& today's intellectual debate ....... (WWW, I am trying!!!!)

[Bugsy2]

In one of the more hotly debated threads the other day, a couple of posters argued "what was the point of having children if you were going to....."
I had never thought about that before and it got me thinking. Is there a point to having children - or do we have children simply to perpetuate our species?

Wow, so many really interesting answers - thank you!!
Never saw a specific "point" myself and became pregnant because I knew time would run out eventually and the ticking was getting louder.
Before contraception became widely available, there definitely was no "point", it was the natural outcome of sex.
I wish some of the vehement "what's the point...." posters would come and give us their view, so I could try and understand a bit better where they are coming from.

agree with you sophable about how this (i mean how we mostly live now) isn't an ideal way to parent, gotta go, baby calls!

Message withdrawn

No point whatsoever, except that it's part of the continuum of human life. You can live perfectly well without them, just as you can live perfectly well without Mozart or Jane Austen. And some people prefer to. But I'm glad I don't have to.

Must go and pay some attention to mine now, but will come back later and read the other responses!

Ours are our pension fund

(If we didn't have them we would have an actual pension fund so it's All Their Fault )

pedantic response: not to perpetuate the species (species selection- eek doesn't work) but maybe to pass on your genes.

Personally I wanted to be a mother so I had children.

ellbell - big at your first post - lovely!

ooh, & what is that poem, i'm racking my brains here...

Mine? Oh, I work on Dante's 'Divine Comedy'... a subject on which I could bore for England, as many of my students will tell you. In fact, I'm just back from a party now where they've been taking the p*iss because I admitted to taking a copy on holiday with me! [nerdy geek emoticon]

... adds shyly....

But it is really good..., honest!

the point to having children is to get child benefit and a council house