amen
Then the older ones get envious and hop in. It is an entire football team chasing each other.
There is distinct difference in the fun of raising children in a village where there are tons of other kids with low risk of cars so they can play outside freely, and raising children 24/7 because they cannot be left without supervision and there are few other kids on the street and the adults do not trust each other enough.
Just having functional grandparents or aunts/uncles to take them off your hands once in a while would probably make a big difference.
Unless both parents come from a really dysfunctional family, this should never be the case.
Why? Many people immigrate away from their families for a variety of reasons other than them being “dysfunctional”. For example, economic opportunities.
I know a quite a few couples that moved from places with low economic opportunities to places with better opportunities, and one of the downsides is that they have to navigate parenting by themselves. It is a cost they are incurring to give their kids a higher probability of success when they grow up.
Yet:
> one of the downsides is that they have to navigate parenting by themselves.
That's not true. Our families may be away most of the time, but we have a constant rotation of our parents (and my wife's Giagia) and coming to stay with us. When our second kid was born, I don't think we were by ourselves for the first six months. Even today, we get someone visiting us at least every other month.
> kids a higher probability of success when they grow up.
This is increasingly becoming something we are asking ourselves. I think our kids would benefit more from being able to grow up close to their families than in a place with a culture and values that we don't really share. For us (and me specially) living in Germany has been more of a "tolerable" than a "desirable" situation. With remote work becoming a reality, I think we can have our cake and eat it too.
That is not possible for many others.
None of those qualify as dysfunction in my book.
- "Older grandparents" is a sign that people are waiting too much to have their own kids.
- "Other family obligations", like what... Work? Perhaps we should rethink our globalized, modern economy that makes dual-income families a necessity. I really hope that by the time my kids get to have their kids, my wife and I are in condition to dedicate ourselves to help them as much as our own parents helped us.
- "Visa issues" is mostly an American thing, which unfortunately I also I am very familiar with (lived in the US before coming to Germany). The US is only going to solve the Milton Friedman dilemma: it can be either a country of Open Borders, or it can be a Welfare State. Until it tries to be both, it is doomed to these catastrophic policies.
- Does either side of the family have enough money to fund cross-country travel more than once a year for a week at a time?
My parents are retired/semi-retired. When they come, it's usually during the summer (here)
Our typical Saturday involves me and my son spending 7A-nap time together outside the house while my wife sleeps in, lounges around and does her hobbies.
When we get home, she’s totally refreshed.
Another thing we do sometimes is drop him at daycare and we take an afternoon off to do something together.
Works great for us. We don’t have any family within 3000 miles of us, so solutions were needed.
- go to beach, play in sand & swim in ocean, find other kids to play with
- go to woods, walk around and spot wildlife
- go to farmer’s market, try various foods/drinks, play with other kids
- go out for ice cream
- go to playground, play with other kids
- go out for some (light) off-roading, he loves the bumps
My son will be 3 next week.
- go to the library and pick out books
- go grocery shopping, discuss what foods we like/don't like, practice remembering something I'm supposed to get
- play with model trains and make up Thomas stories
- go to the aquarium store and talk about the fish
- go to the park (One time we stopped on the way for fast food and ate it at the park, which was fun, but it created an expectation for a while that there would always be chicken and fries at the park.)
I would prefer hanging out with my children over doing most anything else. That comes down to who I am and who my children are, and probably other circumstances.
It's also worth recognizing that the early childhood years (0-3) can be difficult and super isolating. We had fun during that time, but it got way more fun as they got out of that age and became fully interactive.
Its like in discussions about exercise, if you just read discussions online you'd think that everyone loves to exercise, but most people really hate it or at least don't like it.
I'm over it, and I'm over the PMC signaling in general. The happiest people I know enjoy things without irony, love their kids, and aren't afraid to look stupid. The most miserable detest children and only care about trends.
