Having Kids • Hacker News Board

Re: Having Kids

#411

Post by evrydayhustling » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

throwaway2519 wrote: post #405

lordnacho wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kids are at the age before school where they are the hardest to deal with. Once a kid gets to school, magic happens. I mean it. - They get tired from learning stuff. And the teachers know how to deal with them. - They learn how to behave in a group. They start having actual friends. - You get a bunch of friends who are in the same situation as you, and you can use their kids to cancel out yours. (AKA playdates)…

> my kids started school at 4. I've put them in full time after school care as well, ending at 6pm > you get them asleep before 8pm > you can give them a book and that will keep them quiet And then people wonder why kids don't listen to and respect their parents when they grow up. You're basically just giving school teachers full control to raise your kids at age of 4, and they only interact with you for 1-2 hours du…

Parents talk a lot about stuff that lets their attention be somewhere other than their kids because that's the hard part, not because they don't also want to pay attention and have quality time with their kids.

It's good for kids to see their parents with autonomy and goals of their own, and simply not exhausted. Doing so doesn't have to be antithetical to having a warm relationship.

If you're in a loop of surviving the demands of very small children, then even when they have your attention it can be hard for it to be quality time. Carving out some auto only lets you be intentional and actively thankful about the time you do spend with your kids.

Re: Having Kids

#412

Post by alehander42 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

djaouen wrote: post #211

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?

how can you base your whole life on such a "surrounding nature" prognosis? our children are not their carbon footprints and the planet future is not an impending doom even if there are some climate change effects

think about that.. our parents could have decided the same based on the old prognosis from the 70/80s

this dangerous world point makes sense if applied to our faith/morals, but not to the nature environment which affects our souls/happiness/feelings much less (we have all kinds of people in all kinds of environments but still all livable)

Re: Having Kids

#413

Post by fncypants » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

ACS_Solver wrote: post #377

triangleman wrote: post #131

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 only have one kid, but after becoming a parent I'm possibly more productive than before. I've managed to do as much or more learning and work on side projects than without kids. And I readily confess this point was a big fear of mine. The key for me was learning to actually manage time better. The challenges of having a kid have made me see how little time for other things I have now, which in turn made me manage t…

Curious about the age of your kid. Mine is 3-4 yrs old, the only one. My life has changed, a lot, over those years. What you describe was the first 18 months for me. The next year was hell with zero productivity. Then 5-day a week pre-K changed everything again. I hear it will change again in a few years even better. Hoping for it.

Re: Having Kids

#414

Post by usaar333 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

mobjack wrote: post #311

d_burfoot wrote: post #97

Note that PG has two incredibly important positive factors that make his experience of parenthood much better: he has a great partner, and he is very wealthy. People who don't have these power-ups might have much more mixed feelings about the experience. I would actually like to have kids, but from a young age I decided that I would not do so unless I achieved financial independence. The reason is that if I were forc…

Having kids is not that expensive if you have at least a middle class income. You can still advance in your career while having a good work life balance. Very few are in their ideal situation when having kids and yet they still have positive experiences being a parent. Those without kids and new parents think they need to be perfect, but in reality, there is no difference between being perfect and being good enough w…

Social pressure tends to push parents toward perfection. In fact as income goes up, expenses go up.

A kid in the Bay Area will realistically cost a professional (upper middle class), dual working couple over $1m through college; that certainly is expensive.

Re: Having Kids

#415

Post by finneganscat » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

As someone that can’t have children, listening to somebody talk about their “religious experience” is like having a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses show up at your doorstep, proclaiming the greatness of their God, then telling you that you can’t be a part of it. Adoption is an option, but it is a far more planned and far less organic experience than the one described here. It’s easy to prefer having free-time over adoption, but pregnancy is like a calling that’s hard to ignore.

Re: Having Kids

#416

Post by charliepark » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #400

munificent wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like pg notes in his essay, there's a good chance that there are members of Group B who are parents but you don't notice because they're not talking about their kids all the time.

Eh? I said that all of Group B are parents in my explanation.

They meant there are parents in Group A. You might be talking to someone (who is a parent, but low-key) about a new Scorsese film, and think "this here's an interesting person, talking about interesting things!" You aren't thinking about the fact that the person you're talking to is a parent.

Re: Having Kids

#417

Post by jmartrican » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

triangleman wrote: post #131

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…

Just enjoy the time with them. You being a great dad is the biggest project you will ever work on. I'm not exaggerating. These kids will become adults and the good job you are doing now will pay off big time.

You will get your time back in due time. If you screw this up now, you wont forgive yourself. When you went to college (assuming you did), you probably focused on getting good grades. This is the same. Just get a ~4.0 in parenting, the rewards are massive not only for you but for society as a whole.

Re: Having Kids

#418

Post by nitwit005 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #379

Paradoxically, I think the hard part about having kid is having too few of them. My wife and I have 7 kids. People stare at us like we're crazy all the time. But it's way easier to have 7 kids than 2. Older kids help with the younger kids. When the 2 or 3 playing together get bored, they mix it up. They have daily big games that would ordinarily take a lot of effort arranging playdates. Many hands make light work, so…

This sometimes badly backfires on people. You're essentially betting that your first kids will be willing to do this, and will be responsible enough to do a decent job of it.

When kids get older it seems fairly common to start fighting over having to look after siblings, as it's a barrier to having friends and studying.

Re: Having Kids

#419

Post by paxys » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

nitwit005 wrote: post #402

paxys wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because the average neighborhood is safer than ever before. What has gone way down is our tolerance for accidents (which I guess is a good thing, but certainly has its tradeoffs).

Safer in terms of crime, but if you live next to a street where cars are moving at high speed, the older behavior of just letting your kids run outside would likely be unsafe indeed.

Yeah but that is more of a city vs suburb/rural problem rather than then vs now.

Re: Having Kids

#420

Post by dbancajas » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

triangleman wrote: post #131

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…

Damn. This is me!!