redefining egoism
Last night, we get onto my favourite topic of conversation - women and children. I'm amazed when someone without a uterus purports to know all about it.
Cus: Don't you want to get married?
Me: Not really.
Cus: Well, don't you want to have kids?
Me: Uh, no. I can see myself getting married but not having kids.
Cus: But isn't that a bit egoistic?
Me: What?
Cus: Not wanting to have kids. That's so egoistic.
Me: What do you mean? Isn't it the height of egoism to desire something simply to have an extension of yourself, to leave a living legacy of Y-O-U?
Cus: Ohhhh, okay, we're not going there.
Me: (Wuss.)
Was it just two weeks ago when I was told that having children is a biological urge shared by all women? That's like saying it is impossible for men to be monogamous because they are biologically predisposed to injecting their seed into anything with breasts. Is it possible that people still think so little? What happened to the art of contemplation?
6 Comments:
thinking is the luxury for those of us whose needs aren't so immediate. in the village children are a sort of natural resource for adults and older children to play with. they are also useful for running errands. i think people have them mostly as a retirement plan. the more you have, the more likely one of them can win the US visa lottery and send back wages from their immigrant manual labor jobs, etc.
monogomy is.... best taken serially in small doses. everytime you meet someone, there is part of you which knows that you could be meeting someone else. scary is not haveing 3 girls show up for the same date at the same time... scary is having to chose which one. bombay sends its love.
Ooh, I'd love to spar with you over an msn argument. I like to annoy people. Can I annoy you? I want to play!
The act of raising Children is important for a society to ensure its future generation (either through adoption or giving birth to own offspring)
If we were dictated by purely biological needs, i.e. ensuring a future generation, humans wouldn't experience existential angst (granted, angst usually arises among individuals who suffer no dearth of food/shelter/etc). We wouldn't be having this conversation and nomadlife wouldn't exist.
Survival of the species is one way to look at it; another angle to ensure future generation is standard of living.
We are not going to be in our 20's forever; we will get old and live even longer. If the next generation before us is bunch of useless no do gooder, our 50's and beyond are going to suck bad.
And a stable and good family (gay or straight) is still the best institution to raise children (Imagine if future generation is raised by the government; god, the horror)
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