To think life is unfair - regarding natent sexuality?

[PrincessOlga]

I have read horror stories of feckless fathers mistreating their babies (and worse, I don't want to even think about these stories, they make me physically ill). I also have an acquaintance who has a daughter who has, unfortunately, just become pregnant with her useless boyfriend (who tried to get her on drugs, is violent to her, etc.).

I could not help thinking why it is that the feckless men seem to "breed like rabbits" (for want of a better phrase) - while I also know a guy who is homosexual, who loves children and is kind, hard-working and gentle, yet as he once explained to me, he is "wired up" so that he just cannot reproduce. I suggested adopting to him, because he is great with kids, but he feels strongly that a child should have a male and female parent. He has lived with women in shared flats and says he prefers female company, yet he is like a computer with hardware that has just not been "programmed" like the majority.

This is just one example I know, and there is probably some bigger "reason" in nature why it is so... but it just seems wrong to me and that it should be the other way around!

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say?

Homosexual people should be able to have kids and heterosexual people should struggle?

If it were that way round then you would find plenty of gay people being feckless and abusive too. It's not like that because they have to go through such a difficult process to have kids that it will weed out all those who don't really care.

It's hard to see a friend who wants kids and is unable to have them though.

Of course it’s unfair, it’s the way life is. It can be cruel sometimes. Why did I lose much wanted pregnancies when there are woman on drugs who are crap mothers that pop one out after the other.

There isn’t much you can do about it though, it’s hard not to be angry at the world. But your friend has to focus on his life rather than how crap the world is.

Not all heterosexual men are "feckless"; and not all homosexual men would be wonderful parents.

It's a shame that some people can't have children when they'd like to, whatever the reason and whatever their sexuality.

You do get “feckless” women as well, those who cannot see a train wreck of a relationship on the horizon despite all the signs being so obvious to others. Your friend’s daughter for example? Lots of gay couples manage to have loving families, albeit not in the same biological way. Human beings are all wired differently, you just have to accept it.

These behaviours (fecklessness etc.) aren't "programmed," they're cultural.

And plenty of gay men have children.

There does seem to be a strange phenomenon with idiots reproducing easily and people that desperately want children who would be stable good parents not being able to/struggling to.

My sister and I are an example of this but I have seen it a lot. Although, probably confirmation bias.

Yes, it is unfair. Couples who a desperate for a child struggle to conceive, yet others have multiple abortions.

Feckless men don't breed with themselves. It takes two to make a stupid mistake.

I don't really understand what your point. Are you asking why gay men aren't programmed to breed? I suppose the simplest answer is they are gay therefore they aren't attracted to women and therefore don't have the desire to breed a woman. Heterosexual men are driven to mate with women because that's the only way to sire offspring.

If gay men were biologically driven to breed with women, they wouldn't be gay...

Well nature isn't particularly interested in being fair. That's the bottom line.

Your AIBU seems based on the assumption only heterosexual men are feckless, and all gay men would make great parents - I don't think that's the case.

The feckless people spawn so many kids because they're always fucking and rarely use contraception.

I also have an acquaintance who has a daughter who has, unfortunately, just become pregnant with her useless boyfriend (who tried to get her on drugs, is violent to her, etc.).

Perhaps ask why the daughter has got pregnant with the useless, violent arsehole?

Doesn't sound like she's going to be anything but feckless herself if she's stayed with this violent, abusive specimen .

I don't think natent is a word. Do you mean innate? Nascent? Connate?

Some men are shit fathers and some men can't have children, yes. I'm not sure if the two are linked though.

You also miss the point that your friend is not only wired up not to be able to reproduce, he doesn't want to. There isn't someone sat somewhere with a clipboard allocating babies and they're sometimes having an off day and get it backwards.

This is essentially the plot of Idiocracy.

More intelligent people have always had fewer kids than feckless people (high investment low fertility vs low investment high fertility mating strategy) but it was balanced out by high infant mortality.

At the end of the day nature doesn’t care though.

There's a lot to unpick in your post.

All babies have a male and female parent - literally impossible any other way. Your friend could reproduce - plenty of gay men do it without having to have sex with a woman - examples even of people co-parenting etc so the child continues to see both the mother and the father.

Your friend chooses not to reproduce.

Just because he is 'great with kids' doesn't actually automatically mean he would be a great father. He might be great when he only has to spend a short amount of time with them, or when he can give them back when they get annoying. I don't think anybody really knows how they will be as a parent until they actually are one.

The 'reason in nature' isn't to do with people's feelings. It is because to create life you need both an egg and semen. In mammals those two things are produced by different classes of mammal, male and female. Because some men (gay or straight) are feckless isn't a failing of nature - its a failing of society. Same goes for the women that are feckless.

There is no such 'strange phenomenon'.

It's just life.

And your judgement on who is 'worthy' or not.

Not just you, virtually everyone whether they verbalise it or not or consciously think it or not, consider some people more 'worthy' of life or things that they consider should be given more to people they deem 'worthy'.

Children, health, longevity.

All things that just are and so there is no 'strange phenomenon'. People you deem 'less worthy' also have health problems, infertility, die young, have bad things happen to them. Often, more so because of socioeconomic circumstances.

As you said, cognitive bias means you don't think about or care about or hear about those persons.

You need to relax a little bit. I was obviously being a bit tongue in cheek and ended with saying it was confirmation bias.

This is something that many people who have struggled with infertility think/talk/joke about.

And I'm sorry, but I can absolutely look at my drug using sister who feeds her 18 month old instant noodles and feel upset that she got pregnant the first month she tried, whereas I've given up after failed IVF.

And I care about all sorts of people, thank you very much.

I don't need to relax.

I already know that lots of people struggling with infertility think they would be much better parents than some people who get pregnant easily.

And think it's unfair.

Which isn't the same as it being 'a strange phenomenon' like you said.

Because it isn't.

And it does come down to judgement and thinking about who is more or less 'worthy' of life or health or children.

That's what it is. It can't be argued otherwise and as I said, it's not just you - it's most people.

I do it myself but I'm also aware that it means I judge people as more or less 'worthy' and I care more and less about people I consider 'more worthy' in terms of what I feel is unfair in life.

But I don't think it's a 'strange phenomenon'. I think it's just life.

The victorians or earlier were also concerned about the ‘underclass’ over-breeding I seem to remember…. I think transportation to Australia of everyone caught doing the most minor crime was their solution. I suspect the Nazis were concerned too. So you’re in good company…

Is there someone your friend could have a child with and co - parent with ? Maybe a lesbian couple who also want a child ? I have heard of this before .

The gay dads I know are fabulous fathers. Devoted, committed, not a dead beat amongst them. However, everyone of them had become a father by active choice, often at great personal and financial cost after thinking a great deal about it. Not a single one has accidently become a father as a by product of their irresponsible sex lives, with little to no interest, or even an active aversion to the role. Which is going to considerable skew the results of any comparison between them and all the heterosexual fathers in the world.

You're correlating completely unrelated things. Your gay friend's beliefs about not adopting because he thinks a child should have a male and female parent are ultimately what is stopping his chance of becoming a parent (subject to be approved to adopt, obviously, and if he wanted to adopt -- it's not automatic). There is no correlation, causal or otherwise, between the category of 'gay men you think would make good fathers' and 'feckless men who breed like rabbits'. Just as there's zero correlation between 'people struggling to conceive' and 'other people having multiple terminations'. If I've had five terminations, it doesn't make my friend who's on her tenth round of IVF any more or less likely to succeed in having a child.