I’m 31, my husband is 51, and lately I’ve been feeling some baby fever. For the record, kids aren’t a must for me, I’m genuinely happy with or without them, but I think it would be nice to experience that journey. My husband is hesitant, though. Even though he’s very healthy, active, and energetic, he feels like having a child in his 50s might be too late. He also already has a 27-year-old son, and he worries that the big age gap between siblings would feel strange.

I guess I’m just looking to hear what others think about this situation.

  • Dæmon S.@calckey.world
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    8 months ago

    @princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone @nyctre@lemmy.world

    The second a human is brought to this world, they got “duties” imposed unto them. Duties to solve problems they never asked, such as their own survival.

    While they’re still a kid, if lucky enough, they’ll be sustained by those who are parenting them. As soon as they inevitably get to their adulthood, they’ll begin to be on their own.

    So, supposing they want to eat (after all, we all know how “optional” is for living beings to eat, a comfort luxury of sorts), they’ll be required to “purchase” the food, and to achieve this endeavour, they’ll be required to get what humans call as “money”. To get this “money”, they’ll be required to serve someone else, but they’ll need to “apply” for serving. They’ll be required to lie while they apply (if asked “Why do you want to work here?”, answering the obvious “so I can buy food and eat so I don’t die of starvation” is a no-no). If they get “blessed” with a job, they’ll need to continue lying, and if they lie as expected, they’ll afford to get some of the said “money”.

    So now they can finally eat food, right? Not so fast: they’ll need to pay the rent, they’ll need to pay the government, they’ll need to pay the corporations (utility bills, internet, etc, because they need those things in order to continue having a job as electricity runs their internet which allows them to use the “money” they were “blessed” with), and only then they can go to a store and hopefully find food to buy with the remaining money (not before paying for getting to the store and paying to pay).

    No, they can’t simply hunt-gather like all the other gazillion species in the surface of this Pale Blue Dot: hominids are godlike, we’re not animals, we sent rockets to the space and we invented subscription-based food! So they must “buy” food and “pay” for shelter, they must “belong to” and “serve”, and they must do whatever the society, government and corporations requires them to do.

    And they’ll be shrugged off whenever they dare to complain about serfdom: “everyone does this”.

    They can’t leave, they can’t opt-out. They’ll be stuck here until Lady Scythebearer inevitably comes, which is often a moment of agony that could’ve been avoided but it wasn’t by those who decided to pull them into existence. They’ll also have similar agony (mourning) as they watch people around them being reaped as well, fearing Her while the society around them exploits their fear, preprogrammed as the deepest of instincts, to keep them serving society, or else… 💀

    All this to achieve what, exactly? Human legacy, which will evaporate as soon as the Earth gets engulfed by its own star? Well, maybe humans can prevent Red Giant Sol someday, and with enough human serfdom, Big Freeze can also be prevented so humans can perpetuate their Kafkaesque system.

    So yeah, you’re right: it’s really gross to keep someone from having to endure the suffering from a non-consented existence. More cogs to the machine!

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      They can’t leave, they can’t opt-out.

      If you’re going to be this pessimistic about simply existing as a human being, it’s worth noting that this is absolutely false. There are plenty of ways to opt-out permanently, and some of them are even peaceful.

      Less darkly, there are communes and mutual aid communities and the like. Some even arguably self-sufficient.


      Beyond that, if you truly feel existence is that fucking bleak, do you really think it helps to spread this shit to people who might otherwise be happily ignorant to it? Or are you content just making the collective experience of existence worse by putting this out into the world? Explicitly desiring to bring others down with you into the pit because you haven’t grown enough to find life worth living and enjoying anyway.