Kids = worthless investment?

Quote from bearice:

Is there afterlife for animals after they die? People always forget animals.



Yes....if you were a ''bitch ass human being '' in this life , you get to be born as a Lady Mongrel in the next life.
 
Quote from Spiker:

Yes....if you were a ''bitch ass human being '' in this life , you get to be born as a Lady Mongrel in the next life.
You are insulting animals. If animals get angry, hell will be unleashed on Earth. Remember there Bears, Lions, Tigers, Crocodiles, Sharks, Elephants, Rhinos, Hippos, dangerous ants, Snakes, Dogs, Bees, Bulls and Buffalos and hundreds of other animals.
 
Quote from Mayhem:

You can't put a price on moving your genes forward in the time. It's is a kind of immortality.

I know this couple in their 50s, and they never had kids. They make it a point to go to a tropical resort every Xmas. They seem kinda sad to me... there ain't nothing like being surrounded by multiple generations of family at holidays. Sure, we all have the crazy aunt or retarded stockbroker cousin, but all-in-all it's better to have a large family fighting over the drumstick on Thanksgiving than to be looking across a table at your spouse of 25 years and ordering another round of mai tais.


+1

read the words of wisdom above.

nothing compares to having a family. no money in the world would buy that sort of happiness and fulfillment.

just hope the younger ones realize that before is too late and they end up living a miserable and shallow life.

best,
 
ROFL, wow this is one of the funny threads. People of all ages started out as kids last time I checked, and as was mentioned every generation thinks the world is going to end with the current generation.
How about those kids overseas fighting a war started by old adults. Like the ones in a pair of Blackhawks that overheard a call to another team to go help some civilians. They were on their way back to camp after a fire fight, but told the flight crew to turn around so they could go help a bunch of Afgan people they don't know. Or the Marines who came on a truck loaded with girls who just had acid thrown in their faces because they were girls who were in school. They called back to communications got a bead on the truck with the bad guys and did what Marines do, then they did the other thing, they helped people in need without regard for themselves.
Yea, there are a ton of civilian examples of great kids too. Dig your heads out of your asses, and look at the whole picture.
 
Quote from peilthetraveler:

People start businesses, bust their asses for 40 years to make it successful and build a name for themselves that they hope will last for a long long time. Generally the company goes under or gets sold off and broken up 10 years or so after the owner retires and his legacy is gone...just like that. How is that for a worthless investment?


I've seen this time and time again. It really annoyed me. I worked for a few family owned business and the son's/ daughters just didn't give a shit and ta da, business closed up. They are all punching a clock these days.

I read a paper explaining this phenomenon and basically the kids grew up living/reaping the rewards and results of pops hard work and the "fire" or "eye of the tiger" is absent. Oh well.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

But that's a circular argument. For example, if your life has no point to it without kids, then your kids' life has no point to it either. You would be raising someone to have a meaningless life.

Life has to have a point of its own, for reproduction to have any point. After all, if life is otherwise pointless, what is the point in creating more of it or sustaining it?

So, the meaning of life cannot be to have kids.
I don't see a philosophical contradiction here. Many would postulate exactly what you said: the point of life is to sustain life. Single cell organisms have no purpose in life, except to create more single cell organisms. Must humans be different?

But I wasn't really making the philosophical argument. I have no opinion on the meaning of life, on why *we* humans exist at all... Perhaps some of us are here just to get to 42. I was only making a very specific statement about my own life. Other than kids, I find everything else in life (at the end of the day) little more than a trivial pursuit.
 
It could go wrong the other way. I see plenty of divorced parents with nightmare kids and the oldest ones being major screwups with no obvious futures.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

Well you are just as dead whether you died childless, or had 100+ kids like Genghis Khan. When you are dead, you are not in a position to care whether your passed on your DNA or not. You may think that matters now, but it will not matter to you one iota once you are worm food 6 feet under.

True. But when you are on your death bed, there is satisfaction in knowing some part of you will continue on.

Who would you rather be Genghis Khan, or some childless guy who died at the end of Genghis Khan's sword?
 
Quote from heech:

The research is interesting, but the conclusion doesn't follow in my mind.

I for one have a hard time imagining the point of life, if it wasn't for my kids. I have a great wife, I have a great career.... But so what? What's the purpose behind work...? Buy more crap? Are we on this earth just to watch American Idol and the Super Bowl? What's the point of being alive?

My greatest satisfaction in life comes from raising my kids, teaching them how to be happy and successful in life.

+1

most of the time when i see threads like this pop up saying "marriage is pointless" or "why marry a woman" or "kids suck" etc...they are done by immature, twenty-something "kids" themselves who have no understanding of the depth that family offers.

while i will agree that all-too-few people consider the financial implications of having children, you cannot form an equation and come to the conclusion that children are not worth it financially. there is far to abstract an aspect to them that is very rewarding. i have one child, and that is all my wife and i wish to have. but we love him with all our hearts and he is worth every penny.
 
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