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How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

parenting.nytimes.com

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Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#211

Post by jly »

koolba wrote: post #202
jly wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logically this makes sense but it can be tricky to implement successfully for everyone. For breast-fed infants, it may be the case that mom has to be more frequently involved in the overnight care. It makes sense for dad to get as much sleep as possible in this case, but that can lead to resentment and other issues. My wife and I traded off as you indicated but that was no picnic, either. We found it easier to split…

> Logically this makes sense but it can be tricky to implement successfully for everyone. For breast-fed infants, it may be the case that mom has to be more frequently involved in the overnight care. It makes sense for dad to get as much sleep as possible in this case, but that can lead to resentment and other issues. Embracing marriage as a team sport goes a long way to avoiding petty resentment. It's also standard…

> Embracing marriage as a team sport goes a long way to avoiding petty resentment.

Fully in agreement. Good communication and empathy in marriage are paramount to successfully raising kids. I'm just saying even the most understanding people can hit a breaking point after long enough without sleep, especially without a lot of external help.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#212

Post by sweeneyrod »

skohan wrote: post #99
seventhtiger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been fasting for a month now and I have lost a solid 6kg. I started with one meal a day (OMAD) and then I started skipping a day twice a week for a total of 5x 24hr fasts and 2x 48hr fasts. This week I completed a 72hr fast. One reason I like it is that it requires the least planning and mental load. I eat what I want as much as I want (except sugar) and almost no matter what I do it works out to be less than…

Yeah I have also found intermittent fasting to be an excellent tool in the toolbox when I want to reduce a bit of body-fat. As you say, for me it's easier to follow a simple rule-based diet like time-restricted eating than it is to track and measure calories and macronutrients. I also had success with a ketogenic diet, but in my experience that's a bit harder to stick to, since there's a lot of hidden carbohydrates i…

> I know a lot of people have subjectively good experiences with multi-day fasts, but I saw a talk where the presenter showed evidence that long fasts (more than 72 hours) can cause long-lasting metabolic changes which weren't recovered even several years later.

I thought one of the benefits of fasting was long-lasting metabolic changes (for the better).

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#213

Post by agensaequivocum »

anonu wrote: post #161

I am 14 months into kid #1. I've observed friends and family who are well into kid #2. My thought process was that going from 1 to 2 was going to follow some sort of logarithmic increase in complexity - but I am now convinced that the change is exponential. With 1, you can split the work. With 2, the dad will probably be focused on the older kid and the mom on the younger kid. Thus, there is less help to go around. M…

Yes. The older kids help. My wife comes from a family of eight. It's arguable that she's changed more of her siblings diapers than our own two kids (2 and 1.5m). Not only that but house duties are also split among them (dishes, cooking, trash, cleaning, etc.).

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#214

Post by jriot »

agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

I have two kids, my wife and I never sacrificed our physical health. When our first was born I was an air traffic controller, and when my second was born I transitioned into being a data scientist.

During the first 4 years of fatherhood, I did triatholons and ran ultra-marathons - primairly ultras as the crowd was far more relaxed. After our second was born I decided to take up powerlifting, worked up to a 1405 total.

I've recently decided to go back to endurance events as being 230lbs of raw strength isn't conducive to life, plus our grocery bill is higher due to that. So I'm swimming and dropping weight; running at 230 (now 210) was terrible and humbling all at once.

My wife did half-marathons and now does cross-fit.

During these different 'eras' we exposed our children to our activities and they partook when interested, they are highly interested in riding their bikes and run as they please. Though they prefer volleyball and gymnastics at the moment.

They only negative, is they can't sit for school, as school only offers one recess during the day.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#215

Post by auiya »

nvarsj wrote: post #150
agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

I'm a father of two, one who is nearly a teenager, so I'm still on the journey. Having children is a life experience. A hard one, that will change you. It is certainly not the easy route. If you want a life of low stress and self satisfaction - having no kids makes a lot of sense. And I'd never begrudge anyone who makes this choice (of which I know many). Choosing to have a family means you are willing to sacrifice y…

> What do you get out of it? Life long companionship, for one thing.

Not necessarily. I know many people who have quite strained relationships with their parents/children. I have relatives who had children based on the mindset of "who will take care of me when I'm old?", only for their kids to mistreat and abandon them in their old age.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#216

Post by CodeCube »

agent008t wrote: post #136
roland35 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having two kids myself, it has been the best thing to happen to me by far. I never really thought about having kids until my late 20's, so I can understand why people may want to go child-free. Kids are a huge investment of time and effort after all! But personally I could not imagine it any other way. Also, it is nice to have a receptive audience to dad jokes.

So are the others in this thread exaggerating the negatives? Or is it more that those difficulties are fairly short-term, and in the longer run don't really matter / are forgotten? Say, like preparing for and sitting a difficult exam, or going to the dentist, etc.

Most of the others commenting here have seem to have small children, so of course their feedback is going to highlight all the ways in which their lives have changed.

To offer a counter-point, my daughter is 18 and off to college (literally dropping her off this saturday), and my son is 15. With each moment that passes from the time they are born, things get easier ... sleep? improves. complete and utter dependency? they learn to wipe their own bum. So, all the things that _seem_ really bad that people are reporting here are, ultimately, rather temporary.

That's not to say there aren't new challenges that come once they get older, and some challenges aren't experienced by everyone (I feel incredibly lucky and blessed that I haven't had any behavioral issues with my kids). So ... yeah ... they're not little parasites forever, just keep that in mind :P

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#217

Post by outside1234 »

agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

You need to be passionate about it. If you are on the fence, in my opinion, go child free.

It's better for the environment (the mountain of plastic and CO2 that having kids causes is astounding) and there are plenty of people in the world that are passionate about having kids.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#218

Post by CodeCube »

m-i-l wrote: post #109

Anecdotal I know, but when my first was born and I was outside with them for the first time, I got a weird sense of extreme overprotectiveness - exaggerating somewhat to make the point, but it almost felt like I would punch anyone if they looked vaguely threateningly at my new child (a particularly memorable experience for me because I'm usually such a placid person). Not an expert, but that felt like it could be som…

same ... I'll also add that for a time, I became hyper-aware of literally any noise that happened anywhere in my house at night. Lol, I can't tell you how many times I jumped out of bed to fend off an imagined intruder, or to run into the baby's room to make sure she was still breathing :P

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#219

Post by rhema »

anonu wrote: post #161

I am 14 months into kid #1. I've observed friends and family who are well into kid #2. My thought process was that going from 1 to 2 was going to follow some sort of logarithmic increase in complexity - but I am now convinced that the change is exponential. With 1, you can split the work. With 2, the dad will probably be focused on the older kid and the mom on the younger kid. Thus, there is less help to go around. M…

I'm on 4 with 5 on the way. Here's how I think about in terms of effort. Basically, after 2 it's logarithmic. I can do lots of things in batches that shave off time. So, brushing teeth happens for all 4 kids at the same time and the set up cost would be the same with 1. With more kids, you end up setting rules for how they play together, rather than micromanaging entertainment for one. Once one kid can read, the older can read to the younger. This puts the older one on a good task and entertains the younger one.

It's not the life for everyone, but I really enjoy it.

In terms of effort, the per capita cost goes down after each kid IMHO.

1 kid = 1

2 kid = 2.5

3 kid = 3

4 kid = 3.25

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#220

Post by gilbetron »

agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

I love my son more than anything, but the job of being a parent mostly sucks. I don't like it, although it's way better now that he's 10. Even though it's not for me I would 100% go through it again to have my son again.

The only real concern I have about having a child is I don't know what kind of world he's entering.

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