Dreaming of the Infinite

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Why should people have babies?

Let’s face it, the little critters leak at one end and the other, and being a parent is an exercise in spending three to five years in smelliness and grubbiness. I remember days I didn’t even know what I was washing off my hair (but knowing my boys, it was probably peanut butter.) I remember the disturbed sleep patterns. I remember worrying obsessively about them. (Okay, that was last week.)

So, why have kids at all? Why does anyone bother.

Because we’re finite beings who dream of the infinite.

We know, at least if we’re adults, that we will eventually die, that the world will churn on without us. The chances of my great grandkids, should I have them, remembering my name, let alone who I was, what I thought, what I wanted are very small. And past that those chances are known.

In fact, a hundred years from now no one will remember us. (Unless, of course, you sell really bad copper.)

Having children won’t change that, but there is the thought something of yours will go Not the DNA so much. Looking at 23 and me, that fades out to “human genetic soup” really fast.

But if you have kids, or make a connection with other people’s kids (people will still need to have them!) something of you might go on. Could be something like your recipe for pineapple upside down cake, or your horrible taste in shoes, or the way you make animals out of q-tips to amuse a visiting kid through a rainy afternoon. Or it could be that truly bad pun you once made…. But something will go on. Or there’s a good chance it will. Two thousand years from now, someone will tell their toddler “Americans are chaos!” and the toddler will wonder what an American is. You know, just like my dad told my son “Legionaries don’t cry.”

Something will go on. Might be fractional. An expression, a way of looking, a glimmer of you.

There is that hope at least.

And that hope is the best we can do, as mortal beings who dream of the infinite.

It allows us to imagine ourselves infinite.

And it’s the best we can do.

96 thoughts on “Dreaming of the Infinite”

  1. Having kids is the price you pay for grandkids. <g>

    Seriously, though, the post-Ehrlichian obsession to “reduce the surplus population” has thrown most of the developed world into a tailspin and led some, especially in the US and Europe, to abandon longstanding civil cultures in exchange for the importation of warm bodies.

    Having and raising babies is a biological imperative our “Brave New World” has defrauded itself into suppressing and even opposing.

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  2. Three or more.

    Do your part to get above that “replacement” 2poinsumtin number. Even better if 4+. Replace the idiots with zero. Step unto the breach, folks!

    (grin)

    Seriously. 4+ for civilization. Ours.

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    1. Winston Churchill’s formulation was: “One for mummy, one for daddy, one for accident, and one for increase.” He and Clementine hit the mark all too directly: they had four children, one of whom died at age two. I don’t know whether Winston delivered his statement before or after all the kiddies arrived.

      Republica restituendae, et, je suis Charlie.

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    2. Dear Lord, we TRIED. We were for real insane people. Our goal was “at least 11”. Turns out my autoimmune had other ideas. Conceiving was easy, but my autoimmune attacked…. pregnancy hormone.
      Ain’t that the way?
      OTOH imagine 11 or 12 HoytSpawnTM running about. Would the world survive?

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                1. Speaking of losing schools. District is shutting down a middle school. Already lost one middle school and a couple of grade schools. Can’t lose the HS (“alternative” one, yes). Only one HS in the district. The newest middle school being shutdown is the one son attended. The other one was next to the HS. The other two existing are not particularly close. Seriously, the “other district” middle school is closer. Same if they shut the grade school closest to us, and the only one in our district in our extended neighborhood. The “other” district has a grade school closer than any other in our district.

                  May come to that. Merging the districts, while the sane choice, won’t come without turmoil. There is some major history behind why there are two districts. Another problem is the largest difference in our property taxes and mom’s is the school district tax (equivalent taxable base, hers is actually slightly less due to size, and neither homes are city). The other district has a higher per 1000 sq ft tax. But I suspect because of the reasons above, our “side of the tracks/highway” neighborhood, will be moved to the other district before too long. Only later will there be an official “merge”.

                  Loss of school buildings, and teaching staff, is demographic expectations.

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      2. We do not know why. We just were unable to be prolific.

