they make it a better place for native Americans? Hrm maybe I’ll go ask one, oh wait they’re only 0.2% of the population now. Thanks Newton and Mr. Paine. Again, selfishness - they made the world a better place for you, they made your life easier. But they didn’t for everybody.
No, the reason is because I am one of the few people actually speaking up and I represent “the red states”. Unfortunately, the mentality of The Pit for whatever reason is of “the blue states”. And nothing gets a person in a blue state going like somebody else dare offering a difference of opinion. Oh we’re supposed to be “open to discussion”, but here we are, shutting down the discussion when it doesn’t suit your needs.
People are just upset that the core of my argument - they are selfish - is irrefutable.
I do accept other’s viewpoints, but I’m allowed to have my own as well. If they don’t want to have kids, more power to them and I won’t stop them, but I am allowed to conclude as to why they will not. And my conclusion is they are selfish. That’s my viewpoint. Everyone else is sure judgemental about me, but the second I put my idea forward (that again represents the majority of the country) I get reamed and called a “judgemental prick”.
I know that your situation isn’t perfect for having a child, I didn’t say you had to have one right now. It’s when I hear people say they don’t want children ever that I get a pretty good idea about what makes them tick. And generallly, it’s materialism or selfishness.
Selfish
Unselfish, though I think as a parent you would overcome irresponsibility.
Unselfish, but you could improve yourself and learn to be a good teacher, and learn patience.
Selfish
Selfish
Unselfish, but a problem you could work on.
Selfish
That would be their choice, and I would tell them my opinion but I wouldn’t force anyone to have kids.
The Pit != excuse to go off on someone in a way you wouldn’t do in person. Everything I’ve said today I would say to someone in person, as my opinion. But I seriously doubt anyone would call me a “dickcheese” IRL. It’s not polite and I expect the same treatment even when anonymity is involved. Sorry to hold you all to such high standards as common decency.
I never claimed to be “smart”. I have a Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology, and would fare pretty well against someone in that field. But I didn’t realize that someone’s intelligence affected whether or not they had a right to the First Ammendment?
Yes, I do. Stop looking at me swan.
Sorry my viewpoint hits home so hard, but again I represent the majority of America, not the minority. So don’t kill the messenger. And don’t use your anonymity as an excuse to be a jerk to someone just because you can. I doubt you treat anyone IRL with such disrespect.
Show me this evidence you claim exists that counters my selfish/materialistic argument? You can’t find a single person who doesn’t want to have kids that has a legitamate unselfish reason, especially on these boards where people clearly have the free time to have kids, but they’d prefer to use that time moping around on a message board feeling bad for themselves and having a pity party with their buddies because someone dare suggested they get some reason in their life and have children.
Yes, they are faulting me for stating my opinion. Nearly everyone in this thread has. My opinion is that their choices are wrong, sorry I don’t sugar coat it. As DianaG said to me “It’s the Pit. Suck it up”.
And as I’ve already said, the maternal instinct will always kick in. Sure, a crying baby sucks, but you adapt, and learn, and get along. And eventually you realize how to fix it in 5 seconds flat. It’s your kids, suck it up.
I’m sorry that the fact that you are a slave to your chromosomes hurts so many people. “WE’RE BETTER THAN OUR CHROMOSOMES WE SWEAR”. No, you aren’t. 50,000 years of humanity, and 2 billion years of life says otherwise, or else you wouldn’t be here. Everything you do is due to your genes. Even the thought of “no I have overcome them” is a result of your genes.
Maternal instinct is in you. Maybe the world today doesn’t promote it for one reason or another, but it’s there.
You’re welcome to feel about my opinions however you wish, I respect that. In fact, this is how you should respond to someone, you attack the opinions and say they are “fucked up”, not the person.
If you want to attack me personally, just Pit me (it wouldn’t be the first time, Bob55 Pitting1 and Bob55 Pitting2). But in this discussion I expect people to direct their anger at the ideas that hit so close to home rather than me, because I just won’t respond to personal attacks.
Observations are best left to being about matters that you personally have observed. “Observations about women,” as expressed by you in this particular sentence could mean “observations about specific women of my [your] acquaintance,” if you want to claim that, I suppose. If you do, it’s probably in your best interest to announce that fact when you’re making the statement. Otherwise, you’re leaving yourself open to people reading it as:
In fact, that reading in this case appears justified by the fact that you seem to be freely applying them to women on the SDMB, whom, I’ll hazard to assert, you have never so much as clapped eyes on, let alone observed.
Don’t worry about the reference to Jack Dean Tyler; he was a Doper of some notoriety, which he earned, in part, by posting his opinions, and subsequently acting as though by doing so, he had furnished us with unassailable facts. If you missed him, you missed him.
I’m not 100% convinced that Bob isn’t trolling, at this point. I’ve been wrong about these things in the past (I think), but I’m having a hard time believing that any of this is for real.
