posted
My partner and I were having an interesting conversation about babies the other day. I mentioned adoption instead of having your own and he would not have a bar of it at all. I asked him why passing on his own genes was so important and he countered with why shouldn't he be allowed to? He got very defensive when I kept pressing him about it I asked him why he wouldn't want to take in a baby put up for adoption and he (essentially) said that why should he have to miss out on passing on his own genes to make up for the mistake that another person made? I said that that’s not really fair on the orphaned baby and he finished with "Life's not fair!”
But since I didn't get a proper answer out of him about why passing on his own genes is so important I was wondering what your thoughts were on the subject?
I like to think that I would rather adopt than have my own (But then I am a young woman who is at the moment horrified at the thought of carrying a baby for 9 months and then giving birth to the thing...). But sometimes when I do think about babies I think how cool it would be for the baby to be my own child.... Being scientifically minded I think it’s probably something that is programmed into us to make us want to keep our genes going. But is this function really as necessary these days?
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Babies are not a rational subject; why should he have to defend whatever his decision is on the matter? And incidentally, I agree with him completely; I do not wish to spend the vast effort that is raising a child, on somebody else's baby.
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quote:I asked him why he wouldn't want to take in a baby put up for adoption and he (essentially) said that why should he have to miss out on passing on his own genes to make up for the mistake that another person made? I said that that’s not really fair on the orphaned baby and he finished with "Life's not fair!”
While I view adoption as an intelligent, responsible choice, I do not think having your own child is an unintelligent, irresponsible choice. From what you've said here, it sounds like (he felt) you were accusing him of making a vindictive decision against an orphaned baby by electing to have his own child. Given that this is a pretty serious accusation to make, I don't blame him for being defensive.
In other words, I don't think you were simply asking him what his thoughts were; I think you were attempting to advance your own pro-adoption agenda, and he recognized this.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: I think it is very inconsiderate to think he is wrong to want to have children.
Uh, I don't think he is wrong to want to have children at all. I didn't think that was was my post conveyed. I was just interested in why passing on your own genes is so important thats all. Notice at the bottom of my post that I say when I think about children I think about having my own.
quote:
Babies are not a rational subject; why should he have to defend whatever his decision is on the matter? And incidentally, I agree with him completely; I do not wish to spend the vast effort that is raising a child, on somebody else's baby.
quote:
KOM, this is what I was wondering about... Why is it so important that it is your own baby?
P.S. It feels as if you guys think we were arguing about it? We wern't, we were just having a discussion and we are not actually thinking of having babies in the near future or anything like that. Just thought I would make that clear if thats what it sounded like in my original post Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Took my family thousands of years to work their way up to my genepool, why undo all that work?
Yay! This is actually what I was trying to ask for your thoughts on! lol, I wasn't asking for you to comment on my relationship, I was asking the question of why you think or don't think that passing on your genes is so important.
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With an adopted baby, it is very easy to just not love it like a biological child. It's just not the same.
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Gee, I dunno. Plenty of biological parents don't love their children. How's that any different?
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: With an adopted baby, it is very easy to just not love it like a biological child. It's just not the same.
Do you have an adopted child and a biological child?
Stacey, I want to have biological children with my husband because I want to see a person (or people ) with both of us in them. Part vanity, part pride (both of my family and my husband's) and part instinct I guess.
But I am also not against adopting at all - it is something we have discussed, and something we may well do.
I think the attitude that an adopted baby is "someone else's" is shallow and potentially very hurtful. I'm willing to bet there are tons of (adoptive) parents who would never, ever view their child as anything but their own child.
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quote: Gee, I dunno. Plenty of biological parents don't love their children. How's that any different?
Not when they plan to have children. Those are called accidents.
It happens all too often. People have biological children, and adopted children. They often (not always mind you) just don't love the adopted children like their real children.
