Re: [lpaz-discuss] Top 10 Hidden Benefits of Having Kids

[Jason]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 10:54 PM, Mike Renzulli maren...@gmail.com
[lpaz-discuss] <lpaz-d...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
> I wanted to discuss something different. It has to do with having kids. A few of you may have decided not to have children. While I respect your choice, however, the benefits of having children far outweigh the drawbacks. However, on more than one occasion I recall some libertarians I talked to or say in passing making a claim that they didn't want to have children because they saw it as a form of slavery. I, personally, used to think having children was more of a burden. After some more thought on this, I would love to be a dad and am pursuing hooking up with someone who would like to start a family.
>
> http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/top-10-hidden-benefits-of-having-children.html
>

The reasons given at the link you posted range from the ridiculously
banal (special parking spaces? really?) to some that are moderately
relevant. That said, I agree that being a parent can and should be a
benefit, rather than a burden and a source of suffering.

I cannot stress enough the importance of having good ideas about why
you're having kids and how you intend to parent before becoming a
parent. You're not going to get that from a Top 10 list. I'm not
saying you intend to, just advising you to be sure that you aren't.
Most parenting literature is worthless or of negative value - you have
to look hard and think critically to find good stuff.

For an example of something you need to think about carefully, schools
are objectively bad places, especially to send children to against
their will. Public schools are the worst, but private schools are not
much better. You should understand the arguments for why that is and
either refute them or have a plan to homeschool your child(ren) in an
objectively good way until & unless they decide they want to go to
school. To do less is to knowingly plan to force evil upon your
child(ren) - to make them suffer instead of helping them not to. Why
become a parent if that's what you intend to do? Yet homeschooling is
also a large parenting commitment especially if you haven't planned
for it properly. Thankfully, due to this very internet list
(lpaz-discuss) I learned about homeschooling in time to adequately
prepare for it and to successfully accomplish it with my children.
Homeschooling can be accomplished. Suffering with school is not
required, but avoiding it doesn't happen by accident.

Schools are just one example of many ideas you will need to decide
what to think about as a parent: circumcision? day care? baby talk?
car seats? cry-it-out or hold-and-crib or co-sleep? letting them walk
alone to the park? babysitters? timeouts? spankings? permissiveness?
which TV shows and internet sites can they see? defiance/backtalk OK?
limit screen time? exposure to religious ideas? chores? allowance?
"bad" words? helping vs. hovering? sports? music lessons?...

Lack of principles leads to making ad hoc, conflicting, and ultimately
irrational parenting decisions.

"Freedom", "Objectivism", and "Reason" are all good starting points
but nowhere near specific enough. Rand didn't write much about actual
parenting decisions, and libertarian perspectives are all over the map
from "unschooling" and other forms of benign and not-so-benign
neglect, to attachment parenting, to absolute authoritarianism and
treating children as property or parasites. There is no single
"libertarian" position on parenting.

The best forum I know of for learning about parenting principles from
an objectivist / critical rationalist perspective is:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/taking-children-seriously

There's also an archive of articles at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030603214744/http://www.tcs.ac/Articles/index.html

The usual caveat applies: I do not endorse everything said there, by
participants or the people who have specific ideas about what "Taking
Children Seriously" means. Some of the ideas I actively disagree with.
I am only saying that you risk doing yourself and any future children
you may have serious evil if you don't actively engage with parenting
ideas, there and/or at some other place of equal or better quality. I
would add: if you find some other high quality place, please pass
along its location.

Consider carefully and develop your principles in advance of when
they're needed. That will make parenting much better for you and your
child(ren). I'm happy to discuss parenting ideas further, either here
or on the list linked above.

--Jason

[Elliot Temple]

On Aug 1, 2014, at 12:27 PM, Jason <auv...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 10:54 PM, Mike Renzulli maren...@gmail.com
> [lpaz-discuss] <lpaz-d...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> I wanted to discuss something different. It has to do with having kids. A few of you may have decided not to have children. While I respect your choice, however, the benefits of having children far outweigh the drawbacks.

While I respect your choice, however, you're wrong.

lol so dumb.

and note the false weighing epistemology, refuted in BoI. it's nice and explicit here.

>> However, on more than one occasion I recall some libertarians I talked to or say in passing making a claim that they didn't want to have children because they saw it as a form of slavery.

did they mean they'd be making the children their slaves? or making themselves slaves to their children?

and why haven't both of these meanings occurred to him? (if they had he would have clarified).

i imagine the one that did not occur to him is that the children would be the slaves. even though the children are the ones with much less power, so they are in a position much more like low-power slaves. bastard!

>> I, personally, used to think having children was more of a burden.

so he means the parents would be slaves to the "burden" of children?

btw why do people who worry about children being a burden always talk about having **children** rather than **a child**? if it's such a burden, but you're still tempted, why primarily consider multiple kids?

>> After some more thought on this, I would love to be a dad and am pursuing hooking up with someone who would like to start a family.

heh @ word choice "hooking up".

>>
>> http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/top-10-hidden-benefits-of-having-children.html
>>
>
> The reasons given at the link you posted range from the ridiculously
> banal (special parking spaces? really?)

wow that's even dumber than i guessed it'd be from reading the URL text. (I guess I don't read enough reddit and mainstream media, and am out of touch)

> to some that are moderately
> relevant. That said, I agree that being a parent can and should be a
> benefit, rather than a burden and a source of suffering.
>
> I cannot stress enough the importance of having good ideas about why
> you're having kids and how you intend to parent before becoming a
> parent. You're not going to get that from a Top 10 list. I'm not
> saying you intend to, just advising you to be sure that you aren't.

this "be sure" looks to me like an epistemology error.

