some weird thoughts about making babies

[d_onex]

This thought process was sparked by my friend Ron a couple years ago.  This was soon after his nephew was born.  It was pretty much a consensus that he was the best baby ever, and he was telling his sister-in-law that if he ever wanted to make a baby (he's gay), that he would want her to mother it.  The logic is pretty sound.  If a father and a

Comments

[renard_v]

If you raise a child, you are the mother/father. No questions asked, related or not; you may not be "direct family" in many cases (adoption) but you're still parent and child. It happens in wildlife all the time; even between species.

[d_onex]

I think that every instance of altruistic behaviour in non-human animals has some justification based on the selfishness of perpetuating one's genes.

Maybe it's because I'm studying evolution that I have this very base, "coefficient of relatedness" viewpoint on the situation. It's a bit of a struggle between "should I think the way that animals have ALWAYS thought, or should I think the way that humans have been thinking lately?"

Deep down, though, I feel notions of kinship that extend beyond things like "brother", "aunt", and "cousin". We all share common ancestors somewhere in our history, right? And if I claim that I can regard "blood strangers" as though they were part of my family, it would be awfully hypocritical of me to claim that I would not want to raise an unrelated child.

Heh, I might have just resolved the issue for myself, but it's still a interesting thing to think about.