Keep telling yourself that. Kids can be not just ok, not just good, not just great, but the best thing to happen to you in your life.

The studies you refer to regard subjective happiness at particularly difficult child rearing years.

Anecdata from older childless people, the emptiness of childless life once you’re beyond young adulthood is sobering and incredibly sad.

But yeah hold onto those studies that make you feel ok.

Having children is a lot like religion: I have many friends with children and they're nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for not [having children/being religious] and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with.

I hear you. But I will also tell you that until you have children of your own, it is difficult to appreciate the value they bring.

They are work and require sacrifice but it can be an investment that pays huge dividends for the rest of your life.

You’re not a bad person if you don’t want children. I think most people with children trying to convince you to have some are well-meaning and just don’t want childless people to miss out.

My advice would be: if even a small part of you thinks you want children, just do it. You will grow to take on the new responsibility. But do it no later than age 40.

Having children changes you right quick. It's not just that you have to change therefore you do. No, it's that it just changes you. A 20 year old dad can be much more mature than a 40 year old bachelor, but there's no reason to think that the 20 year old dad will have less fun than the 40 year old bachelor.

There are tangos (and I'm sure country western, and other songs) that are all about the protagonist having had all these ladies as a young man, but never a woman, or how they left behind the one woman who was their soul mate just to get laid with lots of others. E.g., Ansiedad, by Juan D'Arienzo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoHGmN9GTPM https://www.musixmatch.com/es/letras/Juan-D-Arienzo/Ansiedad...

Here's Nick Freitas talking about getting married at 19: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u_q8-UNk4TU

.....and there are plenty of stories of people who got married way too early before they learned who they are and were miserable and got divorced. There are plenty of kids with horror stories of growing up in those loveless households.

Right.

But if you’re mature enough to debate the pros and cons of having children, you hopefully won’t be a bad parent if you do choose have kids.

When a couple of 20 year olds decides to have children, they're almost certainly not mature enough, but it can and should work out.

Why are they most certainly not mature enough. Having children in the 20s or has been the standard for essentially all of human history until the last 30 years, give or take. What is it about modern society that makes human beings less fit for parenthood than every previous generation?

Yes, I'm aware. It's taking a chance. Now if the two kids (for, if they are 19, 20, 21, 22, ... they are kids) have had a good education from their parents and relatives and friends, and hopefully also if those people are around and willing to help them, then they should be able to work through difficulties.

Why before 40? Do the kids turn into gremlins if I'm older?

There are many well-known challenges to conceiving and having a successful pregnancy if the man and especially the woman are near/over than 40.

Really there's often difficulty past 30.

Your 20s are the prime years for reproduction, biologically.

> My advice would be: if even a small part of you thinks you want children, just do it.

Uhh this sounds like terrible advice--kids aren't cars that can be returned or sold if it turns out the "small part" was incorrect.

If this is your view of having children, I would suggest you wait.

They are not a pet or a piece of personal property. Caring for a child is the biggest responsibility of your life. If you’re unable to grow to accept that, then it may be best to wait.

If this is your view of having children, I would suggest you wait.

They are not a pet or a piece of personal property. Caring for a child is the biggest responsibility of your life and it will likely not go according to plan. If you’re unable to grow to meet the demands, then it may be best to wait.

Caring for a pet should be for the pet's life as well, and it offends my moral sensibilities to put pets in a category alongside personal property.

I think you misunderstand me though--and I'm not sure how, to be frank, I think what I was saying was pretty clear from the context:

Precisely because it's such a huge responsibility, etc., the person to whom I was replying was giving bad advice. They were (basically) suggesting having a kid even if one is unsure about whether one wants to.

edit: oh you're the poster to whom I was replying. Above, you said:

> My advice would be: if even a small part of you thinks you want children, just do it. You will grow to take on the new responsibility.

Now you're turning around and saying "oh no, it's a grave responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly, don't do it if you're not ready".

On the other hand, not having kids is also a lot like a religion now. I want kids and have many friends who do not and they’re nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for wanting children and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with.

