My wife and I have always strongly preferred to not have children. Ever. And this belief is reinforced time and again in various instances. Each time we set foot in an airplane and there are babies crying uncontrollably, we look at each other in horror and praise our luck. Whenever we hear about the travails of parents trying to get their kids into nursery, school, or college, we congratulate each other on our good fortune. When we watch movies like “The Good Son” or “The Bad Seed”, we thank the stars for our fortuitous escape.
Also, we’re ****ing up the earth so badly that I’ve lost hope and I don’t want my children to curse me for bringing them into a doomed world. They’ll look at me and say “What right did you have? I never asked to be born – it’s your fault that I’m choking in this putrid air!” Thoroughly sound reasons to keep my progeny off the earth I say.
But here’s the rub. The theory of evolution says that a successful organism manages to pass on its genes. Logically this means that:
Successful => Kids
And the Contra-Positive is:
No Kids => Unsuccessful
So by definition, my wife and I are evolutionary failures. To make matters worse, my brother and his wife have decided not to have kids either. This makes both of them evolutionary failures too. And here’s the nub – my brother and I are the only two children of our parents. If the both of us are failures, then my parents are failures too! In essence an entire branch of the “Park” family is about to be pruned from the evolutionary tree – a dead end. A cul de sac.
This makes me wonder. My wife and I as well as my brother and his wife are not having kids because in our estimation, it’s logical to not have them. In developed countries, more and more people are reasoning out the same thing (thereby lowering the population). Ergo it seems that intelligent people are being wiped off the face of the earth! Those individuals whose logic dictates that they must not procreate are evolutionary failures whose genes are squished out of the gene pool – leaving only…well those without that particular brand of intelligence shall we say :D
My wife and I have given this some thought, and I’m fairly keen on having my genes survive in this world – I mean I think they’re pretty good after all! But how to do that without the attendant consequences? And then I hit on an idea, and my wife agrees. I’m going to go to a sperm bank! The one in Apollo hospital in Chennai seems to be just the thing. Propagation of my genes without having to take care of the resultant blighters. :D . Something like the Koel strategy I say, but with no deception involved. And to seal the deal, I might as well donate to several banks to maximize the chance of my genes getting along fine.
Now if I can just motivate myself to get off my lazy ass and implement my master plant – ha ha ha ha (Evil grin)
What do you think of sperm bank donation for people who don’t want to take care of their kids? (Two answers allowed)
[poll id=”14″]
@Vikas Gupta
I'm quite serious – seems to be a logical culmination of the thought process don't you think?
@bhagwad
I am confused and don't know what to say! Yeah, you are nipping an Odesk champion in the bud! ;)
I, for one, love babies and would not want to donate sperm in a bank.
@Vikas Gupta
But IMHO those babies who are a product of a sperm bank will be even more loved than regular babies – since the parents want one so badly they're willing to try anything…
Or do you know something I don't?
@bhagwad
I am not very educated on this topic. I speak emotionally. All I know is that I would not want my sperm to produce results that I am not aware of. If I donate, I will be uncomfortable all my life and want to search the baby that has resulted (and take care of him/her).
I also agree that universal marriage is a big cause of India's population. I also agree that people should adopt babies from orphanages (I may adopt one or more).
@Vikas Gupta
Interesting – perhaps I can imagine how you feel. I've made a poll at the end that might help understand how other people feel about sperm banks.
**I don’t want my children to curse me for bringing them into a doomed world**
If this is your biggest concern why not adopt one?
Me – Good point – but then that's only one reason for not having kids. Other reasons are that I don't want to be responsible for them… And of course, adopting belies the purpose of spreading my genes :D
I hope you are only kidding about that sperm bank thing!
I have many blog friends who chose not to get babies. 1. http://thistimethisspace.com and 2. http://www.sebastyne.net/ You can find interesting posts on their blog on this theme.
I'm confused…Since we are f***ing up the world so badly and you don't want your children to curse you for bringing them into this f***ed up world, why donate your sperm? I'm assuming that the sperm you donate will be used by another couple to procreate and not for medicinal or other purposes…
Me – True, True! I guess I don't feel it because I completely absolve myself of the responsibility for the kid's future. That's the point after all isn't it? Any decision to bring the kid into the world will not be mine, but the future parent's…
…and yet you would like your gene pool to continue…Isn't there something narcissistic about it? But I admire you for deciding against having children knowing your limitations…There are so many unfit parents around that I feel really bad for their kids…
Me – You're quite right. It does seem so. The way I see it, if it's not my genes then they'll find someone else's or find another method (maybe surrogacy?). So I'm not contributing negatively to anything on the planet – just doing my evolutionary duty…Win win for all concerned!
All this crap about the desire to be an evolutionary success is just that – crap! There's no need to try and sound as if you're doing something noble and important :D …
Sraboney has hit the nail on the head. Narcissism is all that this is about. You feel your "superior" (self proclaimed, of course!) genes need to be spread out in the world but you'd like that to happen without much effort on your part.
Ergo, the sperm donation plan.
Me – Fairly sound reasoning, I agree. But there's no harm is there? I mean the world's not worse off in any way whatsoever by the aforementioned donation, so why not let my genes remain in the pool?