Here's another funny quip about that woman who got herself sterilized:

“Having children is selfish, “ says Vernelli, “it’s all about maintaining your own genetic line at the expense of the planet.”

I couldnÂ’t agree more. Every really selfish person I know has like twelve kids.

Why just the other day, as I was sitting, unbathed and exhausted, in the kitchen selfishly riding herd on three screaming children, all of whom were simultaneously demanding that I continue my genetic line by providing them with juice boxes, goldfish crackers, hairbows, wardrobe changes, sno-cones, candy, lunch, water, DVDs, computer assistance, reading assistance, diaper changes, judicial intervention, and “milkey, he-a-uh” (milk, heated up), I thought to myself, “Man, am I selfish!”

I had a discussion a little while ago with CaliValleyGirl over whether having children is selfish or selfless. I completely believe that it's selfless, that the point of having children is to raise adults who will provide benefit to society, not just to have a little version of me to cuddle. And raising upstanding members of society is hard. How much easier would my life be to just keep merrily knitting along in between vacations and spending money on myself? That seems like the selfish choice to me. I think instead that I have a duty to my society to breed at no less than replacement rate and breed well, so that my progeny make our country a better place.

But who knows, maybe I'm crazy. I did read America Alone while I was trying to get pregnant, so that may have screwed with my head.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:07 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 “Having children is selfish, “ says Vernelli, “it’s all about maintaining your own genetic line at the expense of the planet.” Spoken with all the wisdom of one that does not have children.

Posted by: Bubba Bo Bob Brain at November 28, 2007 04:22 AM (AKSWt)

2 It is neither selfish nor selfless. It is about a choice one makes for themselves. Discussion of selfish v. selfless for childless v. having children is mostly a discussion of self-justification. Have children; don't have children. The choice is individual and personal.

Posted by: Badger 6 at November 28, 2007 04:54 AM (TRbf/)

3 The choice to have or have not in regards to children is most certainly individual and of itself neither selfish or unselfish. However, once you HAVE children, you must practice a degree of unselfishness that is unimaginable when there are no children present. You must give up sleep to rock cranky kids, clean up someone else's poop when you'd rather let them sit in it, eat chicken nuggets instead of going out to that cool new Mexican restaurant down the street because of the money factor, and so on and so forth. Not all parents give up the majority of their selfish leanings when they have children - but the necessity of having to consider someone else's wants and needs before your own is definately a lesson in how to put your own desires second. Especially since, for quite a large bit of the lifetime the child spends living with you they are absolutely ungrateful little brats hell bent on undermining you every chance they get with no clue about the real world (even while they think they have all the answers, of course). And yes, I do have a teenager.

Posted by: airforcewife at November 28, 2007 08:14 AM (mIbWn)

4 Okay, 3 excellent comments already. I might add that having children could only be "selfish" if the goal of the human race was to become extinct. As I have never heard of this being a stated goal for any living being - I have to deduce that having children is unselfish. It's very hard work, requiring the adults involved to give up much of their own life pleasures.

Posted by: Teresa at November 28, 2007 10:22 AM (rVIv9)

5 What Badger 6 said. BTW, on a related but hopefully not a selfish note, I'm thinking in about...what, 7 months this blog isn't gonn'a be.

Posted by: tim at November 28, 2007 11:01 AM (nno0f)

6 Badger: I am not sure if I agree with you because I am not really sure what you mean by "self-justification." As in, you justify your choice after the fact? What if you justify it ahead of time? What if you don't like kids and aren't sure you particularly desire them but have them anyway because you think it's the right thing to do? Is that "self-justification"? It doesn't seem like it to me. Tim: I swear, this will not turn into a mommy blog. I want to keep it the same. We'll see how much time I have to devote to it, but I fully intend to keep the same format. And to try to get content up in between diapers and naps.

Posted by: Sarah at November 28, 2007 11:10 AM (TWet1)

7 Cool Sarah, but I, as I'm sure others, will totally understand the lack of content then. While I don't have any first hand experience, I hear babies tend to require alot of attention.

Posted by: tim at November 28, 2007 11:57 AM (nno0f)

8 By self-justification I mean they feel the need to explain why they choose to do what they did or are doing as morally superior to others who choose differently. The person in your hypothetical would be engaging in self-justification when they start telling other people that they too should have children because "it is the right thing to do." As I stated make your decision for yourself, the idea that you "owe" your society or your species something is silly. Your individual choice will not make a difference to those large groups. Don't conflate justification with deciding. Deciding is what you do for yourself. Justification is defending that idea to others. I think the choices we make regarding having children should be respected regardless of what that choice is.

Posted by: Badger 6 at November 29, 2007 08:54 AM (TRbf/)

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My husband pointed out the article yesterday about the lady who got herself sterilized because breeding leads to global warming. My immediate reaction? Excellent. Almost with a Mr. Burns accent. If she honestly thinks that, then I don't want her breeding either. So it's a win-win.

