361–370 of 902 posts
I could say a lot about having kids, but I'll keep it to this: The fundamentally most powerful thing I feel about having kids is faith. I have faith now. An unwavering, unquestionable understanding of my purpose and direction on this planet. It makes so many questions so easy to answer.
... just kidding. I think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my observation a single income setup is some kind of local optimum. I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal. It is a real job that requires an exceptional level of responsibility, creativity, and effort, but it's one that is extremely financially and emotionally rewarding. When I ask they all say, essentially, "We didn't want work just to hire someone else to raise our children for…
> I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal. Until the nest empties, and they have no retirement funds or worthwhile employment options to speak of. If the breadwinner turns out to be more of a jerk than realized amidst the business of raising children, and maybe the homemaker learns by this time they've actually been exploited as a low-cost servant all this time, expected to continue i…
Unfortunately even in my family, my mother, who was forced to have some big career gaps due to 3 kids, had a much lower pension compared to my father and my father considered it to be "fair" that each spends its own pension and split the bills equally. :(
So my experience was the opposite. I came in expecting this great "chemical change" where suddenly the world revolved around my kids and their future. Well the latter part is true: my world now revolves around them and their futures. But chemical change? No. It's just the responsibility I have now. There's never a break. It's all-encompassing. I mean, it's survivable, I can deal with it, and I do the best I can, but,…
I honestly don't know how anyone could justify having kids giving the current climate change situation. Don't you feel responsible for any potential pain your kids might feel as a result of the world going to shit?
I don't want kids in large part because I do not think I would be a good dad, and I'm not going to do that to another human being, even (especially!) if they share my DNA. But the main reason I see for foregoing children is that I would be handing them a terrible world without hope of salvation. (We might pull through, and I hope we do, but I have no basis for that hope other than faith, and that not enough to justify incarnating a new soul.)
I can't imagine explaining to my child what the monarch butterfly migration was like. What elephants were. What reefs were. What the dawn chorus sounded like.
Hey guys. Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything i…
It gets better. Way better. Last night I explained quicksort to one kid. Now we are designing cards to laser cut. The kids get interesting and independent quicker than you might imagine. The days are long, but the years are fast.
Nicely put. That's going into my "how to explain parenting" quotes right alongside "it doesn't get easier, just a different kind of difficult"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for this. My son is 2 and legally blind, so needless to say we have no life outside of him for now, but he is a joy. I would trade none of this for nothing. Often I feel like I will never again be able to have a life, read a book, finish a project, have an idea. I know that it gets better and that I should cherish the moments we have while he is so young (and I do), but it’s hard to see more than a foot in…
Our son is profoundly autistic and will probably need care all his life. He's 4 now and I wouldn't change him for the world, but it's taken 4 years to really come to terms with his condition and our ongoing role as parents and carers.
So my experience was the opposite. I came in expecting this great "chemical change" where suddenly the world revolved around my kids and their future. Well the latter part is true: my world now revolves around them and their futures. But chemical change? No. It's just the responsibility I have now. There's never a break. It's all-encompassing. I mean, it's survivable, I can deal with it, and I do the best I can, but,…
Hey guys. Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything i…
I made it clear with my wife that I would need to have some time for my activities before we had kids. Luckily she has some friends that believe the same because she has no hobbies. So we take turns each month giving each other time away from the kids. So she might go out with her girlfriends and I might go golf or kayak. Also, I don't subscribe to the notion that a parent needs to be playing with their kid every wak…
Hey guys. Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything i…