Another post from that same forum. Hey, if I'm going to type something up that speaks my mind, why use it in only one place?

Somebody brought up the ol' topic of "It sucks that stupid/poor/incompetant people are breeding, while a lot of people who choose not to have children are smart/well-off/responsible." Here was my response.

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I don't have much respect for people who willingly decide to have children in rather unfit situations (while still heavily smoking or using drugs, being already legally bankrupt or on welfare, already having 7 and being unable to make ends meet, living in a diseased environment, etc.) My attitude is, learn to take care of yourself before you willingly take on the additional responsibility of a new human.

I am one of those folks that I'm sure many would say "should" be a parent. I'm in my 20s, I'm pretty well-off finanically, I have next to no history of drug or alcohol use, good gene pool, high IQ, responsible, imaginative, no criminal record, blah blah blah. But I choose not to have children. Not now, and not ever. It's amazing how many people I run into who can't accept that fact. But I strongly stand by my right not to reproduce.

I know there are valid reasons why some have chosen to have children, but I've heard a good share of rather bogus reasons too. Most parents, conservative or not, seem to have the goal of raising a "mini-me". Is this really a good reason to have kids, to make a forced clone of oneself? Or "you'll want somebody to take care of you when you're older." Is it a future slave that I want to raise? "You're one of the last males of this family with our rare last name. You need to continue the family." Should I be dictated by something as impersonal as a last name? I've also seen people who'll have a kid so that their partner remains attached to them and won't run off.

The people I really can't stand though are not so much the "have-nots" who still breed, but the "haves" who breed and turn into these soccer mom and superdad types. By this, I mean the people who establish their entire identity on being a parent. On top of that, they may act all self-righteous and superior to me upon finding out that I'm not a parent. I find that these are invariably people whose life meaning, ambitions, identity, and hobbies (excluding TV) completely ended with their job placement after graduation from college. So they decide to become parents for lack of anything better to do. They bring a life into this world in hopes of filling the void in their own life. You can tell by the fact that they insist they have no time to do anything else. The parents who don't need to validate themselves through their kids seem to be the ones who DO still schedule time for their own hobbies and passions.