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All I can comment on is my own experiences with this sort of thing? I know that our sheep don't care if the lamb they have is their own, just as long as they have a lamb. Ewes have been know to steal and switch lambs all the time on our farm. One ewe stole another lamb before she gave birth to twins. She rejected the twins and kept the single lamb that wasn't hers in the first place (they sometimes keep their own as well as the one they stole but that wasn't the case this time). This kind of thing happens in a lot of other animals as well including horses and cows (which we also own and have witnessed this baby stealing and swopping going on). I would be interested to know whether this happens in animals like chimps as well. So, really what I am trying to say is that these animals don't really seem to care for their "adopted" babies any less than they would their own. Can this also apply to humans?
posted
Yet another moment when I'm glad I know in real life ONE other person on Hatrack and another moment when I find myself astounded at the things I'll actually share on this forum!!!!
I've got an Aunt and Uncle... they've been married since '91. They tried to have kids the 'regular' way, didn't work. They went through in vitro (who knows if i'm even spelling it right) numerous times, with failures and two ectopic pregnancies which eventually ruined my Aunt's hopes of carrying her own child. The first time it came up... Wait - I should tell you what it is. It is my Momma carrying the baby. So - the first time it came up I had a freak-out-fit and said absolutely no way - How am I going to explain to my friends that that's my COUSIN and not my sibling. Talk died down for a year or so... It came up again and I realized that it wasn't really my bag. It wasn't my place to say what these other players should do - it was my place to accept that they'd made the decision and work on my attitude towards it from there. So...
Long story short... My Momma was inseminated with Aunt #2's egg with Aunt #1's husband's sperm mixed in, carried the baby for 9 months, gave birth (10 pounds 10 ounces, natural, go Mom!) and then the little one went to live with my Aunt #1 and her husband.
It's been three years. Three crazy, roller coaster, can't even explain or try to talk about with people in a rational way years. Nobody gets it to the point I can talk about it - they all get stuck up on the - 'wait - explain that again?'.
My Uncle didn't want to adopt. He was really ready to not have kids if they didn't have his own genome somewhere in there. My Aunt was ready to adopt but not ready to have no kids. That's where her two sisters came in.
Honestly - who knows if there's another story like that out there. Probably, but not from anyone I've met. It's been really tough on our Family, for a whole lot of different reasons. I know this is not a scenario you were getting at when you originally posted this thread and I'm sorry if I'm derailing it.
It just kills me, though, that with so many beautiful little lives out there people would go to such extreme measures to bring another one into the world. I love the kid, please don't get me wrong, it's just a hard sort of love. It changed our whole family dynamic, who knows if it's good or bad, she'll be three in October so it's probably too soon to tell. I just know that it didn't have to be so CRAZY. There are a googolplex of kids out there who just need parents to love them, why spend so much money, effort, so many words I don't even have words for, to bring another being into the world.
I'm sorry if this seems horrible because I don't mean it that way at all. This post just made me think of my family... and made me think that if my Uncle had been more open to adoption a lot of all of our lives would have been different today.
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posted
On the subject of sheep, I'd like to point out that we have been breeding them for the past five thousand years to not be very bright.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: With an adopted baby, it is very easy to just not love it like a biological child. It's just not the same.
Do you have an adopted child and a biological child?
Stacey, I want to have biological children with my husband because I want to see a person (or people ) with both of us in them. Part vanity, part pride (both of my family and my husband's) and part instinct I guess.
But I am also not against adopting at all - it is something we have discussed, and something we may well do.
I think the attitude that an adopted baby is "someone else's" is shallow and potentially very hurtful. I'm willing to bet there are tons of (adoptive) parents who would never, ever view their child as anything but their own child.
While I have no children at the moment, I plan on both conceving and adopting.
I do, however, think the attitude that an adopted baby is "someone else's" is too often real, and something that ought to be taken into consideration; the same way that there are horrible biological parents, there are horrible adoptive ones, and I unfortunately know more than one adopted child who, to some degree or another, felt slighted by their parents because of their adopted status.
