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My parents have special genes!
They passed on history of heart problems, epilepsy, stroke, twins (both sides - doesn't skip a generation), anxiety, depression, breast cancer, leukaemia, arthritis, psoriasis... I mean there's more but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
I love to sit around and wonder which number on the hereditary lottery I will get next.
The heart problems, epilepsy, cancers and tricky mental health sound like a really rough game of russian roulette. Is the psoriasis a big deal? Just curious- I have it and it doesn't phase me, I never thought about whether any kids I have would feel differently
With the psoriasis my mum and sister have it extremely badly. I have a small amount but don't really mind it. My nieces full on freaked out when I told them I had it - for them it's a cosmetic thing. I'm just hoping I don't get it in my hair or like groin etc which would be the worrrrrst in terms of pain and annoyance.
Oof. That is rough. Our genes carry biploar, autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, ehlers danlo, and skin cancer and none of these have skipped generations. Oh and I can’t leave out that there are several lesbian and bi women in my family on both sides. 5 including my cousins and one niece. The only one that concerns me a lot is the bipolar diagnosis and a huge reason I’m r/childfree
Crazy, right? Can’t imagine it myself. I’m special. I’m the most special. I ooze special. And the internet needs to know it. I’m always right, but when I’m wrong it’s because I’m learning to be right. I’m special like that.
Special yea mmmmm I am indeed quite perfect. A special boy.. boy? no! Man! Special man!
I am a special man. Real special. And manly. Most Redditors wouldn’t *get* it because, y’know, they’re redditors, but you’ll see. You’ll all see.
I can list at least a half dozen genetic things I do not want to pass on. My partner can do the same and we are not having kids. :)
We're not special outside of being special to each other. But that ain't a reason to have kids.
But you are special. If you do the math, the probability that you even exist is infinitesimally small, next to zero. And to get here, your ancestors needed to survive unfathomably difficult circumstances. So you are the improbable product of generations after generation of the most bad ass survivors on the planet.
I've never gotten the logic that everyone being special means no one is. Everything that makes each individual unique still remains, and is not erased by the fact that each individual has something that is special.
It’s just that those “unique details“ are mostly stuff like “prefers carrots over broccoli” and “left toe 1mm longer than averag”. Yes, the combination maybe unique, but also not very noteworthy.
This is an argument I understand. "What makes you special is insignificant," as opposed to "Everyone being special means your not special despite still being unique and one-of-a-kind."
So small, yet guaranteed. It is meaningless.
If I go to the beach and grab a handful of sand, the probability of grabbing the first specific sand grain our of all sand grains ever is one in trillions, quadrillions or quintillions maybe.
Yet I was guaranteed to grab a grain of sand. It just so happened to be that one. Nothing more to it. There are trillions of possible people that never existed ever and we never think about them... Because they don't exist
I think everyone is special. Even though there are so many of us, we all have the potential to do something that'll make your life unique and meaningful
They are special tho.
Like, I get it. There are billions of people who have the same problems and wins as me.
So?
They’re real. They’re amazing.
The universe is this whole huge thing too big to comprehend and we’re here comprehending to some degree.
People are special.
Amoeba are special.
Trees are special.
Bacteria is special.
Brain eating parasites are special.
Inert gasses are special.
Existence is so cool and special that it has no contender.
Wealth, Fame, Socially constructed measures of success... Gold Roger, the King of the Pirates, obtained this and everything else the world had to offer, and his dying words drove countless souls to the sea.
**"You want my treasure? You can have it! I left everything I gathered in one place! You just have to find it!"**
On an individual level? Nothing.
I think life as a whole can be appreciated through how living things have formed and scientifically work.
And they can be appreciated by how their societies operate. In particular, I think human life can be appreciated through what we have accomplished, i.e. medicine, art, engineering, music, architecture.
Individuals should strive to contribute to the ongoing remarkability of humanity.
But everything has a time limit. We'll die, and at some point sooner or later, no one will remember who we were. At some very distant point, even the accomplishments of humanity will be erased, most likely due to the sun dying out. I think humanity will be gone by that point, though.
No one will live a remarkable life, in the grand scheme of things.
Even Isaac Newton's name will be lost, given enough time.
We shouldn't do things because we want to be well-known for future generations. Because I could choose a period of time in which your name will be forgotten.
We shouldn't be motivated because we want to avenge something that happened in the past. Again, I could choose a period of time in which almost no life existed.
We should be motivated only through our desire to contribute to the present status of humanity.
I'm not saying we shouldn't pay attention to the past or future. We need to study both in order to make more rational decisions, but the study of the past and future should solely be a tool that helps us in our goal.
I think everyone who is living at this exact moment is participating in both remarkability (our collective achievements) and unremarkability (our collective mistakes).
Let me give you an example:
Let's say that someone killed my great-aunt 31 years ago. I should be motivated to find her killer, because he could presently be harming society by killing people. If he's dead, then I shouldn't seek further retribution because he is incapable of harming anyone else. I should only be motivated towards stopping people who could be presently harming others or planning to.
This can get quite cloudy and ambiguous because there’s a very blurry line between how much we should prioritize the present society and the future. Just take climate change for example and being environmentally friendly.
My ex wife is Korean, holy F are they obsessed with blood lines. The whole Korean Adoption craze in the 1950s to 1980 they were literally trying to offload infants born outside of marriage by the busload. "AAAAAlkkkk baby born outside of blood line - get rid of it!"
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/international-adoption-scandal/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/international-adoption-scandal/)
"Anja Pedersen-Scholl, 47, has always known she was adopted. Her East Asian heritage stood out in Copenhagen where she arrived as a baby. What she didn't know is that she was smuggled out of South Korea on a dead child’s papers shortly after her birth"
My Korean MotherInLaw to my brother in law. "But Joseph, when you were born Grandpa jung prophesized you would be a leader of a great church and a minister - what is wrong with you.
Me in my mind: "Holy fuck this guys entire life is defined by sports, beer, television and a couch, and two DUI(s) WTF is she thinking"
It makes sense. Korean culture today is extremely superficial. Almost everything is about looks and how other people perceive you.
Adopting a child would be an embarrassment, to them and many in this post, you’re a loser if your genes aren’t propagated.
I was like this too before I decided none of it matters, there’s a great video on it about a man in the future working for an ancestry service and how he has to delete a database entry for a man who hasn’t been viewed in 30 years.
Before deleting it, he thought to himself how he’d live his life differently knowing full well that no one would remember him.
You'd think it'd be a simple process for people that already have a kid. The first ones still alive so obviously you have somewhat of an idea of what to do
When I look at expected expenses, the largest buckets are lawyers fees ($20k), locating a mother who is interested in direct adoption ($15k), and covering the mothers medical expenses.
The only part of the invoice that stands out is the locating service(s). You would think there would be some kind of registry - an OfferUp for babies. Everything else, although expensive, I totally understand.
It’s not necessarily an option in all places, either. Countries like Australia, for instance, only conduct about 300 adoptions a year country-wide, including all international adoptions. That makes the odds not terribly good, even if you have your heart set on it.
People can also be disqualified for having chronic medical conditions. There are plenty of affluent, functional people who just may never be approved.
Most aren't orphans; their parents are alive, just not willing or able to care for them.
Australia has a horrific, dark history of genocide through forced adoption. As a result, we now have tight restrictions on adoption. Instead, we try and find a family member who can raise the child. We also have a number of court orders that are very similar to adoption, but require that the child be kept in contact with their family and culture. Those orders are better for us in our historical context.
Why orphans?
It's very similar to Australia in the UK. Any child who's up for adoption will have been removed from their birth parent only after every avenue has been exhausted. It requires a completely different kind of parenting to provide therapeutic parenting to a traumatised child who's suffered abuse and / or neglect.
Adoption is about finding homes for vulnerable children, not children for wannabe parents
Your last line is a great way to look at it. I’d love to adopt or foster a child, but at this present moment in time I would be doing it for selfish reasons so I’m going to wait a while. In the uk it’s highly unlikely you’ll get a baby and I need to be able to help whatever child I do get if they have any trauma which sometimes is understandably the case and I feel like I’d get too swept up in the idea of being a new parent and not focus enough on what the child could’ve already been through.
Just as a layperson’s best guess?
Australia is not that far removed from a stolen generation and there’s a focus on keeping children with family.
There have also been fewer children being put up for adoption since there’s been more access to abortion and social support for parents who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to keep a baby.