Happy people ought to have kids, since likely they will have happy kids. Unhappy kids ought to not have kids, since they will likely have unhappy kids, and would make themselves unhappier for it. How is this strange? Do you think that miserable people shouldn't be able to express their misery? do you think that hating those miserable people will help in any way?
I've had childless friends who say the attitude is different because of the audience. They've indicated parents will openly admit to them their unhappiness when those same parents would never do so to another parent.
I hope this is your toddler.
> I hope this is your toddler.
I hope it's your toddler who wrote this comment.
My wife feels the same way.
I'm just the opposite: the toddler stage is far and away my favorite stage of my kids' development. They are old enough to communicate with, but young enough that they discover something new and amazing in the world every single day. Getting to see the world through the eyes of a toddler really clarifies your world view.
I wanted to say—these two lifestyles you describe (raves and toddlers) are not incompatible. I’ve had to get better at scheduling and communication, that’s all.
For me, it was really helpful to develop concrete agreements with my partner. (E.g., I get to travel 8 weeks a year, I have to schedule 1 month in advance, and it can be for any reason). I don’t like the view that having kids means giving up on what you love to do in life.
4th kid is on the way. Seems nutso to me, but because my wife really wanted another. And if that is her dream, I am not going to stand in her way.
Is there anyone other than you and your spouse helping raise the children? Does your spouse work?
Lots of people do not have support from friends or family. Being able to take off while spouse is pregnant and taking care of 3 other kids is surely an abnormal situation.
She took a weekend recently and left me with the 3 kids. It was fun and honestly more relaxed than most weekends. Maybe importantly is our spacing — 13, 10 and 3. Not saying 3 toddlers.
It's simply half an hour of "Where's Daddy?... oh oh... There's Daddy... " peek-a-bo with laughter all around.
That was an insanely happy time. There's been lots of other fun, but that was peak pure bliss.
Right. Because that’s the easy part, when they’re babies.
At first I didn’t believe my friend’s dad when he told me it actually gets more difficult when they get older.
My sons are 8 and 6 now and that's much more difficult on some ways. They're 'people' enough that you can reason with them sometimes, but also sometimes they get trapped in completely ridiculous loops of illogic and emotion and you just have to ride it out while trying to remain calm. There's all kinds of dramas, illnesses, places to go, one thing after another.
Mostly though, being a dad is great, and I recommend it. I meet lots of folks my age who seem kinda directionless, like they can't figure out what's missing, and I think for many of them, family is that missing piece.
I've also met many DINKs who seem like they're having the time of their lives, so YMMV. I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life.
But there does seem to me to be a cultural knee-jerk ruling out of family among my generation that puzzles and saddens me. Everyone seems to think there are a million qualifications they have to meet before becoming a parent. "We need to have a house, and 100k in savings, etc etc etc." And yes, it's good to be prepared. But also, as long as you're a semi functional human, you'll make it work.
If you think you want to have children, you should!
Very true. I didn’t have my own place to live or any money when the first one was on the way. In fact, my kids are the reason I started a new career, worked my way up, bought a house.
It doesn’t all have to happen in a specific order. Like the parent post says, you make it work.
What does make it work mean? Most people I know will not accept the child “surviving” as making it work.
Maybe you are living paycheck to paycheck so you don't buy the new game this week. You play an old game that you already had.
Maybe some mornings you have to give them a bowl of cereal instead of making eggs, because you don't have enough time.
Maybe some afternoon when everyone is exhausted from working, you let the kids play the tablets for 2 hours instead of 30 minutes like they're supposed to.
Maybe instead of renting out the trampoline park for the birthday party, you get a pavilion at your local nature park.
Maybe your kid might get a "cheese sandwich" in their lunch because you were out of turkey and didn't realize it until 11pm.
Maybe your kid desperately wants a dog, but your current living situation doesn't allow it and he has to go without.
Obviously we all want what's best for our children all the time, but life is full of compromises. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't do everything within their power to provide the best life possible for their kids - in fact, I think that's exactly the moral duty of parenthood. But there are many degrees of happiness between "pure utopian bliss" and "mere survival." And so many potential parents these days seem to think that if they can't do it absolutely perfectly then it's not worth doing.
