March 6, 2009

• fruitful multiplication

  It’s amazing how many people are having litters of children these days, partly due to advances in medicine, and partly because of religious hang-ups about using contraception or creating and raising more fanatics. And partly for other non-medical, non-religious reasons.

  The word-parsing law nerd and the number-loving math nerd in me both get annoyed at people who assume that to “be fruitful and multiply,” people need to run around having SUV-loads of kids.

  First of all, who is to say that having kids is the only way to be fruitful? I feel quite fruitful, thank you very much. I am employed, self-sufficient, and I add value to a company that adds a lot of value to people around the world. Some of my friends and family would probably also say that I add some social value to their lives. I’d say that’s pretty fruitful, despite being a childless atheist.

  Second of all, multiply by what?? If you leave that open, it could be “multiply by 1,” in which case I have very successfully multiplied myself by 1. In some cases, it might be more fruitful on balance if you multiply yourself by 0. The Darwin Awards recognize this principle, that in some cases, for certain individuals, the world is better off having them multiplying themselves by 0. And then there are the loonies who decide that they’re supposed to multiply themselves by 5 or 10 or even 20.

  So that command just isn’t clear enough. What do you mean, “fruitful”? Multiply by what number? Provisions like that should be voided due to insufficient clarity.

  Taking religion out of the picture, however, I was talking to one of my co-workers the other day about having children. She is very much like me – we are approximately the same age, atheists, with siblings who have children, very happy to be aunts, but very uninterested in cranking out miniature versions of ourselves.

  We were talking about how some people assume that not having children is a selfish decision. And to some extent, it is – I like being unencumbered and free to move, spend, and do as I please. On the other hand, it’s less of a burden on the environment. And really, wouldn’t it be more selfish to have a kid just because everyone else is having one and they’re cute and funny, but then not be a good parent? It’s much better to not have kids and have the carbon footprint of one person than to be a bad parent with extra carbon footprints made by your unwanted carbon copies.

  Then we started talking about why people have children. The way I see it, there are three main groups of people who have children:

  1. The people who go into it not knowing any better, and don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into until it’s too late.
  2. The people who do it for external reasons: because it’s what everyone else does, and to some extent they might even masochistically enjoy the shared sense of struggle and suffering.
  3. The people who really want kids for their own internal reasons.

  For the record, I really think that only some subset of the third group of people should have kids.

  With respect to myself, looking at this little list, I no longer fall into the first category. I think if I had gotten married 10 years ago, I might have had kids as a member of this group, but I now know too much about what goes into having and raising them to stumble blindly onto that path.

  As for the second category, I don’t care that everyone else does it, and I don’t care about the shared experience aspect of it. Having kids under this category is sort of like working at a large law firm, in my mind. You subject yourself to the unreasonable whims and wishes of a client or child at all hours. You drop everything to do what they need or want you to do. You give up your social life and your carefree ways. And some people derive some odd sense of satisfaction from that – lawyers and parents often love telling people, “Man, I pulled two all-nighters in a row for [that closing/my kid’s stomach flu],” or “I was all ready to go out for a nice dinner with friends on Friday night, but then [opposing counsel sent a redline over for me to review/the babysitter cancelled].” Yeah, that’s not me.

  So that means that the only way I will ever have kids is as a member of the third group. This seems highly unlikely, unless I undergo a drastic change in perspective or a frontal lobotomy.

  Conclusion? For the foreseeable future, I will continue to be fruitful at work and in life, and multiply by 1.

  [Edit 1 April 2009: I feel so vindicated -- http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyone-have-children/]

  • 6:48 pm
  • 6 Comments