I was having a talk with a coworker about his wanting to start a family. He is young for someone with silver hair, but already over the midpoint of his life expectancy. I asked him why, and he mentioned something about leaving a mark on this world.

This has me thinking. I don't want offspring. (To Kitten: sorry if you're reading this. It's not you in particular, it's the concept in general.) To quote a friend from college, humanity isn't a race, we're a plague. We outgrew nature's balance and are putting strains on this planet beyond what natural cycles would predict.

There are more un(der)fed mouth, unloved hearts, and un(der)educated minds than we can handle already. I may be a simpleton in saying this, but I feel that a person with a quieted heart, head and belly will be loathe to go to war, be reluctant to disenfranchise a fellow human (be it for race, gender or creed), and, maybe, be more responsible a steward for our world.

(If the rest of animal kingdom is any guide, that is hopeless optimism. Make a population fed, safe and calm, and you'll have a population explosion. I can only claim that education be the salve.)

Not only did I not want offspring, at the time I was dating SpouseKitty, I didn't want children, either. There is a subtle difference, one that the title alludes to. An offspring is sired from my seed. A child is adopted into my heart.

In the decade-plus years since then, I've come to appreciate the difference all the more. I love Kitten, and am glad she is in our lives. However, with the awareness of my Asperger's traits and how it has an overwhelming genetic component, I do not want offspring.

Where does that leave Kitten? In my heart. She could have been anyone's offspring, but she is my daughter. My legacy to her will not simply be Asperger's, but a mental album overflowing with laughter, jokes, and happiness spiced with some tears and aches, scars of our human condition.

My genes contributed very little to her. More-or-less the same building blocks as everyone else. (More in some academic / intellectual areas, less in other social / emotional ones, the nature of the beast known as Asperger's Syndrome.)

I hope to pass on my memes. How to temper logic with love, how to balance what is legal with what is right. Memories and love for and from my mother. A happy and less judgemental childhood than I had. Memories. Enlightment. That is what I want for her.

Memes, not genes.