Having children for other people to raise

The only real issue I have with your statements in any way is your use of the term socialism. Socialism is an economic structure, has nothing to do with freedoms such as this. Despotism or totalitarianism would be more accurate. Socialism is often tossed out there as a bad word by so many people who do not truly understand what the word means. I am not accusing you of being stupid, just of ignorance of the true meaning of socialism, not the propagandist definition.

I guess if the only "problem" you have with "my" comment is my use of a word, then I am doing pretty good. While I thank you for not "accusing me of being stupid", perhaps you should have spoke of the discussion rather then pointing out my "ignorance"...

I believe my response was relevant to your comment. Perhaps it veered off the original topic, however you used a word that was completely out of context. If I said that "It's nobody's business in a capitalist state" would that make any sense? You use quotes around "ignorance" implying that you don't agree with my word choice. Perhaps you think I was being mean spirited, but I believe it to be accurate and I feel I was simply correcting your use of a term which is often misunderstood. Ignorance is not an insult unless it is willful ignorance.

One could argue that it is unfair to deny the option to have a child to the mother simply because her husband is a certain age.

I am not saying he did or didn't, I am merely pointing out that you don't know that he didn't yet you are talking as if since he is so old he couldn't have known... that's just silly. Sure financial assistance isn't the same as love, but if its all you can guarantee, it is something isn't it.

Uh oh boxing gloves again. I'm going to assume that they did know what they were doing. Although Mr. Doohan did develop Alzheimers not too long after.

MsTickle I am sorry, but I find your comments to be rather sexist and terribly out of date. I am a father, I am a single father, and for the most part I have been the primary caregiver to my child. And even during the time right after my daughters birth when my exwife did stay home with my daughter I definitely took on my share of the rearing. Now you may call me an exception, however I look around at my friends who have children, and I can tell you that it I am not an exception at all. Men often have as much to do with their children as the mothers. Historically you might be correct, however times have changed. I am not a "sensitive new age man" I am a man, I am a father. This is a tangent and way off topic, sorry for that. As for it being wrong or right, and parenting being about two people, I think this is just silly, there are several cases where single parenthood is thrust upon someone, why is this all that different?

Hm, my parents didn't much know what was going on with me either. In fact, I could say that there are single parents out there who had more of an idea what was going on with their kids. In this particular case, if she is really a good mother and financially stable with a good support system, it's no different than if she had chosen to be a single mother.

Wow. I am not sure what to say about this response, other than THIS is why people still believe men and women are inequal. I believe parenting IS about two people, and that means BOTH the man and the woman. Yes, sometimes a woman takes on too much and shoos the man away, sometimes a man doesn't want to be involved, but for the most part if a couple is on the same page about things, they aim to make it a partnership. Many many people do plan kids and have specifics in place for raising them, I am one of them. I don't exactly mean that I outright planned my daughter but we were definitely hoping and along she came. While I was still pregnant, we discussed how we were going to handle the kids and the finances, and I am home with the kids. This was a joint decision, made based on how we both feel and what we are both good at. Honestly if I were a career diva and I could and did make more than my hubby and he was mr domestic and wanted to raise the kids, heck, we could swap. In my humble opinion, the majority of the raising, responsibility, training, and nurturing of a child falls to whichever person spends more time with the child in the long run. Whether that is the mom or the dad or whether it ends up close to equal doesn't really matter and these days I do not think it is gender based as much as it is related to who has a more flexible job schedule or who foregoes the employer-based job to take on the caretaker job. My husband certainly does think about the kids while he's at work - he and I actually talked about this. While it is MUCH easier for him to be apart from us at a job (I would be miserable and bawling and my work would suffer as a result), he still does miss some things he wished he didn't. It is pretty easy for parents to know what is going on when kids are young. When kids get older, you have to learn how to listen well. I don't always know what is going on with the older ones. In fact, sometimes I am downright stumped. Adolescence is the strangest time in life when not only do you feel misunderstood, you don't understand YOURSELF either. My mom was pretty good figuring me out, but I could confide in her when I was a teen without feeling attacked. My dad never knew anything, I stopped talking to him after he flipped out too often over irrelevant things that I was never going to bend on.

What biological effects?

Low sperm count only reduces the chance of getting the woman pregnant, and since she is already pregnant (or had the child) this is obviously not the case. Although, after a brief internet search I found that you are partially correct. There is a slightly increased chance of passing on genetic abnormalities to the child due to DNA fragmentation that occurs in sperm of older men. However from what I can tell this is far from conclusive, just that there is evidence that there MIGHT be a CHANCE that DNA fragmentation MAY occur and this MIGHT cause an INCREASE in the risk of passing on certain genetic abnormalities. Depending on James' family medical history this may or may not be relevant.