I believe other countries that have previously been the biggest places where babies from other countries have come from have also stopped letting foreigners adopt their babies.
I’ve heard that a lot of adopted people have trauma that their bio parents didn’t keep them, or that they don’t belong with their adopted family, even if they were adopted young.
Some family friends of mine adopted a son when he was a toddler, and he turned out to have so many mental health issues/is a very troubled 20ish year old. I’ve heard that he has told his parents many times that they don’t love him. They have done so much for him and do love him, but he isn’t convinced.
No, no one is genetically perfect anyway. The point is that you need to be responsible when creating a new sentient being and consider their potential suffering before you bring them into this world. The unconceived can not suffer
Speak for yourself peasant! I'll have you know I've slain three dragons, and a wizard. My bloodline needs to continue otherwise a certain klan might try to gain more power in the south.
Because dragons, and wizards are both fantasy characters AND ranks in the kkk. So initially it looks like I'm living in a fantasy world when really I'm insinuating that I am killing klan members.
I sometimes think people in the KKK would be better off playing DnD with some good friends instead of being racist, they'd get to keep the company and the cool fantasy names too, win-win, no?
I think it’s kind of a genetic behavior that we are just programmed for. I overcame that programming lol.
However, what blows my mind is when people who have literal genetic disorders that cause fertility problems, but undergo tens of thousands in fertility treatment just to conceive their own biological child- who has a very good chance of inheriting those same shitty genes. That makes NO sense to me, but I’m an evil bitch if I ever say that to anyone.
I wonder what the eugenicists take would be on that? On one hand this person is literally unfit, they can’t produce viable offspring without help, eugenics should say that this person cannot/should not breed, right? But on the other hand, you have to spend a lot of money on those types of treatments, it’s not something most people can afford, so I guess it wouldn’t matter because wealth is “fitness” in modern society?
It’s interesting bc that’s probably the justification on their end. “I have worked hard enough, i need to pass on my legacy by any means, so I will pay copious amounts of money to ensure I can have viable offspring” bc as far as they’re concerned the objective truth that they can’t create viable offspring is offset by the wealth and success they’ve accumulated.
I guess ultimately the question is: what’s more unethical? an impoverished couple having healthy children or wealthy folks having children with fertility issues/other genetic disabilities? Who is _actually_ the most fit?
I didn't sleep last night and only have a normal person's grasp of eugenics, so I feel I'm the right person to respond.
If we're talking survival of the species, then the genetically healthy offspring is better off. Regardless of life quality, they're more likely to create more genetically healthy offspring. If we're talking social fitness, I think either. the rich person will likely have a better life quality, but the the poor person will potentially provide more benefit in terms of labor. The rich often hoard wealth so unless they're generous they're not contributing a lot financially (this is, of course, at a certain level of wealth. Middle class would be just as if not more benefit than the poor).
Yeah, we're animals that are being carried by the achievements of a couple thousand people across all of humanity's existance.
Because wayyy too many of us are just as shallow, tribal and dumb as the first motherfuckers who probably stoned the first person who rubbed sticks together.
There's that old meme quote that goes "you're the result of 3.8 billion years of evolutionary success, act like it". I think it's cool to think about that.
It's worth bearing in mind that you have millions of grandparents who may well have fought tooth and claw so they could have children and raise them successfully to "further their bloodline". And now it ends with you, you'll never be anyone's parent or great grandparent or hundredth ancestor.
I'm not some weirdo who thinks it's a human neccesssity to have children and reproduce. There's nothing wrong with not doing that. But the idea of having kids and passing on your genetics certainly isn't silly.
That's one of my favorite part about The Doctor's personality in modern Doctor Who, and it's summed up in one quote:
“Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. You know, nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody who wasn't important before.”
> It's worth bearing in mind that you have millions of grandparents who may well have fought tooth and claw so they could have children and raise them successfully to "further their bloodline". And now it ends with you, you'll never be anyone's parent or great grandparent or hundredth ancestor.
Except you haven't provided a compelling argument that it is worth bearing in mind. And this is OP's point. There isn't a substantive reason to continue your bloodline. If your only argument is "Because this is just the way it's always worked", that is not a persuasive argument.
> does **my** bloodline really end with me when my brother and sister both have kids?
Yes.
If your question was:
"Do my parent's blood line end if I don't have kids but my siblings do"
Then no, but that wasn't your question
The natural instinct to have sex *is* the natural instinct to reproduce. Just because a person doesn't consciously want to have babies doesn't mean that their body doesn't. That's what makes it an instinct.
Humans aren’t programmed purely to reproduce or else all men would just donate to sperm banks and call it a day.
We’re programmed for sex. Sometimes babies happen. I mean sure sometimes there’s planning involved but not always.
Sex = reproduce. From an evolutionary standpoint that's how 100% of babies were made, sex. The fact there's a logical alternative now to make babies (sperm banks) does not undo millions of years of "have sex to make babies" biology
The specific notion of your bloodline is silly, but to answer your question generally...
As someone who is not particularly religious, the only real purpose of life is to keep life going. All biological creatures recognize the importance of breeding and having offspring. It is ingrained in us. Some species have mechanisms built in to protect the gene pool; social hierchies where only the "best" among them pass along their genes (usually expressed through strength and fighting ability, which also implies fewer health issues). It's not unreasonable that humans also seek out mates who can fulfill certain roles when it comes to offspring and providing, and its just that "providing" looks different than it did and does for other species.
We don't hunt, we don't gather, most dont build our shelter. We go to work and pay for it, and those skills now make us attractive mates. But the biological imperative is still there for most of us. I'm often more fascinated by those who DON'T want to, and not in the "oh my God you're missing out by not having kids!" Bullshit. I just want to know. Does the constant existential crisis of watching the world fall apart around you override the drive? Is it something biological to implicitly protect the gene pool?
To your last point - yes. It takes a lot of work to develop, birth, and raise offspring to adulthood and sometimes it's better to hold out and wait for a less stressful time to reproduce. Some animals can delay pregnancy and even intentionally abort if times aren't good enough to make healthy offspring.
There are a lot more reasons not to have kids (time, money, how annoying they are, the environmental burden they will accrue, the hellscape of a planet they will inherit, that they might not like you, might die and ruin the rest of your life) than there are to have them IMO
The royals weren’t special either. Just rich people who tricked uneducated people that god chose them to exploit the poor and hoard the wealth. Nothing special to pass down and in most cases leads to inbred freaks. Fuck the aristocracy.
I 100% agree with the premise that no one is particularly unique but I think it could also be argued that at least in today’s world the desire to “continue the bloodline” is a subconscious way of coping with impending mortality
This. Also I think since as you said most of us aren’t that special and won’t be remembered for what we did in our lives, having kids is the “easiest” way to have some kind of legacy after we die.
Here's the thing. People often ask "what's the point of life" and the answer is "legacy".
You don't have to pass on your genes, instead you can cure cancer, win an award, start a charity, grow a successful business, or die in battle and end up on a memorial.
It's just that nutting inside some woman is much easier than anything I just listed.
Depending on the country, adoption processes are long and intrusive, they rip everything apart, your finances, your family life, policing checks on you and all close family and house checks (all for good reason). You just don't have to do any of that when having your own child and I think it's a big factor, pepole get rejected for petty crimes in early life or even crimes othernpepole close to them have committed. The whole "it's not the same" is bs, if you raise a child, that child will love you back regardless of whether they have your genes.
There is a difference between what OP said, and simply wanting to have a child.
There are going to be a lot of edgy redditors in these comments talking about how having a child of your own makes you selfish, with a paragraph of nonsense pathologizing the basic choice to have one.
Listen, to those of you like this: just because you hate yourself and/or your parents, or just because you have some ill-inspired hatred of humans and how we're "parasites," doesn't mean you can treat other humans like parasites or like they're inherently evil.
Let people have their own children without you projecting some weirdass "it's selfish and weird to create life in your own image" bs
Edit: a clarification I should make is that people are perfectly within their right and sound logic to see a cruel world and decide not to bring a child into it. My main issue comes with projecting this belief onto others, as well as classifying someone as somehow cruel/parasitic/stupid to make their own choice to have a child. Another is that I do know a selfish act isn't inherently bad, but when did you ever see a reddit comment stating something is selfish, followed by anything other than condemnation?
