October 18, 2006 at 06:34:12

Why have kids?

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By Daniel Geery (about the author) Page 4 of 4 page(s)

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On and on we went, straining our brains for an answer to this seemingly simple question.

Dr. DeVries was the instructor's name, one of the funnier, more intelligent and personable people I've ever met, and, incidentally, a Mormon.

I admit that the above quotes are squeezed from the depths of my highly imperfect memory, but I believe they do justice to the tenor of the discussion.

The answer to what began to seem like a Zen koan, was, "We have kids so that we can have friends in our old age, and hopefully while we're growing old." Or at least that was the most logical answer, as espoused by the good doctor.

And I have to admit that over the years, that has come to win out over any other any other answers I've thought of. A year ago when I was in the hospital for six weeks, getting a heart transplant, the regular visits from my two sons made me fight to hold back tears. "Friends for when we get old." Indeed! And for the most part, I have likewise greatly enjoyed my sons as friends growing up, and I certainly enjoy them now. Additionally, I do my best to be a friend to my own father, who is now 84, and greatly appreciates my friendship, to say the least.

Both my sons tell me, however, that they don't plan to have kids of their own. For reasons similar to why I almost didn't. And I have many friends who have no kids and don't plan to have any. My neighbor doctor was telling me just last evening how kids give him headaches. And his pediatrician wife has no interest in having her own kids either, though she loves her profession. I sympathized and told them what Groucho Marx said, when asked how he liked kids. "Parboiled," he answered.

If you aren't of a similar persuasion yourself, I'm sure you know many folks who are. In other words, it appears that a large number of people, often highly intelligent people, have involuntarily joined the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

My thinking continues: Ok, I'm busting my butt trying to bring sanity into the world, working to replace violence with kindness, putting kids ahead of our own petty agendas, encouraging respect of nature and the sustainable living which that entails, encouraging empathy and understanding, trying to turn swords into plowshares, and praying to the Universe that it help me not be too big of an asshole. I try to release the hatred I feel toward those who would trade our unfathomably beautiful, precious, irreplacable Earth for a fatter portfolio.

And now I begin to wonder why I bother. My genes appear ready to end in one nanosecond blink of the geologic eye. Why not just let those who want to go on having kids deal with their own bag of shit? They will put themselves and their progeny through an ever deepening, hotter hell of their own making, by failing to do the most rudimentary intellectual homework, by avoiding reading, thinking, and reflection, by not trusting the very brains they were born with, by envisioning and eliciting hostile responses from all those other humans who've chosen to hang around and reproduce, by bowing low and kissing the feet of demagogues, all whilst grovelling in that man-made gutter of the God Almighty Dollar, and perhaps anxiously awaiting "The Rapture" or some mysterious Apocalypse, and meanwhile devoting their sorry lives to larger, fancier cars, sprawlling and resource draining mansions of solitary confinement, Fox News, who has the latest boob job, and the like.

I hate to be crass, but why not say, "Fuck 'em all. I'll just bow out with the most dignity and grace I can muster, which may well be holding up a middle finger when the ignorant fascists throw that last shovel of dirt on me. But why should I fight to save these assholes? I mean really?"

So the Vehement folks have got my attention, and certainly made a pin-prick in my balloon of assumptions. This is not really despair, which I'm told is a sin, but rather a realistic and almost cheerful acceptance that, "Hey! This ain't my problem! I'll soon be out of here and hopefully before long others will catch on and the Earth will get to heal itself. And even if humans hang on long enough to involuntarily bring the curtains down on themselves and a few thousand other species, the Earth will go on spinning, revolving, capturing and utilizing sunlight, and what species do remain will go on evolving, branching, multiplying, recycling the mess we've made, and the Beauty of Nature will prevail, unimpeded by this fruitcake species imposing insane ideas upon it.

Well now, all this makes me feel a little better. It's certainly been cathartic and helped to purge some internalized poison. Which reminds me of what a friend recently asked me, "You know what this Earth needs?" "No," I replied. "An enema," he said. I laughed, but pointed out that an asteroid would work equally well.

Ok, I actually have a fair amount more to say, and the truth is I intend to contradict myself and argue in another article why we humans should go on, keep our DNA alive and healthy, and examine what that entails if we are serious about doing so.

But meanwhile, I encourage you to consider the question raised in the title of this article: Why have kids?

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Geery lived off the grid for 15 years in an earth-sheltered, solar heated home, while his kids learned in school that solar energy isn't feasible. NAPTA hosts a page on Geery's foibles in (more...)

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