But the risk is ALREADY there, age or not. At the age of 20 its possible to pass on genetic abnormalities. The the unproven theory that it might increase with age changes nothing. I have a history of severe and life threatening allergies, there was a good chance I could have passed that on to my daughter, was it a selfish act for me to have children? A person I know has a history of crones disease yet has three children, was it a selfish act for him to have children?

At least in your scenario there are grandparents. But yeah, some young people can be so irresponsible about such things!

No they shouldn't be. All I'm saying is that they are there is something happens whereas with older parents that might not be the case.

I hear you and totally understand. My foster mom was 40 when I was born, and she did the majority of raising me. When I was in my teens she lived the life of an old lady already. She was asleep by 8pm most nights, awake at 4am, napped on weekends... and she was a light sleeper so I had rules about phone calls after 8pm etc etc. That was no life for a teenager! She did live to see me grow up of course (she passed 2 years ago now), but a child being born to an older couple is certainly not fair to the child in any way.

Wow judgemental much? You know nothing of the couple but you call their marriage a bad thing. And the original poster didn't say the baby would be separated from the mother, just that the father wouldn't be around.

He was 80, she was late 30's. And he was willing to look after the baby... As long as he was still there...

If mother can look after the boy then why is it that a dad is not willing to take care of the baby?

They had money of course, and she will most likely (barring something unforseen) be there long enough to see the child grow up. If I had been in a relationship with somebody that much older, I don't think I would have chosen to have a child, knowing that I would most likely end up being a single mother. Money or no money!

i agree 100%.

now that is sad.

Sad but not totally unexpected!

The mother of the child is only 30, it's the father that is 80. 30 is a far cry from elderly.

Late 30's actually, and while the docs do call that a "geriatric pregnancy", yep it's far from elderly.

My bad... I made a mistake.. The mom is quite capable of having a baby at 30. But as for the father, I am too unsure if he will hold up. He has to be one strong man to take care of this child. I also thought that at this age that it is a slow chance of him producing sperm. I guess his hormones is not as slow as one would think.

Well it goes back to the point I made a couple times earlier in this discussion, which is "how is this any different than a single woman choosing to have children?"

Nope, not talking about Nadia. A single mother deciding to have one or even several children is totally OK by me as long as she is capable of handling them. But 14? Somewhere, somehow it has to be too much...

well if you are refering to Nadia it is way different... it isnt that she had just the 8... she has 14 kids altogether... but that is an all together different issue.

I pretty much agree with you, but where do you draw the line? Is 70 too old? 60? 50?

The line - if there is one to be drawn, probably depends on health and functionality. 50 isn't old, not for a father. For a mother - that seems old. If we're talking 60 or 70, somewhere in there you gain 'senior citizen' status. I don't know about you but I don't want to become a senior citizen who has a toddler. That just feels wrong, no matter what. What if I fell and broke my hip? What if my daughter was only 2 years old and couldn't do anything, call 911, alert a neighbor, and what if she freaked out because mommy was lying on the floor screaming in pain and nobody else was there? Yes, that is a distinct possibility for a senior citizen who is a parent of a young child.

Yeah it's scary enough being in my 50's and still having children at home. But then grandparents find themselves in the situation all the time when their grandchildren have parents who can't take care of them or who die young. Of course, that isn't a situation that they sought out.

Alas, we are all getting older and passing away is a fact of life. On the other hand, no more movies with the original cast. :-( But as far as he and his wife having children when he is so old, I really don't think it's any different than a single woman in her late 30's, early 40's choosing to have children. Her own business. I'm going to be a lot older than you are when mine grow up, by the way. I'm 51 and my children are 12 and 8. Part of me wishes I had been younger and part of me wouldn't have it any other way. I DO very much hope that I will still be around to be part of the grandchildrens' lives.

*was so old...

And another person posts a response without reading the original post. Please people at least make some effort to read more then just the heading.

The point was that because of the age of the father, he knowingly had a child that he was almost certainly not going to live to raise. The mother, on the other hand, was young enough.

They tell you how many kids you can have in China. But I would hope that population control would stay more voluntary here.

For sure. But I do wonder, as the world's population grows, how other governments are going to deal with overpopulation. Or IF they are...

lol, China is a communist country!

In this case, they had the child knowing that the wife would probably end up raising it alone. And I also consider that a personal decision...

I would tend to agree with you...

Yes we all do but it is much more likely that I will be around when my children grow up...

Or he was just in denial about his age...

The child would be without a father. The mother isn't all that old.