For example, one of my neighbors growing up had two children of his own, and had adopted a third child. His own children were, like he and his wife, caucasian; the adopted child was japanese. Despite their best efforts, my friend (the adopted one, let's call him "Brian") Brian always felt like an outsider in the family, not because his parents tried any less with him or loved him any less because he was adopted, but because they simply couldn't manage to stop treating him differently. His siblings saw him as their brother, but were always very conscious of the fact that they were not related by blood.
The situation was made worse by his surroundings; anyone who is (or knows) a different-ethnicity adoptee knows exactly what I'm talking about. The odd looks, the hesitation, the outright cruelty, the struggle with cultural identity; heck, I sympathized with him, being a japanese boy myself whose parents were as caucasian acting as any white people. Black people who were raised without the culturally stereotyped accents, attitudes and clothing also probably understand what I mean, as do many, many other groups raised in isolation. If you're not the right kind of person, these attitudes can influence and outright invade the way you view your own child. How many parents look around at tons of kids getting into trouble for drugs and pause a moment to consider their own child?
Some of you likely push the thought away, trusting your child and your own parenting to take care of the problem. Others of you likely begin wondering if your child has ever done drugs, and whether they continue to do them.
It's not an easy thing to deal with, even if those involved began with good intentions.
There's also the possibility that Brian was treated with nothing but equal love by his parents and siblings, the same love they had for their biological nuclear family, and Brian's concerns and psychological misgivings about his family's treatment of him arose because of the way he was treated by everyone else.
But there are also kids who are flat out told by their adoptive parents that they are not the same. I even know someone who was left out of inheritance from her father explicitly because she was adopted.
In short, people frequently suck.
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posted
PS - Elmer's Glue - my Mom had me at 18, I know I was an 'accident' as you may call it. I also know that (along with my 'more planned than me but not quite as much as the next pregnancy' little bro) I'm more her child that the 'planned' one and that I'm loved even more than I have the capability to understand. Forgive me if I come across as rude towards you but calling a kid an accident is something you should grow out of.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote: Gee, I dunno. Plenty of biological parents don't love their children. How's that any different?
Not when they plan to have children. Those are called accidents.
Um, no. Not necessarily. None of us four kids in our family were accidents, but the parents still don't love us anyway. Never have, never will.
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posted
I wasn't saying all unplanned kids are accidents, I was saying unplanned kids that aren't loved are accidents.
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quote: On the subject of sheep, I'd like to point out that we have been breeding them for the past five thousand years to not be very bright.
True sheep can be stupid (I don't think we breed them for it though). But we still have a lot of the same behavioral characteristics as them. Whether this (not caring whether offspring are biologically theirs or not) could be one of the chracteristics that are the same or not is something to consider.
I think it would be cool to know whether wanting your own genes to be passed on to your offspring is innate or something is acquired? And is it only exclusive to humans? Do other animals really care whether their baby is their own or not like humans do?
quote: I do, however, think the attitude that an adopted baby is "someone else's" is too often real, and something that ought to be taken into consideration; the same way that there are horrible biological parents, there are horrible adoptive ones , and I unfortunately know more than one adopted child who, to some degree or another, felt slighted by their parents because of their adopted status.
I agree. But what you are saying (and with the bolded part especially) is, IMO, quite different from what Elmer's Glue is saying.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I think its more the point that sheep AREN'T bred for intelligence. It happens with dog breeds all the time who are bred for a certain body size or fur color and then end up completely stupid.
Earlier this year, I had some health concerns regarding fertility. Mind you, losing the ability to reproduce was rare and only a problem because I have google and an gift for worrying...but the fear was the same. I had always told my mother that I would never have children. She chalked this up to me being young and rebellious. I remember in high school having this plan to adopt a child from a poor, war-torn country who would then get a full-ride scholarship to Harvard with her sob story admissions essay.
Overpopulation does bother me and given health problems and the sheer insanity that has tortured generations of women in my family, I thought it best not to risk having a daughter of my own to pass all that on to. But when I started thinking about the possibility of losing that choice (whether it be to have children one day or not) I was very worried. You hear talk about biological clocks and I know it just has to be the case that we're programmed to want to pass on our genes. Maybe its more or less a need for some, but ideally this is how nature works.