        Under today’s rules, 100% would have done what niece has done. Given both her mother (told she could NOT have children, wow were the doctors wrong there, 3 + one adopted) and aunt had problems, they quickly went IVF (insurance pays for, now). Two, and counting, plus his firstborn. For us, IVF was “available”, as were other fertility drugs. So was adoption. Toss up on which was more unaffordable or achievable, including the fertility drugs (had to have a “reason”). We finally got a blessing that we could carry to term. Never got pregnant afterwards.

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      3. The world would survive, but the experience would leave it forever changed. :)

        Always figured I wanted four kids; wife only wanted two, and we had to wait a couple years for kid #2 to come along, so here we are. My kids aren’t going to provide me with any grandchildren, which is a bit of a sad thing, but at least the extended family is going strong. I have five siblings, and all but one of them have 4+ kids.

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        1. Same here. Already have 4+ inlaw greats, and 5 and counting, on my side. Even if 3 are not biologically related (one step, two through adopted niece). That isn’t counting cousins 2nd and 3rd removed; *both sides. Aunts and uncles are not only on grands, but great-grands, and at least one aunt could see a great-great-grand easily.

          (*) I’m not counting the ones I’m related to through the pioneering family that maintains the historical graveyard. More than once that extended family has seen branches end (grandmother’s uncles never married, or have known children. Her brother married, but no children. Etc.) Family keeps growing.

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        1. Same note, encouragement not criticism, with this:

          Early And Often. This fortysomething-starts-trying thing will have consequences.

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        1. In the womb. I DO NOT want to imagine what some of our friends and contemporaries went through. (My daughter’s best friend in grade school, a girl that we baby sat many, many times, and were pretty close to her parents, was suddenly diagnosed with leukemia. Gone a week later.)

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    4. We have three, and the third was kind of funny, because it was the result of my husband turning to me and saying, We did want three kids, right?

      Got so caught up with the first two that we’d kind of forgotten, so the gap is twice as big as between the first two.

      Anyway. Both families have a history of late fertility, so that wasn’t a worry, and my family history of solid pregnancies came through. HOWEVER, even though I had very few nasty side effects from the pregnancies, they got harder on the body each time, especially dental-wise. Definitely recommend starting early for folk, though finances (awful) were one of the reasons we waited.

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  3. Some get to know that their great-great-grandchildren were born. Never met. I suspect my aunt will. She is only 70, in good health, of a long lived family. Her oldest great-grandchild is six. Youngest grandchild is one. Mom could. The oldest great-grand is thirteen, and mom is only 91 and in good health.

    Technically I knew my maternal great-grandmother. There are old home movies and pictures (somewhere) of her with the 3 of us older great-grandchildren. Don’t remember her. But there is proof.

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    1. My family went the other way–marrying late, having children late. But then, I’m the last of my line, so it doesn’t matter a damn.

      My genetics end with me. I was never able to have children, and now I’m past The Change. I was adopted anyway (back when it was treated like a state secret), which enables me to make the joke “My mother never had children and I didn’t either.”

      My adoptive grandmother on one side died when I was two. I’m told we met, though of course I don’t remember.

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      1. On reflection, this may be why I have invested in some printed tags with my name on them. I do a lot of hand-sewing (of the type that canNOT be done by machine) and have started putting my name in the garments.

        Maybe in 2175 someone will put a textile in the “St. Cyr section” of a display.

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        1. My great-grandmother was a selling artist of note (only have married name) before she and great-grandpa married. Good enough to be in museums? IDK. But supposedly a number on the east coast. Unsold ones when they lived in Montana. I have 8 she did for family. I know sisters each have at least two each. Grandpa, her son, was a prolific painter. He didn’t sell but family each have more than a few to pass down to the next generations. Great-grandma’s granddaughter, was a musician (played and taught piano) and selling artist (gone too soon). She did pieces for sisters and mine firstborn before she passed.

          The other side? I have heirloom rag quilts. Not marked. I have other handmade quilts whose province (again, no markings) IDK. All I can do is preserve them and pass them down.

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      1. You’ll get there, you must believe!

        The girls are a lost cause, unfortunately. Don’t know why, either, they aren’t “feminist” nutcases.

        The reasonably new daughter-in-law and I are working on the son from both sides – I have decent hopes for sometime next year.

