Well, I have 2 sons. 25 and 15. I am 45. If you want to have kids, just have them. Or if they happen, let them happen.

Yes, they are a lot of work. Yes, they are a lot of commitment. Lots of sleepless nights, lots of extra work as you want to be a father and a provider. But so what? Its not very complicated work, just lots of it. And life is too beautiful to slack around, so you can just as well spend them with your kids.

I don't think people should have kids very young, but if you're 25+ and you think you want kids some day, just let it happen.

Don't worry about being ready, because nothing can truly prepare you for it. You will never be ready for your first child because there's nothing you can do to train for it.

Just do it.

>> kids take a lot of work, you have to be in the right place to do it.

I think it's a certain type of personality that believes this. I know somebody who gets worried for certain friends/family having children because they don't own their house or have high paid jobs. They have a laundry list of todo's (mostly financial) before they will even consider having children. It's almost condescending but I choose to see it as more of an unnecessary fear/anxiety. People make do. People get knocked up, they get unemployed, they get help from friends and family where possible, and they love their kids just as much as the people who planned it on a Jira board.

I grew up poor and financial anxiety was real, I just couldn't fathom how people were living with it. I could barely tolerate it for myself, let alone bring kids into the world while being uncertain. It didn't feel like anything condescending, just a lack of understanding.

Now I'm very well off and could retire (fat fire equivalent) at 34 and I do want kids.

I grew up similarly and am also well off financially now too at 33. Yet, I can’t find a woman who would want to have kids with me.

The market has changed. Looks is paramount - I worked so hard to be financially stable and didn’t realize that it wasn’t my parents financial situation that had fucked me over so badly in life - it was their dogshit genetics that made me ugly.

// Looks is paramount - I worked so hard to be financially stable and didn’t realize that it wasn’t my parents financial situation that had fucked me over so badly in life - it was their dogshit genetics that made me ugly.

A guy with a job and a gym membership is more attractive than 90% of men by default. Do you really have a "looks problem" that wouldn't be resolved in 12 months by actively working out, eating well, a good haircut and a great wardrobe?

> Do you really have a "looks problem" that wouldn't be resolved in 12 months by actively working out, eating well, a good haircut and a great wardrobe?

A gym only takes you so far. There are things out of one's control - height, hair pattern, face shape, etc.

Although I do believe that you're right in the sense that not being overweight and having a stable job already places you in the top 10-15% of men. It's just that sometimes it's not enough and looks are pretty important for women (even though it's not often said out loud)

//It's just that sometimes it's not enough and looks are pretty important for women

An obvious counter-point to that are the millions of short/bald/ugly/whatever guys who are married and have kids.

FWIW, women are turned off by guys who are gross and don't take care of themselves. A guy who intentionally makes the best of what he's got is already ahead.

> An obvious counter-point to that are the millions of short/bald/ugly/whatever guys who are married and have kids.

It's a counterpoint only if you don't understand statistics at all.

Sure, there are millions of short/bald guys married to women. Out of billions.

Getting married isn't a random event like a coin landing on heads... You can bias the outcome pretty much 100% through variables under your control like fitness, neatness, personality, sanity, earning power.

No, not 100%.

I've already outlined a number of things that are not under one's control.

We don't have to keep going in circles. You're free to disagree.

there are millions of short bald guys who are married just in the US.

I can think of, just off the top of my head, like 3+ guys I used to work with.

More like 6 if you include friends and my barber.

the "I need Looksmaxxing" my appearance is everything screams "I am an incel and can only date supermodels, who seem to reject me"

Victim blaming and not understanding how statistics work.

You're a real catch!

Sorry to hear that. The comment below does give good advice, presuming you're not an actual goblin and that you're somewhere around average height, you can put odds in your favor by staying fit, well dressed and well groomed. Lack of hair, get hair implants, etc. Get braces or dental work if needed.

The result is superficial but the confidence gains will be real and you'll feel better either way.

After that I would advise signing up to a rock climbing gym or something and getting out to meet girls in real life, in case your dating app profile still doesn't help by then.

I think most of all, let go of your hate towards yourself/your parents/your appearance. This kind of bitterness consumes you after a while and it will show in your personality.

The way you carry yourself and the energy you give off matters more than your looks.

You sound bitter. That’s an unattractive trait. Your emotions are genuine and shouldn’t be ignored, but you need to process them and move on.

Looks are important, but you're lucky you're a man because status is just as important, especially if you're older and want to meet younger women. Lean into it: dress sharp, a little dressy and look sophisticated. There is a certain percentage of women who prefer the experienced, financially-set older guy who can show them things the younger guys can't. And to those women, looks are secondary because they don't go for older guys for their looks.

> but you're lucky you're a man because status is just as important

Am I lucky? I work in tech. I'd say about half of the women I talk to at bars in NYC end up turning away as soon as we shift to the discussion of what I do for work. I dress much better than most men but I am short, ugly, and not blessed with the high T that is required to gain lots of muscle mass even if I am in the gym obsessively.

Hate to break it to you but the market has changed.

> only talks to women in bars in NYC

> surprised that he only interacts with shallow hoes

Never, not once, had a random woman interested in my IT shit unless they're also in STEM themselves. "Boring IT guy shit" is the correct answer, and then change the subject. If they know anything about it or care, they'll ask.

You probably just boring. Change that.

As someone who just had a kid, I agree. You don’t have to overthink it. At the end of the day all they need is a calorie surplus and shelter. That’s it. Everything else is a bonus. As a parent you can put as much or as little work into it as you like. Time is going to pass and they’ll grow older regardless. It’s not like a tech startup where you have to put work in or it’ll crash and burn.