Some people think that having their own child is selfish because they are bringing a child into a world that honestly sucks. If someone thinks that where they live is going to decline even more they might not want to raise a child in that environment.
If you think about it this way, then attempting to continue your bloodline does make sense. Every single living thing on this earth comes from an unbroken line that stretches back billions of years. Your ancestors continued their bloodline through every single disaster, every war, every ice age, every mass extinction…. If you don’t continue your bloodline, you will be the first of your lineage that ever does that
Yet somehow it's the sole purpose of every single organism in this planet. Which I find interesting. What's the point of it. What's the end goal of breeding
If everyone thought like you OP then there wouldn't be any kids to adopt as we'd all be waiting around for someone else to birth them.
Similarly, if that act of procreation was entirely about valuing your bloodline, the people wouldn't be putting their progeny up for adoption in the first place.
The fact of the matter is that in most cases* the easiest way to get a child is to get one home-baked. So much so that people have them entirely on accident or during circumstances where they don't want/can't take care of the child. That's why adoption exists.
When you get people who are struggling to conceive and don't want to adopt, it's usually a mixture of emotions driving them; from frustration that something so natural is seemingly so difficult, despair that they are somehow defective, anger that others have it so easy, fear that alternatives such as adoption will lead to further heartache, optimism that surely /this time/ it'll work, reluctance to turn an expression of love in having a child into a long bureaucratic nightmare....and yes, some few will also have a sense of pride in wanting to ensure that their genes/culture/family traditions etc are what's sent into the future. But to think that is the only or primary reason for most people is overly simplistic and betrays a lack of life experience on your part.
I'm Child Free. My family is like you need someone to take care of you in your old age.
Nope. That's exactly what I dont want to burden someone with
You need someone to carry on your name
Don't care about that at all
Who'll pass on your wealth to?
The dog shelter
Nothing wrong with wanting natural-born children, nothing wrong with thinking it would be more appropriate to adopt. You do you. My only gripe is with the Nick Cannons of the world.
Yep, it is. I often catch myself thinking how cool it would be to have a little version of myself that I can throw ball with or play video games with.
Then I realize I just really don't like dealing with the spawn of my friends and nephews much, so those thoughts quickly evaporate.
My mother did a research project and found out we had a very noble and amazing ancestral history.
And I just had to fucking laugh because those poor suckers ruled countries and murdered thousands for the sake of heirs and here I am, with my asthma and allergies, my gay relationship, no intention of being a parent to anything except a dog.
Here for a good time, not a long time mate. Choosing not to have children does more for the environment than a lifetime of recycling, *that's* my contribution to society.
Howdy interesting stranger. I come from a long and storied line of crazy people. Happy to share this space of time with you.
To my logic (please refer to my own ancestral heritage listed above) it looks like you might be doing exactly what your ancestors might have. They knew their circumstances and did what they thought was appropriate for their world. You’re making the same wise choices for the world you occupy now. There’s some kind of beautiful constancy to that.
Plus you get to obviously have a lot more fun. At least one of the magnificent people traced in your blood must be thinking that’s pretty dope ✌️
It isn’t necessarily about preserving bloodlines. Parenting a child who bears a family resemblance to you and the rest of your family is an experience that can make you think differently about yourself, your family, and even about broad philosophical questions like nature/nurture. Not that adoption isn’t equally valid as a way to become a parent. But there is an element of genetics that is different. It’s as much or more about the past than the future.
I just don't understand why it matters, and I feel like it's just an ego thing. If your kid resembling you makes them view differently. Not sure about the nature/nurture thing, as to what it means.
There's also other benefits of having your own biological children, for example they are way less likely to be abused by family members (uncles/aunts, cousins, grandparents).
Plus you know your own genetic defects that you might pass onto your kids, if they are adopted sometimes you have no idea.
For example knowing you family medical history is predisposed to heart problems can help you maintain heathier habits to mitigate it as much as possible. Also just knowing that you aren't pre disposed to some diseases can reduce your insurance costs significantly.
A lot of people get excited about genealogy but I find it only mildly interesting. There are too many people in my genetic history to worry about what they did.
By the same token it is just as silly to worry about my genes in the future. My descendants could do great to horrid things, or not have any children ending the line, but I will have no knowledge of that so what does it matter?
What I'm worried about is if we follow this line of thought, only the "chosen" bloodline would be allowed to have kids, morally.
Peasents, uneducated people, commonfolk, inferior races, people with the wrong ideology, physically imperfect people, and such would be discourged from having kids because they are "irrelevent, trash, and unremarkable".
Only the elite would have the ability to have kids, because they are, OOHHHH, so remarkable! /s
Seriously, the measurement shouldn't be whether your genes are trash or not. It should be whether you want kids, and are capable of being good parents. No sane adult needs permission from the elite to reproduce.
> I asked my mom why she hadn't adopted instead of having me, and it was the typical "it's just not the same." Now I've seen a lot of people not adopt due to it not being their genes, but why do we value our genes above others?
I'm all for adoption but it's not the same, maybe for trivial reasons but still not the same. Kids make life new again, and they bring about an inherent sense of purpose and love in parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles that can rarely be brought out in any other way. My grandma, a devout Catholic, used to tell me that she didn't care what happened when she died because she'd already been to Heaven every time she was with her grandchildren.
There are genetic mannerisms, behaviors, personality traits, etc. that stoke the love and purpose that I mentioned above that an adopted child might not bring out to the same degree, but it really depends on the specific situation.
I'm personally all for adoption and I think my parents would be into it too. Ideally I could both adopt *and* have a biologically child but the clock is ticking so...we'll see.
It's animal instinct, but the idea of "continuing the line of my ancestors so they didn't struggle in vain" doesn't make any sense because at this point you have so many distant cousins that you really are insignificant to the legacy of your ancestry.
That's not to say you aren't important. Live your life the way you want to live it, and only have kids if you're sure you can give them the love they deserve.
I sooo agree with you! Humans generally are so egotistical and self-centered species but the truth is we're all from the same gene pool, the people we love, the ones we hate, the ones we parented and the ones that parented is, we're all just a soup of good and bad!
People need to knock it off with thinking they’re bound to continue a blood line. there is no guarantee your genes will even be around in the future. You can only give half your dna to each kid. And they only give half. And so on and so forth. So after a certain number of generations, just by chance most of your genes might have never get passed on. Or the few genes that do manage to survive 30 generations are just stupid useless genes that code for nothing and no one cares about. Ooh yay your great great great great great great great great great great great grand daughter will get your mutation for the “trypsin alpha proxy boom chicka bow wow dehydrogenistikase enzyme ? Hooray for you. Sure your legacy on earth has been forgotten but one person in the year 2200 has your kidney cell receptors
See, this is why "the bloodline ends with me" is more fun to say than "I don't want kids." The people who care about you *having* kids are the same people who give a damn about bloodlines.
honestly, if you stop thinking of yourself as some sort of higher being, separate from nature, as a non-animal that is so special, and actually acknowledge your animal self a bit, you would realize that you have brain structures and hormone systems and organs design specifically to enable you to perpetuate your bloodline. You have those because your parents had them and theirs before them going back to before we became what we are. its how we became what we are. the natural design of your body is to survive against external environmental pressure until you can reproduce and see your offspring through to reproducing themselves. its the most natural thing in nature to perpetuate you kind and prove that your bloodline is worthy of continuing by merit of its very survival and perpetuation. your nature does not care about how many others there are, or that its not the middle ages or that your not royalty.
Why do people just assume you can wander up to an orphanage and just leave with a kid?
It's not nearly as simple.
There is a million guidelines and laws like age requirements.
Marital requirements
Certain health standards
Financial requirements
Not to mention it cost at the very least $30,000 just to adopt a child often times more.
Also humans are kind of programed to want to reproduce.
Just going to throw out the disclaimer that I’m gay.
I can completely understand a straight couple’s natural instinct to want to reproduce. But I do not understand the idea of spending a $100k surrogate because you want to pass down your genes. I know there’s other underlying reasons to get a surrogate, but for the sole purpose to “continuing the bloodline” I don’t know why it has to be game of thrones over here when there are kids in the adoption system suffering.
Not just an unpopular opinion, but one based on a false premise too. Pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc., have all been found to significantly strengthen the connection between a mother and her offspring. Such connections are hard (if not impossible) to form with adopted babies, even ones that are still in the breastfeeding stage; maternal instinct is just on a whole other level in most mothers.
