What motivates rationalists to have children? How much rational decision making is involved?
ETA: removed the unnecessary emotional anchor.
ETA2: I'm not asking this out of Spockness, I think I have a pretty good map of normal human drives. I'm asking because I want to know if people have actually looked into the benefits, costs and risks involved, and done explicit reasoning on the subject.
rationalists
I think you mean "humans"?
With respect to adoption vs. biological children, having your own child allows you more control over the circumstances and also means the child will probably share a some facets of your / your mate's personality, in ways that are often surprising and pleasurable.
With respect to raising children in general, it's intrinsically rewarding, like a mix of writing a book and being in love. Also, if you're assuming the environment won't radically change, having youth probably makes aging easier.
(I don't have children, but have watched them being raised. Unsure of my own plans.)
Haven't had one of these for awhile. This thread is for questions or comments that you've felt silly about not knowing/understanding. Let's try to exchange info that seems obvious, knowing that due to the illusion of transparency it really isn't so obvious!