Why breed?

Reason given: I can't help it, it's a biological urge.

Real reason: Unexamined motivations.

Suggested alternative(s): Institutions are available for individuals incapable of controlling their biological urges.


Reason given: Want to give our parents grandchildren.

Real reason: Still seeking parental approval.

Suggested alternative(s): Live your own life and encourage your parents to do the same.


Reason given: I just love children.

Real reason: Out of touch with inner child, and with existing children.

Suggested alternative(s): Adopt, step, and foster parenting.
Enroll in Big Brother - Big Sister programs.
Be a mentor to troubled or latch-key kids.
Work with children, teach.
Volunteer to help in summer camp.


Reason given: I have superior human genes.

Real reason: Doesn't recognize an oxymoron.
Megalomania.

Suggested alternative(s): Do great things with your genes, rather than expecting the next cultured batch to do it.
Make appointment with a therapist.


Reason given: Need help on farm or in family business.

Real reason: Too cheap to hire help.
Child labor laws inconvenient.

Suggested alternative(s): Mechanization gives faster return on investment.


Reason given: Want someone to care for me in my old age.

Real reason: Fear of aging.
Exploitative personality.

Suggested alternative(s): Save money, invest wisely, and prepare for retirement.
Be nicer to people so they will visit you in the old folks' home.


Reason given: Pregnancy and childbirth are life experiences.

Real reason: Life choices limited by social indoctrination.

Suggested alternative(s): Rent pregnancy simulator.
Choose different life experiences.


Reason given: A good family is essential to career advancement and strong standing in the community.

Real reason: Social insecurity.
Wants trophy children to improve social status.

Suggested alternative(s): Rent children from talent agency on special occasions.
Have white picket fence installed.


Reason given: We want to create a life which embodies our love for each other.

Real reason: Ego, times two, minus imagination, equals three plus.

Suggested alternative(s): Take up gardening. Adopt a stream, trail, or highway. Rescue animals. Protect and restore ecosystems to embody love.


Reason given: I want my kids (who don't exist yet) to have all the things I didn't have.

Real reason: Unfulfilled childhood desires and fantasies.

Suggested alternative(s): Deal with regrets and make best of your own life.
Provide for existing children in this world.


Reason given: To carry on family name.

Real reason: Trying to please Dad.
Duped by bloodline superstition.

Suggested alternative(s): Considering earning a MFA in music, sculpture or painting.
Take up Civil Engineering and build a bridge.
Undertake a career change to be an architect.
Create something enduring and give it your family name.
Donate blood to pass on bloodline.


Reason given: Want to see a little me.

Real reason: Self-absorption.
Narcissistic personality disorder.
Lack of ego gratification.

Suggested alternative(s): Order custom-made, life-like doll.
Make your own life gratifying.


Reason given: God wants us to.

Real reason: Mindless obedience to dogma peddlers who want larger flocks (and tithes).

Suggested alternative(s): Seek true nature of God, whatever you perceive God to be.


Reason given: My wife/husband wants a baby.

Real reason: Giving in out of fear of losing partner.

Suggested alternative(s): Communicate true desires. Your spouse may feel you are the one who wants to breed.
Rent baby simulator doll.


Reason given: Want a child with our bloodline.

Real reason: Ego extention.
Racial chauvinism.

Suggested alternative(s): Recognize the value of people with different genetic makeups.


Reason given: It's a spiritual thing for me.

Real reason: Other reasons too easily refuted.

Suggested alternative(s): Find truly spiritual experiences.


Reason given: I've always wanted to have children, it's what people do.

Real reason: Unquestioned cultural conditioning.

Suggested alternative(s): Consider alternatives.
Question expectations.
Adopt.


Reason given: To cement our relationship.

Real reason: Fear of failed marriage.

Suggested alternative(s): Communicate to strengthen relationship.
Attend retreats for bonding couples.
Children make divorces infinitely more difficult, messy, and expensive.


Reason given: I love babies.

Real reason: Short-sighted view of reality.

Suggested alternative(s): Babies soon turn into children, then adults.
Consider working as wet nurse, a nurse in a pediatric ward, or a pediatrician.


Reason given: Being a mother is a woman's highest calling.

Real reason: Beguiled into believing compliance is a noble, free choice.

Suggested alternative(s): Motherhood and fatherhood may be achieved without breeding. Millions of children languish in orphanages, awaiting good homes.


Reason given: My child could find a way to save the world.

Real reason: "Mother of God" complex ("Father of God" complex for men).

Suggested alternative(s): If you want something done right, do it yourself. Your child could just as likely turn out to be the next Adolf Hitler as he could be the next Mahatma Gandhi.


Reason given: We'd like to try for a boy/girl this time.

Real reason: Ego extention.
Gender identity insecurity.
Dissatisfaction with existing offspring.

Suggested alternative(s): Appreciate who you have. The existing child might resent his/her sibling, whose gender is preferred. Value your present child now to avoid crippling therapy bills in the future.


Reason given: I just want to.

Real reason: Just wants to.

Suggested alternative(s): Choosing to breed precludes most other things you'll just want to do.


Reason given: I want someone who will love me and not leave me.

Real reason: Fear of rejection.
Saddled with massive emotional baggage.
Unresolved relationship issues.

Suggested alternative(s): Give love to get love.
Accept change and deal with loss.


Reason given: Our economy needs young workers to replace retired workers.

Real reason: Willing to sacrifice offspring to gods of National Economy.

Suggested alternative(s): Automation reduces need for wage slaves. Consider rights of unconceived to stay that way.


Reason given: The world needs more of us or we will be outnumbered.

Real reason: Elitism.
Xenophobia, racial chauvinism, and/or cultural tribalism.
Eugenics easier to conceal than genocide.

Suggested alternative(s): Convert others to your views so there'll be one more of your kind and one less of them.


Reason given: We may as well, the planet is doomed anyway.

Real reason: Nihilistic natalism.

Suggested alternative(s): Consider ethics of sentencing an innocent person to life—and death—in ecological collapse.


Reason given: I'd like to achieve a sense of immortality.

Real reason: Fear of death and non-existence.

Suggested alternative(s): Accept mortality.
Spread memes, not genes. Socrates' heirs are not apparent, but his ideas linger strong.


Reason given: My biological clock has gone off.

Real reason: Women's normal heightened sexual desire in 30s & 40s difficult to accept in puritanical societies.

Suggested alternative(s): Disarm that culturally-implanted mental time bomb. It's okay to make love and not babies. (Besides, if you think you will be making more love after having a baby, think again.)


Reason given: I don't know.

Real reason: Never thought about it.
Unthinking conformity (lemming mentality).

Suggested alternative(s): Think before you breed, and you might not.


Reason given: I might regret not having had the experience later, when it's too late.

Real reason: Fear of future worries and life passing too fast.

Suggested alternative(s): We can't experience everything. Far better to regret not breeding than to regret breeding.


Reason given: I do not want to deny my kids (who do not exist yet) the joy of existence.

Real reason: Ignoring lack of joy in existing children.
Innate selfishness.

Suggested alternative(s): Promote existence of joy rather than imagining joy in mere existence.


Reason given: Procreation has traditionally been a source of personal empowerment for women.

Real reason: Deeply held misunderstanding of power issues.
Feels powerless.
Desires power and respect society appears to give to mothers and withholds from others.
Pathologically manipulative and Machiavellian personality.

Suggested alternative(s): Mothers get more lip service than respect. Picking up family's slack is not empowering. Seek self-defined sources of power.