Is it more selfless to adopt than to have your own children?

[OUCaptain]

The most selfless act would be to not have any at all to make up for all the ass hats having more than 2.4. This planet will be wall to wall people before you know it.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: AreaCode707
In relation this thread, it seems like many people consider it a moral imperative to have your own biological children. Arguments range from the idea that it would be selfish to cut off thousands of years of genetic development to the accusation that it would be like kicking your parents in the face if you did not have children.

Pretty much all of those arguments are retarded. Thousands of years of genetic development do not care about my actions, because they are dead. Your parents do not get to make your adult life decisions unless you live in a severely dysfunctional family.

That's seriously the entire range of arguments? No one could come up with a real one?

As someone who doesn't intend to have my own kids, it seems like adopting is the more selfless of the two options. Taking in a child that isn't your biological heir, helping someone that needs it, that seems to be more of a virtue than having your own kids, which most people take as a given, as something natural.

I don't plan to have kids either. I also don't plan to adopt. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but you seem to be implying that there's some kind of imperative or responsibility to be selfless.

Says who, and since when?

I do my best not to create problems for others (the occasional accident notwithstanding), but nor do I go out of my way to solve other people's problems that I didn't create.

I consider raising kids, whether your own or not, to be one of the most challenging tasks in the human life. Credit to all that choose it. And overall, the same amount of credit to adoptive as biological parents - the only real difference in virtue for adoptive parents, in my eyes, is the point at which you choose to adopt. Afterwards, once you have the child, it seems like the kids are YOUR kids, whether you had them yourself or not.

You know what else is very challenging? Landing on the moon. We did it, but it was mainly to show up the commies, which was fashionable at the time.

Point being, don't expect me to be impressed by the fact that someone chose to challenge themselves. Of course they're going to challenge themselves. What else are they going to do, lay in bed for 80 years and then die? You have to do something in this life.

I'll be impressed when a parent or parents churn out a respectable adult human being. I'm not going to fawn on them just because they chose to bring progeny of some sort into their lives. Anyone can take on a new challenge. You have to succeed before you can be proud of yourself.