I had to LOL.

[lildreamer316]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6857076

Human Evolution: Are Humans Still Evolving?

(Nah. Ya THINK?? LOL!! Did we really have to ask this question?)

[I Have A Dream]

1. You find the most interesting things to share with us, lildreamer.

Thank you! :hug:

I find it interesting to think that I've not been "successful" in this life because I haven't reproduced. I'm OK with that though -- I'll be back. I feel no real desire to keep these particular genes in the gene pool.

[get the red out]

2. We suffer from societal conditioning

I choose not to reproduce, and as happy as I am to not have done so for several reasons (not the least of which are some health problems that run in my family), I still feel the pressure of the societal judgment. I mentally know that judging a person in such a base way is inaccurate (especially with so many of the world's troubles having a root in over-population) yet it is so prevalent that it is hard to escape putting that judgment on myself sometimes, as much as I am opposed to it.

I need to always try to separate the real from the whims of cultural lore. I know I will be back to learn more too, not nearly done yet. And if genetic influences were the only meaningful way to interact with the world around us then the spiritual would have no place.

:hi:

[I Have A Dream]

3. Yep, I feel the same way. My life has meaning and impact...

regardless of whether I reproduce.

Luckily, I haven't really felt any pressure to have children. They're highly valued in my family, but, for some reason, I was never pushed. (My family probably knows better... Pushing me is not what works with me. lol)

I'm sorry that you've gotten pressure. You made the right decision; children should be wanted. Too many people have them out of a sense of obligation. I had a reading with the Samuel being that I mentioned to you, and he said that children were not what this life was about for me. I already felt this, but it felt great to have confirmation that I was on the right track.

:hi:


(Edited to make the last sentence more clear.)

[get the red out]

4. Not really my family

Luckily my family values choices like this, in fact my Mom always told me she never wanted me to have children. My pressure has been from some friends in the past, and the general weird look one gets when some fully conditioned person with no independent thought in their head is amazed you have no children. I had some difficulties at a job one time where many of the employees were single mothers, and the fact that I was not married at the time didn't phase them, but the fact that I had no children amazed and bewildered them (I was then the ripe old age of 29).

I will never forget an uncomfortable and weird experience in a bed and breakfast on vacation in WVA (I'm not cutting on WVA considering I live next door in Ky, LOL). My husband and I had simply gone to bed after finding the place and checking in, we were exhausted from driving all day in pouring rain, but when we went to breakfast the next morning we were chatting and the couple who owned the place asked how we managed to "escape the family". My husband and I looked at each other, not quite understanding, then told them it was just us, we didn't have kids. You could have heard a pin drop at the table, including the other guests; and they interacted strangly with us until we checked out. It was like we had told them we were from Mars, LOL! We haven't experienced anything that bad before or since, but some people just can't get past what society expects.

I actually wonder sometimes if my purpose this time around includes learing to differentiate true from false, like the truth of spiritual existence vs the false front of making others at ease with the cookie cutter life you can paint over your reality.

[I Have A Dream]

5. I did have an older male coworker one time say something to me.

I was in my early to mid twenties and had been married for a while since I'd gotten married when I was 18. (I got married to my first husband during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college.) When I mentioned in passing to this gentleman that I didn't want children, he asked me why I got married. :wtf: I'd never heard of such a thing! Need I mention that he was a conservative Catholic? :eyes: (Really nice man though, as many conservative Catholics are...)

If you got a lot of things like that, I can really sympathize. I was really irate. Back then, my temper was a lot more in control of my actions than it is now. I'm sure that we had a hot debate, although I don't remember it. I wasn't one for letting such comments go by unchallenged back then, and I wouldn't have been very calm during it. :blush: