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Angry_Dragon wrote:Babies are CRAP because they eventually turn into us. Do we really need more of us. The cynical part of this is that I actually want a child but mainly for psychological experiments not to love.

well that's nice and fucked up. be careful the monster you create doesn't turn against you and plot your slow, excruciating death. Just imagine hanging inverted by your testicles, which your psychotic baby-creature has affixed to a barbed length of steel cable, asking yourself, "Did I really need another one of me?"

My advice: don't fuck around with humans. They're vengeful.

Does that sound like a reasonable argument for love?

I can only hope that my kid could do something that cool.

tmidgett wrote:uh

i don't think 'inanimate' is exactly the word for it

perhaps someone should draw you a picture, but it won't be me

First things first, tmidgett read the post before the one you responded to – I spent some time imagining Steve Albini’s penis inside a small innocent creature before coming to the conclusion his joke was only apt if it was not his dick that was penetrating babies.

That fine imagery aside, babies are aliens. Weird foreign bodies that grow inside and feed off a mature human body. I think the movie Aliens perfectly encapsulated the scum-spewn flesh wrenching trauma of birth. If there’s one ‘not crap' thing James Cameron has done it’s to provide me with an analogy for childbirth that’s as uncanny as I need it to be (uncanny in the Freudian sense of ‘when that which is most familiar becomes strange and that which is most strange becomes familiar').

I’m not saying babies are crap – fathers and mothers put down your torches and pitchforks—anymore than I’m saying Aliens was crap. What I am saying is that what is supposed to be the ‘most natural’ thing we are capable of doing is far and away the freakiest and most grotesque, if not most beautiful.

a-ite?

clocker bob wrote:There's no way a baby should be anywhere other than a private home, a day care center or a doctor's office between birth and three. I will allow travel on public transportation to and from a home and a doctor's office, but only trains, to give other riders a choice of a different car.

And no child should be in an adult restaurant, movie theater, etc. until the age of eight, unless the One Strike Policy is strictly enforced. One shriek, one disruption, and the parent heads straight for the nearest exit.

I don't know, man - the happiest times I've had with my friends and godchildren have been the "throw the kids over the shoulder and get on with your normal life" throwdowns.

I have a problem with the Insert Child, HOLY FUCK! Everything Changes! theory. Having a kid can be integrated into a full adult life, vibrant with friends and beer and jokes in poor taste.

I sympathize with the One Strike Policy and follow it, myself - I take whatever kid is having a bad moment and go and sit outside the restaurant/whereever together until s/he chills out. We all get upset, we all need a minute to get our shit together. If you stress out over an upset kid, though, the child isn't going to relax and settle down, so you're risking exacerbating whatever unpleasant moment you're within.

SixOhSix47 wrote:I have a problem with the Insert Child, HOLY FUCK! Everything Changes! theory. Having a kid can be integrated into a full adult life, vibrant with friends and beer and jokes in poor taste.

My friends and relatives who have children explained this misconception to me like this: it's not that everything changes, it's that everything expands. You don't have to buckle down, or disrupt whatever neat-o lifestyle you had prior to your child's birth, it's more that you want to, because you want to spend as much time as possible with your child.

But I'll also counter this with this random scenario that I witnessed outside of my apartment a couple weeks back:

Young mother, Latino, walking with a friend and with a 18 month-old toddler in a stroller. You can imagine the type of conversation going on between the two girls - "Mothafucka did wha? No he di-in't, No he di-in't." Etcetera.

While this dialogue rambles on, the baby boy is perfectly content to look around at the surroundings, head swiveling this way and that. He cranes his neck at something that has caught his attention, twisting his body around a bit in the stroller.

The mothergirl proceeds to shout in biting tones at the child "HEY!! SIT STRAIGHT" and a second later "HEY!!! STUPID, YOU'RE GONNA FALL OUT..."

The child showed no signs of being communicated with. The mother did not stop to straighten the child, just continued to converse with her homegirl in that hip urban patois.

---

Both points are two sides to the same coin. Babies cannot be anything but life-changing, but as Dr. MidgettSpock says:

Dr. MidgettSpock wrote:it seems like a bad idea that will ruin your life until it seems like a good idea that will enrich your life, and then it seems like a really good idea. with any luck, this impression is a correct one, once one has it.

First things first, tmidgett read the post before the one you responded to

oh, i read it

i think the issue is that the joke is disturbing beyond what you have imagined

which is why it is funny

ok!

Mayfair wrote:Children (babies) are amazing you bunch of sad, frustrated, self-loathing technicians!

Go calibrate something!

What he said.

tmidgett wrote:

First things first, tmidgett read the post before the one you responded to

oh, i read it

i think the issue is that the joke is disturbing beyond what you have imagined

which is why it is funny

ok!

if i'm understanding this situation correctly, the key element to the joke, what LAD wasn't considering, is the sauce. no?

Babies are not crap. There are a lot of crap parents which is a problem.

I do not plan on having children. I do not, at age 30, while holding my one month old nephew/godson, get any pangs of maternal clocks ticking. He's cute, I'll be happy to watch him grow up, as I am content with hanging out with my boyfriend's 10 year old daughter, but I have no interest in having my own.

Most people I know who have had children had planned on it, or put a whole lot of effort and time into having them, or adopting, and even the ones that weren't planned, it changed the parent's views on babies in almost every case. I don't think that's something you can know until you go through it yourself. Maybe you wont care, or maybe you'll be a crap parent, but in most cases... in most cases I would bet it changes you for the better.

I'm having one now. So, uh, change my vote to NOT CRAP.