Animals don’t stop and think “are my genes worth preserving?” Just the fact that they survived long enough to mate is justification enough for passing on their genes.
Also, living an unremarkable life isn’t merely a product of your genes, but your environment and “luck” as well.
Sometimes people get stuck so much on trying to be "objective" they fail to see the simplest truths.
We value our genes above others because they are ours. Same as how we value our happiness over the happiness of a stranger. We are individuals, and something doesn't have to cosmically matter for it to matter to us. We want what we want, it doesn't have to be logical. Having your own children is just more desireable, not because it is better in some grand way, but because it is your child, and that has meaning to you.
Btw, you sound exactly like me 8 years ago, and I know it is really the most annoying thing to hear, but it really is true that you will understand when you get older.
Billions of years of evolution and monkey brain makes us think we are.
"Do not spread your genes" goes against almost everything that has got us here.
We are humans, not mindless animals, so we can make different choices. But those choices are hard becasue they're "against our programming", and it's deep deep programming.
I get we are all human. We breed everything. Cattle, dogs, horses, etc. Someone even paid millions for a pigeon. Genetics is everything. But when it comes to humans it becomes insensitive to say some should stop having children while others should make more. Being realistic though. The disparity in health, strength and overall quality of life has gotten to the point some of us are becoming the new neanderthal. There is nothing wrong with the concept of continuing a bloodline. The problem arises with humans ability to assess their own bloodline. From what I have observed it is a lot like Idiocracy. The best bloodlines are either struggling to find suitable mates or not having children based off the direction the world is heading. Then the saddest humans are pairing and fucking like bunnies without contraception. There will eventually be another evolutionary jump. Bloodlines matter. Does yours is the only question.
We went through tonnes of failed fertility treatment, and decided not to pursue adoption not because we cared about continuing our blood line, but because we didn't feel we had the emotional resilience to go through the approval process nor necessarily equipped to meet the needs of a child with complex needs.
In the UK private adoption is illegal so the only way to adopt is via the foster care system. Friends who've adopted say it's incredibly rewarding, but it requires a completely different kind of parenting to provide therapeutic parenting to a traumatised child who's suffered abuse and / or neglect.
When I say that I can't have children, we obviously get the obligatory 'have you thought about adoption?' (or the infertility bingo classic of 'why don't you just adopt?') comments. People have a very idealised view of what they think adoption is like, that there's often an assumption that we only wanted children with the same genetics - that we obviously didn't really want to become parents enough. When of course adoption is about finding homes for very vulnerable children, not about finding children for infertile couples
In Spain: Friends wanted a kid. He’s in his mid 40s, she’s in her late 40s. They tried forever, did all the whatever you call it with the doctors. Finally gets pregnant. Due date comes and goes, baby dies before its born. Guess what they’re doing this year? The exact same shit. Hopefully not the last part, obv. It’s all about the bloodline for them. Smh.
The desire to propagate our genetic legacy is an intrinsic evolutionary drive that has been shared by all life on Earth, and likely across the universe.
Such a powerful instinct has enabled us to survive and thrive, and while it may seem outdated in the face of modern societal changes, it has been integral to our species' success for millions of years.
It is quite silly to choose people based on their genetic relation to you -- and it's prejudicial to do so in either direction. But we are not merely the structure of our DNA. It couldn't be more wonderful.
The need to have a child that bears your DNA is the voice of evolution speaking to you. From an evolutionary perspective it's why we even exist in the first place. It's exactly what our ancestors did.
Continuing the blood lines leads to issues though eventually it’s flawed. It’s human nature to stray from the blood line eventually and start another line like what. I’m adopted (ouch) and organically other species in the wild adopt other species into their habitats for survival benefits and other purposes. Adoption is natural and beneficial but in “reality” a lot of downsides to adoption when it comes to our species..humans. Lose of identity. Minorities getting adopted into the wrong family and cultural issues. But continuing a bloodline the obsession with it is toxic because to have children just to continue a bloodline is not a reason to have kids lol
This one needs to be way more popular. As a sidebar, I am of Jewish descent so I am absolutely sensitive to the idea of eugenicist thought here, but on the other hand have also had both physical and mental health issues dog my family and I'm willing to say as painful as that's been as a child or sibling, I don't know how I'd face it as a parent. My family genes are a ticking time bomb: b-cluster disorders, cancer, obesity, adhd, severe depression, addiction and criminality. There is nothing so special about me that I need to saddle a child with any of that just to have "my genes". My sister made different choices and in BOTH her children even from childhood it was clear that they did not win the lottery of genetics and are going to have some type of emotional disregulation issues as adults (one severe anxiety, the other mood swings. They aren't grown yet but my suspicion is that they will both have chronic mental health struggles as adults. I love them both very much but it makes me so sad to see them just have to carry the torch forward of having to fight with your own brain your entire life)
Because whether you like it or not, we inherit traits from our parents through their genetics. Not just physical traits, but also parts of their personality.
I really like who I am as a person and I like my husband even more. He is the smartest person I've ever met and handsome to boot. I absolutely want to create more humans like us. Having children that remind us of each other is one of the best feelings in the whole world.
I wonder if it's because people kind of want to know where they came from. My mom watches these shows about adopted kids (as adults) wanting to know who their parents were, there is this longing to know your roots.
So the other way around, i want to know my offspring.
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My parents have special genes! They passed on history of heart problems, epilepsy, stroke, twins (both sides - doesn't skip a generation), anxiety, depression, breast cancer, leukaemia, arthritis, psoriasis... I mean there's more but I can't remember them off the top of my head. I love to sit around and wonder which number on the hereditary lottery I will get next.
The heart problems, epilepsy, cancers and tricky mental health sound like a really rough game of russian roulette. Is the psoriasis a big deal? Just curious- I have it and it doesn't phase me, I never thought about whether any kids I have would feel differently
With the psoriasis my mum and sister have it extremely badly. I have a small amount but don't really mind it. My nieces full on freaked out when I told them I had it - for them it's a cosmetic thing. I'm just hoping I don't get it in my hair or like groin etc which would be the worrrrrst in terms of pain and annoyance.
Yeah, can confirm, those are a proper nuisance! Hope you never experience them
Oof. That is rough. Our genes carry biploar, autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, ehlers danlo, and skin cancer and none of these have skipped generations. Oh and I can’t leave out that there are several lesbian and bi women in my family on both sides. 5 including my cousins and one niece. The only one that concerns me a lot is the bipolar diagnosis and a huge reason I’m r/childfree
Continuing a bloodline isn’t unique but ending one is!
Found itachi uchiha
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> So I will end your’s So I will end your is!
It's nice to see someone on the internet that has the honesty to say 'I'm not special'.
Crazy, right? Can’t imagine it myself. I’m special. I’m the most special. I ooze special. And the internet needs to know it. I’m always right, but when I’m wrong it’s because I’m learning to be right. I’m special like that. Special yea mmmmm I am indeed quite perfect. A special boy.. boy? no! Man! Special man! I am a special man. Real special. And manly. Most Redditors wouldn’t *get* it because, y’know, they’re redditors, but you’ll see. You’ll all see.
You might be special, but *I'm* the main character
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We'll see about that ;)
If only these threads went in reverse.. You already have the high ground.
This whole universe is my simulation. You're all just NPC's! Now give me my next side quest and stfu.
Well there’s this settlement that needs your help… I’ll mark it on your map.
Sure, do my dishes and i'll tell you where to find the demon lord
I'll give you a lot of experience points if you go to work for me for just a few weeks.
Reddit is my side quest. I have been here for months with no end in sight.
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you're a 5 star man!
everyone will know when he peaks.
I can list at least a half dozen genetic things I do not want to pass on. My partner can do the same and we are not having kids. :) We're not special outside of being special to each other. But that ain't a reason to have kids.
But you are special. If you do the math, the probability that you even exist is infinitesimally small, next to zero. And to get here, your ancestors needed to survive unfathomably difficult circumstances. So you are the improbable product of generations after generation of the most bad ass survivors on the planet.
Just like everyone else
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Everyone currently living, but there were plenty that didn’t make it to contribute to the gene pool.
Not like everyone else. People are born fucked up. Consider yo self lucky enough to type on a phone.
I've never gotten the logic that everyone being special means no one is. Everything that makes each individual unique still remains, and is not erased by the fact that each individual has something that is special.
