Jeff Vogel quote on good/bad reasons to have children.
While thinking about the relative progress we are making potty-training (Laurel only shat her pants twice last week and has clogged the toilet with overenthusiastic amounts of toilet paper just once this month), I saw a reference in a post on my Friends List to Jeff Vogel's The Story About the Baby. I found the following selection particularly entertaining, especially for future reference if someone asks why Laurel's an only child:
"When deciding whether to have children, I spent some time agonizing about whether I wanted to do so for a bad reason. Now, in the thick of the fight, I see the truth. There are no bad reasons to have children.
"For there to be bad reasons to have children, there have to be good reasons to have children, and I can see clearly now that there are no good reasons to have children.
"Actually, that’s not quite right. I can think of a bad reason to have children. You shouldn’t have a child in order to dry it out and sell it as an aphrodisiac for Asian businessmen."
"When deciding whether to have children, I spent some time agonizing about whether I wanted to do so for a bad reason. Now, in the thick of the fight, I see the truth. There are no bad reasons to have children.
"For there to be bad reasons to have children, there have to be good reasons to have children, and I can see clearly now that there are no good reasons to have children.
"Actually, that’s not quite right. I can think of a bad reason to have children. You shouldn’t have a child in order to dry it out and sell it as an aphrodisiac for Asian businessmen."