Reproductive or counter-productive?

Greetings Earthling,

Today I will be addressing a very important topic which many of us seem to undermine in today’s busy-like lifestyle and mindset. This topic is something that you can make, but also something that you used to be. It comes in many shapes and sizes, but none of them too big. Can you guess what it is?

Ladies and gentlemen, I do sincerely believe that we’re encountering a very serious problem every day of our lives, and every day it gets worse. If that wasn’t bad enough, the only reason this problem exists is because of a self-fulfilling vicious cycle that we have created. Do you by any chance recall what a large part of the battle feminists are fighting is? They fight for women’s rights, yes, but that comes from women having been (and still largely being) treated as objects. Might I reiterate what I just said – objects. The only thing is that now they’re fighting back, so they’re no longer an easy target, so we’ve moved onto someone else to treat as objects: children.

Let’s begin at the beginning – pregnancy. Today, the mere idea of pregnancy is treated like a horrible illness. “Oh no, you’ve got Malaria? That must suck for you but hey look on the bright side - at least you’re not pregnant! And hey, I bet you just saved a whole bunch of money too by switching to Geiko!” Then there’s the trophy pregnancy – “I have a standard North American home with a standard North American wife, a standard North American dog, and two standard North American cars, because my neighbour only has one. I think it’s time we had some kids, because every other standard family has a couple.” Last but definitely not least on the horrible crime against society scale, is the stepping-stone pregnancy, also known as the “I’m too lazy to get anywhere in life the normal way but I hear that freaks get lots of money and fame just by being freaks so I’m going to take fertility pills and have a litter of humans so that I can feel like a celebrity” pregnancy. I’m not discounting the good old “I’d like to be a responsible parent and help bring a functional extension of my race into the future” kind of pregnancy, but those are not the ones causing trouble so let’s move on.

Every society has its ups and downs in child rearing traditions, depending which external culture’s perspective you regard them from, but I’m going to focus on North America, and particularly Canada, because I live there. In my opinion, there should be some kind of intensive test that 90% of our population should be forced to pass before they are allowed to reproduce. This test should include things like reasons for reproduction, strategies for maintaining the child once it’s born, throw in a few logic-testing questions, a few essay-format questions regarding a hypothetic situation and how to deal with it that will test the potential parent’s ability to deal with early childhood psychology, so on and so forth. It must be a big deal and a big hassle, so that anybody who does decide a child would be forced to do their research. “I was drunk and got knocked up, but don’t believe in abortions because I’m such a good Catholic” doesn’t count as adequate reasoning. No offense “good Catholics”, but abortions are against your religion because you’re supposed to keep it in your pants until you get married anyway. On the other hand, if it is an accidental pregnancy and the parents prove to be ready for parenthood, then all the power to them.

In today’s mindset children are highly overlooked as an integral part of society. As soon as possible they are either stuck into a public care facility or left to their own resources at home with a parent ‘attending’. Now, I’m not a big fan of extremes so I will not advocate one thing solely on its own basis without other contributing factors. Children do need to be left to themselves, don’t get me wrong, but not too early on, and not all the time. Especially in the early years children need interaction and attention from their parents so that they do not develop a host of psychological complexes later on. The whole point of playing is to go through motions that are similar to ones that a person will be doing when they are older to develop motor and perception skills that are universally applicable in adult life. If a child is not taught how to go about playing, they will not learn anything except the bare necessities of movement – and keep in mind, today’s toys tend to do everything for the child; you push a button and everything happens for you. How can you learn from that? Answer: you can’t.

So you have a six-year-old that is very curious and always wants to know what you’re doing. You sit him by the television, tell him to stay out of your way, and magically, he does! Problem solved, right? Wrong. You’ve just created a much bigger problem. You have just stunted the child’s development by a mile by showing him that it’s more rewarding not to search for information, and that curiosity is a nuisance. The child internalizes everything, and slowly but surely develops into a mentally lazy individual that prefers to keep his nose out of things, doesn’t ask questions, and enjoys forms of further mind-numbing entertainment that he remembers from his childhood. This is where you wonder why he’s getting such bad marks in school, or why he’s becoming a disturbingly unmotivated youth, or why he shows no interest towards anything that doesn’t bring him immediate gratification. Instead of asking yourself “what shall I ever do with my unruly teen”, ask what you should have done with your curious kid, and maybe follow through with your next one.

To be perfectly blunt, the child in question [from the previous paragraph] is all too likely to grow into an adult with a ‘someone else will do it for me’ attitude as well as all the other problems I have mentioned. He will be a burden on society that doesn’t see a problem with what he’s doing. Of course you might just get really lucky; your kid might get involved with a wonderful group of friends who will be able to help him learn some life skills and he will become a determined and driven adult with a successful career. If that’s the case its no thanks to you so don’t dare take any credit. Most people aren’t that lucky. Chances are he will grow up to be an adult human being with a survival rate of 0%. Lack of curiosity will result in inability to find creative ways out of situations because they will never have bothered to look for alternatives.

We also need to consider the concept of many such kids growing up and taking over the future job market as well as just being the adults that other kids look up to. If these kids grow up to be the general public then they are not capable to provide future generations with a better example, which only contributes to the exponential deterioration of society. If we encounter any issues [ie pollution today] these aforementioned individuals will be too focused on existing with minimal effort, resulting in (and I repeat) the ‘someone else will take care of it” attitude which they will pass on to their offspring, so on and so forth.

To sum it all up, from the moment you decide to have a child, make sure you already have an idea of what this child will become, and I don’t mean a doctor, lawyer, or any other career-oriented goals for your kid. I mean the generic life skills you want your kid to have and then work towards developing them. Yes, this means you will actually have to be involved with your child’s development. YOU will have to listen, advise, and participate. If you’ve been doing nothing all this time, realize that your parents screwed up, even if they are/were wonderful people, and take your life from this point onward into your own hands. If you can see what a good example is, you can be a good example too. Don’t be a selfish contributor to an already sick society. Don’t be the parent of a stepping-stone child. They are not objects, you can’t use them as a staircase for your own personal gain because that is stupid and cruel. Don’t have kids that you are planning to neglect either. If you want to neglect something, buy a lamp. Even plants come with a responsibility to be taken care of.

That’s all folks.