Maybe this is just my own background, but I can't think of a single person I know whose childhood was perfectly ideal.
Where does being able to afford routine healthcare land? And I do not mean waiting in the few overcrowded clinics that take Medicaid because Medicaid reimbursed very poorly so providers do not accept it.
The only difference between now and before is that now we have very effective birth control. I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to say, for example, I am not likely to be able to pay for a child’s healthcare, and so it is not worth it for me to have children (yet). Or a home in a decent school, where the other kids are not likely to be in gangs. And so on and so forth.
My parents were poor, and I never received any healthcare as a child. My dad told me to play carefully, otherwise any injuries I incurred could derail the family. I also went to a different school in different states every year until high school. So I was fed and sheltered. But would I have kids if I predicted that is what their life would be? Hell no.
I agree.
What I'm arguing against is what seems to be a fairly modern conception: "oh, we can't possibly consider children until we own a home with 4 bedrooms and a pool and we've gone on a backpacking trip through Europe and we've unpacked all our own childhood trauma and come to terms with it and gone to therapy and etc, etc etc".
I'm not saying "yeah, fuck it, you live in a box, get all your money from hooking, and nurse a heroin addiction, but you should still have kids, it'll work out."
I'm just saying that nearly every human in history has been born into a situation that was non-optimal in some way. It's OK to have a kid when the house is too small. It's OK to not have a fully baked plan to finance every activity the child might ever want to do. A fulfilling and happy life can be found in less-than-ideal circumstances.
My parents didn't have much money. We were fortunate in many other ways. Some folks were born with more money and less parental kindness. Some sadly lacked in both.
As an adult, I can say that I am happy to have been born in spite of the many challenges that I faced growing up. I believe (hope) that most people on Earth can honestly say the same.
Sorry you had a bad experience with that growing up. Really.
As a parent I can’t say I shared that worry with only having medicaid. That was our best option before I had a job with healthcare benefits, which took me years to get to.
But I would still say it was pretty far from just “survival”.
Babies cry for every reason and figuring out what’s wrong (if anything) was stressful. I felt that once my kids were able to communicate, everything got easier and waaaaaay more fun.
My kids are in college now and I’m so happy and proud of them but at the same time I realize that my parenting job is wrapping up. When I think about the past 20 years I’m a little sad because I should have been a much better parent. The deserved better. It’s also astonishing how quickly two decades passed.
Yep, but it's important for would-be parents to know that that's normal and doesn't take all that long IF you are being an attentive parent. Some parents can tell by the "kind" of cry what their baby wanted. I could never do that, so I always just went through a mental checklist every time: Poopy diaper? (Usually you can smell one before it upsets the baby, though.) Hungry? Tired? Wants to play? Wants to sit down? Wants to get up? Etc.
When they’re a young teenager, and they’re trying to kill themselves, and you have to lock up all the sharp objects, including the knives you cook with every day, constantly watch them, which means working from home before everyone was doing that, keep them out of school because the school isn’t committed to keeping an eye on suicidal people, yet still informs you that they will call the authorities if you continue to keep them out of school, AND you’re also keeping them from being institutionalized, because that’s how the system is if you don’t do all this yourself to protect your children while they are in this window of time where you could lose them.
I wouldn’t say babies are the worst. They are simple beings.
Babies are dead easy. They are incapable of expressing their will. You put them in a stroller, that baby is in the stroller. Yes, you have to feed and clean the baby and it will sometimes be hard to wrangle into whatever situation you want. But it doesn't have a choice ultimately.
Adults are also relatively easy. You don't have to do any of the cleaning or feeding, and you also don't have to tolerate anything you don't want to. Bob is being a jerk? Fuck him. Sally doesn't come to your birthday party? Well, now she's not invited to Friendsgiving. Etc.
