Are Children Valuable?

If you're wondering if this article will conclude that children are, in fact, valuable, the answer is yes. So, if you're thinking I'm going to call your children overrated parasites or something, calm down because I'm not. What I am going to do is ask whether or not they are. There does not exist a maxim or axiom I will shy away from without question. All ideas, without exception, become better for being questioned. Some become better because they are reinforced, others become better because they are revised to be more sound, and some become better because they were without merit and the only means of improvement available to a bad idea is its own destruction. So for the purposes of this discussion, I will not simply take it as a given that children are valuable. Indeed, I will not be assuming it is a given that we ought to care for, be kind to, or avoiding stabbing children. These things are true, but the reasoning must be explained. Otherwise, we are just making assertions and no one ever gained wisdom through sheer force of assertion. First of all, we will see that value, in this context, has many different meanings and that I would not agree that children are valuable in all these senses. Second of all, we will discuss the nature of how we're valuing children in practice.

The most common concept of value is the monetary sense. We know that gold, for instance, has monetary value. Are children valuable in this sense? Obviously not. Children are, in fact, expensive and get increasingly so until they achieve full self-sufficiency, which can take decades. Are they valuable in the sense of having some practical merit? To an extent, yes. Children were useful farmhands in earlier times and useful for taking care of us as we get old in modern times. Are they valuable in the sense of being a miracle? No. A miracle is, by definition, a suspension of natural law that is done in one's favor, whereas reproduction is the whole point of the laws of nature. Are they valuable in the sense that their parents care about their well-being and happiness to an extent further than they do of their own? Clearly this is the case. Are they valuable to society as a whole? That's a case by case basis, usually based upon quality of parenting. So, yes, in a few important senses children are, in fact valuable, and in a few other senses they are not.

While children are valuable in certain senses, this does not mean that they are special. Every child is special to its parents and if everyone is special, no one is. Why does any parent need a special reason to consider their child valuable? Look, I don't care if your child is an absolute picture of mediocrity. The kid is valuable in some senses. If nothing else, if a parent puts the kid's happiness and well-being above that of their own, then the kid is valuable because it is valued by the parent. Those who need to see a child as special to see it as valuable do not value children. They value specialness.

-Frank