This doesn’t apply to everyone. There are exceptions. And maybe I’m wrong and my opinion will shift again as I age further but I think as you see peers have children and the meaning it brings to their lives your opinion will change.
This is such a cliche that it almost meaningless but the JOY of a child is just insane. To have some around who is almost always happy to see you (and super pissed when you go away), initially at least, is just wonderful to be around.
To me at least parenting is one of the most complete human experiences. It's joyous and terrifying, exciting and mundane, just all of the things at once.
It's not for everyone sure but one thing I would say is that it's much easier to describe how hard it is, than it is to describe how amazing it is.
Everyone understand that having to wipe someone else's ass for years isn't fun (tho it's not actually that bad) but it's difficult to put into words just how much joy there is.
Also, first kid was a breeze to take care of and we weren’t sleepy because we coslept. If you don’t drink or do drugs (which is what causes kids to get smothered) I highly recommend. Mom was amazed baby would sleep through the night and not fuss or ask for milk, and I said “honey she made noise several times you’d just roll over naturally and pop a boob in her mouth”. Our second one is physically disabled in some pretty profound ways (which I’ve talked about at length in other comments on HN so won’t go into here) so she’s way more of a pain, but I highly recommend cosleeping to anyone who will listen (which honestly isn’t most people).
It really is, and you just cannot understand it until you become a parent yourself. I used to roll my eyes when friends said that, but it's true.
This'll probably sound really cheesy, but sometimes I look at my kids and it feels like my heart will burst with the love I feel for them.
I wouldn't say it's impossible to understand. Imagine having a dog or other pet that you love ridiculously. Then one day the pet starts talking, reading, doing math homework instead of chewing your shoes as often.
It's a wild ride.
A talking cat sounds cool though :)
When my kid started trying to stand up, they were SO excited about it. I mean they would try and stand up, stand for about 2 secs, be wildly excited, fall over and go through the whole thing again. That sort of joy and happiness is just infectious and so much fun to be around.
I also had the most fun in a game of Sorry ever yesterday with my wife and two girls. Hearing your three year old make a smarmy “sorry” voice and laughing as she knocks her sister back to the start is comedy gold.
My life prior to our child seems incredibly stupid by comparison.
- Keep trying until they have a male (I have a friend with 5 girls so far). - Trying to "strengthen" a troubled relationship. - Planning to use them as a pension. - Vicariously living the things they couldn't achieve themselves. - and a long, long etc.
Even if almost anyone can reproduce, raising kids is not for everyone.
It is true that you will miss out on "me time" for several years, but that changes eventually. It is not hard work, just relentless at times.
For me, I don't think I would ever have been "ready" until it would be too late. The longer you leave things, the less time you have to sort it out. People assume that fertility issues only happen to other people, but there is a surprisingly high number - something like 25% of couples face issues conceiving one way or another. If you don't even start until late 30s or early 40s, you are at the tail-end of fertility (especially for females as there is a finite number of eggs). Sure there is IVF etc but it is not an emotionally simple process.
I think I have a better understanding of the world my own son grows up in. Not just in the big, generational sense, but in practical ways like remembering a lot about schools, curriculums etc. that is still relevant.
Having kids almost never makes sense though. You are never "ready". If you think about it much, you're much less likely to choose to do it.
How's this for a rule of thumb: if you can be happy without having kids, don't have kids. They're very hard work, expensive, and often bad for your mental health. But, if like a lot of people you know you will always be sad if you don't have kids, have as few as you need to scratch the itch.
I’m glad I took the time to find out what I wanted to be before that was just “a good dad”. I feel fortunate that I found that out, met my wife, and we were able to have healthy kids at the tail end of our 30s.
Very True. Although, for loneliness, they might be close for a while.
I really feel for folks who were trapped at home alone during the pandemic without kids or family. Especially extroverts. Oof.
I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved.
For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable.
Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)
oh, this one is kinda easy to prepare for: just forget about having time for this at all in the first couple of months. First 3 months you're not doing anything but caring for the baby, deal with that. Well, ok, you may have time to watch youtube or other videos while feeding or so.
Around 1 year old, the kid can become real fun though.
After a month or so he started mostly sleeping at night with 2 or 3 feedings needed. Then during the day he started napping for 1-2 hour stretches.
Still super lucky to have that!
But in the end, the only thing you need to leave behind, is love. That’s the pressure I think one should feel. No child needed money more than a loving parent who was attentive and a caring presence. Sure, if you can be that and leave some $$ after you pass, good on you. But money comes at a price, and only lottery winners get that ride for free.
As the child bearing person in this equation, I also did the most research on pregnancy, birth, subsequent baby stuff. (My partner did do some reading too, but not the same extent of feeling like he needed to figure it all out.)