Toddlers who grow into children who grow into teenagers are a whole category unto themselves. You slowly divest yourself of the cleaning and direct feeding duties. But you also can't just abandon them. When little Billy is pitching a fit, you have to deal with that. And as they get older and get savvier themselves, you're going to have to navigate that. You are going to have a lot of responsibility with decreasing levels of authority.
So now you have to get your kid to do what you would like for them to do without physical coercion. Ideally without much coercion if you want to preserve a relationship with them. You are going to have to convince them. And you aren't allowed to quit.
The childless among us hear every complaint and lament about how terrible it is. Why would we do that to ourselves?
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-25189-001
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003...
When fathers in Spain were given more parental leave, they have less kids, for example. The revealed preference is clear.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-UN
https://qz.com/work/1614893/after-men-in-spain-got-paternity...
The study doesnt mention any effect on career progression or any other type of opportunity cost either. You’re entitled to your opinion but this article does not support it.
I'm reminded of societies in which families have more children than they want because there is no social safety net. Children are the safety net. Talk about harvesting human beings. Children suffer immense pressure and even abuse in such places.
Which will lead to a more stable society: social safety net, or no social safety net?
In my experience and observation, societies that have protections from poverty seem to be far more stable as compared to societies that do not have them.
My wife and I are done with the one. I think we got lucky - she is a sweet, fun and fairly easy (for now) two year old, but the decrease in life quality if significant. I didn't want to further extend the monotony of our current life by having a second.
Overall my advice to anyone would be if you are not missing anything in your life and are happy, you don't have to have children. Other people might tell you how great it is (after complaining a bunch, and then complaining some more later) but that's their life, not yours.
Experience is what we get what when we don’t get what we expected.
This isn't a judgment or to say parents are in any way superior! Having children is a very personal choice which everyone has to confront, and there's no wrong answer. The feeling of being a parent is just incredibly difficult to put into words.
The interesting thing is I care more about others kids as well now. Before kids I didn't have many interactions with them, not really a kids person, but now I feel more paternal for all kids. While there's an obvious confounding variable here, my friends with kids care about mine and want to meet them while those without pretend like they don't exist.
. . .
What world do you live in? I have 4 (soon to be 5) kids myself and I’m happy with my choices. I know many families with kids, and only a small percentage seem unhappy, similar to most other life choices.
"Seem" is the keyword. People successfully hide suicidal depression from close friends and family, so I'm not sure why you think people can't hide mild unhappiness.
The analogy I made to depression was intentional because it exhibits exactly this pattern: every depressed person consistently reports how terrible it is, and yet they often make a show of appearing happy in public.
If they "seem" happy in all my interactions, I don't see how they can be "consistently mak[ing] clear how terrible having kids is."
I don't see how some secret only-tell-the-therapist-and-pollsters views could qualify as "consistently mak[ing] clear" their supposed negative feelings.
Just yesterday, in my team of five, three work colleagues were counseling each other about how go get help for their kids. The two children of one colleague suffer from anxiety and attention deficit, which is the same problem another colleague has. The third colleague needed to leave yesterday mid-afternoon because his daughter had a breakdown at school. Today he is taking her to therapy, and that's a regular occurrence.
I've started to suspect that there is a silent pandemic of mental health issues between kids these days. Maybe it's the cell phones, maybe it's over-diagnosis, maybe it's because it's too much. Maybe the entire way we do families and child-rearing is broken. I remember feeling lonely and sad as a kid, then I went to boarding school and made some amazing friends and life was so much better and easier. Kids shouldn't grow alone.
Having a son anchored me to the (land and planet)* in a very unexpected way. Formerly, there was always an option to chuck things and go somewhere else, but now whatever is in front of me I must deal with and make happen. It's not about what I want to do any more, but the first underlying thought behind everything I do is how it will affect my son and family.
Lots of former options are closed. I can no longer start a relationship with a fun and beautiful but legitimately insane woman. I can no longer splurge my life savings on some risky venture. I can no longer spontaneously digital nomad. Heck, I can't really hit the local pub or have a night out without negotiation.
