A word of advice to anyone on the fence about having kids: There’s nothing wrong with choosing not to have kids, but do yourself and consult with actual parents for what it’s really like to have kids. 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.
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.
Having a kid is the most fun I’ve ever had. Used to go to raves, done bunch of crazy sexual stuff, as well as most drugs under the sun. There’s nothing close to chasing a toddler in a circle for an hour.
Complete disagreement. Toddlers were completely uninteresting to me, nothing but hassle and pain and sorrow. Around 6 years old they get much more interesting and less awful to deal with.
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.
Same here. On Friday afternoon I'm already looking forward to Monday.
I'm ok to play with a toddler for couple o hours, but entertaining a small but very active child for two days is really exhausting. I wish day care was opened on the weekends too, at least for few hours.
This is so true. I can’t believe how much I love having a kid. And mine’s only 6 months old. I’m beyond excited to actually do things with him, like run around with him, or go skiing/ride bikes.
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.
> I don’t like the view that having kids means giving up on what you love to do in life.
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.
A parent being able to travel for a few days while one parent manages the kids is not abnormal.
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.
I have a video recording of one irrationally happy time, I recorded it because I had a nifty new camera that could do it... the subject... me and my daughter in her car seat, waiting for my Wife to do some shopping.
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.
Is this satire? I have a child and the monotonous boredom of dealing with a toddler forces me to suppress the distant memories of freedom to go to raves, fight in foreign militia, get lost in stormy mountains, hitchhike across the plains...
Chasing your toddler for an hour is fun. Chasing your toddler day after day, hour after hour because you have no one else to help you might not be so fun.
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.
The bit of advice I got from another parent before I had kids was golden: parents need time off the clock. Sometimes you need to hear your kid screeching about something and know it's someone else's problem. We don't have family around, so we give each other breaks on the weekend, usually one day where my spouse and I give each other half-day breaks. Idk what it's going to be like when he's older, but for now it works.
Same here. My wife likes to sleep in, I like to wake up early.
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.
Exactly. It seems that most of the "childfree" arguments are based on this terrible modern, industrial, low-trust worldview that assumes that parents are solely responsible for their kids.
Unless both parents come from a really dysfunctional family, this should never be the case.
>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.
I'm from Brazil, my wife is from Greece. We are both living in Germany. So I'm well aware of what you are talking about.
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) 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'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) 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.
I would guess money is a frequent issue, plus visa and other family obligations such as other siblings great grandparents. Health issues too since grandparents are older than in previous times.
Apologies in advance for the (slight) moving of the goal posts, but to me the problems you mention do point to very dysfunctional aspects of modern life and common family structures:
- "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 sort this out after it solves 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.
Yeah Brazil at least has Mercosur. It's pretty crazy North America doesn't have something similar considering capital can mostly freely flow between NAFTA countries. (although we do have something similar with compact free association i.e. micronesia / palau / marshall islands)
Why do you assume "dysfunctional"?
Flying costs money. Having apartment big enough to accommodate 3 adults plus one or two kids costs money. Family members have to work too.
There is no black and white here.
- 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.)
There's just a lot of variation between people and families.
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.
As the downvotes for your comment shows, it isn't acceptable to express dislike for having children. With this in mind we ought to take all positive things people say with a grain of salt, since a lot of those things will be said to get social points and many people avoid complaining since it isn't acceptable.
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.
This entire post is people talking about not wanting children. Not wanting and not having children has been a way to signal group membership in the PMC class for decades now. Social media is full of people complaining about kids on airplanes, in restaurants etc.
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.
Well, if you grow up with abusive parents who were miserable and constantly depressed, you likely don't want kids to avoid going down the same route. But that sort of upbringing likely means you are miserable as well.
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 like to say that, in being a parent, I'm less happy on an "instantaneous" basis, but more happy overall; more fulfilled. I expect, to some extent, it has something in common with volunteering at a charity. It's not the actual act of doing the work that makes you happy, it's the fact that you're doing the work for a reason.
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.
Surely you have a cut off on the lower bound below which you don't offer this advice. 21? 18? 16? 13?
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.
On your last paragraph that's how human raised kids for the first 10k+ years. In small groups of multigenerational settings.
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.
It seems like the experiment of retirement is a recent phenomenon and one that the jury is still out in terms of whether it's a good idea, let alone sustainable.
Before 100 years ago there was precious little nation-state level social security, so families were far more dependent upon other family members. Middle age parents needed to support their parents directly, so there was an obvious quid-pro-quo for the grandparent to take care of the child.
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.
While this might be right for overall humanity, for white collar professional workers specifically (typical audience of HN), I think late 20's / early 30's is a pretty good time to have kids - people have a solid 10 years of career experience under their belt, proportional amount of savings which help with both a financial cushion and with down payment for a house and some emotional maturity. On the other hand, one can get all sorts of experiences in 20's and their novelty starts wearing off. Finally, one is still young enough to have enough energy for child rearing.
