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Durus, 1Old Pro,

I have been considering asking my wife if she wants to try to have children - we're both on the fence about it... There are several reasons, but the main one is that I have a child from a previous marriage, and I pay dearly for that. This is true both financially and emotionally - what with all the family court filings just to have marginal parenting time with my child - the huge costs of defending myself in a heavily mother biased court system in MN. I would like to wait until my child is emancipated so my ex has literally no control over me financially or emotionally - so that any child my current wife and I would have could have the benefit of not growing up with all that stress during their formative years.

One of my motivations for wanting to have a child with my current wife is so that she will have someone to carry on after her, and also to aid her in her old age rather than placing that expectation on my child (he has enough to deal with - his controlling mother is enough for anyone). However, this motivation isn't the sole or controlling motivation for having a child with my current wife, it is just an added benefit to producing progeny in a marital relationship. If you see this as selfish, then I guess self-preservation is a selfish motive, but I see it as a healthy motive as well (some selfishness is both healthy and necessary).

While I would agree that procreating specifically for this purpose is selfish for sure, I believe that honoring your parents so that they may live a long life is both a blessing, and an honorable duty of children. Of course this is coming from a Christian's perspective...