to think children should be randomly reallocated at birth?

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

I think this would solve a lot of problems.

For instance, I have a tendency to experience anxiety. My DC therefore both inherit my anxiety genes and also learn from my anxious behaviours (even if I try to minimise this) - a double whammy. If they had been reallocated to someone else, and I had been allocated someone else's biological DC (perhaps with a genetic tendency to feel angry, say; something I suffer less often), this might potentially all get ironed out.

OK, so there are some potential problems with the scheme. But AIBU to think it might have its advantages?

I hope no policy maker reads about OFSIP or we will all be inspected soon

And should you choose to remain unmarried and childless? Force a random bloke to have sex with you?

I suspect a lot would be happy to give up the random child but not have one back!

I think you would end up with much less effort going into parenting overall. The only reason I do put any effort into my children is because they are mine, as it is at the expense of myself.

In effect I do something similar at work. I prep for the next day. I won't be there the next day. I can tell you that no one preps as effectively for someone else as they do for themselves.

Oh but Headofthehive55, that is where the Office for Standards in the Workplace (OFSIW) comes in, your preps will be inspected.

-earn time with your own? That's an interesting concept. What happens if we don't like what they've become? They've obviously not been moulded and shaped with our principles.

Even more important to get them back for some input, Grapejuicerocks. Maybe this should be the reward in the evil society we are designing here.

We see when people have their own business, their baby, they put an awful lot more effort in...than when you are a wage slave, inspection or no inspection. You can make things seem, excellent for an inspection.
Many things you do only for love.
Owner occupied houses are generally better taken care of than short term rentals...

Or worse, IVF not successful and you are left wondering if the donor embryos grew into babies

Embryos would be a no go for me too. Completely different kettle of fish.

maybe we should allocate older people in a similar way

At what age do you have to go on the list?

Do the people who get you inherit your wealth?

This could be really problematic, because there is nothing that automatically makes us want to look after old people.

We love the old people we love because we loved them already, before they got old and infirm/forgetful/impossible/needy/sick.

Disclaimer: some old people are very easy to love even if you didn't know them in their prime.

I don't want to be at the whims of strangers.

It's bad enough when my children keep reminding me that they will be the ones to choose my nursing home.

Can the allocation of nursing homes be random too? Then I've got a 50% chance of being in a good one - or they will all become equal as previously discussed re children.

I don't think we should force people to have kids - if you choose, you can remain childless and opt out of the whole system. In time, this will also increase the prevalence of more community-minded genes in the population.

I like the rotation system at 7, 14 and 21. How would it work if we just added extra parents at these ages rather than completely severed ties with the previous ones? So at the age of 7 you get some more parents who you live with half the time. Then at 14 you get another set as well.
So each set of parents has a small number of young children full time and a larger number of older children part time. Just a thought.

The nursing home/older adulthood problem is a tricky one....

But why stop there, mix it up some more, assign spouses and neighbours, too, to get a bit of a mix. Do we swap spouses when the kids move on at 7, 14 etc?

I suppose that the first generation of children, who will have spent 7 years with each of a different set of parents, will have grown up feeling differently about 'family' than we do. They may not remember much about Family 1, which they left at age 7; Family 2 and 3 will be well remembered.

How much loyalty and love would you feel towards them, do you think?

And once that first generation of children has grown up, and subsequent generations too, then the idea of swapping people about at some government computer's behest would be pretty normal. At which point, I don't really envisage much difficulty in persuading people to 'adopt a granny' (this is a thing already, isn't it?).

I think all old peoples' homes would be run by the state and they would all be the same. I can even see a slightly nightmare scenario whereby it is deemed that old people are happier if they get one visit a week, so every old person is entitled to one visit a week (whether they want it or not); spare people (not currently looking after allocated babies/children) are delegated to visit one old person a week. Doesn't matter if they know each other, and you may have to visit a different one each week. That way, everyone can see that we are all treated equally.

Have none of the thrower-upppers-of-hands-in-horror at the OP's "weirdness" honestly never had an original "what if..?" thought of their own?

She wanted a discussion of ideas, not a loads of people taking offence.

It's much the same process as when I think "when they get to 75 and people had to choose how to die, I wonder what they would choose?" It's not like I really think it FFS.

Nobody want to do the spouse and neighbour-rota? Just me then .

If Jodi Picoult hasn't already written a novel based on this idea OP then she should. Batshit but interesting!

It is normal in certain groups for the male to bring up someone's else's children. I've certainly known children left over from relationships which are not related to either mum or dad.

Although normal in that culture, I don't think they end up happy people.

Just a little.

I don't like the spouse rota idea. Not if it's compulsory, anyway.

Why not just have the government allocate everyone a spouse when they hit whatever age is deemed appropriate?

I'm sure some sort of computer matching thingy could select matches based on genetics or personality or shared interests or whatever.