I'm of the opinion that it's irresponsible in today's world to have more than 2 kids, due to population pressures on environment and sociology. But I apply that to everyone. No qualifiers.
This is my take as well. I've never understood the desire for large families. When your entire family were also employees, that rationale made more sense. Now it just seems like people want large families because "that's how I grew up."
It's **Meaning of Life** territory.
Please know that even though I have kids, I do not personally share the belief that raising kids is my existential purpose.But for many, family is their purpose in life. This doesn't need to have a religious basis, and it can be more sophisticated than "BABIES!!!!"
Who has the right to tell them that they're wrong? Why does anyone get to decide someone else's existential philosophy? Unless you consider yourself the first human being in all history to discover an absolute objective basis on which to draw up a meaning of life, you don't. Until such a thing is discovered, we all have to decide for ourselves what our source of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment is. Some will decide that it's raising other people, watching them grow up to lead their own fulfilling lives, and satisfaction in having been the origin of that life. And that's ok.
Now combine this with the machinations of wealth inequality.
On an individual basis, it's easy to say that someone shouldn't have had kids they couldn't support. That they behaved irresponsibly. And it can be hard to disagree.
But in the bigger picture... compare a poor person who works hard their whole lives from a position of little opportunity to someone who was born into wealth, and both hold raising a family as core existential ideals. The poor person may never find themselves in a place where it would be objectively "responsible" for them to have a child. But it's beyond me or anyone else to tell them they shouldn't do it anyway if the alternative is to live a life devoid of meaning. You may as well tell them they should go ahead and kill themselves.
This goes deeper than any junk about material luxury-based quality of life standard or whatever. Blanket condemnation of the practice of "having kids you can't support" contains implicit approval of the idea that one of those people deserves a life that is spiritually meaningful and fulfilling to them, and the other doesn't.
This isn't to say that personal advice to someone about responsible family planning is necessarily wrong. Only that judging someone for neglecting that advice isn't necessarily right. It's more complicated than that. And the implications of blanket condemnation for irresponsibly having children bear a lot of resemblance in principle and style to the likes of eugenics and prosperity gospel -- that being rich carries some intrinsic right to a life of purpose and everyone else exists to serve them, not to engage in meaning for themselves.
Author
Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4463594 times)