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        1. The girls are a lost cause, unfortunately. Don’t know why, either, they aren’t “feminist” nutcases.

          Sometimes you just don’t meet a compatible mate.

          Or if you do, it doesn’t happen before it’s too late to matter.

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        2. We have two sets of neighbors whose children, pair each, with one boy and one girl, children swear “absolutely no children”. Same with their partners, married or not. (OTOH ours isn’t getting married.) School indoctrination? Wags hands (oh definitely had an effect). Why? Both households had in home daycare. Which all 4 cite often as “why”. Ours? No clue.

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          1. My daughter is still young enough that her not wanting kids ever is age-appropriate (mid-teens, and I know from my own experience that even with my internal expectations that I’d have a family at some point, it was still a scary, far-off future when I was fifteen.) I’ll be sad if she doesn’t change her mind, but I’m willing to wait on events.

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      2. My mom may finally have a chance for a great-grandchild, because my first niece got married recently and apparently wants to try right away. (That brother’s kids are the first lot of grandkids, all older than any of the rest of the grands, and I have the youngest grandkid.)

        My MiL has great-grandkids, and her sister has grandkids almost old enough to give her double-greats.

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    1. As in the apocryphal curse…

      Keep with it, though, and they turn into the wonderful kind of interesting. (Although, yes, you are in for obsessive worry about every one of them from the day they are born until you enter the ground. More, if you are of the afterlife belief persuasion.)

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      1. I am of the afterlife persuasion. I don’t know if I’ll stop worrying once we’re all on the other side. Yes, I know G-d is supposed to smooth it all out, but I’m a special kind of stupid.

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        1. I tell people that I know something will kill me, either the slow growing cancer, kidneys, falling, or other. I don’t know what it is, but know where I am going. That forever thing. Although I think we do not understand forever, since it may include time with more than one dimension. So we are infinite creatures.

          One of my favorite paradoxes is:

          The finite cannot understand the infinite.

          The finite can understand the infinite.

          Both statements 100% true. You just need to stretch your mind to dangerous levels to grok the second.

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        2. Having buried all my near kin, I certainly look forward to the reunion someday.

          Not today, Lord. Not yet. Still have things to do here.

          And who knows? I may yet meet some lady who is both fertile and willing to put up with me and my quirks.

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            1. I have contemplated retiring “back to college”, but getting lynched by a mob of irate fathers would be a bit of a bummer. (grin)

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    2. Teen years are so we are willing to let them go … Then later we can smile politely (point and laugh) while they apologize repeatably. Although neither of my sisters, their husbands, nor I and mine, thought it was at all funny when our parents did this.

      I was spared the inlaws (they passed before kid was three). Instead we got hubby’s siblings instead (enough older, and our’s was late enough, that their children were past the teen years and had their own children. The great-inlaw-nieces/nephews are now in their 20’s. Youngest niece-inlaw is 48. My side the greats are ages 1 – 13, and one due April (ish), though officially I’m not suppose to know yet.)

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  5. A podcaster I listen to is the first man in five generations to break the cycle of abuse. Perhaps his great great grandchildren might not know his name but they will feel his legacy.

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  6. Well, here I was thinking people have babies because sex is fun. ;p Maybe it’s more that babies survive because they are cute as a defense mechanism? Behold the power of cuteness! It sustains the human race, no wonder cat videos are so popular. To ever so slightly deviate from the intended post.

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    1. Well, that was Lazarus Long’s opinion:

      Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam are all that prevent her from drowning them at birth.

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  7. Though I have fathered no children, I have trained thousands of Soldiers to do what I did in the Army. I consider them to be my spiritual children. Ideally, they will pass along to the next generation, with a mix of terror and gratitude, what it was like to be trained by me.

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      1. They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;
        They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog;
        And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid,
        A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade.

        (The penultimate verse, which we have italicised,
        was included in the first publication in the St James’ Gazette,
        but was omitted from the collected versions.)

        Not even Kipling was immune to from the censorship of the offended.

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  9. I think you mean three to five YEARS of smelly grubbiness.

    In any case, we are working on it. Hopefully we’ll have good news for you next year.

    And if we don’t succeed, I know my Bugbear’s knives will outlive us. I hope they become heirlooms passed down through the generations.