This is the dominant perspective on the social media that younger generations spend their time on. I’d argue that as a person in their mid 20s today, actually wanting kids is the bizarre position. I often feel alienated for openly stating it among good friends of mine.

Given how personally you've taken that off-hand comment, I'm more inclined to believe the OP than your reply.

I would rather look at the data than at the tone of the comment.

The person they were replying to referred to studies; the person you replied to essentially said they love their children and that childless people find emptyness towards the end.

I believe both, and both can be true at the same time, especially considering that I've also heard of studies which showed that people tend to diminish past negative experiences. The parent will view the here and now, with happy children that are doing well, and see that all is good and hard work paid off. The childless person may have fewer people around them in later years, but which has a greater sum of total happiness? Being able to do for fifty years whatever your heart desires, or some happy end where someone sees you go and has a lot of pain from that? (I guess the latter might be partially my bias talking, but I truly am trying to view this objectively, like how one can explain both the study and the subjective experience from the person you replied to.)

well, if we are going the anecdata route i am 70 and childless and reasonably happy. i suspect i am not alone.

I’m 66, and never had kids. Never wanted them. Thinking back now, about what my life would be had I had kids with either of my first two mates, seems like a nightmare. I frankly love my life now.

> I frankly love my life now.

What's it like?

"Can"

Seeing children today makes me feel a deep sense of despair. Watching them pushed as hard as possible into schoolwork and extracurriculars from elementary age so that they might have some shot at a decent life; it feels like watching them being fed into a meat grinder (one that I myself went through and would not wish on anyone). And I didn't have to grow up watching the trees die as my local climate changes from a humid sub-tropic coastal plain into a desert; I couldn't imagine being a child looking ahead at decades of climate change - hell, I'm not that old and so it terrifies me as well.

I agree that a world without children sounds sad, but with the way things are going, a world with them seems sadder to me.

My father was born into a world in which he had to practice subsistence farming if he didn't go to school. His was the first generation for which school was an option, and as a child he traveled 20 km by foot to the school and back, daily. My grandfather lost both parents since childhood, as back then hospitals were places where people went to die. He later fought in WW2, and lost his land to communists. During those years, he also witnessed the soviet-induced famine.

We are literally living humanity’s best years. Children today basically get sad for not having enough time to play Roblox. How sad is it that they have schoolwork to do instead of subsistence farming? And we get sad over climate change while stuffing our faces with cheap and delicious food while the AC is on.

I’d say the very definition of depression (and trust me, I’m quite the authority on it) is stuffing your face full of cheap carbs while you never leave your house for fear of heatstroke. Sure gives you time to ponder the meaninglessness of it all though, so if that’s your thing, then the world may indeed be headed in your favorite direction. Just ignore the ever rising levels of depression/anxiety/suicide in teens.

People dying from the elements is at an all time low!

As a teenager, my grandfather lost a set of teeth due to the winter's cold, by sleeping in a cold barn, and he described it as a near-death experience. If anything, for many regions of the world, the weather getting hotter may be a relief for the poor that don't have heating in the winter.

We have zero reasons to be more depressed than prior generations. If we are depressed, don't you think the constant fear porn from mass-media has more to do with it?

PS: it's not just the carbs that are cheaper and more available. It's everything, including meat. Staples of any healthy vegan diet, like green peas, or lentils, weren't even available until ~1960, after industrial agriculture caught on. Never mind the availability of fresh fruits year-round. My grandparents basically lived on a diet of polenta, potatoes, milk, and eggs, as that's what they were able to grow.

People are dying from heat stroke at higher rates than ever in my state. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/30/texas-heat-wave-deat...

I didn't have to read about it on the news; I lived it. The heat this year was soul-crushing and we're not that far into the 21st century. Do you think countries with lower rates of depression do not have mass media?

Again, people dying from the elements is at an all time low, and this is a fact: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters

Indeed, the number of people dying from extreme heat is going up, but that number was small to begin with. And you know what the solution will be? To install some air conditioning, much like how we survive winter by having indoor heating, and maybe to adjust our work schedule a little.