A guy I worked with told me this advice and I wish I listened. We still had a kid early relatively to my other friends, I was 29 and wife was 27. It's better to be chasing around young kids when your 24 vs 34 I'll tell you that. But of course you're only as old as you feel.
I had my first at 32, and that was earlier than my friends. And when I pick mine up at daycare, I feel like I am the youngest. But I also do not feel noticeably worse off physically in mid 30s compared to mid 20s.
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.
Of course there are better situations, there's just no perfect situation. Your advice entails people should have kids in high school with their sweetheart if they want to. That's obviously wrong.
At worst their advice is just as wrong as the conventional wisdom they're contradicting.
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.
Pretty consistently research has found waiting until at least roughly 30 or so leads to greater average life satisfaction for parents. I'm not going to provide a rigorous or even cited defense here but I spent several days sifting through the studies before coming to this conclusion. I encourage the reader to also study the journals before coming to their own conclusion.
If someone could guarantee that I'll have healthy children, physically, mentally and emotionally, then sure I'll put up with reduced sleep and baby vomit.
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.
As someone going through a horrible divorce, replete with custody fights and the whole nine yards, I’d still say that you’re thinking about this wrong.
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.
> Find a partner that is emotionally resilient, calm under pressure, and has a desire to continually better themselves, then go for 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.
> Oh and that I'll have a partner who will stay healthy (and loyal)...
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.
> If the answer is "yes, no matter what happens, we can always be civil about the children
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.
> Having children isn't so wonderful that I'd put up for decades with a miserable relationship with my partner in the endeavor.
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.
Life never has any guarantees, my friend. You can get screwed any time from any direction. Having a family can add some stress and responsibilities on your shoulders but will also give you resiliency and support you will most probably need at some point.
I have 2 kids, I don’t recommend it. Quality of life decline is steep unless you’re wealthy and can hire robust childcare support, and it causes a significant decline in relationship satisfaction with your partner. Maybe you end up happy in the end, maybe you don’t, it’s Russian Roulette in a different form. People who tell you to go for it aren’t going to make you whole if it doesn’t work out or be your village when you need help.
This is extremely location-dependent. In countries where you have universal healthcare, free education and childcare benefits, the financial impact of having a child can be very low.
What are the birth rates in these countries? If you check (Our World In Data Fertility Rates), you’ll see it’s lower than the US, even countries with strong pro natalist policies. The opportunity cost of kids is just too damn high.
When fathers in Spain were given more parental leave, they have less kids, for example. The revealed preference is clear.
“As the authors point out, it’s impossible to draw sweeping conclusions from this observation of a single data point in a single country.”
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.
No disagreement there, although I think perhaps society should stop treating children as crops to be harvested for the commons. A tragedy of the commons has been created as society claims social security tax from grown children to pay to the elderly, so the economic incentive is to be a free-rider and live off other people's children while having none of your own.
> so the economic incentive is to be a free-rider...
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.
Just to think through this a little bit further. There is a proportion of "free-riders" in every given population, even those without a safety net. Some free-riders will exploit their own children, the government, their family's status, their spouse, or whatever or whoever is at hand. Some people decide they would rather be homeless than exploit anyone. In short, let us acknowledge that free riding is a thing that happens, and that it is usually morally reprehensible.
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 is 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.
First one required several rounds of IVF and a switch to a remote job to have the flexibility needed for such an endeavor, second one was unexpected. Got a vasectomy after the second.
Experience is what we get what when we don’t get what we expected.
It’s $1000 to collect some semen and have it frozen for a few years (Reprotech is a cryoprovider I can recommend)). Vasectomies are cheap (<$1000 but free in a handful of states). Bank the tissue and get snipped is my advice. Buys you an option if you change your mind (call for a specimen and do IUI) but firmly insulates you from mistakes or decisions made under suboptimal conditions.
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.
> Real parents consistently make it clear how terrible having kids is.
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.
> 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.
You're talking about two different contexts: they can make happy while with friends and family where there are social expectations, and they can also report how they honestly feel in anonymous or confidential circumstances, like surveys, studies and therapy.
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.
I'm talking about the statement that "Real parents consistently make it clear how terrible having kids is."
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 also don't see how some secret only-tell-the-therapist-and-pollsters views could qualify as "consistently mak[ing] clear" their supposed negative feelings.
It's difficult to express to non-parents how good the good parts are. Speaking from personal experience, I never understood why people would want kids until we decided to have our own.
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.
Yes, it's extremely obvious what the unpleasant things are, like a screaming toddler in the supermarket. But you can't explain the joy in simply watching some DuckTales with your kid and laughing together. I try to describe it like it's like when you're in love with a girl, the honey moon, except the honey moon never passes. Just like you can't stop looking at your crush you can't stop looking at your child, you find everything they do and learn extremely interesting. May not be the experience for everyone but if it were not like this it would be very difficult to get through the rough parts!
