Would you rather have a child, or live forever?

[ceecee]

I already have children and no I wouldn't want to live forever. I don't know if I could take them dying, knowing I never would.

 

[Flâneuse]

The idea of living forever is pretty unsettling, but the thought of utter nonexistence is even scarier (and I'm not crazy about the idea of having a child anyway), so I chose the second option.

 

[GarrotTheThief]

I chose to bring another life in to this cold world rather than live in it forever. I AM A COWARD!

 

[Arctic Hysteria]

Neither.
I cannot imagine living a life in this world for EVER, while all the people I've come to love die before me,
I cannot imagine bringing a child into this messed up world unless I find an incredibly strong, loving and honorable partner for a tag team, which I doubt I ever will.

There are more things for a person to desire to achieve than to live forever or to have a child.

 

[Noll]

Live forever. Children are stupid and annoying.

 

[Riva]

Wow I was thinking of this question earlier today.

I want to marry and having kids it's a natural part of marriage I believe, if not I wouldn't even get married.

But given this opportunity I believe I'll take that. I can always adopt .

 

[Nicodemus]

I am not particularly fond of the mortal life I have, so I doubt an immortal one would be an improvement. However, I also do not like the idea of forcing another intelligent, sentient being into this cruel world of greed and stupidity. I must decline the offer and shall die a mortal's death.

 

[AOA]

Neither option..

I don't actually want children & I don't actually like this world however I look at it to want to live forever.

 

[cm81]

Have the child, and share life WITH them!

You could very much find yourself with a seven year old who straight face tells you that you act like a child.

(she's getting a rocking chair for Christmas)

 

[cm81]

Neither.
I cannot imagine living a life in this world for EVER, while all the people I've come to love die before me,
I cannot imagine bringing a child into this messed up world unless I find an incredibly strong, loving and honorable partner for a tag team, which I doubt I ever will.

There are more things for a person to desire to achieve than to live forever or to have a child.

Children are beautiful! And terribly messy, and slightly annoying.

Imagine if Da Vinci had never been born? Or Jesus, or MLKJ, or Lawrence, Joan of Arc, Tchaikovsky, Gandhi, or Kwame Nkrumah? There are so many others...and many whose names remain unknown. (Many many more who were never born)

When you silence one, you hinder them all. (Unless it's Hitler. I don't care what your struggles are. You don't have the right to hurt anyone)

 

[Lady Lazarus]

I believe either would serve to make me sufficiently miserable. So, yes, either would be fine(well, fine is far from what it would be really...) so long as it could never ever be both. (I do wonder how this would work though, would I become sterilized by all the mysterious trappings of immortality[poof go your genitals! It has all the makings of a children's song.]? Rendered ineligible for it because somehow I would be too busy for immortality due to raising Bitter II? Does immortality require a childless sacrifice? or ...?)

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe...

 

[Arctic Hysteria]

Children are beautiful! And terribly messy, and slightly annoying.

Imagine if Da Vinci had never been born? Or Jesus, or MLKJ, or Lawrence, Joan of Arc, Tchaikovsky, Gandhi, or Kwame Nkrumah? There are so many others...and many whose names remain unknown. (Many many more who were never born)

When you silence one, you hinder them all. (Unless it's Hitler. I don't care what your struggles are. You don't have the right to hurt anyone)

I don't share this "one of them could have cured cancer / AIDS, or brought people to Mars, or invented time machine, etc." sentiment. I don't hope for my kid(s) to be Jesus, or Da Vinci, or Einstein. I just hope that if I produce one, he or she will get to become a knowledgeable, happy, healthy and loving human being.
I don't see how that could happen. Most happy people are ignorant, most knowledgeable people know too much for their own peace of mind, nobody is truly healthy, love and self-sacrifice are underrated, and a large portion of the rest is just mediocre consumers who live life in a blur. I haven't figured out how to live this life the right way, let alone take charge of guiding another through it.

Within my limited time in this mortal life, if one day I finally can, financially, I want to go the streets, visit the shelters, to help homeless people and abandoned children within my own capability. I want to travel and see more of the world, the lives and landscapes.

Sitting home and crafting a potential Jesus from somebody's sperm isn't really my deal of life.

 

[cm81]

love and self-sacrifice are underrated.... large portion of the rest is just mediocre consumers who live life in a blur. I haven't figured out how to live this life the right way, let alone take charge of guiding another through it.

Within my limited time in this mortal life, if one day I finally can, financially, I want to go the streets, visit the shelters, to help homeless people and abandoned children within my own capability. I want to travel and see more of the world, the lives and landscapes.

Sitting home and crafting a potential Jesus from somebody's sperm isn't really my deal of life.