Bad parenting or neglectful often produces bad outcomes does it not?

This is unfortunate to read. Of course everything doesn’t need to be planned, but food and shelter are the bare minimum.

Bad outcome in what way? Even if you’re a so-called bad parent, they’ll still have a similar life expectancy, and a similar chance of creating grandchildren.

Maybe they won’t be an A student when they reach school but does it actually matter?

There’s kids who literally survived the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and lived very successful lives after.

That said there is a natural instinct to be a decent parent. You don’t really have to try or be ready to. Just need to be around. In my opinion it’s similar to the instinct to turn off a burning stove - a bunch of common sense stuff that requires zero planning.

Success as a parent is much more than just "my child is alive and getting older"

Are they becoming a happy person? good, moral person? Do they contribute to society or are they a drain on society? Do you, the parent, have to bail them out of jail every other weekend?

Don't neglect your kids, people. Please.

A child's peer group has more influence over those questions than parents do. It's no excuse to neglect your children, but society places far more blame on parents than is warranted IMO.

While the child's peer group does have the strong influence on a few of those questions, it's probably worth noting that as the parent you build the tools that allows the child to develop the peer group that allows for them to be happy.

The unfortunate reality is that this groundwork is laid from around 0-10. After that it's a lot harder to correct the mistakes and the influence then definitely falls much more under peers than the parents.

exactly. i didn't have a peer group as a child. and my parents are the only ones responsible for that. i am not blaming them, because they couldn't do better, but most definitely their influence and making sure that i am in an environment where i can make friends is something they were responsible for.

Not really. The most meaningful outcome for a child's life is the mate selection of the parents. Parenting generally has no effect; see the letter sent to Maher as a really good synopsis: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/taming-the-tiger-mo...

I'm not disagreeing with what you've linked said but it's pretty well documented that there are negative events that can lead to long term impacts on children. The letter you linked seems to glance over parents who are abusive, whether that is verbal, physical, or neglectful.

For those that want to dive in a little bit these are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). It's not an end all be all chance that you'll develop something with a long term impact but the more you experience the more likely you are to do so.

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/riskprotectivefa...

You can do everything right and your kid will still have an ACE.

Lil Timmy falls down a well, or has a really handsy neighbour, or has to see someone get hit by a car.

Like, obviously, don't beat your kids, but you don't need to be superlative parent, esp. since a great deal of their education and raising will happen, essentially, in someone elses workplace (i.e. school).

Surely for such a counterintuitive idea, we can do better for evidence than a rambling blog post about a letter to a TV show host. The evidence for such a strong claim should be pretty strong, and given the state of the replication crisis in the relevant fields, linking to a bunch of studies doesn't mean much anymore.

Completely disagree. You do whatever with your own life. But kid is a 3rd person that you bring. If the life they are coming to is already bad, financially, legged behind from others in many ways, or any other, that's selfish. Forcing someone to terrible start without their consent.

Parent should first make sure they are good to bring someone else and not to give a disadvantage start, playing gamble with life who did not ask.

It is insane to me that people think otherwise.

How callous can you be to bring a life into the world and think "i'm just gonna wing it" in this day and age. The kid didn't ask to be brought here, it is 100% under the responsibility and care of whoever decided to have it.

I'm not saying people shouldn't wing it, but some people clearly think they (or other parents) can control more things than are practical or healthy. You should try to be a responsible parent, but knowing how much you need to worry about individual things isn't easy. It's not practical to do everything various people say you should do. One expert will advise the opposite of what another does, and over times people flip flop back and forth. In the end I don't see how it couldn't involve some level of winging things.

So to preface this, my spouse and I are trying for our first kid so I'm not a parent yet. I've been reading a lot and talking to friends who are parents.

> If the life they are coming to is already bad, financially, legged behind from others in many ways, or any other, that's selfish. Forcing someone to terrible start without their consent. > > Parent should first make sure they are good to bring someone else and not to give a disadvantage start, playing gamble with life who did not ask.

Literally every aspect of raising a kid is a gamble, but there are degrees to these things. What counts as a "disadvantage" isn't always clear, let alone the degree to which it is actually harmful. Making a few mistakes or not doing things perfectly is probably fine. There is a huge problem with pregnancy and parenthood where controlled studies can't be done for ethical reasons, the number of confounding variables is about as extreme as it can get, and the outcomes you're measuring often aren't even well defined (what does it mean to have succeeded as a parent? What does it mean for someone to have a happy life?).

It's important to try to make your kids have a happy life, but there's a lot of disagreement on how exactly to do that. One factor that seems to have a huge effect is having parents who express their love for their kids and spend time with them. It's important for parents to take care of themselves and their relationship with their partner. One part of that is not burning yourself out trying to hyper-optimize things.

Agreed. I was always on the fence about children, and eventually decided/realized a strong desire to have children is a responsible prerequisite.

This 1000%

I wish my parents had had this wisdom.

// I used to be the person that said "yeah, go have kids" and now I'm "only do it if you're completely sure its what you want" because if you're not it's the children suffering through it.

I think more people are ready to be good parents despite doubts that your post implies. If you are completely broke, drug addicted, violent, etc - then yes you should work on those things first. Otherwise, if you're anything like a mainstream member of society you're probably ready and capable.

I found that my "ability" to be a dad switched the moment the kids arrived. Most of us do our best when the occasion demands it and being a dad elevates what is asked of you in the best of ways. Even things that would seem like nigh mares to a single version of myself (eg: changing diapers), feel totally fine - like I am doing exactly what I should be doing right now.