Lileks nails it:

She expresses frustration that other people are unable to accept her decision. I suspect she means “my mum” by “other people,” and I suspect she confuses “acceptance” with “full-throated endorsement."

Of course I accept these people’s decisions not to have children. What am I supposed to do, break into their homes, duct-tape them together into the double-backed beast and play whacka-chicka 70s porn soundtracks until they’re in the mood? But “acceptance” is part of the usual recipe: first we must tolerate, which no decent person should have any problem doing. Then we are asked to accept, which for most means slump-shouldered acquiescence. Eventually it’s not the norm, but it’s standing alongside it on stage, nudging its way into the spotlight.

As Mr. Garrison eloquently said, "Look, just because you have to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to approve of it! ... "Tolerate" means you're just putting up with it! You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on the airplane or, or you tolerate a bad cold. It can still piss you off! Jesus Tapdancing Christ!"

And Lileks has more. Much more. Plus funny reviews of Redacted and Die Hardest.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Dude, Mr. Garrison is so wise and he has the best exclamations on TV

Posted by: Kate at November 26, 2007 09:09 AM (tB/4l)

2 If only more of her kind would follow her example. Stumbled across your original blog as a result of comments you left on "The Smallest Minority," which I found through Kim du Toit's blog. It's great that we have such eloquent and profound thinkers as yourself representing me and my fellow Americans. Keep it up!

Posted by: Lame-R at November 26, 2007 09:42 AM (nt98J)

3 What a nice compliment, Lame-R! Thanks for the nice comment. I have no memory of what I wrote on The Smallest Minority, but whatever it was, I'm glad it brought you here. Thanks for reading!

Posted by: Sarah at November 26, 2007 11:21 AM (TWet1)

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I had a discussion with my husband a while back about the Constitution. And how perfect it is. And how strange that seems, since it was written by mere men. And how I don't think I would willingly sumbit myself to any document written by mere men today, but have no qualms about accepting every sacred word that was written 220 years ago. And how odd that is. And yet how perfect I still think that document is.

My brain runs in circles.

But as I was reading The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms (via Instapundit) this morning, I was struck by one paragraph that reminds me again how beautiful our Constitution is:

There is, to be sure, in the Second Amendment, an express reference to the security of a "free State." It is not a reference to the security of THE STATE. There are doubtless certain national constitutions that put a privileged emphasis on the security of "the state," but such as they are, they are all unlike our Constitution and the provisions they have respecting their security do not appear in a similarly phrased Bill of Rights. Accordingly, such constitutions make no reference to any right of the people to keep and bear arms, apart from state service. And why do they not do so? Because, in contrast with the premises of constitutional government in this country, they reflect the belief that recognition of any such right "in the people" might well pose a threat to the security of "the state." In the view of these different constitutions, it is commonplace to find that no one within the state other than its own authorized personnel has any right to keep and bear arms--a view emphatically rejected, rather than embraced, however, by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. [emphasis mine]

The perfection of our Constitution lies in the fact that the people of the United States are more important than the government. Obviously this is common knowledge for anyone who knows a darn thing about the founding of our country, but it bears repeating, lest we forget just what a unique and wonderful experiment our country is.

I am just so happy to have been born here. It sure saved me the time and energy of having to get here.

And I really miss Bunker right at this moment. That man knew the value of the Constitution and would've loved that I was having these thoughts. I sure miss his attagirl comments.

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Ben Stein was awesome today. If you missed it, you can always listen to the archives to hear how he got so danged pro-military, his financial advice, and what his favorite breakfast cereal is. He was great fun to talk to.

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Guess what my husband is doing at work today? Yardwork. Ha. They have all the captains and majors doing yardwork today. My husband told his Major buddy that he should refuse to do it and sit in the hot box while they all whistle for him à la Bridge on the River Kwai. We had a good laugh at that last night.

But I love what my husband said next: "But I am not going to complain about doing yardwork because there are people who are deployed right now, getting injured and killed. Yardwork is nothing compared to that."

I am so proud of my husband's perspective.

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Today on SpouseBUZZ radio we will be talking about Ben Stein's book The Real Stars and doing a short interview with the man himself. You can read more about Mr. Stein and the book at SpouseBUZZ. If you can join us live at 1430 EST, you can listen in here at Blog Talk Radio. Otherwise, all our shows are archived on the same page.

I want to put in a short plug for Blog Talk Radio. They provide a free service that has allowed us at SpouseBUZZ to do radio shows with some exciting guests. And by "us," I mean Andi, AWTM, and AirForceWife. I usually don't participate because talking on the radio makes me want to throw up. I remember having this conversation with Mary Katherine Ham at the Milblogs Conference when she asked if she could video interview me; I said, "I'm a blogger, I started blogging so I could write about things, not talk about them." She seemed to think that was pretty funny. I know a lot of people have moved on to radio, podcasts, and YouTube, but I'll stick with my printed word, thankyouverymuch.