Love. I really hope you discover what this means. (Sometimes you need a child to do just that. If not your own, those homeless children that aren't currently waiting on your financial contributions, but love--sometimes expressed through financial giving)

BTW, I used to feel the way that you do now. Except that I wasn't waiting for anything, not even money. If you want to do these things, money will be the one thing that keeps you from it. Go. Do what is in your heart.

 

[Thalassa]

Love. I really hope you discover what this means. (Sometimes you need a child to do just that. If not your own, those homeless children that aren't currently waiting on your financial contributions, but love--sometimes expressed through financial giving)

Parental love is not selfless, it's narcissistic (not necessarily in the pathological sense, though). That's why I don't get into this whole bit about being a better person because you had kids. Yes, some people are born to be excellent parents, but some people have kids and half heartedly raise them or outright ignore them. Most people though show extreme preferential treatment to their genetic offspring via "extension of myself." The sort of people who can take in adoptive children and be teachers, I think, probably genuinely love children.

But there are other kinds of love. Like loving the elderly, the sick, the blind, the mentally ill, or animals. Children are not the be all and end all, and shit has been really blown out of proportion in regards to children since about 1900.

 

[Thalassa]

I don't share this "one of them could have cured cancer / AIDS, or brought people to Mars, or invented time machine, etc." sentiment. I don't hope for my kid(s) to be Jesus, or Da Vinci, or Einstein. I just hope that if I produce one, he or she will get to become a knowledgeable, happy, healthy and loving human being.
I don't see how that could happen. Most happy people are ignorant, most knowledgeable people know too much for their own peace of mind, nobody is truly healthy, love and self-sacrifice are underrated, and a large portion of the rest is just mediocre consumers who live life in a blur. I haven't figured out how to live this life the right way, let alone take charge of guiding another through it.

Within my limited time in this mortal life, if one day I finally can, financially, I want to go the streets, visit the shelters, to help homeless people and abandoned children within my own capability. I want to travel and see more of the world, the lives and landscapes.

Sitting home and crafting a potential Jesus from somebody's sperm isn't really my deal of life.

Well you can always do something valuable with your own life if you free up all that time and energy by not having kids. Like say you cure cancer because you didn't have children distracting you.

I think people who love kids should have them, but people who know they want to do other things should do other things.

 

[cm81]

Parental love is not selfless, it's narcissistic

Hello, Newman.

 

[Arctic Hysteria]

Love. I really hope you discover what this means. [...]

BTW, I used to feel the way that you do now. Except that I wasn't waiting for anything, not even money. If you want to do these things, money will be the one thing that keeps you from it. Go. Do what is in your heart.

I love INFJs, but one thing INFJs in my life do that I still try to deal with is that they tend to assume I don't understand the things they do, and I'm a lost soul that needs to be enlightened.

Charity takes small gestures in everyday life. But large scale acts of kindness need stable finance. And I can't help the people on the streets if I'm on the edge of living on the streets myself.

I want to give a child everything I've got, and that means a perfectly healthy, loving and happy mother and father, in a safe and healthy environment. He or she doesn't deserve to be brought into this world to witness my depression and confusion, a potential broken partnership between their mother and father, commercialized violence and sex, nonsensical excuses for tearing lives apart called "racism", "sexism" and "religion", to eat food out of Monsanto lab while I cannot afford a piece of backyard to grow them food on my own, to go to school and learn about false facts and generic values.
I'm idealistic, I know. But I won't compromise when it comes to what to give my child.

So make a baby when one knows they can surely provide them with the best in the world, give them a family like the way it should - a mum and a dad that don't try to either cheat on or kill each other, and teach them unbiased things.

I agree with [MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION], that I don't understand the "being a better person because you had kids" thing. Some treat their children like their own confession box, some like their Gucci bag and chihuahua, some like their little clone project.
I think you view this world as something worth living and bringing a child into. I unfortunately don't and I won't make a child suffer from my point of view simply because I want a kid.

 

[cm81]

I love INFJs, but one thing INFJs in my life do that I still try to deal with is that they tend to assume I don't understand the things they do, and I'm a lost soul that needs to be enlightened.

Charity takes small gestures in everyday life. But large scale acts of kindness need stable finance. And I can't help the people on the streets if I'm on the edge of living on the streets myself.

I want to give a child everything I've got, and that means a perfectly healthy, loving and happy mother and father, in a safe and healthy environment. He or she doesn't deserve to be brought into this world to witness my depression and confusion, a potential broken partnership between their mother and father, commercialized violence and sex, nonsensical excuses for tearing lives apart called "racism", "sexism" and "religion", to eat food out of Monsanto lab while I cannot afford a piece of backyard to grow them food on my own, to go to school and learn about false facts and generic values.
I'm idealistic, I know. But I won't compromise when it comes to what to give my child.

