Why Must We Breed?

[arissa]

I was thinking about this the other night while watching a movie. It talked about how we as people breed in order to pass on our knowledge. That seems to be the case only for a select few when we have others out there who breed in order to sit around collecting money for our government just for having kids. Do we breed in order to not be alone? Are we really passing on as much knowledge as we had hoped for? Are we doing it in an egotistical manner "Hey look, I have offspring too". What do the rest of you think? And for those without kids currently, did you decide to not bite the bullet? Why did you opt to go without?

[Verona]

To say humans breed to pass on their knowledge, collect welfare checks, or whatever, assumes that breeding is a conscious decision. In some cases it is. Many times, however, whoopsy! someone of the female persuasion discovers she's pregnant and then has to make the choice whether to go on with the pregnancy or not.

 

Breeding is a biological function. We (humans) do it because like other species, we're programmed to propagate ourselves.

[ErlyRisa]

Hmmm your both female...so you know , tick tock.

It's sort of lucky that females are the ovens...it means they HAVE to be social. Males on the other hand, only have to be social to the females (if their too ugly that is, if they're a stallion(s) then, yeah I know what girls talk about.)

Males I would have to say are not actually wanting to reproduce...we just find you attractive, and you girls keep blaming us for thinking with our fifth element. I find that unfair, most of the time we don't know what your talking about, nor do any of us care, we just want to have fun. Girls just want to be Mum.

[arissa]

There is no tick tock here, I stopped at two because I had one of each and I was content with that as my growing family. It does not need to grow any larger. Not all females want to be a mother, until I was actually pregnant with my first the thought never crossed my mind except to remind me that I did not in fact want to be one. When is breeding not a conscious decision? Other than in the case of rape that is the only thing I can think of. And I have yet to meet someone who said they had kids only to propagate. Please elaborate, maybe you know people that have done this but I sure don't.

[Eclogite]

And I have yet to meet someone who said they had kids only to propagate. Please elaborate, maybe you know people that have done this but I sure don't.

Actually, I am at a loss to think of any other reason why one would have them - in today's Western society. Certainly I had them because I had an instinctive drive, which I recognised, to have them.I see life as important, I see human life as important, I see my life as important. I would like some aspects of me to continue into the future. This is an intellectual rationalisation of an instinct, the bottom line of which is the desire to have offspring.

 

So, what other reasons are there?

[Boerseun]

Broken condoms do play a fair part in this, too.

 

I don't think the question should be "why do people want to procreate", rather, the question should be "why engage in sex in the first place". And that is a biological function as negotiated by hormones and the like for which there ain't no cure.

 

Men respond to attractive females, and females respond to attractive males. And sometimes their instinctive behavior as dictated (no pun intended) by their endocrinol system results in a wee little bun in the oven.

 

I think conscious decision-making happens in a very small minority of cases. 

[ErlyRisa]

There is no tick tock here, I stopped at two because I had one of each and I was content with that as my growing family. It does not need to grow any larger. Not all females want to be a mother, until I was actually pregnant with my first the thought never crossed my mind except to remind me that I did not in fact want to be one. When is breeding not a conscious decision? Other than in the case of rape that is the only thing I can think of. And I have yet to meet someone who said they had kids only to propagate. Please elaborate, maybe you know people that have done this but I sure don't.

 

Some cultures propagate b/c it's a commodity!! - I think in parts of old India? ,males, or is it females are just killed on birth?

...and I have met 1 mother that does it for fun: She literally only loves babies...once they are 3-5yr old she doesn't care about them. (She's the type that tries to keep them as babies as long as possible too: ie she doen'st rear humans, she rears the experience for her OWN benefit) -> It's the only purely animal instinct person I have seen...she is so addicted to children after her 6th kid (and once the Husband forced her into getting her tubes tied (PS she always tricked the husband...he was happy at 2)) she works at guess where.

 

She's a "bkkkkch" in my eyes...but the philosophy of life is right in the end. I don't see any other point too life once your age-ing. I find that the point seems to be to watch kids grow, the rest is just pain.

[HydrogenBond]

We all have basic instincts. Some of these instincts are connected to the survival of the individual and some connected to the survival of the species. Natural selection is based on a combination of these two, with the needs of individuals, placed in competition, result in the best genes used for procreation, thereby assuring the optimization of the species.

 

Each animal is being selfish, but since each is not the only one being selfish for the same thing, there is competition. The competition results an optimizations for the next generation of the species. It is an instinctive double whammy making hard to control or avoid. 

 

The mother and her offspring, when attacked by a predator, gives the mother the choice to save herself or her child, with her often picking her child, to assure the future of the species. 

 

Sex has a strong unconscious drive, because it satisfies the needs of both individual and species survival at the same time. Sex is pleasurable and therefore has a connection to the needs of the individual. While the chemistry involved in the exchange between male and female, assures the future of the species. 

 

Eating and drinking is more centered on individual survival and therefore is easier to control. I don't eat for the survival of the species, therefore the lack of a double whammy makes it more subject to will and subjective choice. The pregnant mother has more of a double whammy, that adds her desire to eat with the future of her child or species, so she may be more compelled to eat. 

 

This brings up the question, is overeating or gluttony, connected to an unconscious double whammy, where the instinct for survival of the species is somehow entangled in an odd way with needs of the individual; sublimation of pregnancy or sex? 

[Racoon]

People have a selfish compulsion to think they are making  the world a better place by making a photo-copy of themselves...

 

Having a kid is all about the procreator for along time... "We're having a kid"

"My Wife is pregnant"

"The baby needs such and such" ...

You get all the sympathy and encouragement,

After the kid reaches teenage years, Not so much...

 

Theres sociological pressuer to have kids.. Biological in women also,, Like bitches in heat.. They crave a child.

 

But realistically nowadays with complicated finances and human over-population, some people can use their better judgement to forgo the process... Skip the child rearing so you can pursue your great ambitions.... Theres No farm that needs new babies for future labor.

There are hundreds of Millions of children now..  Its exponential Human over-population growth..

 

And lets face it.. Alot of people have kids without the proper preperation and skills to be a fruitful parent(s).. They end up on Jerry Springer, on Welfare, or in a Prison..

 

Childbirth is Not a Miracle.. It happens thousands of times per day. Its merely a Biological function.

(unless of course its your child being born :lol )

Edited November 1, 2014 by Racoon

[CraigD]

Why Must We Breed?

For most of human history, and still for much of present day humankind, a rational reason for having children is to help you in your old age. Without institutions like churches and welfare-providing governments, people without children who become too senile to care for themselves – which in pre-industrial societies involved strenuous work such as hunting, gathering, and farming – would die of dehydration, starvation, illness, hypothermia, etc.

 

Even in modern agricultural and industrial societies with government-provided or private healthcare of old people, old people with adult children tend to live longer and have higher quality of life than people without. (sources: various, including http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16510865 and http://jech.bmj.com/content/67/4/374)

 

Another reason that people breed is simply that women are compelled, for survival reason, to have sex with men, and that they and the men have no access to or are unwilling to use contraception to avoid pregnancy or abortion to terminate it. Most experts conclude that social programs that permit women to survive without being required to have sex on demand, and programs that provide improved access to contraception and abortion reduce birth rates. (sources: many, including http://knowledge.allianz.com/demography/population/?363/how-female-empowerment-affects-population-growth)

[Bullocks]

It's all scientific.

 

Imho the world was created as a result of science . If we were created, why would extinct animals not be resurrecTed? In this way, we are able to breed as a result of all the connections scientifically