"Soul crushing", no offence, but JFC.

>no offence, but JFC.

Is there any world in which this trivializing response to someone expressing serious dismay is not deeply offensive?

I have a houseful of giggling, happy teens right now. The ones that are supposed to be suffering so awfully according to some. They aren’t. They have struggles and fears I know of, and many I don’t I’m sure. They are just as pragmatic about them as any generation between now and Plato (and longer) has been.

Don’t believe what you read, and perhaps don’t judge anyone at their worst moments. Don’t stereotype based on the vocal and visible few.

I’m describing my own childhood and life. Not everyone was a happy, giggling teen. Some of us have lived with an existential fear of death (could never believe the happy stories of an afterlife that I was told) from a young age.

Here’s a story written yesterday about a child who is already experiencing this in kindergarten.

https://www.thecut.com/2023/09/do-kids-need-ambition.html

You may think that because you have not suffered, no one else does, but I assure you that is not correct.

Take care.

I can’t begin to know your experience. The fact is that I live with an unyielding fear of people. So even as I’m grateful for the joy in the house right now I’m deeply uncomfortable, bordering on panic.

Im grateful that I can see the fear is unfounded but that doesn’t make it less real. That knowledge extends to knowing the fear is only impactful on others if I let it manifest in my actions. It always will, but insomuch as I choose my actions it doesn’t have to make much mark on the world.

Reading that now it feels a little awful but I absolutely don’t mean it so. I hope you can find peace for yourself.

You sound suspiciously emotional about it.

What age group are they comparing? I would bet later in life the parents are on average happier as the kids become adults.

Who cares for the childless?

Retirement communities and nursing homes are full of parents with children who do not visit them. How selfish does one must be to have children to have a retirement plan? Society cares for the childless, and we will have to learn to manage a declining population because of a population expansion everyone thought (how silly in a finite system) would last forever.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4104138-one-qua... ("One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent")

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898 ("Parent–adult child estrangement in the United States by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality")

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23124345 ("New China law says children 'must visit parents'")

"Society cares for the childless" - across lots of different cultures, and for a lot of human history, that is/was not the case.

Sure, that's how free will works, both individually and collectively. Sometimes people go without or die alone (even if they have children or society has the means and infrastructure), and that is an unfortunate component of the human experience. Hopefully we do better but there are no guarantees. Welcome to the shit show, enjoy the ride.

Bingo.

Also, self-reported happiness surveys are BS.

I’ve been to Scandinavia. They are definitely NOT among the happiest people in the world. They simply think they should say they are happy.

I have six kids. During the earlier years of their upbringing, it was very difficult. I'm not surprised surveys would reflect this. But now that they are old enough to be mostly autonomous, I realize it has been the most rewarding experience I think this life has to offer. I often wondered if I had made a mistake by choosing to have kids. Now I am immensely grateful that I stuck with it. I realize it's not for everyone, but I'd like to see such surveys at more advanced ages. I'm willing to bet the findings would be flipped.

But why is happiness later better than happiness now?

So it only matters how you feel about it at the end?

IMO the journey is more important than the end.

I’m just asking open ended questions here. I don’t have any answers.

> But why is happiness later better than happiness now?

Here are a few more to ponder:

- Why does the squirrel bury nuts in the warmer months instead of eating them right away?

- Why save money instead of spending every paycheck?

- Why not spend every day gaming, drinking and smoking?

True, however there's no guarantee that children will take care of you later, many such cases where it doesn't happen. But still, I get your point about hedonism, the Greeks thought about this often.

I think the long-term satisfaction of having happy, healthy adult children is a little deeper than how well they take care of you in old age.

For some people, not for all. What if your kids hate you or you hate them? More common than people think.