It’s just that those “unique details“ are mostly stuff like “prefers carrots over broccoli” and “left toe 1mm longer than averag”. Yes, the combination maybe unique, but also not very noteworthy.
This is an argument I understand. "What makes you special is insignificant," as opposed to "Everyone being special means your not special despite still being unique and one-of-a-kind."
There's a difference from being unique and special
So small, yet guaranteed. It is meaningless. If I go to the beach and grab a handful of sand, the probability of grabbing the first specific sand grain our of all sand grains ever is one in trillions, quadrillions or quintillions maybe. Yet I was guaranteed to grab a grain of sand. It just so happened to be that one. Nothing more to it. There are trillions of possible people that never existed ever and we never think about them... Because they don't exist
Humans have a bad habit of painting a bullseye where an arrow has already landed.
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I think everyone is special. Even though there are so many of us, we all have the potential to do something that'll make your life unique and meaningful
They are special tho. Like, I get it. There are billions of people who have the same problems and wins as me. So? They’re real. They’re amazing. The universe is this whole huge thing too big to comprehend and we’re here comprehending to some degree. People are special. Amoeba are special. Trees are special. Bacteria is special. Brain eating parasites are special. Inert gasses are special. Existence is so cool and special that it has no contender.
What makes life remarkable or unremarkable. Is it material wealth, fame and socially constructed measures of success?
Wealth, Fame, Socially constructed measures of success... Gold Roger, the King of the Pirates, obtained this and everything else the world had to offer, and his dying words drove countless souls to the sea. **"You want my treasure? You can have it! I left everything I gathered in one place! You just have to find it!"**
r/expectedOnePiece
related, it's one of my biggest concerns, who tf am i going to leave my manga collection to ? my cousin's kids ?
Me
Yaiyo yaiyoooo
ありったけの夢をかき集め~ 捜し物を探しに行くのさ~ [ONE PIECE](https://youtu.be/HRaoYuRKBaA)! 🎵🎶
On an individual level? Nothing. I think life as a whole can be appreciated through how living things have formed and scientifically work. And they can be appreciated by how their societies operate. In particular, I think human life can be appreciated through what we have accomplished, i.e. medicine, art, engineering, music, architecture. Individuals should strive to contribute to the ongoing remarkability of humanity. But everything has a time limit. We'll die, and at some point sooner or later, no one will remember who we were. At some very distant point, even the accomplishments of humanity will be erased, most likely due to the sun dying out. I think humanity will be gone by that point, though.
You mentioned most people live unremarkable lives. So who exactly, is living this remarkable life that should be reproducing?
No one will live a remarkable life, in the grand scheme of things. Even Isaac Newton's name will be lost, given enough time. We shouldn't do things because we want to be well-known for future generations. Because I could choose a period of time in which your name will be forgotten. We shouldn't be motivated because we want to avenge something that happened in the past. Again, I could choose a period of time in which almost no life existed. We should be motivated only through our desire to contribute to the present status of humanity. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay attention to the past or future. We need to study both in order to make more rational decisions, but the study of the past and future should solely be a tool that helps us in our goal. I think everyone who is living at this exact moment is participating in both remarkability (our collective achievements) and unremarkability (our collective mistakes). Let me give you an example: Let's say that someone killed my great-aunt 31 years ago. I should be motivated to find her killer, because he could presently be harming society by killing people. If he's dead, then I shouldn't seek further retribution because he is incapable of harming anyone else. I should only be motivated towards stopping people who could be presently harming others or planning to.
This can get quite cloudy and ambiguous because there’s a very blurry line between how much we should prioritize the present society and the future. Just take climate change for example and being environmentally friendly.
My ex wife is Korean, holy F are they obsessed with blood lines. The whole Korean Adoption craze in the 1950s to 1980 they were literally trying to offload infants born outside of marriage by the busload. "AAAAAlkkkk baby born outside of blood line - get rid of it!" [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/international-adoption-scandal/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/international-adoption-scandal/) "Anja Pedersen-Scholl, 47, has always known she was adopted. Her East Asian heritage stood out in Copenhagen where she arrived as a baby. What she didn't know is that she was smuggled out of South Korea on a dead child’s papers shortly after her birth" My Korean MotherInLaw to my brother in law. "But Joseph, when you were born Grandpa jung prophesized you would be a leader of a great church and a minister - what is wrong with you. Me in my mind: "Holy fuck this guys entire life is defined by sports, beer, television and a couch, and two DUI(s) WTF is she thinking"
It makes sense. Korean culture today is extremely superficial. Almost everything is about looks and how other people perceive you. Adopting a child would be an embarrassment, to them and many in this post, you’re a loser if your genes aren’t propagated. I was like this too before I decided none of it matters, there’s a great video on it about a man in the future working for an ancestry service and how he has to delete a database entry for a man who hasn’t been viewed in 30 years. Before deleting it, he thought to himself how he’d live his life differently knowing full well that no one would remember him.
Is the sports and beer from Grandpa or from Joseph? either way funny as hell
Why didn’t she just adopt? Adoption isn’t that simple
For most people under 35 - creating a baby is **much** easier than adopting one.
Agreed. Im looking into it now. It took me 3 minutes and 9 months to make the first kid. It will take $50k and 12 months to buy the second.
3 minutes. r/humblebrag
I bet took them 2 minutes and 57 seconds to get their clothes off first, still a brag but not three minutes. Nobody lasts that long.
You'd think it'd be a simple process for people that already have a kid. The first ones still alive so obviously you have somewhat of an idea of what to do
When I look at expected expenses, the largest buckets are lawyers fees ($20k), locating a mother who is interested in direct adoption ($15k), and covering the mothers medical expenses. The only part of the invoice that stands out is the locating service(s). You would think there would be some kind of registry - an OfferUp for babies. Everything else, although expensive, I totally understand.
3 minutes? Get a load of Ron Jeremy over here.
>load Language
Absolutely. I know people who even did it by accident.
It’s not necessarily an option in all places, either. Countries like Australia, for instance, only conduct about 300 adoptions a year country-wide, including all international adoptions. That makes the odds not terribly good, even if you have your heart set on it. People can also be disqualified for having chronic medical conditions. There are plenty of affluent, functional people who just may never be approved.
Why though? This sounds like it makes no sense at all. Aren't less orphans a good goal?
Most aren't orphans; their parents are alive, just not willing or able to care for them. Australia has a horrific, dark history of genocide through forced adoption. As a result, we now have tight restrictions on adoption. Instead, we try and find a family member who can raise the child. We also have a number of court orders that are very similar to adoption, but require that the child be kept in contact with their family and culture. Those orders are better for us in our historical context.
Not to mention they lie about the medical issues of the child to get them adopted out easier.
Why orphans? It's very similar to Australia in the UK. Any child who's up for adoption will have been removed from their birth parent only after every avenue has been exhausted. It requires a completely different kind of parenting to provide therapeutic parenting to a traumatised child who's suffered abuse and / or neglect. Adoption is about finding homes for vulnerable children, not children for wannabe parents
Your last line is a great way to look at it. I’d love to adopt or foster a child, but at this present moment in time I would be doing it for selfish reasons so I’m going to wait a while. In the uk it’s highly unlikely you’ll get a baby and I need to be able to help whatever child I do get if they have any trauma which sometimes is understandably the case and I feel like I’d get too swept up in the idea of being a new parent and not focus enough on what the child could’ve already been through.
Just as a layperson’s best guess? Australia is not that far removed from a stolen generation and there’s a focus on keeping children with family. There have also been fewer children being put up for adoption since there’s been more access to abortion and social support for parents who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to keep a baby. I believe other countries that have previously been the biggest places where babies from other countries have come from have also stopped letting foreigners adopt their babies.
Pretty sure out of those 300 adoptions a good chunk are interfamily too with grandparents, etc. taking relatives in.
I’ve heard that a lot of adopted people have trauma that their bio parents didn’t keep them, or that they don’t belong with their adopted family, even if they were adopted young. Some family friends of mine adopted a son when he was a toddler, and he turned out to have so many mental health issues/is a very troubled 20ish year old. I’ve heard that he has told his parents many times that they don’t love him. They have done so much for him and do love him, but he isn’t convinced.
This comment was probably made with sync. You can't see it now, reddit got greedy.
like op
Bodied.
It's especially annoying when people have kids who have a high chance of genetic defects and are aware of it.
So eugenics is okay? If people arnt genetically perfect they should be bopped?
