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Gafke...your words are a reflection of your life...sorry for your pain. Not all existences suffer though, not to the extent that one wishes they were never born..No one can know wether the life they create will suffer.... any more, than they could know that the life they create could bring great kindness into the world and alleviate the suffering of others.
It's not a reflection of my life, the good of my life has outweighed the bad so far. My philosophy isn't personal, it comes from objective perspective. There is still so much that I want to say that I don't even know how to start. I will be soon creating a thread about the immorality of procreation.
Tell that to the people waiting at Buchenwald, or building the Burma Road, or heaving in the holds of slave ships, that they should just be patient, their joy is just around the corner. There is no limit to what human beings will do to each other. Especially when you invent something for them to fear.
Someday your children will ask about what I just described. Do you have your answer ready?
OK, you go get them for me and I'll tell them...
You bet I have an answer for my children..good ones too.
In a world where there's no scientific proof of God's existence and of life after death how will you explain to your children why you brought them into the world and why they will have to die?
In your place and with your attitude, I'd just take poison and end my suffering, not to mention the suffering of those with whom you come in contact.
In your place and with your attitude, I'd just take poison and end my suffering, not to mention the suffering of those with whom you come in contact.
I think most people don't have any explaining to do to their children. Knowing what I know now, I regret imposing existence upon them. But they have never thought to demand an explanation from me. And I have actually apologized to them, particularly in view of what a spectacularly bad choice I made for their biological mother. My daughter thinks I'm "negative" and my son simply doesn't know how to respond to it. And I am talking adult children here BTW.
I think that people fall into one of several categories in this regard.
One category is embodied in your post: just go away and quit your whining because I'm tough and optimistic and life is fine so far as I'm concerned. This can actually be true if you have the right brain chemistry and decent luck in life, or it can be a form of denial if not.
Then there is the fact the Hope Springs Eternal In the Human Breast. By the time your children figure out that their suffering does not merely represent temporary technical difficulties or speed bumps, you will probably be dead already, or a pitiable shadow of your former self (or if you have the wrong sort of child, a helpless and tormentable shadow of your former self).
Then there is the fact that there is plenty of blame and denial to go around. It is popular, to be sure, for children to blame their parents, but also their spouses and ex spouses, their own children, their employers, general rotten luck, and society for their troubles. As to denial, there is a common fear of admitting to actual suckage in life lest one be overwhelmed and pulled under by it.
If you review this and similar threads, it is pretty much down to a debate between people who still have their illusions and those who have been disabused of them in various ways. So it goes ... evolution does not optimize for quality of life, it is only concerned with passing on genes. Our brains naturally evolve to rationalize the daylights out of life. If they did not, not enough of us would survive to pass on our genes.
I think most people don't have any explaining to do to their children. Knowing what I know now, I regret imposing existence upon them. But they have never thought to demand an explanation from me. And I have actually apologized to them, particularly in view of what a spectacularly bad choice I made for their biological mother. My daughter thinks I'm "negative" and my son simply doesn't know how to respond to it. And I am talking adult children here BTW.
Your kids may not know how to articulate it, but I do. You're emotionally masturbating on them, or perhaps emotionally taking a shyte on them. If you feel that you have extended them harm by passing along your ex's genes, and certainly yours I would imagine, then don't add to the crap. Buck up and keep your shyte to yourself as it's probably abuse. They clearly don't appear to want it.
1. In a world where there's no scientific proof of God's existence
2. and of life after death how will you explain to your children why you brought them into the world and why they will have to die?
1. I will tell them that I don't know whether or not God exists and that they are welcome to believe whatever they please.
2. I will tell them that I (or someone else, if they would be adopted) brought them into the world because either I/other individuals wanted children and/or because other individuals did something which accidentally resulted in their creation. As for death, I will explain to them that the human body (just like the body of almost every other species) is meant to eventually die due to our genetics. However, I will cheer them up by telling them about cryogenic preservation and about a cure to aging eventually being developed.
Your kids may not know how to articulate it, but I do. You're emotionally masturbating on them, or perhaps emotionally taking a shyte on them. If you feel that you have extended them harm by passing along your ex's genes, and certainly yours I would imagine, then don't add to the crap. Buck up and keep your shyte to yourself as it's probably abuse. They clearly don't appear to want it.
Nice armchair diagnosis. My children deserved, and got, an apology from me for their crappy childhood due in large part to my poor judgment in mates. Whether they know what to do with it at this point in their lives, or ever, is beside the point. My guess is that when they are my age they will remember it and it will provide them with some closure and insight. Or they will forget about it, as it was a five minute matter of fact conversation and not something I harangue them about. That'd be fine by me. If they never have the existential self-reflection to sort out what's really going on, it'll be a mercy. If not, they are somewhat inoculated.
It is the same with my daughter's inexplicable need to keep having children despite the risks of passing on her mother's madness (schizophrenia) -- or in the case of the two children by her first husband, combining it with their father's madness (bipolar). I had a frank talk with her on the cusp of sending her out in the world and adjured her to either refrain from having children, or adopt. Or failing that, at least accept full responsibility for the possible consequences. Now one of her children is mentally unstable and to her it's just shyte falling from the sky. That is her responsibility; at least I discharged my responsibility in the matter. I tried to prevent more suffering. That she could not override her primal need to have children is understandable, but still an unwise risk. But I do know boundaries -- it is her life and her choice, good, bad or indifferent though it may be in my view. I'd never tell her my thoughts at this point.
Next March I will make the expected pilgrimage to meet my next grandson after his birth and I will do the requisite congratulatory dance and hope for the best, and I will move heaven and earth to make sure he knows I love him, etc. But I don't envy him.
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