The details of reproduction and the variations can be observed with just a few choice hours watching Animal Planet. Some reproduce often and in great quantities while others have complicated mating rituals in order to keep their population in tune with their resources. Some species care for their young for years, some only for weeks, and some not at all. Maybe some animals, driven by an innate need to mother, adopt orphans. Others trade young as a power struggle (I saw this during a special on captive wolves.) And I'm sure there's still others who adopt/trade because they are a simply too stupid to tell the difference between what is theirs and what isn't.
I can rationally list all the reasons why I shouldn't want children, adopted or not. I can list why it would be better to adopt rather than create my own offspring. Doesn't change the fact that when faced with the possibility that I may not be able to conceive and carry, that I mourned the potential loss. Somewhere deep inside I want to create a new life with a man I love and spend 9 months bonding in a very special way with that child.
While rationality certainly has it place in such a discussion between partners, gut instinct does too.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: I think its more the point that sheep AREN'T bred for intelligence. It happens with dog breeds all the time who are bred for a certain body size or fur color and then end up completely stupid.
I would argue that sheep were probably not that intelligent to start with. That the traits that they have been selected for has not made them any more or any less intelligent. But thats not really anything to do with this topic really
I thought cmc's post was really interesting in that her Uncle wanted children but if they couldn't be his own then he wasn't going to have them at all. Is passing on your own genes more important (biologically) than actually raising a child?
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:I wasn't saying all unplanned kids are accidents, I was saying unplanned kids that aren't loved are accidents.
And so are all unplanned kids that are loved.
Planned kids that aren't loved are not accidents. Neither are planned kids who are.
What you're saying has no real bearing on the conversation at hand, it seems, other than stating the obvious fact that when you plan something, it's planned, and when you don't plan something, it's unplanned.
Duh.
My girlfriend and I were talking about this recently. We had a boy seven weeks ago, and we were talking about adopting our second. I was infinitely more comfortable thinking about adopting a girl than I was a boy. I don't know that I'd be capable of not showing some sort of preference to my own genetic son if I had an adoptive one near in age and in close competition with.
What I think I like most about having a biological child is knowing he has equal potential, with the advantage of cumulative wisdom, to me.
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posted
Young guy perspective - I'm excited about having kids of my own someday, especially if with my current girlfriend, the idea of what our genetic lottery might produce is fascinating.
Will they have her hair? Her freckles? Her incredible talent? My geeky fascination with history? Tall or short? Brown eyes or something further back in either of our families?
Part of it is that I really want a piece of both of us to continue on in this world, I want to continue the family line, as more than just a name, and I also am just plain curious as to what will come of the union of genes. It's possible, though maybe unlikely, that I'd consider later children be adopted, but the first couple would have to be our own.
It's hardwired, but it's the way I want it, and it's my right as a human being to want it, so I don't feel bad about it.
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posted
I hate to defer. Sheep just make me laugh because my mom has border collies that she herds with. Her friend has a farm full of animals to train dogs with. The dogs are fine with ducks, goats, cattle, but HATE the sheep. The sheep are mean and independent. If a dog comes home limping, its usually because it got run over by a sheep that didn't want to follow the others. The farm lady is very specific about how her ducks are raised (since they're good starter animals) so I wouldn't doubt that she bred her sheep to outsmart overconfident herding dogs.
In regards to passing on genes, we hear alot about people who supposedly live through their children. When a child succeeds, its treated as a positive reflection on the parents. I would think that it speaks well of a person's child rearing skills, but something in our society holds onto the influence of nature over nuture. I hear genes being blamed for why some people just can't grasp math or grammar, etc. But if a child is just naturally bright, the parents would assume it was their good genes that led to this gifted combination.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Frisco: What I think I like most about having a biological child is knowing he has equal potential, with the advantage of cumulative wisdom, to me.
