What motivates someone to have children?

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My kids are the joy of my life.

The chance to see the world fresh, to share it with someone who brings new perspectives, to hold and guide and protect a tiny, perfect piece of the world.

I’m not good with grown ups, but children are my wheelhouse.

Now my own children are grown, but my oldest has a child, and they share him with me one day a week. Which is the best gift ever.

However, I appreciate Pepe. And anyone else who knows they shouldn’t have children and has the good sense not to.

I’m not good with children.

There are times, though, when their antics help you forget the crapola of this world.

I have seldom had contact with small children. This past fall I met my estranged cousins in Seattle, at a picnic my 3-year-old niece falls off the bench and starts crying. I froze as she's been ignoring me earlier and we were never introduced. I let her dad (whom I've only met once before at cousin's wedding many years prior) walk around the table to pick her up. Maybe I shouldn't feel so awkward, maybe I shouldn't be touching unfamiliar children anyway.

What's wrong with picking up a small child from the ground after the child fell? Especially if the child isn't getting up by his/herself. I guess I would ask permission first from the parents. But I feel like people have an instinct which involves soothing people after getting hurt which has nothing to do with any sort of sexual intention.

If somebody thinks that soothing a small child is perverted somehow, that's a sign that people really have their priorities mixed up.

I guess I'd be more careful under the influence of the prevailing atmosphere. But, in the old days, no one would have looked askance at somebody picking up a small child after he/she fell. Those who are actually perverted made it bad for the rest of us.

Bad example, I guess, but there's a lack of others.

I had no previous contact with this child, so it was too much of a social barrier for me, to throw myself into the middle of that situation of the crying child, who may or may not have been hurt. I didn't want to be blamed, or have someone think I made the child cry.

I had a lot of my own thoughts on my mind during that trip, I was thinking about having my own as I was looking at them. And the disturbing things that happened in my life just weeks prior.

Honestly, I had an easier time with the 5-year-old, which is consistent with the understanding of children I've had.

all my life i've only gotten on the same wavelength with older people. never with my age-peers, and esp. never with younger people.

Having khildren is not for me in a personal sense, but it goes beyond that.
If ppl leave their emotions out of the equation, there is no valid rational argument to bring life into this life system.
"Where there is life there is suffering."
I believe the ppl in Ukraine know this all too well.

But beyond the PERSONAL satisfaction due to instinctual directives, what rational arguments are there to procreate?
We are born...
We experience emotional and physical pain while "learning the ropes".
Most people experience bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts.
If we live long enough, our organs eventually fail which usually causes an emotionally distressing and painful death.

And all for what?
Perpetual mindless procreation?
I suggest ppl read Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene".

To be klear:
I don't condemn "breeders".
Breeding is the most natural thing in the world.
Some of us simply emotionally transcend the need.

Actually, the purely rational reason is simply not having the progress and gain you've made go to waste. No emotion in that.

Or, extrapolating from that, kicking the can down the road a bit. If you couldn't figure out what the point in life is, maybe your kids will.

Likewise, looking at it from a very unhealthy selfishly rational angle, taking emotion out of it, you would do it as yet another investment toward the old age. Like anything, it is not a sure thing. You do your best.

So there you go. Successful counterargument.


You're off the rails dude. Ukraine is somewhere far away. Most of us have plenty of other things to care about, building families and seeking joys of life. What, you say I don't care enough, I don't do enough? What acts of heroism are you doing behind that keyboard? There is no sense in talking about it if you are unwilling to do anything.
Like with children, take the emotion out of it. No point in caring at all.

Conversely, where there is no life there is no love.

there are some of us who don't quite grok the love thing. it is abstract to some of us.

I don't mean love of people.
I mean love of anything, including nature and beauty.
The energy of love would be gone.

i guess for some of us then, that is where spiritual faith comes in.

and the physics of energy. ^

ah yes, there are always the laws of thermodynamics.

Since "Love makes ppl crazy", are you advocating MORE crazy ppl in the world?
I think you are.

Personally speaking, I value "Oblivion" after "the mortal coil".
I profoundly believe in R.I.P.
What better reward for all the suffering ppl have to endure throughout life?

And never forget these epic wise words:


By all means, make the best of the cards dealt you in life...
Make your life as comfortable as you can...
But, plz, plz, don't repeat the procreational nonsense.

"Love" is based on simple chemical reactions in the brain.
Nature's little incentive/push to predominantly procreate.
Go oxytocin! Rah rah rah!