In America’s cruel and highly individualistic society, while I wouldn’t say it the majority, it’s certainly a sizable percentage of people that hate their children or their parents. I think a lot of it stems from the lack of safety nets, for profit healthcare, etc where having children results in increasing the financial burden on oneself. While all countries experience population declines as they become more developed, I think the association between that and the animosity people have toward children (and as a result, eventually, people have toward their parents) is much more variable. The US is one of the few wealthy countries where having a family can cause you to lose your job, be forced into medical debt, have to pay ridiculous child care and educational costs. The undoubtedly breeds resentment toward children and in some cases much worse behavior. During my own childhood, things weren’t even as egregious as they are now in terms of the ratio of wages to the cost of basic needs (food, housing, healthcare) and this was already obvious. I remember people behaving abusively to their children in grocery store lines and invoking how much was being spent on them, my friends being sent to school sick because their parents couldn’t afford to miss work, and myriad other signs of this. I can’t imagine what it’s like in 2023.

I am okay with this outcome. Better than no children at all.

You do you. For me, no children at all is the better outcome.

People don't necessarily have children in order to be taken care of later. People have children because that's what people do, reproduction being one of life's joys and purpose.

The experience of raising a child, watching them grow, and seeing them prosper in the world is the reward. I don't expect them to care for me when I'm old.

There’s a distinction between pleasure and happiness.

- why cultivate friendships, have experiences like travel, build hobbies and skills that will give you joy all through your life?

For many people, the time and financial cost of children means delaying or sacrificing all those.

Yes, the journey of parenthood is exactly what the person is referring to, not just the end result. Hard work is never really super enjoyable, but the work is part of the journey and you appreciate the end result.

Happiness is not the only important thing. Fulfillment, meaning, and purpose are important, too.

10 childless years with a little more money and free time vs 50 years with children and then grandchildren.

For most, the investment of having children during the front end of life is no brainer with huge returns.

But those 10 years are where I have the body to do the things I want to do.

There is no guarantee that my body will be healthy and capable of things like extreme sports and adventures later.

It’s a decision all of us have to make individually.

My only suggestion is try to consider what you may want at 50, 60, 70 and how you have a short window in your 20s and 30s to have children.

Yeah, I don't really want my 50s, 60s, 70s to be all that different from now in my 30s.

For me that means being deeply immersed in my hobbies, and traveling the world and being active etc. All that I expect to change are toning down the active activities to things that an older body can still manage, like skiing, scuba diving, hiking etc.

I can't see ever wanting kids or even coming close to that as I haven't even ever had a desire for a partner yet.

> Yeah, I don't really want my 50s, 60s, 70s to be all that different from now in my 30s.

I would argue that you often have no idea what your future self will want. This is why advice from elders, parables and traditions are valuable. Ignore what they suggest at your own risk.

Maybe I'm weird, but so far I am 36 and have always seemed to know exactly what I want from life at every step so far and have done that and it's been excellent. And it's been quite far from any advice I've gotten from others more senior to me.

There just isn't a single thing about a significant other or kids that I have ever even thought about wanting.

It just seems very weird to me to do a complete 180 and pursue all these things that I have 0 interest in pursuing. I wouldn't even know how to begin. Forcing myself to get a significant other etc just seems like a bad idea and at the very least a big disservice to whoever I end up pursuing.

I can't answer that for anyone but myself, but I will say the journey of raising kids changed me significantly, such that the "happiness" I experienced previous to having a family seems so shallow in comparison.

> But why is happiness later better than happiness now?

When you work on something you love, you don't see it as a burden, though sometimes it might objectively be a burden. There's no trade-off between happiness now and happiness later in that case.

Perhaps part of it is whether one has the disposition to find happiness in things that are hard work. Perception matters. If changing diapers and looking after infants and toddlers in general is your idea of a bad time, it shouldn't surprise if you then find that you have a bad time doing it. On the other hand if you see changing diapers and all that as incidental to a great adventure, then you're going to be happy to do those chores, and very happy overall.

> IMO the journey is more important than the end.

The journey to where? To death. There's no other end. Therefore we must enjoy the journey -- make it fulfilling, joyful, enjoyable. But how? We are not all born into great wealth, so most of us have to work hard some of the time in order to have great fun the rest of the time. If we see downtime-enabling hard work as a serious burden, we're not likely to enjoy the journey.

