It can't all be about politics.

There is an easy argument to be made that there is really no logical reason to have a child. In the first place, the world is full of kids. If you really need one, adopt. China, the former Eastern Bloc nations, Russia and Africa are loaded with orphans. This country is too, especially if you're willing to take an older one. Sure, it may not look like you and it could have some strange recessive genes or emotional problems, but you'd be doing the world (and that child) a big favor by not adding to our overpopulated masses.

Which brings me to the second point - overpopulation. There are simply too many of us. The roads are crowded and traffic is terrible. We don't have enough gas and even movies like "The Forty Year Old Virgin" sell out. Every once in a while we get a nice tsunami, earthquake, or storm which wipes out a chunk of folks but it hardly makes a dent. Wars used to be a good herd thinner but even those are proving unreliable. We don't firebomb cities like we did back in the Dresden days. As for genocide, sure it still rears its head every few years, but again, the numbers keep ticking upward. The more people there are the faster we seem to be destroying this planet and perhaps the only chance humanity has to survive rests in its ability to slow down on the procreation.

In the old days we needed kids to help us work the farm or protect the family from marauding bands of Huns. Neither apply today. And don't count on that kid to take care of you when you're old. They won't. That's why we have long term care insurance. And they don't even stay cute for all that long. Maybe ten years tops - then it's zits and a bad attitude and a person not very pleasant to speak to until they turn about thirty.

And then there is the simple fact that you will have to worry and care about this child until the day you die.

Seriously, if you really feel the need to have something to take care of, you're better off with a dog. It's always happy to see you, won't wreck your car, and doesn't need money for college. A child is simply an exercise in narcissism. It's what people do when they feel the world needs another version of them around.

And that's the logical argument against parenthood.

Tonight I watched my son push his dumptruck around and around in the backyard. He raced from one end of the yard to the other and back again. His laughter filled the quiet night and his smile etched itself into my soul. He was bundled in his winter clothes and that included an Elmer Fudd hat with earflaps that flopped as he ran. He had no idea how ridiculously cute he looked. He never will.

And when he was done - and only he knows why he was - he ran into my arms and for no reason at all, hugged me tight with his little arms.

"Hello daddy," he said in his tiny voice. "Hello!"

And that's the not so logical argument for parenthood.

Sometimes all the logic in the world doesn't mean anything.

Like I said, it can't always be about politics.