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      1. Well, at least for boys, it only abates for a half-dozen years or so. Then they become teenagers. (Although just generally, not orificial.)

        Alright, WordPress! I looked that up! There really, truly, IS such a word!

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  10. Some of the bits that go forward are not the ones we’d choose– I teased my husband because one of the kids did the “I am making eye-contact the entire time you spoke, I was nodding, I didn’t hear a blessed thing” that he does when he’s tired.

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      1. Sometimes what you teach them is not what you said aloud. Like younger son at ten refusing to be in a play about Nobel prize winners because “I looked it up. Arafat is a horror. Mom taught me to never trust smooth patter from authority figures, so I researched.”
        When did I teach him that? Heaven knows. I have a massive problem with authority. I think he just soaked it in.

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      2. There’s a scene from of all things a shapeshifting romance novel where the female love interest says “Chief, I can make proper eye contact or a I can hear a damn thing you’re saying. Pick one.”

        I HOWLED, because I know that vibe. :D

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  11. Aristotle says almost exactly that, in one of his books on biology.

    Though with human beings, there are at least two other ways to leave something behind. One is through culture: An expression of thought or feeling can outlive you, as Shakespeare said in his eighteenth sonnet. And one is economic: By accumulating capital, some people create large enterprises that go on after them. (Inheritance tax is a direct attack on immortality.)

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    1. Yes. Of course. Shakespeare and Heinlein left no genetic legacy. (At least none we know of, and in Shakespeare’s case took 100 years to tap out.) But you could argue Shakespeare is ancestor to all the Anglosphere, and Heinlein is why this place sometimes feels like a family reunion.

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  12. Didn’t find anyone who’d put up with having mine. Did spend the morning laughing at the youngest co-worker I have who has 3.8 kids. a set of twins a bit over a year, the oldest is nearing 3 and the wife is due with #4 in December. I think this coming is a girl as are the other 3.

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  13. Assuming that this place is archived somewhere – you, Sarah, will be known for many generations to come.

    Some of us will be, too, if we make sure to record our aliases (or don’t use one in the first place).

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      1. Stop listening to that black critter over in the corner. It’s just an idiot chihuahua.

        I think that “A Few Good Men” is going to be showing up in classrooms long after you are gone.

        (The latest three might be, too, from the premise. I HAVE purchased them, and SWEAR that I will get around to reading them as soon as a FEW of these projects are done and I’m not going to bed bone tired.)

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        1. Eh. It didn’t sell well enough to do that…. AFGM I mean.
          And this blog isn’t that large. Eh. I’m okay with it. I WOULD like a grandkid or two, but that’s in G-d’s hands at this point.
          And so sorry you’re also slogging through heck. I need to get the house zipped for the winter, and I’m almost well enough to do that and write. ALMOST.

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  14. When I came back from overseas a quarter century ago, one of my desires (I won’t aver that it rose to the level of ambition) was to have, “a loving wife, 2.6 kids, a house with a white picket fence, a nice car, and a dog.” I achieved the house (sans fence) and car but the rest escaped me. And as I embark on my 7th decade, the possibility of my finding someone able (and willing) to produce children with me becomes exceedingly remote. Yet hope still springs eternal in the human beast, after all Abraham was @ 100 years old when Isaac arrived. And since coming to the Lord I have been convicted that words have power and that what you ask for in faith He may just grant you; thus I have stopped asking for the 2.6 offspring, even in jest.

    So my paternal characteristics are exercised with my nieces and nephews and their descendants, and mentoring the youth of my church.

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    1. My cousin, 22 years younger than I am, did not marry until he was 44. His bride was 32. Their firstborn is a year. His sister, 2 years older, had 2 children, a son and daughter. The daughter’s firstborn is also a year old. First great-grandchild for their grandmother? No. Fourth. The son has two daughters, ages 6 and 3, and one son, age 1. Yes. Great-grandmother has 4 great-grands, and now three grands. Youngest grand same age as youngest great-grands. I expect there to be more from all 3 couples. Great-grandmother is my aunt who is 20 months older than I am, and is younger than my husband by 3 years. Her children are 10 and 12 years older than my son.

