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Zelandeth said:
I guess I'm not the best person to ask on this subject, but feel I may as well put forward some of my views.
Firstly, the disclaimer: I admit completely to having absolutely no paternal instincts whatsoever!
Reasons I'd not have children.
1. Children are expensive. And no, there's no way to deny it!
2. The world's population is growing at an unsustainable rate as it is.
3. If you've got a kid, you're tied down to looking after it full time for at least the first 14 years.
4. Would you ever forgive yourself if something happened to it?
5. Children make mess.
6. They also ignore instructions, and whine a lot. At least all the ones I encounter on a regular basis do.
I'm not mean to them when I meet them, but it's a case of being able to "put up" with them on a short term basis. Put me in the same house as a kid and I'm pretty sure I'd go crazy. A screaming baby can drive me around the bend within five minutes. More than once I've got off a bus home from college and waited over an hour for the next one, just to avoid said baby.
I really don't think I'd make a good father, it just frustrates me trying to deal with kids, they just have no concept of logic at all. Then again, neither do many adults, which I guess is why I tend to look so confused all the time.
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You basically wrote the same thing I intended to write. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent. I hate it when people will say that having children is the only reason to live. That basically reduces us to insects who exist only to make more of themselves. I like to think human beings are more than that. I life lived without children is hardly a life wasted.
P.S. To add to your comments about babies, to me they only serve one purpose-to test Newton's laws of gravity. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif While I have no great love at all for children, I really, really hate babies with a purple passion. Children under about five come a close second. They never, ever, listen.
And I think all children should be kept in cages at least until the age of ten. Seriously. I can deal with older children in small doses, though, and sometimes actually like teenagers.