When people give birth to a child, are they JUST giving birth to a 'child'?

 

When you graduate high school and planning to go to college, would you say, 'I am planning to do college' or 'I am planning to hang out with friends for the next 4 years'? (Well, in some cases college might just be about that!!). It might be true that college life consists of hanging out with friends but that is not all college life is about. College has both good and bad aspects - low on money, high on stress, learning new things, meeting new people so on and so forth. Saying 'I am planning to hang out with friends for the next 4 years' is not untrue but inadequate and misleading because it does not encompass everything that goes in a college life. At most it might be representing 10% of college life. Continuing on, when you graduate college and planning to start work, would you say, 'I am planning to start working at a firm' or 'I am planning to earn money and spend it every month'?  It might be true that working leads to earning money which in turn leads to spending it, but that is not all work life is about. Work has both good and bad aspects - financial freedom, career development, sucking up to boss, boredom, so on and so forth. Saying 'I am planning to earn money and spend it every month' is not untrue but inadequate and misleading because it does not encompass everything that goes in work life. I do not want to put a number but earning and spending is a fraction of work life. The overall point I want to make with these two examples is, if we focus on what is convenient to us and paint a picture, we are misleading everyone including ourselves. 

But why do we do this mistake so often when it comes to giving birth to a human being? Are we giving birth to a child or bringing a new human being into existence? Of course, the way to bring a human being into existence is by giving birth to a child but that is not the end of it. If at all, it is just the beginning of it. The childhood phase is at most 10% of a human being's lifespan. A human's life has both good and bad aspects - childhood, love, friendships, achievements, adventure, diseases, mental illness, addictions, so on and so forth. Why the focus is on the unblemished, cute, lovely 10% of life and not the possible troubles associated with the rest of the life? I am not saying an adult life is always filled with troubles. But a child's life is surely not an accurate representation of an entire human being's life. So, when people give birth to a child, they are NOT JUST giving birth to a child. They are bringing a human being in its entirety to existence. And a human being is not just the unblemished cute, lovely face of a child. If at all, it is quite the opposite!!

Barriers to honesty - Cont

If you have noticed closely, at times we find ourselves using the prefix "honestly" before a sentence. For example - "Honestly, this is a fine dish you have prepared". So, what is the difference between "Honestly, this is a fine dish you have prepared" and "This is a fine dish you have prepared"? I am sure there are many circumstances where one may use the term honestly as the prefix, but this post is about people using the term in situation like the one I have given above.

My cynical take is, when we give compliments, our baseline has some dishonesty built into it. When we compliment someone, we are never true to ourselves completely. We inflate our compliments by a small bit so that the other person does not feel bad. When your spouse dresses for an occasion and ask for your rating, and you say 7.5/10, how often do you exactly mean 7.5? In my opinion, often times, it only means a 6.5 or 7 and we add an extra amount to it, so your spouse feels better. But we cannot overdo it. Because saying a 10/10 might give away the obvious dishonesty. With this background, what can you do when you actually encounter a situation which warrants a 9.5/10? You say - "Honestly, this deserves a 9.5/10". If you just say, "This deserves a 9.5/10", you cannot differentiate between your usual dishonest compliments and a genuine compliment which you want to give. The prefix "honestly" is the one which differentiates that. It is required for the honest ones to stand out among our usual dishonest ones.

Honestly, .............................. Nah, I do not have anything to be honest about for now. I will return to my dishonest self.

We are all Anti-Natalists!!

I am sure the title might be a bit (in fact hugely) off considering we are living in a world which has a population of over 7 billion and expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. But here is my reasoning.

Firstly, I want to begin with a quote by Richard Dawkins in the context of atheism. 

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

So if I am a christian, I am usually atheist towards Rama, Allah, Ra etc etc. A real atheist goes one god further and doesn't believe in the god he/she is expected to believe. In other words, if the world has had n gods till now, the believers are atheists towards n-1 gods while the atheists are atheists towards n gods.  

I want to use the above line of thought in the context of antinatalists. Before the invention of contraceptives, people usually had as many children as they could in their lifetimes. In the current world, the scenario has changed drastically. People make conscious decisions as to how many children they want to have, thanks to contraceptives. Therefore, if a procreater can have n children in his/her lifetime, he/she is an antinatalist towards n-1, n-2, n-3 etc children  (considering how many children he/she has had). But a real antinatalist just goes few steps further and is antinatalist towards n children. 

In conclusion,

"We are all antinatalists towards a lot of children we could have had. Some of us just go a few steps further."

Disrespecting by respecting!

Disclaimer - I am not brought up in a foster environment and therefore my views presented here are purely theoretical. My position is not informed from any personal experiences but from witnessing others' experiences.