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.
I think you got the point right - it's easy to agree, almost objective, that sleepless nights are not good for you or crying babies or toddler with tantrums or chasing a toddler for the bed routing might not be the most funny thing to do after work is not the funniest activity in most of the cases, while the positive things are very subjective, less universal and more personal. That's why pointing out the "bad" things is easier, while reflecting on the positive side takes considerably longer than a random article on the web.
Did you hear from marathon runners how difficult it was? Same here, it's difficult but it brings experiences you could not have otherwise, and on pragmatic side passes on your genes ;)
The people you hear most vocally for many things (for example, video games) are the ones that are listing the problems with it. They're also the ones that are doing it the most, by choice. As a general rule, it's common for the vocal minority to be the complainers; and also to be the ones that most enjoy the thing in question.
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.
I strongly identify with this post. Thanks for sharing.
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.
Kids and covid lockdown are a combo that speaks to that "anchoring". Sure, the world has gone to hell and you can't buy toilet paper anymore. But the kids need you so yeet any nascent doomscrolling feelings in the bin, there's no room for that shit.
There are tons of "having a kid is great" in this thread. I have been present at many conversations in groups along these lines ... in multiple cases, the same people 1 on 1 tell me afterwards the exact opposite, what they have said in a group setting was an outright lie.
Nobody wants to be the one who speaks out, everyone is saying its amazing because the others say it is amazing.
People complain about kids in a similar way to how they complain about their jobs. An unemployed observer might conclude that a career is inevitably hell on earth, but that wouldn't be the whole picture, even if everyone's work sucks some of the time and some people's work just sucks all the time.
It really does get harder. Babies are not really that hard. They're a lot of work, but each individual thing you have to do is easy. Annoying or gross, sure, sometimes. But changing a diaper takes about a minute. Night time can be tough at first but if you do a good job with sleep training it gets better pretty quickly. My wife breastfed, so most mid-sleep wakeups just become "go grab the baby and hook him onto Mom, make sure everyone has what they need, and go lay back down."
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!
> 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.
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.
It just means what it means, I guess. You do the best you can to provide a good life for your child by whatever means are available to you. Sometimes you have to make compromises - even painful compromises.
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.
> 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.
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 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.
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.
> 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.
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 are the worst. They take so much from you and you get so little back. Toddlerhood is when things start to get fun.
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.
The first baby is exhausting. The second one feels easy. The nervous stress that you'll break something is gone and replaced with "been there, done that". Which is really fortunate because the older one can run and climb now so you'll need that time back.
> Babies cry for every reason and figuring out what’s wrong (if anything) was stressful.
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.
It really depends, because children force us to negotiate.
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.
It’s different. I would say for most people the infant age is the toughest just because it’s physically tough which is not something most people in the modern world are used to. The rest is mainly just dealing with a moody person who is learning about the world and themselves and can be completely infuriating about half of the time.
Definitely YMMV, and it's not just when they are toddlers- teeanagers are a pain in the ass and will make you lose sleep, then they start dating with all the wrong people, get their heart broken, make bad life decisions and you will be able to do is watch and cry.
I see it the same way as people who have iPhones or luxury German cars.
People who have iPhones or luxury German cars are more likely than not to rate themselves as satisfied with their purchase.
It is as simple as wanting to feel good and usually it feels good to believe I am correct.
Therefore, I suspect this is correct for both breeders and the child free
that we will try to justify our own decisions,
not for anyone else but to satisfy ourselves.
We probably get simply defensive when questioned.
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]
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
Having children is one of the big things that we cannot reasonably speculate our reaction to.
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.
This is like one of those “things parents think about having children that are wrong” articles.
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.
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.
Probably also worth consulting with someone in their 50s that hasn't had kids. Having kids when you have an active social life seems like everything grinds to a half. NOT having kids when everyone you used to hang out with does is suddenly busy, on the other hand, is its own can of worms. At different age brackets, "normal social life" tends to look different -- and it varies by class and geography as well.
> 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.
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.
Sorry to say but 8 weeks is way too early to celebrate. They tend to reset their sleep as they gain major milestones and sometimes can completely flip their sleeping habits once they have one of their huge eureka moments about the world.. or just start teething
My daughter slept fine for like 5 years straight, and then started waking up around 2-3 am almost every single night for the next 18 month. That was fun.
>consult with actual parents for what it’s really like to have kids.
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.
In my experience real parents all lie about what having kids is like. You can see they are clearly worn out and depressed and in a fog but if you ask "OH KIDS ARE GREAT! REGRET NOTHING!"
Later I had kids and that did not change my opinion!
> 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.
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.
As a parent of a toddler, sleep and housework can still be challenging, but diapers barely even register any more. I hardly remember the sleepless month we had when my kid was about 3 months old. I still have friends and hobbies and an identity outside of being a parent.
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.
> 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.
"Here's this thing I have no actual direct experience with, let me tell you all about it!"
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.