Man Unlikely To Have Children For Fear Of Passing On Ugliness

A man admitted to his friend over coffee that even if he someday found a girlfriend and got married he would be unlikely to have children for fear that he would pass on many of the same physical attributes that had made life difficult for him to this point. He said that his large ears, acne, oversized eyes, and extremely weak chin were all things that he could trace more or less directly back to his own father, and given the extremely painful ways in which people had teased him and stared at him his whole life due to these attributes he could not imagine taking a chance on subjecting a child to a similar fate.
The friend pointed out that the man was very smart and had a wonderful personality and that there was more to life than looks. To make a decision not to have children based on the idea that his looks might be passed on was overlooking the idea that his intelligence and personality would be passed on as well. Appearance would have virtually nothing to say about what the child might accomplish, be it making incredible music or curing cancer.
The man agreed that looks didn't determine what the child might accomplish, but they certainly determined some part of the problems he would face. The man said he'd cried after school on a daily basis and considered suicide often as a teen. If he was lucky enough not to end up alone and even have a procreation as a choice, he said he could hardly imagine being convinced that his child's potential for good work outweighed the nearly certain misery that looking like his father would bring.
Sometimes, he said, the best thing you can do to protect your kids is not have them.