Speculations on the Modern American Family; When the Human Animal Began to Eat Their Young

       It is known that some species, from insect to mammal, have been known to eat their new born offspring. Why this is so is not clearly understood, at least obviously they do not eat all their offspring, and some say maybe, to give example, swine eat the runts of the litter because instinct tells them they are going to die anyway, so grab a little nourishment for the sow. I have myself seen the mothers of litters of cats and dogs discard and abandon the enfeeble puppies and kittens who were not likely to live much longer. Giving way for the mother cat or mother dog to invest more in surviving offspring.

      The Selfish Gene theory says, of plants and animals and man, their bodies are little more than survival machines carrying around their genes and their only purpose is to breed more genes to further the copying of still more and more genes.

      Until modern times Human had a high mortality rate, especially of infants, same as the other animals in the wild. And until modern technology arising in the 1900's, children could be a investment as a farm hand, or before the Child Labor Laws, a factory worker making a few cents an hour to help support the family.

      With automation and a higher standard of living that still grows from decade to decade. And the fact Man is gifted with insight into his past and future and certain of his mortality. And the fact is, that what ever benefit in having children is now obsolete. People marry and then have kids is the norm, but it is not the reproduction instinct at play here but the sex drive.

      For most in modern societies, with some exceptions, use contraception to limit if not completely curtail breeding. Because children just simply are not good for anything except a great drain on time and money. And due to compulsory education and child labor laws are as teenage adult bodies forced into non-productive servitude. To put it bluntly, children are economic parasites until they grow up and go away and support themselves. Unless you made a few bucks and for some reason you have to help pay their way through college.

         So why, with quite a number of cheap and easily available forms of contraception, in this modern society do people breed? (Of course, a condom can be known to break and several years later surprise you maybe a father). Simple, because even as a waste of time energy and money that kids are, there is something in it for their adult parents. And this is where the modern American Parent gets weird and creepy.

           With the Rise of the Machines -- which did not necessitate a Skynet-type self-awareness to be predominate; I cover that subject in earlier blogs - Modern semi-educated Humanity has a sense of continuity and history, and with a sense of his mortality in a time where modern science and medicine has prolonged the life span where people living a +hundred years is fairly common. And with the rise of Madison Avenue and Movie Stars selling the ideal of Youth, from beer to sport cars to toothpaste - offspring were no longer perpetuating a genetic line, they became an extension of their adult parents, who would seek to live young again through them.


           Some point after the arrival of the cell phone and twitter, it became something of a thing for parents to think they were "cool" to their kids and friends' of their kids. Creep out because as in the case of a teenage girl who used to work for my wife - and her phone was always "blowing up" and after while the typical  teenage chatter I would hear was not just her adolescent friends, but her adolescent friends' parents -- and, as a given with teenage chatter, the parents would be as much the drama queen as their kids. At which point my wife would have to remind the young girl she had a job to do other than talk on the phone.

          It seems so icky weird, when I was a teenager the only time an adult would want to be our friend, was like this old white guy grocer, who was lusting after the young bodies of me and a couple of friends of mine in the neighborhood. And thank god none of our parents wanted us to think they were "cool". Even in fact when they were thought to be "cool" by us. Brings to mind a proposal I once wrote of in a letter to the editor, to outlaw abortion and legalize infantcide...I'll save that for another time.   ---  Diogenes Ltd.