Not necessarily zero. While passing on your genes is incredibly important and powerful, so is passing on memes. And a person who doesn't get caught up in the s

Not necessarily zero. While passing on your genes is incredibly important and powerful, so is passing on memes. And a person who doesn't get caught up in the sacrifice of child rearing may be much more likely to study and develop novel ideas that spread and infect many minds. A teacher is in some ways more influential on the future than a single parent, because the teacher influences hundreds of children's minds over a career, while a parent only creates a handful of children. This is also why conservatives are increasingly concerned about putting their kids in public school which is seeding their minds with memes that they don't like.