Even in the most favorable moments in history, human beings are ambivalent about raising children. Every person realizes it necessary to sow offspring in order for culture to continue, but that propagation comes at quite a cost. There are moments in a fellow’s life when the price is too high.
Sometimes, though, you might endure enough disappointment and disgust in life that you decide eat your seed corn. The Child Eater Fountain exhibits the way that an adult male truly feels about kids – a grown man knows that he better consume his offspring before they can consume him. Eat the little bastards before they can eat him out of house and home.
Think of the sculpture as a glimpse into the subconscious of an average father. Consider such Renaissance effigies to be a sort of metaphor for the resentment all dads feel for their children. There is no parent alive who never had moments when he wished he could take it all back. Regard the Child Eater Fountain as a watery representation of a breeder’s real antipathy toward kids.
This is reality. Children suck. I don't have any of my own but once dated a woman who did. No Thanks.
ReplyDelete"There is no parent alive who never had moments when he wished he could take it all back."
ReplyDeleteTHIS MAY BE THE TRUEST STATEMENT ON THE INTERNET. And yet hardly anyone on the Internet will admit it.
And there are PLENTY of offspring who revile their parents for bringing them into this shithole. Perhaps this accounts for much so-called "elder abuse and neglect". Payback time! We poor bastards are only here because of the selfishness of our parents. We didn't ask to be here! It seems you are perversely reversing the imposition argument of antinatalism, Mr. Mean. Parents who blame their children for ANYTHING are like murderers blaming their victims because they, the killers, wound up in prison.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you in one crucial aspect, but that critical area makes all the difference. Parents bring kids into the world because they are unselfish (because the breeders imagine that they are being unselfish, as it were). If you want to reduce the number of children, you will need the population to become more self-centered. A selfish guy is too busy with his own life to bother about offspring. My goal, then, is to increase the selfishness quotient.
DeleteGood point, Mr. Mean. The breeders are deluded and think they're being unselfish. Which is idiotic, but whatever. Definitely need to give people more stuff to do though and they won't have AS MANY kids. But they'll still pop out 2 or so.
Deletethey MIGHT imagine they are being unselfish but it is usually a selfish act and i think breeders would or at least should admit that. People have kids to enrich their lives, make it more fulfilling and live vicariously through their children because it seems too empty and boring to go without. This is selfishness is it not? Then they have their moments when they would like to feed them to that statue guy in your post of course. Grass is always greener and shit.
ReplyDeleteEverything we do is rooted in self-interest, ultimately. Having children or not having children are both selfish, it's just a matter of creating another victim for natural selection to have some fun with.
Delete..and they.also make decent fertilizer. Something to ponder whilst looking over your vegetable patch.
ReplyDeleteChildren are cannon fodder Raúl
ReplyDeleteI think this interpretation is a bit farfetched. The statue was unlikely erected to exhibit subconscious or unconscious resentment of the father to child relationship. There is no record of the meaning of the strange monument, but it appears to be something of a fable or fairy tale genre.
ReplyDeleteAs to the reasons for "breeders" to be fruitful and multiply, well there are possibly as many reasons as offspring in the world. There is a vast range of feelings in the father to child relationship. I do not deny that resentment or the thought of alternative past outcome sometimes surfaces. However, this thought is merely one of innumerable emotions involved. Sharing time, experience, knowledge, skills, and thoughts with my children outweigh, for me at least, any negative feelings or unsurfaced feelings of regret.
I would suggest to Jeremiah that the relationship with one's own offspring is extremely different than the relationship with step-children. Do not dismiss the opportunity or stereotype because of experience with someone else's kids. A step-father is not the same as a father.
There are plenty of positive depictions of children in mass culture; this blog is not one of them. This essay presents a CONTRARY investigation of social behavior –I never claim that my analysis the sole possible interpretation of childrearing. Popular culture disgorges an incessant and interminable portrayal of kids as adorable creatures – I only ask that a picture of the sheer awfulness of the brood be given equal weight. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything – just put things in back in balance.
DeleteI agree with the sentiment. Other peoples' children are disgusting creatures. I have no ownership and a very shallow sense of any social responsibility for them. I also recognize the difference between the sexes and our gaping differences in emotion towards said children. Most (not all) women think that other peoples' children are just so wonderful and adorable. I theorize it may be due to the nurturing instinct of women. It's almost as if they project themselves inwardly as the biological mother to other peoples' children. Women fantasize. They role play in their minds as the mother.
DeleteI know it doesn't apply to all. Yet many women I've watched in social circles behave this way. And further (feminist) society expects men to behave the same way towards other peoples' children. I mostly see them as wretched creatures whom I do not wish to be around.
Because there's nothing in this world bigger than or more important than your own self or personal interests, right?
ReplyDeleteThat is true; that is all we can know for certain.
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