But he doesn't. Or, rather, he may have more or less, even though odds are he's somewhere in your ballpark, give or take a rather wide margin.
Not only are there a not-insignificant number of situations like Down syndrome that happen unexpectedly, but don't forget that he's half her genes, too -- and that mix is some unprecidented and as yet unpredictable synergy of the two.
That boy has the gates of his world pretty wide open, still. *smile
----
Edited to add: There are plenty of kids that aren't as smart (however you measure it) as their parents, but it's the ones that are smarter than their folks that really seem to have it rough. At least, it seems that way to me. (Can you imagine the frustration of having a stupid boss multiplied by 24/7, with total control over you for over a decade? Ouch!)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
And for what it's worth, I've had a little too much intimate familiarity with my own genes to be too enamoured of passing them on. I do think it would be a shame for the world to lose what's left of my mom's genes, but at least my brother is still in the runnning (theoretically) for offspring.
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posted
Depending on how you look at things, the only really meaningful, lasting contribution most people get to make in life is passing on their genes. I don't want to have kids that bad, at least not now, but I can certainly understand the motivation.
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posted
I think there's something to the ideal of marraige as two-into-one. Your child is a physical representation of that--it is you and it is also your dearest love, who is also part of you. There's something intrinsically powerful to that which I think people connect to.
my roomate will eventually deal with this with her longterm boyfriend (conversation came up on the trip back from comiccon, that's how I know) She can't ever imagine having babies but wants to adopt, he is definite that a child needs to be his, I can see this eventually breaking them apart.
If it were me in the situation I'd be stunned and hurt. If a child is both yourself and your beloved as one, the refusal of the beloved would destroy me. What does that say about how she really feels about the two of us? It would create a possibly unhealable fissure (in my mind) between us. Not a happy thought at all.
Posts: 128 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
The question brings to mind the stories of the unscrupulous doctors who use their own sperm to fertilize all the eggs of the women who come in for artificial insemination. They want to pass on their genes enough to break the law and behave in a completely unethical way, and don't even care if they ever see their offspring. I don't know if any of the stories are true, or if they're all fictionalized, but it makes some sense from a genetic standpoint.
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posted
So is not being able to have a child that has your genes a deal breaker for you? Or is the refusal to not have a child that contains your genes the deal breaker?
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Oops sorry MightyCow if that was in reply to the post that I deleted. I deleted it because I thought I was asking way too many questions and making everything too complicated.
Just so other people know what you are replying to the question I asked was whether you could still be content with raising a child if after a fair while you found out it was not biologically yours (i.e. it had been switched with someone elses or something to that effect)? Would you search for your "real" child and exchange the two even though you had been raising that one for a while?
(I may have left out some of the original questions but I can't remember exactly what I asked anymore....)
posted
If being able to pass on my genes was a deal breaker... Uh, I'd be in serious trouble.
And stacey, considering that I can't have children (or, at least, it's extremely improbable), I would already know that the child wasn't mine. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I don't particularly care about passing on my genes. I think I'm reasonably intelligent and talented, but I have what may be genetic drawbacks as well; the world will get on just fine without my genes.
I think it's worth noting that raising adopted kids is very often more challenging than raising your own kids; kids rarely come up for adoption without some very unfortunate circumstances. I don't lose respect for anyone who prefers not to take on that challenge.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I don't mind the idea of passing on my genes, but I don't know that I'd get someone like me. I am not at all like my parents, so if they were hoping for a copy they lost out.
The idea of kids is still a little inconceivable to me, so I'm not sure. Ask me in a couple of years.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I can't wait to pass on my genes, and I can't think of any other explanation for that besides narcissism. I think I have good genes, and they deserve to keep going.
