Reposted from alt.poly

[firecat]

Apropos of a couple of discussions on wiscon lately I want to express the following, which I posted in alt.polyamory in a thread about said discussions:

Every time I try to describe my feelings about children it boils down to "Um...they are people." As with adults, I have all sorts of superficial thoughts about the ones I don't know - positive, neutral, suspicious, whatever, depending on my mood and their behavior in the moment - and I tend to like the ones I know, especially if they take an interest in me.

Also, I think that hate speech directed at any people is ugly.

For the record, I don't have or want children of my own.

Comments

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I saw a bumpersticker a couple of weeks ago that said:

If you can't feed 'em
Don't breed 'em

Now, clearly I couldn't stop his pickup truck to argue with the driver, but I wanted to.

I've known since I was 13 that I didn't want kids, but I think it's fine for most people to have them. I generally like the kids I know personally.

[firecat]

I think it's best to consider whether you can afford children when deciding whether to have them (and most of the people I know with kids do consider it). Also, a lot of unexpected things can happen to a person's income in the 20 years it takes to raise a child. Also it's not like birth control is entirely reliable and free.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking mostly about the income. Things can be going fine and then dad gets hurt on the job. What does the pickup guy want them to do? Kill a couple of kids?