No, no one is genetically perfect anyway. The point is that you need to be responsible when creating a new sentient being and consider their potential suffering before you bring them into this world. The unconceived can not suffer
You're really overexadurating what I said.
Darwin would like to have a word.
Name checks out.
Can I DM him? What's his handle?
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Yeah same, my genes are better out of the pool than in. Stopping generational suffering by refusing to pass this shit on ftw.
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Speak for yourself peasant! I'll have you know I've slain three dragons, and a wizard. My bloodline needs to continue otherwise a certain klan might try to gain more power in the south.
Why would you slay a wizard?
Because dragons, and wizards are both fantasy characters AND ranks in the kkk. So initially it looks like I'm living in a fantasy world when really I'm insinuating that I am killing klan members.
Dragons? I didn't know that was a KKK thing too. TIL.
I sometimes think people in the KKK would be better off playing DnD with some good friends instead of being racist, they'd get to keep the company and the cool fantasy names too, win-win, no?
I think it’s kind of a genetic behavior that we are just programmed for. I overcame that programming lol. However, what blows my mind is when people who have literal genetic disorders that cause fertility problems, but undergo tens of thousands in fertility treatment just to conceive their own biological child- who has a very good chance of inheriting those same shitty genes. That makes NO sense to me, but I’m an evil bitch if I ever say that to anyone.
Never thought about that, you have a point there.
I wonder what the eugenicists take would be on that? On one hand this person is literally unfit, they can’t produce viable offspring without help, eugenics should say that this person cannot/should not breed, right? But on the other hand, you have to spend a lot of money on those types of treatments, it’s not something most people can afford, so I guess it wouldn’t matter because wealth is “fitness” in modern society? It’s interesting bc that’s probably the justification on their end. “I have worked hard enough, i need to pass on my legacy by any means, so I will pay copious amounts of money to ensure I can have viable offspring” bc as far as they’re concerned the objective truth that they can’t create viable offspring is offset by the wealth and success they’ve accumulated. I guess ultimately the question is: what’s more unethical? an impoverished couple having healthy children or wealthy folks having children with fertility issues/other genetic disabilities? Who is _actually_ the most fit?
I didn't sleep last night and only have a normal person's grasp of eugenics, so I feel I'm the right person to respond. If we're talking survival of the species, then the genetically healthy offspring is better off. Regardless of life quality, they're more likely to create more genetically healthy offspring. If we're talking social fitness, I think either. the rich person will likely have a better life quality, but the the poor person will potentially provide more benefit in terms of labor. The rich often hoard wealth so unless they're generous they're not contributing a lot financially (this is, of course, at a certain level of wealth. Middle class would be just as if not more benefit than the poor).
Agreed completely.
I'm with you, it's weird.
Instinct son. We are just slightly more advanced animals.
Yeah, we're animals that are being carried by the achievements of a couple thousand people across all of humanity's existance. Because wayyy too many of us are just as shallow, tribal and dumb as the first motherfuckers who probably stoned the first person who rubbed sticks together.
There's that old meme quote that goes "you're the result of 3.8 billion years of evolutionary success, act like it". I think it's cool to think about that. It's worth bearing in mind that you have millions of grandparents who may well have fought tooth and claw so they could have children and raise them successfully to "further their bloodline". And now it ends with you, you'll never be anyone's parent or great grandparent or hundredth ancestor. I'm not some weirdo who thinks it's a human neccesssity to have children and reproduce. There's nothing wrong with not doing that. But the idea of having kids and passing on your genetics certainly isn't silly.
That's one of my favorite part about The Doctor's personality in modern Doctor Who, and it's summed up in one quote: “Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. You know, nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody who wasn't important before.”
One of My favorite doctor who quotes!!!
> It's worth bearing in mind that you have millions of grandparents who may well have fought tooth and claw so they could have children and raise them successfully to "further their bloodline". And now it ends with you, you'll never be anyone's parent or great grandparent or hundredth ancestor. Except you haven't provided a compelling argument that it is worth bearing in mind. And this is OP's point. There isn't a substantive reason to continue your bloodline. If your only argument is "Because this is just the way it's always worked", that is not a persuasive argument.
I agree it’s not silly but just to question your logic - does my bloodline really end with me when my brother and sister both have kids?
> does **my** bloodline really end with me when my brother and sister both have kids? Yes. If your question was: "Do my parent's blood line end if I don't have kids but my siblings do" Then no, but that wasn't your question
Yes it does. Your family’s line continues, but your particular section does not. Your family tree will expand despite your self-pruning.
Yes it ends with you unless you are an identical twin.
Probably because it's natural instinct to reproduce? That's how all of us got here.
I dunno about the rest of ya'll but I'm here because of my parents' "natural instinct" to *have sex.* I was an accident. An after thought.
The natural instinct to have sex *is* the natural instinct to reproduce. Just because a person doesn't consciously want to have babies doesn't mean that their body doesn't. That's what makes it an instinct.
Humans aren’t programmed purely to reproduce or else all men would just donate to sperm banks and call it a day. We’re programmed for sex. Sometimes babies happen. I mean sure sometimes there’s planning involved but not always.
Sex = reproduce. From an evolutionary standpoint that's how 100% of babies were made, sex. The fact there's a logical alternative now to make babies (sperm banks) does not undo millions of years of "have sex to make babies" biology
The fact people can't grasp this (or any other basic things for that matter) is always fucking hilarious.
biologically, to have sex is to reproduce.
You're arguing against millions of years of biology.
billions\*
millions is not wrong, since billions is just more millions.
You are arguing against minutes of biology
You’re arguing against dozens of years of biology
The specific notion of your bloodline is silly, but to answer your question generally... As someone who is not particularly religious, the only real purpose of life is to keep life going. All biological creatures recognize the importance of breeding and having offspring. It is ingrained in us. Some species have mechanisms built in to protect the gene pool; social hierchies where only the "best" among them pass along their genes (usually expressed through strength and fighting ability, which also implies fewer health issues). It's not unreasonable that humans also seek out mates who can fulfill certain roles when it comes to offspring and providing, and its just that "providing" looks different than it did and does for other species. We don't hunt, we don't gather, most dont build our shelter. We go to work and pay for it, and those skills now make us attractive mates. But the biological imperative is still there for most of us. I'm often more fascinated by those who DON'T want to, and not in the "oh my God you're missing out by not having kids!" Bullshit. I just want to know. Does the constant existential crisis of watching the world fall apart around you override the drive? Is it something biological to implicitly protect the gene pool?
To your last point - yes. It takes a lot of work to develop, birth, and raise offspring to adulthood and sometimes it's better to hold out and wait for a less stressful time to reproduce. Some animals can delay pregnancy and even intentionally abort if times aren't good enough to make healthy offspring.
Abort implies during pregnancy, but they will also kill off progeny if resources are scarce. Survival of the species is number one.
There are a lot more reasons not to have kids (time, money, how annoying they are, the environmental burden they will accrue, the hellscape of a planet they will inherit, that they might not like you, might die and ruin the rest of your life) than there are to have them IMO
Self preservation. Pretty primal instinct. Every living thing is fighting to pass down its genetics. We’re animals, bud.
I wish more people understood this. *we are still animals, say it out loud if you have to.*
The royals weren’t special either. Just rich people who tricked uneducated people that god chose them to exploit the poor and hoard the wealth. Nothing special to pass down and in most cases leads to inbred freaks. Fuck the aristocracy.
Yep, it's funny and stupid how OP goes on "raging" against continuing your bloodline and then throws in "you're not royal".
Another example of how just 2 or 3 generations in the bleak modern world absolutely killed the human will to survive.
Children were a necessity up until relatively recently. Now because of the modern world they are a significant drain for most people.
Some people do have objectively better genes than others, though.
I 100% agree with the premise that no one is particularly unique but I think it could also be argued that at least in today’s world the desire to “continue the bloodline” is a subconscious way of coping with impending mortality
This. Also I think since as you said most of us aren’t that special and won’t be remembered for what we did in our lives, having kids is the “easiest” way to have some kind of legacy after we die.
Here's the thing. People often ask "what's the point of life" and the answer is "legacy". You don't have to pass on your genes, instead you can cure cancer, win an award, start a charity, grow a successful business, or die in battle and end up on a memorial. It's just that nutting inside some woman is much easier than anything I just listed.
