> kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine

I'm part of the "childlress" class you describe, and no, it's overtly obvious how much work a child is, and is the precise reason I don't have any.

> Having children is a good thing for the soul.

I get the same fulfillment (without all the work) by being extremely close with cousins and siblings with children. It's really fun and fulfilling being the "cool uncle" - but having one of my own 24/7? No thanks, hard pass!

> it's overtly obvious how much work a child is,

It really isn't. My sister lived with me on and off during her kid's first years and I saw a lot of it (also experienced the joys of being the cool uncle). But I still underestimated the amount of work you have to put in. Also: taking care of a 9-month old is possibly 81 times the work of taking care of a newborn. But evolution is funny like this: the payoff scales very close to the energy expenditure.

It's really hard to explain the benefits one gets from having kids because, well, with your mentality one doesn't get any benefits. I was almost militantly "child-free" until something I can't quite explain happened to me, and put the world in an entirely different perspective. This is when we decided to try for a baby. We were different people already when the baby came.

The differences in thinking between parents and the childless might well be larger than political, racial, ideological, religious etc. differences.

It doesn’t follow that because you had an epiphany of sorts after having children, the “childless” class are out there living an unenlightened life. Many of us have a quite reasonable understanding of the universe and what parenthood entails and have still decided not to be parents.

If you want to focus in particular on the notion of how “selfless” you learn to be after becoming a parent — this form of “selflessness” is actually just an expansion of selfishness to include your own children. It isn’t some enlightened ego free global selflessness.

I didn't use words like "unenlightened" and "selfless". What are you replying to?

> I get the same fulfillment (without all the work) by being extremely close with cousins and siblings with children

You really don’t though, the work is what deepens the relationship you have with people.

It is impossible for you to know whether it's “the same fulfillment” if you have not actually been in both situations.

Here's the problem with that: there's the chance that if you have children you will hate them. Probably more so if you've been pressured into having children. This is not a socially acceptable response, so you usually only ever see this response in anonymous "off my chest" spaces.

And if you hate your children, you're doing them a vast disservice.

There is no moral imperative to have children, and I wish people would stop pressuring the voluntarily childless into having children.

I agree with everything you said, but that doesn't change the fact that the post to which you're replying is also true.

If I always rode my bike, but didn't have a car, I couldn't really say "riding a bike is as much fun as driving a car".

> It's strange that it reduces kids to a chore (although kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine). Some of the time spent with my kid is restorative; indeed, much of the resistance to returning from the home-office has to do with wanting to spend time with the kids.

There are certainly a lot of additional chores around child raising, but I agree. This article talks about kids in the way I would have thought about them in my early 20s, long before I had kids: as a sort of chore that you had to deal with before you could do the things you really want.

The reality is completely different; spending time with kids is the thing I want to do! I’m lucky enough to enjoy my work and people I work with, but I’d still rather hang out with the kids and go to the park.

> We're supposed to have them, it's in our DNA.

So is being an omnivore. Yet we don't vilify vegetarians and vegans nearly as much as we do the voluntarily childless.

Did we read the same article?

The omnivore equivalent would be an article that describes eating meat as an unfortunate side of life, like commuting and calling into call centers to cancel your cable. My modified reply would be "hey, it's normal to eat meat, it's part of our programming". That doesn't vilify the vegetarian, it calls out a puffy well-being article that says "eat vegetables so you can overcome the stress of eating meat".

... anyway, I was the cool uncle (and my sister lived with me on and off, so I really had a close experience with my first niece) for a long while, and near-militantly "child-free" until I was 40. One day, something rang in my head, and I was changed. Keep rocking the vegetarianism, but try not to be too proud to listen to that ringing. If it comes to you.

I read it more charitably. The article is talking about the importance of looking out for yourself first so you can be there for everyone else in your life. Including family and work colleagues.

I mostly find childcare a burden with occasional bright spots. I wish it was restorative.

Still worth it though.

I don't know how you do it.

It depends on psychology. Different people process social interaction in different ways (and it's the same for basically every experience, not just social interaction).