> Most parenting literature is worthless or of negative value - you have
> to look hard and think critically to find good stuff.

he (Mike) won't know what this means yet, and it sets up an implied promise that it'll be explained later in the email. let's keep this in mind see how it's followed up on.

(i got this use of the word "promise" from some fiction authors talking about how books make promises to readers which they then should fulfill by the ending. but i don't like the word "promise" in general. is there a better thing to say instead? you can talk about creating reader expectations, but i think it's awkward to phrase all statements to use that. like you can say a particular sentence WAS or MAKES a promise. or you can say it CREATES reader expectations but you can't use a TO BE verb with the expectations phrasing. like you can say "there WERE promises in chapter 1 here, here, and here", but you how do you translate that to speaking about creating expectations?)

> For an example of something you need to think about carefully, schools
> are objectively bad places, especially to send children to against
> their will. Public schools are the worst, but private schools are not
> much better.

clarifying in a way i'm guessing you'll agree with:

public schools are the worse in terms of like the school quality.

but in terms of the right decision for a family to make, often public school is a superior choice to private school. b/c it can be way cheaper and that price difference can be more important for them than the school quality difference.

> You should understand the arguments for why that is and
> either refute them or have a plan to homeschool your child(ren) in an
> objectively good way until & unless they decide they want to go to
> school. To do less is to knowingly plan to force evil upon your
> child(ren) - to make them suffer instead of helping them not to. Why
> become a parent if that's what you intend to do? Yet homeschooling is
> also a large parenting commitment especially if you haven't planned
> for it properly. Thankfully, due to this very internet list
> (lpaz-discuss) I learned about homeschooling in time to adequately
> prepare for it and to successfully accomplish it with my children.
> Homeschooling can be accomplished. Suffering with school is not
> required, but avoiding it doesn't happen by accident.

i think you should explicit say that a major element of a homeschooling plan is how the parent will afford to be home plenty. homeschooling is fairly incompatible with lots of jobs. (not entirely incompatible. there's always some kinda options most people wouldn't consider. e.g. child could have a sleep cycle to sleep while parent is at work. put together several out-of-the-box ideas and maybe you could do OK)

one plan would be the dad works and the mom homeschools. but some people don't do two-parent households, or are dual-income households, or the dad cares about educating his kids, or various things. this needs to be considered and is such a common, major issue that it's worth talking about specifically.

> Schools are just one example of many ideas you will need to decide
> what to think about as a parent: circumcision?

i hope whether to do genital mutilation or not doesn't take too much thought :/

or i wish it didn't. or something. most Americans who don't give it much thought do mutilate. sigh.

> day care? baby talk?
> car seats? cry-it-out or hold-and-crib or co-sleep? letting them walk
> alone to the park? babysitters? timeouts? spankings? permissiveness?
> which TV shows and internet sites can they see? defiance/backtalk OK?
> limit screen time? exposure to religious ideas? chores? allowance?
> "bad" words? helping vs. hovering? sports? music lessons?...
>
> Lack of principles leads to making ad hoc, conflicting, and ultimately
> irrational parenting decisions.
>
> "Freedom", "Objectivism", and "Reason" are all good starting points
> but nowhere near specific enough. Rand didn't write much about actual
> parenting decisions,

agreed. not her topic. she said a couple small good things about the issue criticizing some bad parenting practices. and she was interested in montessori schooling which i don't agree with her about, and which she didn't say a lot about anyway.

from offhand memory, i think the most interesting and most volume Rand parenting content is found in her essay The Comprachicos. read it if you haven't.

some of her other remarks elsewhere that i particularly liked, like about parents expecting unearned, undeserved love, were very short.

> and libertarian perspectives are all over the map
> from "unschooling" and other forms of benign and not-so-benign
> neglect, to attachment parenting, to absolute authoritarianism and
> treating children as property or parasites. There is no single
> "libertarian" position on parenting.

there's also no single "libertarian" position on much of anything else.

> The best forum I know of for learning about parenting principles from
> an objectivist / critical rationalist perspective is:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/taking-children-seriously
>
> There's also an archive of articles at:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030603214744/http://www.tcs.ac/Articles/index.html
>
> The usual caveat applies: I do not endorse everything said there, by
> participants or the people who have specific ideas about what "Taking
> Children Seriously" means. Some of the ideas I actively disagree with.
> I am only saying that you risk doing yourself and any future children
> you may have serious evil if you don't actively engage with parenting
> ideas, there and/or at some other place of equal or better quality.

what does that caveat mean (about or some better place)? is its purpose to give people license to evade TCS? if not that, how does it actually work in practice?

> I
> would add: if you find some other high quality place, please pass
> along its location.

and give TCS or FI list the opportunity to criticize the supposed high quality stuff, in case it's not actually so high quality and some flaws are already know. unless your goal is to evade criticism...

> Consider carefully and develop your principles in advance of when
> they're needed. That will make parenting much better for you and your
> child(ren). I'm happy to discuss parenting ideas further, either here
> or on the list linked above.

ok so the promise above was:

> Most parenting literature is worthless or of negative value - you have
> to look hard and think critically to find good stuff.

it was not followed up on well.

worse, there was that caveat about other better quality places.

so first Jason says most parenting literature has <= value. but then he didn't explain this bold claim in a way that will persuade people. nor did he act like his claim was true. instead, he sorta generically hedged like "TCS is good IMO or feel free to find something else you think is good instead". i doubt he'll say he meant it that way, but he's set things up pretty well for people to read it that way.

(this is, btw, consciously-intentionally or not, rather polite and tactful of him. i mean this as a condemnation of politeness.)


Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com
www.curi.us