What is parenting? There is a scientific explanation to it which simply translates to "An act of pure selfishness to propagate one's genes". However, the narrative which is used colloquially is completely opposite and it baffles me. Usually people say parenting in the greatest form of selflessness. Mother is an epitome of sacrifice etc etc. If we pause for a second, the flaw in that narrative becomes evident. Did the child ask the parents to give birth to him/her? For whose purpose the couple is bringing a child into existence? Of course once the child is born, the parents will go to great lengths to care for the child. But why? Because the child is the carrier of their genes. Usually in a business contract, one gets paid after finishing a job. On the contrary, children have paid the returns to their parents by virtue of their birth (by carrying their genes). So only the parents do their job of safeguarding their children for a really long time. I understand there is love, care, affection etc etc in parenting but one should not lose sight of the fact that, it is standing on the firm ground of self-interest.  

If the above argument is true, how can one explain foster parenting? There are many reasons but I want to focus on one main reason of interest here. First, I will give an example to make things easy. Why does a human female (male also) like to dress well? The evolutionary biology answer is straight forward, it is to attract mate leading to procreation. But we frequently see women who have crossed menopause also like to dress well. Though procreation is out of question, it still feels nice to dress well because we are hardwired to feel that way. Similarly, though propagating genes is out of question for foster parents, they care for the child because we are hardwired to feel nice about it. It is similar to sex with contraceptives. Though sex is intended to procreate, we engage in sex without the outcome quite often. Similarly, many couples want to enjoy the pleasure of parenting though the child is not carrying their genes. 

With this understanding of parenting and foster parenting, I want to analyse one particular stance often taken by people who are brought up in a foster environment - the feeling of debt. Though many people feel a sense of debt to their biological parents too, I have noticed this to be more prominent in people who are brought up by foster parents. It is as though, they have done a sacrifice and the child is ever indebted to them. I simply don't buy this stance even if adoption has taken place with different objectives.

1. For selfish reasons to enjoy parenting - For whose purpose they adopted in the first place? The child's or their's? So the question of debt is out of scope here because in this case, not much of a difference exist between biological ones and foster ones.
2. For altruistic reasons to help a child - Some people choose to adopt to rescue a child from distress or to a give shelter to an orphan etc etc. Should the child feel indebted in this case? The title of the post was to address this particular point. In my opinion, those people who have adopted for altruistic reasons, are not narrow minded to expect a return on their investment. The children who think they are respecting their foster parents by feeling a sense of debt, are actually disrespecting by treating them as lesser individuals. They don't deserve such a superficial treatment. 

There is a quote - "People who mind, don't matter and people who matter, don't mind". Similarly, "Parents who are selfish, don't deserve indebtedness and parents who are altruistic, don't expect indebtedness"

Anthropomorphism of domesticated animals

There is a lot of anguish (rightly so) about rearing animals for human benefit especially for meat. There is enough material about it and so I won't get into it here. However, I want to address (or attack) a rebuttal point I used to use against people who were abstaining from meat quoting animal cruelty as the reason but still consume animal products like milk etc

So my rebuttal was simple. If someone is against animal cruelty, then how can they justify consuming milk products when we know what and all is done to a cow to maximize milk production. If at all, killing appears to be more justified than the life of a cow was my point (BTW, I hold this point true to humans also and not just cows. Death is better over a miserable life). It just occurred to me, I might have held my position from an anthropomorphic point of view and so decided to give a closer look.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to an animal, object or god. Whenever I said, a cow's life is miserable, what was my basis to it? Have I asked the cow? Or, are there brain studies on cows indicating how much it is suffering? Do we know a cow is happier in an open field than in a crowded shed? I know there will be some indirect cues about the nature of it's life but how sure I can be about it? I guess my position was coming from an anthropomorphic view point where I was imagining what it would be if I was in the cow's position. I am sure I would have felt terrible. But does it necessarily translate to cow feeling the way I would have felt? I don't think that implication is fully justified. Having said that, the converse is not implied meaning we cannot say the cow is not suffering either. We simply don't know unless there are ways to measure it (I am not sure whether such studies have been done. If so and if the reader knows the answers to the above raised questions, I would be happy to know also).

P S - This post is not intended to rationalize our treatment of cows (or any domesticated animal) in any way. It is just to examine the nature of our position and if possible to come out of our self-centric position ;-)

Barriers to honesty - Cont

I have spoken about honesty at reasonable lengths in a couple of previous posts. However, I felt the need to highlight another aspect of barriers to honesty.

Let us say there is couple where one of them is highly understanding, accommodative, essentially having a big heart. He or she is completely in sync with the other person's fallacies and shortcoming. This can give enough room for the other person to be completely honest in expressing whatever he/she wants to (including goof ups). When such a thing happens, it is possible that the other person might feel good about the fact that he/she is completely honest in the relationship. But who should get the credit? The understanding person or the honest person?

Let us say the other person is not reciprocative in terms of understanding and accommodating. Now in some rare situation, his/her partner commits some goof up and wants to come clean. But he/she feels terrified of the consequences. That acts as a barrier to honesty and so he/she finally decides to hide it. So who should get the blame here? The understanding person or the honest person?

I feel being honest is not just the measure of greatness. It is very important to identify the contribution of the person who allows the other person to be honest!!

King Kong!!

False belief that drinking methanol protects from corona-virus leaves 300 people dead in Iran


"It's not the methanol. It's stupidity that killed 300"