This is actually one of the many reasons I don’t ever want to have children in the future. I am very wary of the idea of being forced to care more about a specific person or group of people than about everyone else, as it seems very unfair to me—and also I think that our society massively over-fixates on a rather ill-defined goal of protecting children, which often ends up smothering them (helicopter parenting etc), and I don’t want to be tempted to do that.
I certainly care about them in abstract as you describe having done before—but if I got too emotional about it, I feel like I’d make bad decisions that were more rooted in “feeling like a good parent or parent-like-person” than in what is actually best for everyone.
Are you saying that you think that you in particular would be unusually prone to over-fixating on a child of your own, smothering them, and making other bad decisions? If instead you think that this just a common failure mode, not one that you are especially prone to, why would you think that future children would be worse off with you as a parent than someone else?
As for thinking it unfair for you to care more about a specific person than about everyone else, have you thought through how your notion of fairness would play out for actual children? Do you think there is no value to a child in their knowing that there are some people who have a special interest in their welfare (ie, who love them)?
This is actually one of the many reasons I don’t ever want to have children in the future. I am very wary of the idea of being forced to care more about a specific person or group of people than about everyone else, as it seems very unfair to me—and also I think that our society massively over-fixates on a rather ill-defined goal of protecting children, which often ends up smothering them (helicopter parenting etc), and I don’t want to be tempted to do that.
I certainly care about them in abstract as you describe having done before—but if I got too emotional about it, I feel like I’d make bad decisions that were more rooted in “feeling like a good parent or parent-like-person” than in what is actually best for everyone.
Are you saying that you think that you in particular would be unusually prone to over-fixating on a child of your own, smothering them, and making other bad decisions? If instead you think that this just a common failure mode, not one that you are especially prone to, why would you think that future children would be worse off with you as a parent than someone else?
As for thinking it unfair for you to care more about a specific person than about everyone else, have you thought through how your notion of fairness would play out for actual children? Do you think there is no value to a child in their knowing that there are some people who have a special interest in their welfare (ie, who love them)?