I have made a conscious, deliberate decision not to have children. I can not remember any moment of my life spent thinking that having a baby would be a great idea. Ever since I was in high school, I knew that children just weren’t in the cards for me. I am 100% certain about this. I married my husband because he agrees with me on this issue.
Now, if I suffer a traumatic brain injury or some other emotional or physical shock that manages to plug in my biological clock, I still would not give birth to a baby. I would adopt.
Every pet I have owned has been unwanted and left by the wayside. Why should it be any different with a child?
So, it amazes me what people will go through in order to create a genetic reproduction of themselves when the egg and sperm don’t seem to want to cooperate on their own. All the time, money and heartbreak so a baby can be born that has his mother’s eyes or his daddy’s smile.
Yes, I can understand how wonderful it would be to see parts of yourself or your spouse in another little human being. To see what you love in each other combined in a baby. However, is that the reason people have babies? Just to pass on their physical traits?
Well, it used to be. The whole natural selection thing and all. And, even in the 21st century, people do choose mates based on physical appearance. However, there are not many internet dating sites devoted to matching people up based on how cute their babies would be. No, in most industrialized nations, people marry for love. They should want a baby for the same reason.
But, love doesn’t seem to be enough. People seem obsessed with passing on their DNA. Hormone treatments, in vitro fertilization, freezing embryos, anything at any cost to have a baby. Their baby.
Is this an evolutionary throw-back, or something else? Are people really so vain? What makes you think your DNA is so special?
What if the DNA of someone else was even more special?
Example:
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, was adopted as a baby. Steve’s biological parents later married and had a daughter, Mona Simpson. Mona became a very successful writer and her novel, Anywhere But Here, was adapted into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. Steve’s adopted parents also had a daughter named Patty. I am sure that Patty is a very wonderful person and is successful in her own right. However, if you Google “Steve Jobs’s sister” guess who pops up? Mona. No mention of poor Patty.
I know that I just implied that you have to be rich and famous in order to be “special”, but of course that is not the case. Really, I just found that interesting bit of information about Steve Jobs today and wanted to fit it in here somewhere.
I have to wonder, though, if Steve Jobs would have become the man he is today if his poor, unwed, grad student parents had NOT given him up for adoption. Maybe it was the stable family environment and good old fashioned love that helped Steve become successful. Well, that’s the whole “nature versus nurture” argument and I don’t think we’re gonna solve that one any time soon.
The whole point of having a baby should be to pass on and share love and life and experience. You can do this with any baby, be it Asian, African, Middle Eastern or, in my case, canine. Love is love. There are too many babies born every day without any love. Why does an un-born biological baby deserve more love than any of those unwanted babies? Why should one baby be forced into life using science and medicine, while another, already alive baby is ignored?