One thing that’s interesting is that in many ways, even the pair of us who knew nothing about babies have pretty good instincts for what they need. We got some help from a post partum doula to show us baby care, since we figured you can’t learn all that from reading.
We did read some books. I tried to stay away from articles because they are incentivized to act like there’s conflict or “new” stuff to talk about to keep engaging readers. The most useful resource has been a private Reddit forum of other people who had babies the same month, so we can compare what’s worked for lots of people, what popular info seems totally wrong to lots of us, etc.
Kids aren’t easy, but they are not hard the same way our knowledge-worker jobs are to learn.
Had our first born this past June, I see now how much more there can be.
I still do much of what I did before (BRC excepted). But there’s more gravity to my existence.
PG has an essay that describes having kids that you should read. It may not make an impact but perhaps it will join the chorus of replies here.
I’d say stay open to the possibility. Yes, you learn a lot. But if you enjoy knowledge, skill building and life experiences, having a kid is just as fascinating as any of that other stuff.
And your life gets wider and deeper.
Yes, your free time disappears completely. But there is an upside. Watching a human being grow and learn is fascinating. Plus that human is a part of you in a sense. That is also beautiful and hard to describe in words.
Don't have children with the expectation that they'll take care of you. You don't get to decide other people's life goals for them.
This is true for entrepreneurship, and kids.
Kids are the closest thing to experiencing actual magic.
It’s the most stupefying technology you get to witness every day. Everything I write here won’t explain this but I’ll try anyways.
Late nights, pushing, juggling, constantly learning is something entrepreneurs do and transfers well.. but maybe not as common as it should be. Learning how to learn is a highly transferable skill.
There’s also not knowing what you don’t know until you get into it.
I’m a first time dad to twins. It was like waking up a part of myself when I didn’t know I was asleep. It’s hard to wake up someone who doesn’t know they’re asleep.
There are some interesting biological changes that open up in your brain, energy and other things after having kids, not just for the mother but the partner too. Fun research and reading for your interests, but it literally activates more of your brain. I see a new world of more opportunities and understand people better than ever have.
Super helpful in building product. I had no idea what the experience of many people are and it helped me simplify even more what I build.
To my earlier self I’d say..
Kids were not as much of a shock because of the fun stretches of startups I’ve been through, and all the interests I’ve been through in the past.
Having kids helps cut off any unnecessary entanglements, especially ones we’re not aware of.
Theres a chance to finally prioritize better than ever. The decisions make themselves, it’s a super power.
There’s a chance to become a morning person to have even more time.
There’s a chance to think about problems away from a keyboard that has build up the mental muscles again.
There might not be a better motivator and creator of discipline than having kids. Instead of scrolling motivational insta.
It’s true it can be hard work. 1 kid is nothing compared to having twins. I could do 1 kid in my sleep alone, but it’s only because I had to expand to the demands of twins. That’s what parenting does for some, increases their capacity.
Yes there can be late nights if you choose not to learn and put in routines.
There’s a chance of realizing what kind of memory you will be for your kids might be more important than you ever thought.
The mental cpu cycles aren’t that bad. There’s pretty good books and apps now (wonder weeks is one) that keeps things on the radar. Knowing your kid is going to have a growth week before they do is so helpful. You don’t feel as helpless.
My wife and I weren’t sure if kids would be in the cards for us, between life, work, our interests.
We did pretty much everything we wanted including sleeping in until we got bored of it.
We said to ourselves if we’re not 1 million percent sure we don’t want kids we should leave the door open or try for a family to be sure. There are some health issues before we began that were discovered that likely saved my wife’s life. Life seems so random, and then not it seems sometimes
Rather than have a fixed mindset in our 20s of having kids or not and hanging onto it for dear life we tried to stay open to possibility. I really recommend it. It turned out we’re not the same people in our 20s that we are in our 30s. Knowing is delusion sometimes, yet it’s all we seek.
You can change and grow - many things you believe turn out to be a bookmark to go open up again and update. It’s everything.
But reading this article made me think for the first time "actually, I think I don't want kids."
So many "mental CPU cycles" spent learning about pregnancy, babies, why they cry, how to care for them. It just doesn't appeal to me at all - I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time on the topics that legitimately interest me - stuff like space, technology, fiction, stocks, politics, philosophy, hobbies. (I realize how much this comes off as a young white tech nerd... But that's exactly what I am!)
And all this just of the knowledge gathering. We haven't even touched on the truly hard part - executing it!
I guess this article made raising a kid real in a way that none other have before. Took the high ideal of "raising a family" and shined light on all the tough, hard realities.
Of course this is all from my current perspective. I'm sure it all totally changes in ways I just can't conceive when it's your own kid.
Open to any insights from others who may have been here before!