      I will grant you entering your 7th decade is pushing it for having children. But even if that miracle should occur, what are the chances of being able being around and able to do with the child over the next 20+ formative years, and be there for any grandchildren. It happens. Look at celebrities.

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  15. Sarah, you hit the Reader hard today (although I know that wasn’t your intention). This reiterated what losing the Reader’s only child earlier this year meant. The Reader and better half originally intended to have a couple more but the issues around delivery and son’s cerebral palsy frankly made us afraid. It is suddenly very dusty in here.

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    1. Apropos of not much, I had a question for you. I’ve been wondering for a while about your username “Larry is Right”. Which Larry? Correia? Kudlow? Summers? Tribe? Someone else? (I’m sure I missed several other famous Larrys).

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      1. Correia

        He is one of my spirit animals. And a good author I recommend to friends looking for entertaining fiction. And I agree with about 92% of his rants and ravings.

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    2. Yeah… That look… 😬 It’s the same expression that immediately preceded JD Vance’s “I really don’t care, Margaret.”

      “I think when I have something I want to say, people will hear.” Sydney Sweeney is a legend.

      There are more women out there like her — there must be. And by that, I mean women who have their heads on straight, not genetic lottery jackpot winners; of course there are more of those out there, too. If she can manage it despite all those reasons not to (beauty, fame, money, influence), there have got to be a lot of women of more average fortune who have also managed it.

      But how the heck do people FIND each other now, amid a minefield of Margarets, Karens, and assorted wokies like the bint that Sweeney destroyed? That’s what I don’t know. All the things that used to work for us are broken, and if the progs in general weren’t so damn stupid, I’d say they broke it on purpose.

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      1. I’m fortunate to have found my spouse. I went through several years of bad dates and short term relationships before her. The dating market was bad 15 years ago, I really feel for the kids nowadays.

        But I have insane tales of first dates and such that are beyond strangeness. About a dozen could be packaged together and make a niche collection of shorts or one weird movie series. Crazy as the current world events.

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        1. Sadly, my taste in women back then was heavily biased towards “crazy”. I have since figured out the ones to avoid, mostly, but those scars run way deep.

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        2. I am working on putting together a gaming and social club at my church for men such as you to meet like-minded women.

          And vice versa

          Any suggestions on how to get the word out?

          The events themselves I can do half-asleep. I used to run cons. It’s the networking in an alien town that’s busting my chops.

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        3. I am working on putting together a gaming and social club at my church for men such as you to meet like-minded women.

          And vice versa

          Any suggestions on how to get the word out?

          The events themselves I can do half-asleep. I used to run cons. It’s the networking in an alien town that’s busting my chops.

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      2. Maybe houses of worship, volunteering for charities, reading clubs, knitting clubs, and stuff like that? Not work anymore, not school either.

        I’ve met great guys at cons, while volunteering (back when I had time to do that), and through singing groups. YMMV.

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      4. “if the progs in general weren’t so damn stupid, I’d say they broke it on purpose.“

        –

        As the saying goes:

        “A blind squirrel only has to be right once.”

        –

        One of their idiotic schemes had to have worked. They tripped into it. They did break it.

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  17. $SPOUSE and I met when we were in our 40s, and didn’t get married for 7 years. I had my share of unfortunate relationships prior to that, and was rather gun-shy for years. End result, no kids of our own. We try to help a couple of our nieces with help for their kids, so that’s one part of our investment in infinity.

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  19. When we were all up for our grandmother’s funeral a few years back there was a photo of her dad on the wall that, I swear, looked just like my middle brother.

    Apparently he sailed across the Mediterranean in an open top boat to learn cabinetry, and his favorite gift was history books, which we know he read because when his sons were going through his effects, they discovered he had been making notes in the margins

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    1. When grandma’s book was (before kindle, self) published after her death (by her oldest two daughters) looked at the cover and thought why was a younger teen picture of C, cousin, part of the cover? Um. No. A picture found of grandma as a teen. OTOH, while cousin and grandma looked similar at the same ages as teens. Cousin does NOT look like grandma did in her 60’s and 70’s, at all, now that that she is in her late 60’s. Cousin is 69 early December (she’s 7 weeks younger than I am).

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