Parenting is like that, and like many creative activities it is intrinsically rewarding. In any creative endeavor, your creations may outlast you, and that may make the endeavor more meaningful than a more hedonistic life. Parenting is a creative endeavor; the knowledge that you'll be remembered long after you're gone is part of the reward of parenting, but the love of parenting while you're doing it is much greater still.

> When you work on something you love, you don't see it as a burden

So people who don't love their job should not have kids, got ya. By not having kids you can live so cheaply that you barely need to work a job. If kids means you spend 8 hours a day being miserable and the rest of the time worrying about it then kids will make you miserable.

That's a very negative way to look at it. For one, you could just, you know, find a job you like doing. Also, you might have one partner stay at home. There's lots of ways to make it work without ending up hating the enterprise.

> you could just, you know, find a job you like doing

And if you fail? Do you still recommend having kids? In my experience there is great overlap between not wanting kids and hating work, for such people kids would likely ruin their life. Fathers being miserable and some killing themselves due to having to work jobs they hate so much is common, people just don't want to live like that.

I had a coworker at an old job get laid off and was only able to find work stocking vending machines. He eventually killed himself, leaving behind a wife and daughter. Not everyone can find a job they like doing; in fact, it's a massive privilege.

“All joy, no fun” and vice versa. You can’t really win.

Actually, grandparents have it good. They get the fulfilment of family without the relentless grind of parenting.

Does this survey ask people after age 45, 55, and so on?

The winter can be much colder for those without warm memories of summer.

I think the modern day western world is obsessed with "maximizing happiness" as the purpose of life and that's a lifestyle choice that people have adopted as religion plays a lesser role in their lives.

I'm not sure we should accept the premise that maximizing subjective happiness is a suitable replacement as if we all just didn't have children and were thus "happier", would the world really work or would there be no future for humanity?

I'm not sure what the purpose of life is and obviously for every person that purpose is probably very different, but I'm skeptical of the idea that maximizing subjective happiness is a good life philosophy and it seems like everyone has adopted it everywhere.

But what is the alternative? You've said it yourself that religion plays a lesser role in people's lives, so people apparently don't feel they should optimize for a better hypothetical afterlife.

What remains are two options:

1. Optimize for the future/betterment of humanity

2. Optimize for your own happiness

Option 1 feels a bit like optimizing for something that will always be our of reach for me personally. It's almost like a reverse pyramid game where I'm doing something that only people who will live after me will benefit from. Except they won't really, as they'll be optimizing for yet farther into the future.

I'm perfectly happy optimizing to keep the planet a great place to live, but as half of a consciously childless couple I don't feel particularly inclined to make sure that there are actually descendants to enjoy this planet. I'm okay if other species inherit the earth

I'm just a commenter on hacker news, I can't tell you what the purpose of life is. Here are some of my thoughts though.

I believe that everything should be taken in moderation and that extremes generally are bad, so you should not totally optimize on any one thing, but should generally do somethings you enjoy and some that give you pleasure. You should do somethings for humanity and somethings for the community and to make others do well. You should probably take some ideas from religion and integrate them into your life, but not become a zealot. I think you should try to have children if you can, because children seem to be some aspect of the world and life that's important. I think you should try and make some money and work in a field that get good pay, but that you do enjoy and that's relatively stable. I think you should try and be there for your family and view them as a small community, but not expect anything from them or try and fight with them. I think you should avoid drugs and other things that are generally bad for you if you can.

To the people who believe that happiness is the point of life. I also think there is a decent amount of scientific evidence that people's happiness levels are pretty static over time and if you find some success in your life, you will be happy for a short time, but your happiness will return to the static level of your life. I think that people, and things, and many external things cannot make you happy and happiness can only be found from within. However, I don't think that that is the point.

I think that our natural dissatisfaction with the world and unhappiness about it is how we make the world a better place and that it is how progress is made by celebrating our wins and then becoming dissatisfied and trying to be better.

Maximizing happiness is the purpose of life - but most people don't know how to be happy. You can't maximize what you don't understand.