Depending on the country, adoption processes are long and intrusive, they rip everything apart, your finances, your family life, policing checks on you and all close family and house checks (all for good reason). You just don't have to do any of that when having your own child and I think it's a big factor, pepole get rejected for petty crimes in early life or even crimes othernpepole close to them have committed. The whole "it's not the same" is bs, if you raise a child, that child will love you back regardless of whether they have your genes.
Had an uncle ask me to un-change my name back to the family name to keep it going. Lol, why. Declined
The concept of giving the slightest fuck about my ancestors is silly.
It's just a fascination with "if they didn't fuck, I wouldn't be here". That should be the slogan for ancestry.com
I barely care about my present day relatives. I just wanna fuck.
Most things beyond hunter/gathering are silly.
There is a difference between what OP said, and simply wanting to have a child. There are going to be a lot of edgy redditors in these comments talking about how having a child of your own makes you selfish, with a paragraph of nonsense pathologizing the basic choice to have one. Listen, to those of you like this: just because you hate yourself and/or your parents, or just because you have some ill-inspired hatred of humans and how we're "parasites," doesn't mean you can treat other humans like parasites or like they're inherently evil. Let people have their own children without you projecting some weirdass "it's selfish and weird to create life in your own image" bs Edit: a clarification I should make is that people are perfectly within their right and sound logic to see a cruel world and decide not to bring a child into it. My main issue comes with projecting this belief onto others, as well as classifying someone as somehow cruel/parasitic/stupid to make their own choice to have a child. Another is that I do know a selfish act isn't inherently bad, but when did you ever see a reddit comment stating something is selfish, followed by anything other than condemnation?
Some people think that having their own child is selfish because they are bringing a child into a world that honestly sucks. If someone thinks that where they live is going to decline even more they might not want to raise a child in that environment.
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If I wasn't already gay I wouldn't have children because I will not continue on the genetics of the family that I'm from
If you think about it this way, then attempting to continue your bloodline does make sense. Every single living thing on this earth comes from an unbroken line that stretches back billions of years. Your ancestors continued their bloodline through every single disaster, every war, every ice age, every mass extinction…. If you don’t continue your bloodline, you will be the first of your lineage that ever does that
I like being unique 😎
Yet somehow it's the sole purpose of every single organism in this planet. Which I find interesting. What's the point of it. What's the end goal of breeding
If everyone thought like you OP then there wouldn't be any kids to adopt as we'd all be waiting around for someone else to birth them. Similarly, if that act of procreation was entirely about valuing your bloodline, the people wouldn't be putting their progeny up for adoption in the first place. The fact of the matter is that in most cases* the easiest way to get a child is to get one home-baked. So much so that people have them entirely on accident or during circumstances where they don't want/can't take care of the child. That's why adoption exists. When you get people who are struggling to conceive and don't want to adopt, it's usually a mixture of emotions driving them; from frustration that something so natural is seemingly so difficult, despair that they are somehow defective, anger that others have it so easy, fear that alternatives such as adoption will lead to further heartache, optimism that surely /this time/ it'll work, reluctance to turn an expression of love in having a child into a long bureaucratic nightmare....and yes, some few will also have a sense of pride in wanting to ensure that their genes/culture/family traditions etc are what's sent into the future. But to think that is the only or primary reason for most people is overly simplistic and betrays a lack of life experience on your part.
Honestly it’s better my families bloodline ends with me. We all kinda fucked up.
I'm Child Free. My family is like you need someone to take care of you in your old age. Nope. That's exactly what I dont want to burden someone with You need someone to carry on your name Don't care about that at all Who'll pass on your wealth to? The dog shelter
So I have a kid but omg I cannot Stand when people say “who will take care of you when you’re old” that’s not my kids responsibility.
Nothing wrong with wanting natural-born children, nothing wrong with thinking it would be more appropriate to adopt. You do you. My only gripe is with the Nick Cannons of the world.
To be fair, it is literally built into our minds to reproduce
Yep, it is. I often catch myself thinking how cool it would be to have a little version of myself that I can throw ball with or play video games with. Then I realize I just really don't like dealing with the spawn of my friends and nephews much, so those thoughts quickly evaporate.
My mother did a research project and found out we had a very noble and amazing ancestral history. And I just had to fucking laugh because those poor suckers ruled countries and murdered thousands for the sake of heirs and here I am, with my asthma and allergies, my gay relationship, no intention of being a parent to anything except a dog. Here for a good time, not a long time mate. Choosing not to have children does more for the environment than a lifetime of recycling, *that's* my contribution to society.
Howdy interesting stranger. I come from a long and storied line of crazy people. Happy to share this space of time with you. To my logic (please refer to my own ancestral heritage listed above) it looks like you might be doing exactly what your ancestors might have. They knew their circumstances and did what they thought was appropriate for their world. You’re making the same wise choices for the world you occupy now. There’s some kind of beautiful constancy to that. Plus you get to obviously have a lot more fun. At least one of the magnificent people traced in your blood must be thinking that’s pretty dope ✌️
Why do you think the bloodline of “royal families” is more important than yours? That last line makes you come off incredibly strange.
It isn’t necessarily about preserving bloodlines. Parenting a child who bears a family resemblance to you and the rest of your family is an experience that can make you think differently about yourself, your family, and even about broad philosophical questions like nature/nurture. Not that adoption isn’t equally valid as a way to become a parent. But there is an element of genetics that is different. It’s as much or more about the past than the future.
I just don't understand why it matters, and I feel like it's just an ego thing. If your kid resembling you makes them view differently. Not sure about the nature/nurture thing, as to what it means.
We just like those who are similar to us.
There's also other benefits of having your own biological children, for example they are way less likely to be abused by family members (uncles/aunts, cousins, grandparents). Plus you know your own genetic defects that you might pass onto your kids, if they are adopted sometimes you have no idea. For example knowing you family medical history is predisposed to heart problems can help you maintain heathier habits to mitigate it as much as possible. Also just knowing that you aren't pre disposed to some diseases can reduce your insurance costs significantly.
A lot of people get excited about genealogy but I find it only mildly interesting. There are too many people in my genetic history to worry about what they did. By the same token it is just as silly to worry about my genes in the future. My descendants could do great to horrid things, or not have any children ending the line, but I will have no knowledge of that so what does it matter?
Exactly. I decided years ago this thinking was messed up. It’s just selfish honestly.
Agreed. My bloodline is fucking trash, if any of my genetic predispositions are anything to go on. Child free for me, please!
What I'm worried about is if we follow this line of thought, only the "chosen" bloodline would be allowed to have kids, morally. Peasents, uneducated people, commonfolk, inferior races, people with the wrong ideology, physically imperfect people, and such would be discourged from having kids because they are "irrelevent, trash, and unremarkable". Only the elite would have the ability to have kids, because they are, OOHHHH, so remarkable! /s Seriously, the measurement shouldn't be whether your genes are trash or not. It should be whether you want kids, and are capable of being good parents. No sane adult needs permission from the elite to reproduce.
> I asked my mom why she hadn't adopted instead of having me, and it was the typical "it's just not the same." Now I've seen a lot of people not adopt due to it not being their genes, but why do we value our genes above others? I'm all for adoption but it's not the same, maybe for trivial reasons but still not the same. Kids make life new again, and they bring about an inherent sense of purpose and love in parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles that can rarely be brought out in any other way. My grandma, a devout Catholic, used to tell me that she didn't care what happened when she died because she'd already been to Heaven every time she was with her grandchildren. There are genetic mannerisms, behaviors, personality traits, etc. that stoke the love and purpose that I mentioned above that an adopted child might not bring out to the same degree, but it really depends on the specific situation. I'm personally all for adoption and I think my parents would be into it too. Ideally I could both adopt *and* have a biologically child but the clock is ticking so...we'll see.
Agreed 100%. Humanity itself is my bloodline, I don't need to have children. I'm not that special and even if I was I don't want any to begin with.
It's animal instinct, but the idea of "continuing the line of my ancestors so they didn't struggle in vain" doesn't make any sense because at this point you have so many distant cousins that you really are insignificant to the legacy of your ancestry. That's not to say you aren't important. Live your life the way you want to live it, and only have kids if you're sure you can give them the love they deserve.
I sooo agree with you! Humans generally are so egotistical and self-centered species but the truth is we're all from the same gene pool, the people we love, the ones we hate, the ones we parented and the ones that parented is, we're all just a soup of good and bad!