Doing my part for evolution, I'm selecting my genes (with a heap of luck) because I believe in them.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Unrelated, but people who respond to a question with "Life's unfair" just annoy the hell out of me. Perhaps one day when I am mature and find a person who is worth having a child with, then I'd consider having a kid. But it would have to be a person I really love enough to have a person that is half them... It's so depressing when folks have a child with someone they don't love and say, "You're like your mother" or "You're like your father" in a dismissive almost hateful way... I know, because my own separated parents are a bit like that. But I'd also love to adopt a child because they simply NEED someone to raise them and care for them, because who else will?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'll chime in with my experience. I was adopted as a baby and everyone in my family or who has known my family since before I became a part of it doesn't ever even remember that I'm adopted. Many of my High School friends who had known me since grade school and knows my family, didn't know I was adopted. I was not loved less and I was never treated as less than my 3 "biological" (to my parents) siblings.
I realize not every adoption case is as ideal as mine has been but I just wanted to point out that there are fabulous parents in this world who can love both adopted and biological children and count them as "theirs" and lucky for me, I've got 'em.
Incidentally, I have three biological children of my own and have always wanted to adopt at least one child but it hasn't worked out yet (my husband is open to it though).
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
“I want to pass on my genes”. I think it is instinctual. Just like the “I want to eat” and “I don’t want to die” ones. I haven’t rationalized it too much yet, just like in the case of “eating” and “keeping alive”. It all goes to one final end anyway: Keeping going the Human Race.
It is all part of life, and seeing all known life as an “island in the Universe”, the importance of any particular individual kind of shades away… But anyway, even if we agree that there is some importance of keeping the Human Race going, I think there aren’t many individuals to accept that others decide for them whether their particular genes are better of passed on or not. So why rationalize it at all?
And if you are curious, here is my (rational) analysis:
There is a difference to be made, apparently, depending on which part of it we insist. Is it “I want to PASS ON my genes” or “I want to pass on MY genes”?
The first one is directly admitting that continuing the existence of the Human Race is something worth while.
The second one has to do with egoism. It is saying that “MY genes (as opposed to others’) are better off passed on”. But better off for what purpose? Well, for the continuing existence of the Human Race of course .
And, there is even a third one: “I want to pass on my GENES”. But why are the genes so important? Why not the knowledge? Can’t we pass on the knowledge regardless of the genes involved? But again, why pass on anything? Is the Human Race better off with “my heritage” that without it?
Sorry if there are more questions than answers in this post, but someone has to ask, don’t you think?
A.
BTW: The big question is: “Do Humans really deserve to keep on going?” (see BSG )
Posts: 1154 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I just read the thread rather quickly, so if what I said has been repeated, I apologize. In addition to the fascination with what our kids will look like and be like, my strongest motivation is to take part in the miracle of creation. A significant part of the excitement of anticipating having kids for me is knowing that I made him.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:“I want to pass on my genes”. I think it is instinctual. Just like the “I want to eat” and “I don’t want to die” ones.
It might be instinctual for some people, but it is by no means universal. I want to eat, and I don't want to die, but I have never felt the need or desire to pass on my genes. And honestly I think there is a lot of conditioning involved in the decision for those who do, but I can't prove that anymore than you can prove it's part of life. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Well, if it the baby you were eating were your own, you could probably do something scatological with the phrase "passing".
On the actual subject of the thread, though, I've never felt any kind of urge to pass on my genes, but to be fair I've also never felt any particular urge to be a parent, period (if I had a partner that strongly wanted a child I could get on board with the idea, and I expect that I'd get pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. I also think I'd make a fairly good father. I just don't have any tremendous desire to do so).
If I *were* to be a father, though, I would prefer to adopt. There are good and bad things both about my genes--people in my family tend to be intelligent, creative, and have good teeth, but they also tend to be uncoordinated, have heart problems and develop colon cancer--so there's no shining beacon saying that my genes are ones that the species really needs. In addition, there are lots of children already in existence that need loving homes, and a general problem with overpopulation. Given all of that, adoption makes more sense to me.
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I asked him why he wouldn't want to take in a baby put up for adoption and he (essentially) said that why should he have to miss out on passing on his own genes to make up for the mistake that another person made? I said that that’s not really fair on the orphaned baby and he finished with "Life's not fair!” 
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