I too, fire blanks. But, recreation is much more fun than procreation!

Some salient points in your email. I believe that nothing good comes from Lack. When you are poor , you lack so many things, that anger, frustration, selfishness, mistrust, envy etc….well, they grow to become part of your personality. To make it through poverty – as a child- you need a couple of good things: Parents or siblings who care about you – and a neighborhood that is as poor as you are. That way, you don’t think of yourself as poor, because no one else has anything either. The last ingredient to make it out of that cycle – is plain old hard work. Yep. Who’d a thunk? Work is a great equalizer.

What work does, if it is done well, is give you a sense of completion , of accomplishment; which is often lacking in the poverty cycle. Because a lot of the work done there- is just hard work. No purpose to it. No feeling of contribution. Making Nike Shoes, for 13 cents an hour, in horrid conditions – is not conducive to breaking the cycle.

However, if you have to work hard on the farm, full on chores at 3 years of age; well, you feel like you contributed to the family. You feel needed and necessary. Eventually, you find a way out of the cycle. Folks like you, who in spite of their circumstances, are what gives folks in those circumstances – HOPE. Something to believe in. In a lot of ways (in a Western Culture anyway) you can decide your own destiny. It comes with a wagon train full of baggage though. A wagon train that has to be unhitched at some point. Or the horses of : Willpower, Belief in a future, Chasing a dream, And leaving the Past behind, become hobbled, crippled , or even just die along the path.

The world is a better place because you are in it. Had you had children, your own battle to fight free of your childhood would have been compromised, and you may have lost the energy to complete your journey- hence the old saying: “lives of quiet desperation.”

I agree with your comments in your email:

…” Although it flies in the face of democratic values, I think there ought to be a means-test for parenthood—making it almost impossible for people to legally reproduce themselves.

In other words, there ought to be a guarantee that children will be raised in healthy and happy environments in which they learn to love and care and act responsibly.”

I have often thought that we do it backwards: Instead of taking a pill to preventing a child; one should have to take a pill to HAVE a child. In other words, we should all be sterile, until we find a life partner compatible with raising a child, and we both WANT a child. Then we should have some minimum tests and training to see if we do indeed have the basic things a child needs : food, shelter, safety, and Love. Then you are given a prescription to have a pill to make a child!

Having the State in charge, and determining who can and can’t be a parent…dangerous to say the least. What if you are indeed a couple worthy of children – and the person representing the state, just doesn’t like you? Permission Denied. Then you have a seed (no pun intended) for the Black Market to grow, and a Child Mafia organization!

Leaving Religions to control it , well, that is why I am even here. My parent were Catholic, Kathy’s were Mormon, and those Faiths teach to have as many souls brought to earth as possible. Luckily, my parents personal philosophy was: ” We just love our kids, and if the come they come, if they don’t , they don’t.” My Mom thought she was lucky to have each and every one of us. I think Dad may have had second thoughts about some of us! LOL

With Religion in charge, well, then people have to marry just because they are having an “illegitimate baby” ; a concept that I never bought into, by the way – no baby is illegitimate – they are all legit! But, how many kids grew up in an unhappy home, or young kids were plunged into abject poverty simply because they : “had to get married” ; or they married the wrong person because it was : “The right thing to do.” In a lot of cases, no it wasn’t.

The current Pope, for example, is telling hundreds of millions of Africans : ” You cannot use Rubbers to prevent aides, because you are denying the birth of a child.” So, a simple thing like a rubber, which would save millions of people, is a not available – but dying a horrible death, and having children BORN with the disease, and suffering their entire lives. And most live just long enough to reproduce; that is okay, and God’s will.

So, if individuals aren’t smart enough to decide not to have children, and the State and Most Religions , have a different agenda for why and how, and how many kids should be born. What are we left with ? I am afraid that Nature will do what it has always done with overgrown populations: either provide a predator population to stop the growth (after the prey is decimated, well, then the predator population dies of – natures positive feedback system) , or starvation, or a series of disasters (war, famine, earthquakes, floods, climate change etc…) to bring the numbers down.

Me? I am glad I got to be here. I am Glad all of you reading this are here. Being born, is a privilege; and just the fact of your birth, is like having a lottery ticket- you may not win; but, at least you are in the game! LOL

Kevin of the willing to submit a list of about 4 and Half billion folks who shouldn’t have been born….and that is an entirely different slippery slope, and yet, it got Hitler to control almost all of Europe! Who decides? Who, Indeed.

Kevin of the glad I am not reproductive…or even productive…