So make a baby when one knows they can surely provide them with the best in the world, give them a family like the way it should - a mum and a dad that don't try to either cheat on or kill each other, and teach them the unbiased things.

Then either be celibate or invent perfect birth control.

Believe me when I tell you that I used to feel the way that you do now, and to an extent, I still do.

When you follow your heart, you're likely to meet others along the way with same/similar passions, but who have gone another route in life. Those same people are prone to invest in a worthwhile cause, if yours is one requiring capital. (It gets messy if they think that they now get to control things)

No one person will ever be able to give a child everything. That's not a plea to change your mind. It's only natural to want to shelter a child from the cruelty in the world, but look where it got Bhudda. The dude snapped. Instead of using his great wealth and powerful position to do something about the injustices he had seen, he cut himself off, and took a place on the street, wishing it all away, all the while displacing somebody and begging for what was theirs.

The best you or I could ever give any child, or person, is love. Love is an action verb just as much as it is an emotion just as much as it is a separate entity. Approach children honestly, value their perceptions, encourage their input, empower them; part of helping a child discover who they are is exposure. You don't need a lot of money to give a child an experience. And you don't have to own land to have a garden.

NOT CHILD RELATED: I don't know where you live, but try and see if you live close to a community garden. I wholeheartedly agree with you! Grow your own food! If that's still not an option, look for a plowshare. They exist, and you can meet a lot of amazing people that way.

 

[Thalassa]

Hello, Newman.

I know a mother of four who agrees with me, it's not that I think this way just as a non parent. Parental love is mostly about preservation of your own stuff. A lot of parents would harm others in society for the sake of their children. There's nothing unselfish about that, it's justifying actions you wouldn't feel socially compelled to do for yourself, but you can excuse away being selfish in this manner "for the kids."

Do I think some parents are more selfless than others? Yes. Like I said, adoptive parents, foster parents, teachers, perhaps some biological parents who are more balanced about their children ....and if you care about your children, seems like you would also value the people who ensure other facets of society that will ultimately affect your children now or in the future.

An environmentalist who will work to preserve the health of the planet is possibly preserving the happiness of your child when he or she becomes an adult. There are so many ways to love, to contribute to society, to leave your mark, and thinking kids are the only way to do that is dangerous, imo.

 

[Luv Deluxe]

I love INFJs, but one thing INFJs in my life do that I still try to deal with is that they tend to assume I don't understand the things they do, and I'm a lost soul that needs to be enlightened.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm an INFJ and I think we all know ourselves better than anyone else knows us; it's pretty arrogant to assume that one knows what's best for someone else, particularly with regard to serious personal choices like having children. I'm with you, by the way, on the no-kids thing.

I chose immortality even though I want neither. With immortality, I could at least see what the future looks like some three hundred years out, might be able to satisfy all my curiosity with regard to the potential outcomes of the human race, whether all those dystopias being imagined now actually come to fruition, etc., etc. It's a thrilling idea, all of our rules being flipped inside-out for better or for worse (but hopefully better).

Nonetheless, I'd hate to outlive my loved ones and would ultimately burn out on being able to do everything I wanted in a way that would eventually become lonely and dissipated. Lack of actual risk would dull the highs I got from zip-lining or whitewater rafting, for example. That rush of adrenaline and the feeling of really being alive is such an enormous part of my personality; I'm afraid immortality would strip me of it.

That said, I'm so horrified of having children that I still choose immortality, the lesser of two evils.

Seriously. I'm now twenty-six and all my life I've had to defend my choice to remain child-free. When I didn't play with baby dolls as a child, grown adults would ask me why I didn't like babies - only to promptly disregard my answers and insist that I would change my mind with maturity. Now, when nothing has changed at all, I still get it from people. I would like to imagine that these women feel the way they do because they can't imagine feeling any other way, but it's an audaciously tactless thing to say out loud in an attempt to steer me onto the "right" course.

I can't get behind the whole, "I used to feel like you until Baby X came along," "No one is ever truly ready for children, and you'll feel differently when you have your own," "You don't know what love is until you become a mother" sentiment. It's more than a buzzkill or pet peeve at this point.

If you want to have kids, have them. Don't assume that I should also have them. Likewise, I'm not a smarter, more awesome person for choosing not to have children - it's just the smarter, more awesome choice for me. One would think we could leave it at that and all live happily ever after.

Then either be celibate or invent perfect birth control.

This statement strikes me as a little too black and white, very limiting. It's very easy to be sexually active without getting pregnant, thanks to faithful and correct use of birth control. There are choices involved here, ones that don't mandate an either-or decision between abstinence and child-rearing.