That is an interesting point of view.

I want to play along.

So..what about imperfect offsprings of those who play the procreation game? What do we do with them?

Imperfect offspring are still useful for a society, they just are maybe suited at different things. Both a strong but dumb person and a frail but smart person are useful in their own ways. :)

In a society, non productive members do not contribute.

Birds: if in a nest, there are healthy fledglings and a runt, the weakest will be pushed out of the nest by the others because it is a drain on resources.

Big Cats: as big cats age and become frail, they will leave the group and stay back alone to die hidden. This is so they don't slow down the rest of the group. Also..their death will attract predators and scavengers endangering the rest.

And yet, altruism shows up in many ways in nature. Yet, altruism is weaker with human beings and when resources are scarce, there seems to be no will to optimize it.

Why are humans different..even to our detriment?

I would assume that there is certainly a section of population who do not procreate out of choice. Homosexuality has no promise of offsprings unless a deliberate choice is made. Etc.

Yes, there are such people who choose not to have an offspring. Then there are homosexuals, who did not choose their orientation, contrary to what your comment suggests. Then there are people who are infertile for various reasons, and then there also other categories of people that don't have much of influence over their childlessness. I refuse to lump all of them together with people who just don't want children when it comes to talk about having children vs. not having them.

I feel like I should probably expand my sentence to include an illustration of my assumption aka 'inside voice':

1. Gender is a spectrum. Due to a poverty of gravitas, I am going to say that in human anatomy between 'lady parts' and 'boy bits', there is a spectrum of gender identities.

2. Sexual orientation too spans a spectrum.

3. Family units too span a spectrum..from two parent monogamous unions to polyandry to polygamy..from single family family units to same sex parental units etc.

4. And yet, offsprings can be produced by two sets of DNA data..facilitated by two sets of reproductive units..one of them female and the other not(all life begins 'female' as default setting until SRY turns on or off..somewhere in the sixth week after conception thereby determining if baby is XY or XX or has mutations)...each one may belong anywhere in the above mentioned spectrums. This is our unaltered biology.

So.

Nowhere did I suggest that homosexuality is a 'chosen' sexual orientation.

But homosexuality necessarily..by definition..makes the creativity of assumption #4 irrelevant. (With possibly the one exception of transgender family units)

However..what I DID mean to communicate was that those in a same sex unions creating family units with children is smaller in percentage than those in 'traditional' marriages.

To $ incentivize the bearing of children in a resource constrained world is monetary madness.

The opposite makes more sense. To incentivize the child less is rather rational. I wouldn't go as far as to say that unbridled population explosion should be penalized.

To have children of ones own is a choice. It's not a right. Choices have consequences. Rights have responsibilities.

I am just wondering why choices have to be subsidied.

I hope expanded the few sentences to throw more clarity upon the progression of my thought process.

> But homosexuality necessarily..by definition..makes the creativity of assumption #4 irrelevant.

No, it doesn't. Sexual preference is not necessarily an absolute constraint on sexual activity; homosexual orientation does not preclude heterosexuak, reproductive sex.

There are two issues here. The original query was about benefits provided to parent(s) for children as defined by the IRS.

Whether or not they chose their condition--my question stands: why should they be rewarded?

Let's take your example of homosexuals...why should they get some reward from society for not creating new citizens?

There are cases where people, through illness or accident, are infertile, and that is awful. That said, I'm willing to be that the set of people who are involuntarily infertile (e.g., physically cannot reproduce) is much smaller than those who aren't.

Anyways, again, the core question is--what is the reason for rewarding people who don't carry out that most basic function of citizens, which is to make more citizens?

You seem to be taking this all rather personally.

Hi! I have found the time for a more detailed answer for the digression from core point. Allow me to quote you: [..]Let's take your example of homosexuals...why should they get some reward from society for not creating new citizens?[..]

My answer: I feel like homosexuals..like heterosexuals who choose to remain childless should be rewarded for not burdening a resource restricted planet.

Let me give you an example with cat. If allowed to keep breeding, a cat can have three litters in one year. Each litter can have anywhere from 4-6 kittens. A cat goes into heat at age 1 and if feral, can have kittens for at least 5-6 years. That's minimum 60 kittens to a max of over 100 in its lifetime. And each of those 60-100 kittens can have that many kittens of their own.

Overlay that kind of geometric progression on human population. We live longer. Our reproductive period is for almost half our lives and for men, it's more. Our planet has finite resources.

What gives us the right to keep on reproducing? Because. Human rights. Etc.

But when encourage it? Why incentivize it? Why penalize those who do not add to the numbers by dismissing them from any benefits whatsoever regardless of the immense benefits they confer to society at large.

Ok. I will address just the 'core question' and ignore the digressions for now.

Why should they be rewarded? Because it is expensive to raise children. It's a social cost. It would inconvenience those who don't see value in children.

How about that? I am not taking it personally. I am..in fact..trying to use objective/non emotional language to the best of my ability as I realize that this is a sensitive issue.

Ok. This is going horribly wrong. I feel like I am being misunderstood. Or not understood right. I must rephrase.

I wasn't saying that they chose their orientation.

I am sure I flubbed the logic there a bit. But it made sense before I typed it. Give me a couple of hours. It will come back to me and I will rephrase it.