Is that terrible? I don't think so. It doesn't feel so. More, like, I do whatever I want within the bounds determined by my responsibility to someone who cannot care for himself yet.
I have a fatherly and calm personality, though, and I know it's not suited for everyone.
So, TL;DR: Not terrible. Anchoring. Limiting, but not oppressive.
* There's no really good word for this.
Yeah, there are lots of things I can't do now. But that's ok with me. It doesn't even feel like a sacrifice really. Being a dad is just part of who I am and I want to do it well just like any other thing I do.
My kids won't need me anchored forever. And I still get to go fishing, see concerts, play video games, and do other stuff I enjoy. It's not the total loss of all freedom some make it out to be.
Nobody wants to be the one who speaks out, everyone is saying its amazing because the others say it is amazing.
I’m sure they’d still say it was worth it.
Mind you they are getting divorced now so who knows.
I think it’s fair to say YMMV on the sleep front.
It may not have anything to do with the greater fool theory as we aren't constantly buying or selling children or doing child swaps like banks do with money but it is worth bringing up as we are humans in both places and I suspect the underlying human psychology is the same.
> In finance, the greater fool theory suggests that one can sometimes make money through the purchase of overvalued assets — items with a purchase price drastically exceeding the intrinsic value — if those assets can later be resold at an even higher price.
> In this context, one "fool" might pay for an overpriced asset, hoping that he can sell it to an even "greater fool" and make a profit. This only works as long as there are enough new "greater fools" willing to pay higher and higher prices for the asset. Eventually, investors can no longer deny that the price is out of touch with reality, at which point a sell-off can cause the price to drop significantly until it is closer to its fair value, which in some cases could be zero.[1][2][3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
tl;Dr NEVER EVER trust a parent to tell you the truth about the "wonders" of being a parent, not because they are malicious but because they are likely incapable of being objective.
edit: disclaimer, if it wasn't obvious, i made this all up. i don't have any children
Life is so fundamentally different before and after you have children you must care for. There is no amount of theorizing or philosophizing that will prepare you for the reality of the thing. You absolutely cannot trust the opinion of anyone who does not have children. They simply do not have the necessary experience.
People with children however, have had life without children and life with children. So at least they have a basis of comparison. However, every experience is different. Being a single teen mom is a different situation than even being a teen mom with a supportive family. And different again than a "typical" mid-20s couple having a child.
And everyone reacts differently. I can only say how experiences affected me. Bob can only say how experiences affected him. So you really can't base your decision on other people's experiences either. Not because of "greater fools" but because of self-selection bias. Most people who you will talk to about being parents enjoy parenthood and love their children.
So while you don't know whether or not you'd be a good parent or if you'd like your children until you actually have children, it's still a decent reason to avoid having them. Not wanting to confront the question is a valid reason to avoid the question.
Would I love to sit around and play video games in the large amounts of free time I would have if I didn't have a family? Sure. But that instantaneous gratification does not compare to the more "overall" happiness of having a family. For me. Clearly, it's different for everyone.
It makes a lot of assumptions about all parents having the same experience. It’s not. A lot of this assumes kids without any health issues.
“The low-sleep phase is temporary.” Nope. “Same goes for changing diapers” Nope.
There are lots of good things when it comes to children, and I love mine, but if you aren’t mentally prepared for the possibility that your entire life will have to change, you might want to think harder.
It might not happen to you, but it could also happen. Do not let someone pretend that it’s all temporary.
No.
It’s literally for the rest of your life.
Huh? Does your child have an issue where they never grow out of diapers?
For the vast majority of people, the diaper phase is temporary.
Sure, but it is far from a guarantee. And you should at least be aware of that.
You guess what? That potential parents should be prepared to take care of their children for their entire life? I think that's reasonable. Things happen all the time, too, where tragedies happen and people suffer medical issues that require lifetime care.
Being a parent is committing to that.