But how often does the chance arise to talk to Ben Stein? I had to go for it. I mean, he's one of my two favorite Steins (er, Steyns).

Keep your fingers crossed that I don't say something dumb. And listen in on an interview with a man who totally groks.

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My life is so awesome.

Last night I had a dream I was invited to a potluck dinner. I showed up and didn't have any plastic cups. I had to go find some, and ended up at a gas station where the man wanted to sell me cups at a dollar apiece plus a 33% tax rate. I was so mad. I woke up from the dream and was still grumpy as all get-out that I had gotten ripped off. And I went back to sleep and kept dreaming about those stupid cups, trying to find a better deal from someone else.

My real life is so devoid of stress that I spend my dreams arguing over $1.33. I am such a lucky person.

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My Swedish friend just called; she saw what I wrote about her a few weeks ago.
I really hurt her feelings.

This post is about our resulting conversation. It is written to vindicate her. I am writing for the sole purpose of showing what a bonehead I am, because I want you readers to know that I screwed up, that I learned from it, and that the original post was never meant to be rude towards her.

She's a far better person than I am.

She was really hurt that I would use the word "superficial" in describing our friendship. She thought our friendship was fine, that it was deep, and that we've always managed to get along swimmingly. Sure, I like guns and she doesn't always get me, but she likes sports and doesn't feel like we have less of a friendship because I don't care about sports.

She then laughed and said that probably sports isn't the same thing as the Constitution.

It was really hard for me to explain why I wrote that post in the first place. I blog to work through things in my mind. To grok, literally. I needed to get this feeling off my chest and see what advice commenters would give to me. It wasn't a major problem; I didn't think it was something I needed to sit down and discuss with her. It was just a feeling I wanted to throw out there and see what you readers would say. And you came through for me with flying colors, giving me good advice and helping me realize that I was focusing on one small aspect of what it means to be a friend.

But my friend didn't have two weeks to work through things in her head; it was fresh to her and I needed to give her answers fast. I tried to explain why I wrote about it in the first place. If we had had a disagreement over health care or even Iraq, I am not sure that would've prompted me to write. But the right to bear arms is so fundamental, so important, so illustrative of someone's entire mindset. It's the 2nd Amendment that backs up the 1st. It's that important. That's why a discussion of firearms was a reminder to me of fundamental differences my Swedish friend and I have in our worldviews. It's not just that we don't see eye to eye on violence.

I am not even sure that I did a good job of explaining it to her again. I don't think I will ever be able to explain just how fundamental this right is in my opinion.

But she tried to grok. And that's what I had left out of the original post.

My Swedish friend may be European to the core. We may never really truly understand each other's values. But she always tries. She always listens and she always tries to see things from my point of view. She never judges me based on her own value system but tries to put herself in my shoes and offer whatever advice she can.

Like I said, she's a better person than I am.

What I conveniently forgot a few weeks ago when I got wound up over how deep (or not deep) our friendship is is that it's easy for CaliValleyGirl or Erin or AWTM to see eye to eye with me because they're almost always coming at the problem from the same worldview as I am. Shoot, it's easy for us to be friends. It's a far more impressive thing for my Swedish friend to have stayed friends with me for nine years, despite our differences, despite the fact that I couldn't care less about sports and she thinks knitting a gun for a baby is atrocious.

And what I realized through the course of our conversation is that our discussions are not superficial at all. I talk to her about other issues in my life, things I don't ever blog about. She made me realize that different friends fill different needs. If I want to talk to someone about linguistics, I would probably call Amritas over Erin, for the obvious reasons. If I want to talk to someone about the Army, Erin would make a better choice than Amritas. They're both my friends, but they have different expertise to fill different roles.

My Swedish friend definitely has a role to fill. And while she may not be the first person I'd call to say my husband wants to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, I would never feel like I had to hide that part of my life or values from her, and she would never make me feel weird about it either.

But she already knew this. She acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world, that it was bizarre that I'd even need to work through this sort of thing. All I could do is apologize and say that no one's ever accused me of being a genius. I hadn't fully thought it through when I blogged about it; that's why I blogged it. I wanted other people to point out the pieces of the puzzle that I had missed.

And I'm glad my Swedish friend gave me even more insight into what I was feeling. I'm just sorry that I had to hurt her feelings in the process. It was never my intention.

So the answer to my original post is that, yes, we can be friends despite our differences. Good friends. Or, at least we can if she still wants to be friends with me. I really screwed up.

All I can do is say I'm sorry for hurting her. Again and again.

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You know, I don't think you could pay me to go back to a college campus these days. I found some events on campus baffling enough back then, and I never paid attention to international news or current events. I just simply don't think I could stomach it these days.

Josie is at college, afraid of how she'll be treated when people learn about her husband and his OIF injuries. What a great post.

I feel for you, Josie, I really do. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.

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