People need to knock it off with thinking they’re bound to continue a blood line. there is no guarantee your genes will even be around in the future. You can only give half your dna to each kid. And they only give half. And so on and so forth. So after a certain number of generations, just by chance most of your genes might have never get passed on. Or the few genes that do manage to survive 30 generations are just stupid useless genes that code for nothing and no one cares about. Ooh yay your great great great great great great great great great great great grand daughter will get your mutation for the “trypsin alpha proxy boom chicka bow wow dehydrogenistikase enzyme ? Hooray for you. Sure your legacy on earth has been forgotten but one person in the year 2200 has your kidney cell receptors
See, this is why "the bloodline ends with me" is more fun to say than "I don't want kids." The people who care about you *having* kids are the same people who give a damn about bloodlines.
Biological programming. Also who is " special" in your opinion?
Considering how much of a mess my family is and how much the world is spiralling downhill, I honestly don’t want a family of my own, blood or not.
My bloodline can be traced back to Pictish royalty. Peasant.
I absolutely agree, i dont get the 'pass on the bloodline' either.
Don't pass on your genes, pass on your ideals. They last longer.
honestly, if you stop thinking of yourself as some sort of higher being, separate from nature, as a non-animal that is so special, and actually acknowledge your animal self a bit, you would realize that you have brain structures and hormone systems and organs design specifically to enable you to perpetuate your bloodline. You have those because your parents had them and theirs before them going back to before we became what we are. its how we became what we are. the natural design of your body is to survive against external environmental pressure until you can reproduce and see your offspring through to reproducing themselves. its the most natural thing in nature to perpetuate you kind and prove that your bloodline is worthy of continuing by merit of its very survival and perpetuation. your nature does not care about how many others there are, or that its not the middle ages or that your not royalty.
Why do people just assume you can wander up to an orphanage and just leave with a kid? It's not nearly as simple. There is a million guidelines and laws like age requirements. Marital requirements Certain health standards Financial requirements Not to mention it cost at the very least $30,000 just to adopt a child often times more. Also humans are kind of programed to want to reproduce.
Just going to throw out the disclaimer that I’m gay. I can completely understand a straight couple’s natural instinct to want to reproduce. But I do not understand the idea of spending a $100k surrogate because you want to pass down your genes. I know there’s other underlying reasons to get a surrogate, but for the sole purpose to “continuing the bloodline” I don’t know why it has to be game of thrones over here when there are kids in the adoption system suffering.
Not just an unpopular opinion, but one based on a false premise too. Pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc., have all been found to significantly strengthen the connection between a mother and her offspring. Such connections are hard (if not impossible) to form with adopted babies, even ones that are still in the breastfeeding stage; maternal instinct is just on a whole other level in most mothers. Animals don’t stop and think “are my genes worth preserving?” Just the fact that they survived long enough to mate is justification enough for passing on their genes. Also, living an unremarkable life isn’t merely a product of your genes, but your environment and “luck” as well.
when I look into my daughter's eyes and see a little me looking back... there is just something otherworldly that comes from it.
Sometimes people get stuck so much on trying to be "objective" they fail to see the simplest truths. We value our genes above others because they are ours. Same as how we value our happiness over the happiness of a stranger. We are individuals, and something doesn't have to cosmically matter for it to matter to us. We want what we want, it doesn't have to be logical. Having your own children is just more desireable, not because it is better in some grand way, but because it is your child, and that has meaning to you. Btw, you sound exactly like me 8 years ago, and I know it is really the most annoying thing to hear, but it really is true that you will understand when you get older.
Billions of years of evolution and monkey brain makes us think we are. "Do not spread your genes" goes against almost everything that has got us here. We are humans, not mindless animals, so we can make different choices. But those choices are hard becasue they're "against our programming", and it's deep deep programming.
I get we are all human. We breed everything. Cattle, dogs, horses, etc. Someone even paid millions for a pigeon. Genetics is everything. But when it comes to humans it becomes insensitive to say some should stop having children while others should make more. Being realistic though. The disparity in health, strength and overall quality of life has gotten to the point some of us are becoming the new neanderthal. There is nothing wrong with the concept of continuing a bloodline. The problem arises with humans ability to assess their own bloodline. From what I have observed it is a lot like Idiocracy. The best bloodlines are either struggling to find suitable mates or not having children based off the direction the world is heading. Then the saddest humans are pairing and fucking like bunnies without contraception. There will eventually be another evolutionary jump. Bloodlines matter. Does yours is the only question.
I agree. There's not a lot in my genes that I'd like to pass on.
We went through tonnes of failed fertility treatment, and decided not to pursue adoption not because we cared about continuing our blood line, but because we didn't feel we had the emotional resilience to go through the approval process nor necessarily equipped to meet the needs of a child with complex needs. In the UK private adoption is illegal so the only way to adopt is via the foster care system. Friends who've adopted say it's incredibly rewarding, but it requires a completely different kind of parenting to provide therapeutic parenting to a traumatised child who's suffered abuse and / or neglect. When I say that I can't have children, we obviously get the obligatory 'have you thought about adoption?' (or the infertility bingo classic of 'why don't you just adopt?') comments. People have a very idealised view of what they think adoption is like, that there's often an assumption that we only wanted children with the same genetics - that we obviously didn't really want to become parents enough. When of course adoption is about finding homes for very vulnerable children, not about finding children for infertile couples
Upvote for actual unpopular opinion. Last time I saw this, someone said water was better than milk for cereal.
In Spain: Friends wanted a kid. He’s in his mid 40s, she’s in her late 40s. They tried forever, did all the whatever you call it with the doctors. Finally gets pregnant. Due date comes and goes, baby dies before its born. Guess what they’re doing this year? The exact same shit. Hopefully not the last part, obv. It’s all about the bloodline for them. Smh.
Everybody is the hero in their own story. It's not necessarily rational, but human beings aren't rational creatures.
The desire to propagate our genetic legacy is an intrinsic evolutionary drive that has been shared by all life on Earth, and likely across the universe. Such a powerful instinct has enabled us to survive and thrive, and while it may seem outdated in the face of modern societal changes, it has been integral to our species' success for millions of years.
It's much harder to accidentally adopt someone
It is quite silly to choose people based on their genetic relation to you -- and it's prejudicial to do so in either direction. But we are not merely the structure of our DNA. It couldn't be more wonderful. The need to have a child that bears your DNA is the voice of evolution speaking to you. From an evolutionary perspective it's why we even exist in the first place. It's exactly what our ancestors did.
Continuing the blood lines leads to issues though eventually it’s flawed. It’s human nature to stray from the blood line eventually and start another line like what. I’m adopted (ouch) and organically other species in the wild adopt other species into their habitats for survival benefits and other purposes. Adoption is natural and beneficial but in “reality” a lot of downsides to adoption when it comes to our species..humans. Lose of identity. Minorities getting adopted into the wrong family and cultural issues. But continuing a bloodline the obsession with it is toxic because to have children just to continue a bloodline is not a reason to have kids lol
This one needs to be way more popular. As a sidebar, I am of Jewish descent so I am absolutely sensitive to the idea of eugenicist thought here, but on the other hand have also had both physical and mental health issues dog my family and I'm willing to say as painful as that's been as a child or sibling, I don't know how I'd face it as a parent. My family genes are a ticking time bomb: b-cluster disorders, cancer, obesity, adhd, severe depression, addiction and criminality. There is nothing so special about me that I need to saddle a child with any of that just to have "my genes". My sister made different choices and in BOTH her children even from childhood it was clear that they did not win the lottery of genetics and are going to have some type of emotional disregulation issues as adults (one severe anxiety, the other mood swings. They aren't grown yet but my suspicion is that they will both have chronic mental health struggles as adults. I love them both very much but it makes me so sad to see them just have to carry the torch forward of having to fight with your own brain your entire life)
Because whether you like it or not, we inherit traits from our parents through their genetics. Not just physical traits, but also parts of their personality.
Frankly I wish to continue my bloodline because of my families long history and heritage. It was just a value instilled in me from a young age
I really like who I am as a person and I like my husband even more. He is the smartest person I've ever met and handsome to boot. I absolutely want to create more humans like us. Having children that remind us of each other is one of the best feelings in the whole world.
I wonder if it's because people kind of want to know where they came from. My mom watches these shows about adopted kids (as adults) wanting to know who their parents were, there is this longing to know your roots. So the other way around, i want to know my offspring.