And if your thought is "I'm going to gamble that it doesn't happen to me" is really telling.
Regardless, being informed is important. Maybe you got lucky in your ignorance, but not everyone will be so lucky.
> “The low-sleep phase is temporary.” Nope. “Same goes for changing diapers” Nope.
Someone made the point that, in some small fraction of cases, a child might be in diapers their whole life.
What would you call the diaper-changing phase, if not "temporary"? "Temporary in 99.999% of cases"? It's certainly not "permanent."
If you want children, do not wait. It will never be 'better situation'. There will be always some reason, mostly financial not to have them.
Yes, it's possible to put it off long enough thinking you'll find that perfect time, and either it getting to be too late, or perhaps running into the reality that with age comes higher likelihood of birth defects, in many cases. But the flat advice to just do it seems like it's missing a bit of at least a basic foundation advised.
I worked with folks who had kids in high school. They made it work, and had a different cultural background, but nothing about it seemed like the best idea -- at LEAST they had multigenerational households to cover some of the otherwise likely insurmountable difficulties particularly on the budgets they had working service industry jobs.
Only in the last 100 (maybe even less, say 60) or so years we've started to say fk that, when I retire I want to be on a beach and not taking care of my grandkids.
Our forefathers changed this dynamic by making this arrangement somewhat invisible, in that we pay social security tax instead. We still take care of our parents, but not directly, and it's by the gun of the tax man rather than by a family arrangement. There is little incentive for this kind of unspoken bargaining of the past where you may take care of shelter and the grandparents take care of a kid. There's an IRS agent waiting with a gun if you don't pay social security, so any unspoken bargaining power is gone and the working age parent basically gets the squeeze from both sides.
I would say that the major factor isn't age, it's situation. If you are in a stable relationship with someone who can help financially and emotionally support an additional human, having a child could be an option.
If you are in a precarious situation, do not bring another human into it.
I disagree that there will never be a better situation. A couple with secure cash flows and in demand talents can optimize when they have kids to accommodate goals (for example, their preferred living situation, career goals, etc).
Things like moving, and working strenuous roles while having kids seems less than ideal. Of course, if you want 5 kids then waiting is not an option, but if you want 2, then there is some room for maneuvering.
Oh and that I'll have a partner who will stay healthy (and loyal) for the 15 ~ 25 years it takes to turn a child into a self-sustaining responsible adult.
But as it stands that's a game of Russian Roulette that I'm not willing to play.
The LVB (lowest viable bar) is "will I be able to have a civil conversation with this person about our child whenever needed, for at least 20 years?"
People get so bitterly disappointed when "unconditional love" doesn't happen, they can't even meet the LVB. Keep LVB front and center when evaluating a potential mate. If the answer is "yes, no matter what happens, we can always be civil about the children", then no matter what, it should be okay.
I agree with you, although that's necessary but not sufficient.
Having children isn't so wonderful that I'd put up for decades with a miserable relationship with my partner in the endeavor.
With children in the mix, especially unhealthy children who require special support, you can't just say "looks like we've grown apart and can't communicate well anymore about even the basics, so cya".
It's a lifelong commitment to a cofounder, no matter what.
Agreed, but that's not what I said nor even implied. If you're insisting on staying together for decades, and happily so to boot, that is a very high bar indeed. Such a high bar that only very few couples manage it. Few couples even manage the LVB.
No. If you want to have kids, you have to know that even if you divorce, even horribly, even catastrophically, that you can have a civil conversation as needed about the child for at least 20 years. If you're not sure, don't do it. Do not have a child. Spare the children and the world your children.
I am the father of a three-year-old girl. I would go through my marriage a thousand times, complete with abuse and emotional trauma, if it meant I could get my daughter in the end.
I’ve found that happiness has never been found by endeavoring to avoid any and all potential suffering. I cannot control how my wife behaves. I can only control my reaction.
