Thursday, January 23, 2014

Care and Feeding of Children

Many times I have been asked, “Dale, why don’t you want kids?”  And the answer has always been some off-hand, smart-alecky stab at humor meant to shock as much as entertain.  If you know me personally, then you are aware that my life philosophy can be expressed in a series of one-line quips that are tailored to the immediate audience and my sense of current affairs.  If you know me only through these writings, then you realize I am a deep well of wisdom, at the bottom of which is a sticky muck that’s hard to remove from one’s psyche once engaged.

The truth is, my life has been devoted chiefly to thought.  It has been my aspiration to resolve the great mysteries of human existence and construct a universal model of society.  The main impediment to success over this six-decade odyssey through the maze of human behavior is that every time I stand of the precipice of understanding my mind is hijacked by the aforementioned one-liner.

My friend and shooting partner Frank used to threaten to a carry a notebook just for the purpose of recording these frequent offerings of total crap wrapped up in a shiny facade of pseudo-wisdom.  I wish he had because I can’t remember even a tenth of the bull I came up with and they would make entertaining reading for you.  But alas, time and age have wiped many of these pearls of intellectual whimsy from the dry-erase board of my brain.

Probably first among the drivers of my thinking processes is to simplify things. I try to explain what I see in the least complex terms possible.  I avoid the question “why” in favor of the question “how”.  I am a dedicated follower of Occam and his razor of parsimony. If you are not familiar with the philosophical approach known as Occam’s razor I will paraphrase it as; keep it simple stupid.  Now this is woefully inadequate so I urge you to look it up.

I know what you are thinking, “Dale, what does any of this have to do with having children.”  And I respond, “Nothing!”  For you see, it is not the having children that is at issue.  That part was perfected by our genetic ancestors millennia ago.  You simply pick a comely female from the pride, lie to her about how many bison you can kill in a day, slip her the old spear of manhood and you’re done.  The rest is up to her… until the spawn of your loins is delivered.  Then you have to keep the little booger eater alive.

For some evolutionary reason that I have yet to fathom, we separated from the large cats.  Now lions have societal organization perfected.  Participation in the biological imperative assigns to him two roles.  The first is to impregnate the cub making machine.  The second is to defend his genetic territory.  Screwing and fighting; maybe the missing link is the Irish.  And a little discussed behavior in nature documentaries is that if the cubs get too annoying, the male eats them.

But we, in the much more evolved species known as Homo sapiens sapiens, have developed an ethic of communal family care.  Where did that notion come from?  I’d bet it was first germinated in the mind of a female.  Maybe we retain some genetic trace of the sea horse.

So, I think I’m on to something.  My total lack of interest in having and caring for offspring probably stems from my being a genetic throwback.  In fact, such condition could explain many of my personality features.  And you probably started a list of those as you read that sentence.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not anti-kids.  I understand much too well the urges manifest in the biological imperative.  People are going to keep engaging in population increasing activity as long as there are people.  And, as I’m sure we’re headed for a day when universal socialism is the economic rule, I’m all in favor of there being as many of the little urchins available for labor as are needed to support me in my golden years.  And if we over breed, we can always eat the surplus.     



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