[PUG] Natural Family Values

[slant]

A majority of countries, especially America, have brainwashed their citizens into what is the belief of natural family values: the goal of life is to find a husband or wife, marry, have offspring, achieve a large house and later down the road grandchildren and the like.
I ask you

 

[Peace]

Survival.

Natural family values, as you describe them, promote procreation which is essential for a society to replenish its members and grow to compete against other societies.

A society that does not have those values generally dies off or is conquered by one that does.

Those kind of values are also self perpetuating. Individuals who hold different values are less likely to have children and thus less likely to spread their different values since they don't have offspring to carry them on, whereas those who have the values you describe will have many children and so their children will spread those values to their children and on and on.

 

[barbad0s]

why are we so set in stone of maintaining these ideals..

I dont think so, in this day and age. I think attitudes are changing a lot in many developed countries. Marriage and birth rates are falling quite a bit in many countries.

What brought you to post about this? Concern about overpopulation/famine?

 

[slant]

I dont think so, in this day and age. I think attitudes are changing a lot in many developed countries. Marriage and birth rates are falling quite a bit in many countries.

What brought you to post about this? Concern about overpopulation/famine?

I'm sick of people pressuring me to have kids.

 

[slant]

Survival.

Natural family values, as you describe them, promote procreation which is essential for a society to replenish its members and grow to compete against other societies.

A society that does not have those values generally dies off or is conquered by one that does.

Those kind of values are also self perpetuating. Individuals who hold different values are less likely to have children and thus less likely to spread their different values since they don't have offspring to carry them on, whereas those who have the values you describe will have many children and so their children will spread those values to their children and on and on.

That's a shitty excuse these days when there is NO WAY the human race will die off, even if every single person in the United States decided not to have kids population would continue elsewhere, it's particularly a problem in 3rd world countries. I really don't think people conscious are thinking, "okay if I don't have kids the human race will die off"

 

[Peace]

Values correlate to culture. You are thinking of the world as one big group of people. In reality, the world is split into hundreds of societies. One representation of this is nations. These societies are competing against each other. One of the biggest ways they do so is via population. The larger the population the more likely your their values will be passed along. If everyone in the United States stopped reproducing, then the United States would cease to exist in a generation and its values would go with it. Societies that place a value on procreation are more likely to continue to exist.

 

[Nixie]

People get married and have children everyday. The question you should be asking yourself is why you choose to allow yourself to feel pressured. If you are confident in the choices you make and how you choose to live your life, then other's expectations have no hold on you. I have no children and I am not married. I am not gay nor asexual. I didn't find those things (marriage and children) important, and I did not do them. I don't give a flying f**k what "others" think. You can only decide how you want to live your life, not pontificate on how others "should" live theirs.

 

[Peppermint]

@slant , I agree with you, but I also find it ironic when I read things written by people who have strong family values and lament about how the loss of the traditional family is bringing about the crumbling of society.

Family is just another societal institution. It's function is to socialize children into functioning in a hierarchical society which is role based and group based, teaching them values they need to be productive members of the society. As time passes, we're increasingly moving away from a society where gender roles are relevant. People's paradigms are in flux and I believe many are confused. It's not unexpected that people would cling to the familiar paradigms.

The motivation for reproduction is another complex issue. Nobody has children with the biological imperative as the conscious choice. Some have children for patriotic reasons, believe it or not. I know that because I live in a country with a low birth rate. I read a very heated debated about childless women on another forum and I've read reasons which struck me as rather odd, and hard to identify with. Some of the women who posted saw having children as the ultimate act of compassion. They said that only by having children have they learned and experienced true selfless love and compassion, and that it changed them into better people. They said it was the most amazing feeling they've had in their lives and that they feel bad for women who can't or won't experience it. There is truth in that assertion because having a child triggers strong hormonal changes in a woman's body that promote her health and general well being, but this fact is not something that should be touted as a reason for having a kid, nor as a way to enforce gender roles.

I guess, like in many instances people assume that what works for them will also work for other people. It's a flawed way of thinking but it's the myopia inherent in being subjective creatures.


I see being a housewife as a fate worse than death, but to each their own.

 

[acd]

People get married and have children everyday. The question you should be asking yourself is why you choose to allow yourself to feel pressured. If you are confident in the choices you make and how you choose to live your life, then other's expectations have no hold on you. I have no children and I am not married. I am not gay nor asexual. I didn't find those things (marriage and children) important, and I did not do them. I don't give a flying f**k what "others" think. You can only decide how you want to live your life, not pontificate on how others "should" live theirs.

Brilliant.

 

[Radiantshadow]

Evolutionary tradition that has carried over as the crux of some societies.
Pick your dogma*, there are plenty out there to choose from that worked,
in the past. Which is what many cannot get over - the world is always changing.

"Natural" is a hard thing to define, in my (limited) experience.
It usually gets compressed into one of the aforementioned dogmas
and prompted to others as truth. The euphemism "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
can certainly be used to defend the tradition. Education might
come in handy to dissolve these erroneous perceptions;
behavior and lifestyles can always be improved somehow.

Maybe?

*I'm not using dogma negatively, it's just easier to say than "(x) belief system reinforced by. . ."

 

[slant]

People get married and have children everyday. The question you should be asking yourself is why you choose to allow yourself to feel pressured. If you are confident in the choices you make and how you choose to live your life, then other's expectations have no hold on you. I have no children and I am not married. I am not gay nor asexual. I didn't find those things (marriage and children) important, and I did not do them. I don't give a flying f**k what "others" think. You can only decide how you want to live your life, not pontificate on how others "should" live theirs.

Ignoring reality does not make it go away.