Find a partner that is emotionally resilient, calm under pressure, and has a desire to continually better themselves, then go for it. It may still end in divorce, but I promise you it will be worth it.
It sounds like you're blessed (whether in the religious or random probability sense) with a daughter who is your joy. The worst partner and the ugliest divorce in the world can't offset that.
I have no assurance that I'll be similarly blessed, and I don't want to roll those dice, because I have no idea to what degree the game is rigged against me, genetically, environmentally and circumstantially speaking.
Adults can marry, get along, fight with, or divorce adults. But once there's a child in the mix one's hands are tied.
If it's a healthy, loving and developing child, it might all be worth it. The odds of that are not only unknowable, they're relatively risky.
Yeah.. I am a new dad to a 21 week old baby girl (our first) and I would say that the sleep deprivation stopped after about 8 weeks. The last few weeks have been absolutely amazing. I play with my daughter every day, I cuddle her, her giggles warm my heart and make me dream and get excited about the future. So many amazing things to look forward to. I can't wait to build a snowman with her. I can't wait to go snorkelling, skiing, ice skating, surfing, etc. with her. I can't wait to take her to places and answer all her questions and tell her stories and spend time together. Until now my best friend was my wife, but now we have an additional best friend in our life. It's someone to play a board game with in the evening when all our other friends are too busy watching Netflix. It's an extra person to have dinner with and have interesting conversations with. An extra person who will challenge me in my thinking, will educate me on issues I would be unaware of as an older person now. An extra person to argue with, love, hug, miss and root for in her own accomplishments.
Who doesn't want an additional best friend in their life? Someone who you love so much that you know everything that you accumulate in your life you can happily pass down to?
What I find interesting is that the same people who argue that having children is such a churn and piece of work because of the nappy changes, short lived lack of sleep, etc. are the same people who end up having 2 cats and a dog. That doesn't make sense to me. If you don't like to change nappies for a few months then why did you pick a pet which you'll have to walk to the park at 5am in the morning for many years to come just so it can have a piss and shit every morning. My friends with pets are much more limited in visiting restaurants or going on holiday than my friends with kids. Kids go everywhere, pets don't.
Later I had kids and that did not change my opinion!
The weird thing is that I miss this phase. They're little for such a short amount of time and there's just nothing else like this pre-toddler phase. Maybe it's the oxytocin that just wipes your memory clean of all the fatigue and sleep deprivation.
> Articles like this one, which are written by someone who apparently has chosen not to have children, are almost universally terrible at representing the true experience of being a parent.
There's an interesting wrinkle into the answer you get, however. If you ask parents in one environment (say, at the workplace) about their thoughts on children they will often be different than asking about them in the act of raising those children. There is often an irreconcilable difference between our experience in the moment and how we later remember that experience. It's possible to be quite miserable raising children and still think back on it fondly.
I'm not sure what that implies on the advice of consulting actual parents unless you know which you would prefer optimizing for.
Honestly the biggest impact on my life so far is having to keep in mind that there is a developing person following me (both literally and figuratively) and copying exactly what I do and say.
It's not so bad blabla.
Imagine someone doing the opposite to those who want them.
Some men and women just aren't interested.
Yes, being a parent involves a period of reduced sleep (as this author points out). No, it does not mean your world ends and you’re never sleeping again. The low-sleep phase is temporary. It’s such a short duration relative to the rest of your life as a parent that it really doesn’t matter much in the long run. Same goes for changing diapers and dealing with baby vomit. If you’re focused on these experiences as the defining characteristics of being a parent, you’ll completely miss the big picture.
This article also has a big strawman at the center:
> I don't see how babies could possibly come back as the preferred lifestyle choice for couples in their 20s
Most of the parents I know in my area had kids in their 30s. And it’s fine! Obviously you don’t want to be too old, but having kids in your 30s is basically the norm among working professionals. The fact that this author is focused on having kids in your 20s makes me wonder if they’re living in a childfree peer bubble or if they’re simply too young to see their friends and peers grow up, have children, and enjoy it.