Cringing at the thought of expressing yourself isn't healthy.
That’s not what I said, and if you engage with my comment until the end in good faith you might realise that. I specifically said it is a positive for the author to share what makes them happy.
But “cringe” was definitely the wrong word and weakened what I was attempting to express. I had just came from that subreddit and failed to identify the correct feeling. This is not an excuse, the error there was mine.
> There is no extracting the objective from the emotional when the very topic is the emotions it makes you feel.
Then be honest about it and say you’re speaking to your experience, don’t pretend you’re making a list to “advance the discussion” or “help others make up their mind”. That’s exactly my point. I was genuinely interested in the article until I realised it was just personal gushing. Which again, is fine, just be honest about it.
In other words, I completely agree with you. But what you’re defending the author for is not what they did.
I’m two months in with my first child and I can honestly say I’ve never experienced love like this, it’s awesome and I feel everyone should get to experience it.
Additionally, while I can agree that kids are the best thing ever for some people, it’s important to recognise that is not a universal feeling. Which isn’t just theoretical, some people do have kids and are or became miserable. You lucked out, and I’m genuinely happy for you (and your kids, because having a happy parent will give them a better life).
In short, it’s not a universal experience and it’s nonsensical to claim that would be the case.
One of my cousins had difficult pregnancies, and finally managed to have a kid around 10 years ago. Since basically COVID, when her child was around 6, she started fleeing her house, finding more and more stuff to do, quitting a balanced job to go into entrepreneurship that ate her days, and basically stopped interacting with her child. After a disaster (an ecological one), they had to come back last winter, and she finally broke down in front of her mother and aunts saying she doesn't love her child as much as she should, she doesn't feel any joy in parenting, that she is a bad mom and should have her child removed as she can't look at him without feeling guilty.
I'm pretty sure a honest description of what being a parent means, and people saying to her that you don't _have_ to feel the same as others before she hurt her relationship with her child would have been helpful (but well, spilled milk and all that).
My personal opinion is that people mostly lie to themselves then to others about what they really feel in general, so posts like this have no impact on my opinion (that said, children are great: the 4 month to 30month is a bit of a grind and difficult, but once they're past that its fun and games).
Yes, I’ve had a baby fall asleep on my chest. Personally I prefer when a cat does it.
Yes, I’ve seen a baby sneeze. It doesn’t even register in my top favourite things and definitely does not make up for the rest.
Yes, I make my friends laugh, and I’ve made them wheeze hard until they’re out of breath with clever ideas we can all build upon. If your friends are faking laughs around you and in a way you can’t tell, I’m afraid to say maybe they’re just acquaintances.
Yes, I’ve been stared at with “unfiltered love and wonder”. By an adult, who has reason to and does it out of genuine felt affection for the person I am and the things I do, not simply because I’m the person in front of them and they’re ignorant of everything around them.
And on and on. I could address literally every point.
Look, you do you. If you enjoy being a parent, more power to you. But this list doesn’t really “[contribute] to the debate” nor will it “help others make up their mind”, especially when the cons are clearly dishonest or at best uninformed by a fatherhood which hasn’t even spanned half a year yet. You’re either trying really hard to convince yourself that you like being a parent (which is a bad sign) or you’re genuinely so happy (good sign) that you just wanted to gush to the world. Which is fine, sometimes we just want to share what makes us happy and that’s positive, let’s just not pretend this list is in any way an honest attempt at conversation.