The International Baby Exchange.

The idea I'm about to toss out is a wild one, admittedly. Some of you might even be offended by what I'm about to say. That being said, understand this: my concept is not one based in malice or cruelty.

I attempted to write an emotionally-sensitive preamble to this article, but everything I came up with simply didn't work. Instead, I decided to just be blunt and lay it all out there.

Sometimes, people have babies they either don't want or can't care for.

Imagine a scenario where a woman gives birth to a child she doesn't necessarily want, completely for superficial reasons. It's the wrong gender or skin color, for example. What if she could place that baby with an International Baby Exchange to trade for another recently born child? An even swap, one baby for another. The possibilities are endless! A child born in Canada could be swapped with one born in Chile. A French baby for a Chinese baby. An Icelandic baby for a Turkish baby. The potential combinations could only be limited by the number of participants involved. Obviously, the sooner a child could be added to the exchange, the better. The less a parent becomes attached to their offspring, the easier the trade will be. There's no going back on a trade!

Alternatively, what if a woman has an unexpected or unplanned pregnancy, but doesn't want to abort the fetus?

This situation would work much the same way as the aforementioned, but instead of trading one baby for another, the child would be swapped for something of monetary value. Obviously, this system could be exploited by the slave trade, so potential participants would have to be thoroughly vetted. Their items of value would have to be held by a third party clearinghouse to verify legitimacy. Once all concerns were satisfied, a child could be traded for an automobile, a piece of land, or college tuition. Sure, the child is reduced to a piece of living currency, but if the biological parent is unable to care for the child, then it becomes a win-win scenario. What has the traded child lost besides an unwilling or incapable parent (and gained a loving parent in the process)? This is what I consider making the best of a bad situation.

At this point, you think I'm probably nuts... but this idea goes one step farther.

Genetic diversity in any species is important for its survival. Pockets of any species lacking genetic diversity, whether humans, elephants or antelopes, develop terrible health problems. By swapping children across all parts of the globe, we'd be introducing new human genetics into a region to better its breeding pool. The more a species cross-breeds with diverse participants, the better their overall genetic structure can become. Just look at mixed-breed dogs -- they usually live longer and are healthier than their pure breed counterparts. Why? Because their genetics possess less inter-breeding, which promotes faulty biological traits if carried on for generations.

So there you have it. An International Baby Exchange that would satisfy many problems with a simple solution. Obviously, such a platform would be controversial. It raises any number of ethical concerns, but it's a debate we can and should be having anyway. What are you thoughts? Please share them!

The Insidious Disparity of the Royal Baby Name.

News spread across the internet like wildfire earlier today that the latest child born into the British Royal Family has been named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. Via television news, social media and the multitude of pop culture outlets, it seems to be all anyone wants to talk about.

What in the living hell is wrong with you people?

This particular child is no more or less important than any other child. According to current global statistics from UNICEF, approximately 353,000 babies are born each day. Will various media outlets report on the names of those other 352,999 children that were born on the same day as Charlotte?

Clearly, they will not. Who am I kidding?

Who will speak the names of these children?

By feeding into this lunacy of idol worship, we've elevated a child to celebrity status before she has ever said her first word. Even worse, why are we celebrating someone as royalty at all? What makes one human being more royal than another? Do we not stand for democracy? For the rights of the individual? For equality under the eyes of the law?

There is no such thing as royalty. There are only those that we willfully elevate to the precipice of supremacy in the shadow of ignorance. This child is no more important than a child born in Yemen, Estonia or Ecuador. Who will speak the names of those children?

Oh, that's right... they're not royalty, so they aren't important.

You might be assuming that I've gone mad. Who would think such nonsense? Cretinous Americans, that's who. Here's an exchange that took place earlier today via Facebook. It has not been altered in any way. I made a comment summarizing the content of this blog on a local television news station's frivolous status update concerning the child.

This is the kind of venomous idiocy I deal with on a day to day basis, whether in person or in cyberspace. When I've said in the past that I'm surrounded by idiots, I literally meant it.

So, the next time you want to harp on about a royal child, please remember what I've conveyed to you in this article. When you elevate one child to such a lofty position, you're essentially asserting that not every child, no matter how innocent, really matters.

Is one child more important than another?

We're Coddling Our Children To Death.

I was flipping through my local Target sales paper yesterday evening and came upon the following ad.

After pondering the intent of the items described for sale, I found myself asking...

Do parents really need to watch their baby via a constantly streaming video feed twenty-four hours a day?

After laughing at the Big Brother like nature of the video baby monitor, I couldn't help but be concerned. Is this sort of Orwellian surveillance necessary for the survival of our children? Humanity (Homo sapiens) has been on Earth for over two-hundred thousand years. Our most ancient ancestors have been here for nearly six million years. In all that time, no matter by which method you choose to measure, did children not survive without being constantly monitored? Were children not able to sleep in a cradle without being video recorded non-stop? Are we so pathetic as to require perpetual inspection and control of our offspring?

Let's think about it from another perspective. Consider the situation from the child's point of view. With constant spying, they'll never experience a world where their every action isn't being recorded. They'll never know what it is to enjoy actual privacy. They'll never comprehend the need for personal space and solitude. They'll never be able to make their own decisions. Most importantly, your own child will never know if they can trust you (or anyone else really).

What sort of life is that? Do we really want this for our children?

I realize this is just a single ad in a department store circular, but it reflects a much deeper societal problem that hardly anyone is considering.

We're coddling our children to absolute death.

You can let your child...

• sleep at night without watching their every breath
• play outside and get dirty
• defend against a bully, even if it means throwing a punch
• fail at their classwork, sports or any other personal endeavor
• do their own homework
• spend time alone without constant interaction

Believe it or not, little Johnny can go on the swing without you watching them.

You see, the more we hover over our children and watch their every move, the more we make them less independent. Spying on your child while they're an infant is the first step in a long journey of forming a defective human being -- one that's prone to dependency and needing constant approval from others. This type of helicopter parenting is ridiculous and detrimental to your child's health. And for goodness sake... the last thing this world needs is a populace comprised of attention-starved brats with no sense of independence.

Now cut the camera off and go to sleep.