 

[Nixie]

Ignoring reality does not make it go away.

And by "reality" you mean? IMO, the life you choose is your own reality. If you don't want to live by what is considered the "norm", then don't. Changing society's norms takes quite a bit of effort and time. I rather doubt given the biological imperative to mate and procreate that marriage and kids will fall by the wayside.

 

[Soulful]

I'm glad your home is loving.
What makes you think mine is?

(no snarkiness intended)

 

[Majesty]

Some people simply don't think about that. They're told than this is how it is and just follow it.
Others do think about it, but lack the determination/confidence/etc. to actually do something different of their lives, like being a superhero.

 

[barbad0s]

I'm sick of people pressuring me to have kids.

Ya, there's really absolutely nothing you can do about this besides trying to not let it get to you. Haters gonna keep on drinking haterade. People do things and pressure others to do things both with or without reason.

And I mean... you're only 18, right? How much pressure can you have right now? Surely you're talking about indirect forms of pressuring, right? Or people assuming you value certain things for your future when you don't?

 

[slant]

Look. The issue that I have with this is not the fact that I feel like I am going to/want to change my mind to please society. That is not going to happen. I am a determined person. If I make a decision out of an amount of thought and logic has gone into it, I'm going to stick with this decision. I am also a person that is concerned with the world I live in at large, and it seems like everyone I talk to about this issue whether they be in my age range, 50, 40, 30...have had a very limited amount of thinking on having children. It was either accidental or they did it to follow the heard because 'thats just what you do'. Our world does not need more babies. And if people would sit down and think critically, I bet out birth rate would go down measurably. I'm not saying everyone would stop having kids. Someone always is going to. But I'm saying those who do have kids might opt to have kids that aren't biologically their own and stop placing so much value on genetics, because children and that experience has nothing to do with if you are related or not. Maybe the people who stop and think about reasons to have children will wait twenty years when they are more prepared financially to take care of them. And maybe, a lot of the people will decide they can help children and society in a more profound way. Maybe these people will become activists who travel the world and live their life in a way that would be impossible to raise kids in, or harmful to them.

My point is just that I think not having kids is a taboo topic.

And just to clarify, oh yes, I am getting a lot of pressure right not to have children. It is not indirect, it is very direct. People will speak about my grandchildren or my children I'm going to have and the husband I am going to marry and always argue with me when I insist that's not the way I see my life panning out. I don't understand what gives other people the right to judge my life because I choose not to have kids, when I don't judge them when they choose TO have kids. In no means am I looking down on people who do have kids, it's just from my observation I don't think that a lot of people give it enough thought, if any at all, and I think that's the irresponsible society we have boiled down to. At no time have I ever heard from anyone, anywhere, that if I don't want to have kids that's okay- nor have when these 'hypothetical' situations come up about my kids and grandkids have people stopped to think, "Gee. Maybe this person won't have kids nor grandkids. Maybe that's something I should consider before crafting imaginary assumption lives about this person."

 

[slant]

Evolutionary tradition that has carried over as the crux of some societies.
Pick your dogma*, there are plenty out there to choose from that worked,
in the past. Which is what many cannot get over - the world is always changing.

"Natural" is a hard thing to define, in my (limited) experience.
It usually gets compressed into one of the aforementioned dogmas
and prompted to others as truth. The euphemism "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
can certainly be used to defend the tradition. Education might
come in handy to dissolve these erroneous perceptions;
behavior and lifestyles can always be improved somehow.

Maybe?

*I'm not using dogma negatively, it's just easier to say than "(x) belief system reinforced by. . ."

The problem is that it IS broken and it DOES need to be fixed. Our society is experiencing a lot of harm by people reproducing needlessly.

 

[Blind Bandit]

Slant I'm sorry to say this but this pressure never goes away. It just doesn't. As long as someone has a strong enough drive for uniformity and control of others pressure will exist.

I'm still getting the same comments and "advice" I did when I was a teenager. Most recently I've been getting the why don't you have a girl friend and your degree is a stupid choice talks. Many of us walk against the current. That causes others grief. I'm all for enlightening society. But it takes time and some will never wake up. The best advice I can give if it bothers you don't talk about it with others who you think will give a hard time. If you going to talk about a topic you have to expect negative feedback in some form. At the same time you can tell someone "I don't want to talk about this with you or Lets talk about something else... ecte."

Peer pressure will never stop all we can do is do our best to live our lives. My best advice is to vent on it the best you can and keep to principals that seem logical and make sense in your life.

 

[Sriracha]

Girls are taught at a very young age to idealize both marriage and having children. It is all around them. Disney movies and the Prince to save the day ... falling in love. Baby dolls, baby strollers, little kitchens, etc, etc. Family, seeing friends parents who are married. It is everywhere. It's our culture. Why do you think it took so long for blacks and women to have rights? Why did is it taking so long for gays to have "some" rights? Christian base religion dominates our society, but even-so ... most other religions honor marriage. Did Christianity shape our government? You better believe it.

My thought is ... never change being an adversary, it makes the world much more interesting.


ETA: You better believe the question that is asked AFTER you get married (even right away) is "when will you have children?" Sigh.

 

[Nixie]

I think that it is important to understand that you are capable of being the torch bearer for someone who is taking a critical look at whether the ideal is to be married and have kids. There is a biological reason for people to assume that women want children and it is a societial norm to assume marriage comes with the choice to have children. You can bitch around about how "people" should change or you can be an example of someone who has made the decision to not have children while still being gracious and understanding. I honestly don't get the big beef. I am comfortable telling others that I am not married and don't have kids without being all rambo about it. People are curious by nature and the question is somewhat natural--a bit intrusive, but natural.