Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Having Kids

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 902 posts

Re: Having Kids

#611

Post by blaesus »

glangdale wrote: post #477
buboard wrote: post #199

Worth noting that this is a western city- centric view of children. It's much different for people living in small communities or near parents and other family. Children spend way less time near parents when the neighborhood is familiar and safe enough, and instead spend most of their time playing with other kids. Parents today spend twice as much time with their kids than 2 generations ago, and it's probably not bec…

Of course, in the good/bad old days, sometimes kids just died. My wife talks fondly of free-roaming LA in the 70s, and parenthetically mentions the kid that got molested and the other one that got run over by a car. In general, in the West at least, folks had bigger families and started earlier (just make a new one!). A friend of ours from rural China (Dalian province, I think) talked about how all the kids would go…

My parents (who grew up in rural China in 1960s) love to talk about chopping firewood or collecting mushrooms in the forests, alone or with their siblings, when they were 8 or 10 or something. They often give me parenting advices like "don't worry about the kids; they just need one more pair of chopsticks" (as in you feed the kids and they'll take care of themselves).

Re: Having Kids

#612

Post by kohanz »

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…

Where is the 1-2 hr figure coming from? Even for my oldest, who is in school, and on a day I work. I'm seeing him on average 2 hours in the morning before he's off to school (young kids wake up early) and then another 3 hours on average in the evening (and he goes to bed "early" by his peer standards). This doesn't count night time wake-ups. Then weekends/holidays it's all day, of course.

Re: Having Kids

#613

Post by kelnos »

booleanbetrayal wrote: post #577

Since having my children, my capacity for patience and empathy have increased significantly. Surprisingly, these newfound attributes aren't solely directed towards them, but to the general population as a whole. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing I've experienced outside the pure emotional impact one would expect.

That's interesting; I wonder if you're fairly unique, or if what I've read was flawed: I've read that new parents direct most of their empathy toward their children and have scant little left for anyone else.

Re: Having Kids

#614

Post by lutorm »

daxfohl wrote: post #258

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'm sorry you feel that way. I was apprehensive about having kids, and it's certainly true that it's been a big change to my life where I now can't do a lot of the things I used to enjoy doing. However, I find that I'm a lot happier when I don't go around focusing on what I can no longer do but on the enjoyable things in my current life.

We all have aspects of our life that are less enjoyable, but focusing on those do nothing but make you less happy. I'd encourage you to look into Stoic philosophy for advice on how to focus on what's good and enjoyable in your life.

Re: Having Kids

#615

Post by kelnos »

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…

That seems like a specific experience that may not generalize.

Re: Having Kids

#616

Post by nl »

kmarc wrote: post #552
coldtea wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising children is not about being a helicopter parent like many Americans understand it. It wasn't even in the US like that, until the 80s or so, when media people and book authors inspired profitable guilt to parents, and the boomers started making pandering and spoiling their kids the norm. If we're talking about kids less than school age, then sure, parents are with them most of the day. After school age however…

> it's rather more time than kids historically got. But... But... Any reference to this? All I can see here that some people think that "history" is how their great-grandparents were. No! After industrialization and urbanization, so less then a couple hundred years ago did humans start this new lifestyle. You don't even have to travel back in time, just travel to places where tribes and their commons are still around…

Even in industrial society 2 hours is much more than people spent with their kids as recently as the 1960s.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-...

Grandparents etc were much more involved then compared to now.

Re: Having Kids

#617

Post by kelnos »

daenz wrote: post #125
scottLobster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refer you to his later point: "On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?" I'd argue that your ambition simply shifts upon having kids. If you channel that ambition into being a better parent everyone benefits. And from an "accomplishment" perspective, I'd ask which of a would-be parent's projects are so world-changing that they'll be…

>On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?" It's a disingenuous argument. He acknowledges "attention is a zero-sum game" and that having kids has lowered his ambitions. Therefore, it's not a question of what is there "to spare" (implying leftover time/energy), it is a question of "how much are you willing to give up" to make room for th…

Yeah, that didn't really track with me either. If attention (and therefore ambition?) is a zero-sum game, diverting attention from $SOME_THING to your kids implies diverting ambition as well. Either you divert less attention to your kids, and are still able to fulfill your prior ambitions, or you divert more, and you aren't. Or somewhere in between. It's not that your ambition is wimpy, just that it's finite.

Re: Having Kids

#618

Post by philipkd »

buboard wrote: post #199

Worth noting that this is a western city- centric view of children. It's much different for people living in small communities or near parents and other family. Children spend way less time near parents when the neighborhood is familiar and safe enough, and instead spend most of their time playing with other kids. Parents today spend twice as much time with their kids than 2 generations ago, and it's probably not bec…

If you double the number of adult words a child is exposed to growing up, it may have some positive impact on them.

Re: Having Kids

#619

Post by kelnos »

datashow wrote: post #45
daenz wrote: post #13

>Having kids is one of those intense types of experience that are hard to imagine unless you've had them. But it is not, as I implicitly believed before having kids, simply your DNA heading for the lifeboats. But it is, because your entire biology has evolved for billions of years with the sole purpose of reproducing effectively. No amount of "I feel like I enjoy it" negates that it is programmed into you as an organ…

> If you're the type of person for which those points sounds disastrous, don't have kids. This is not a great advice. Those points only "sounds disastrous". It can be totally changed after you have kids. As a developer, I always know I will be less productive etc. after having kids. On the other hand, I know I am not a genius, and I know I will be fulfilled more from my kids than from my lost productivity. And then,…

> you need to find a partner with the same mind set, which is not easy,

That's actually not as hard as you probably think it is. More and more people (of both genders) are skeptical of child-rearing than ever before. Certainly any showstopper requirement you place on a romantic partner will reduce the size of the pool, but I think the pool of people who don't want children is plenty big enough these days.

At any rate, "I want to have kids because otherwise I won't find a partner and will be lonely" is a horrifyingly selfish and terrible reason to have kids, and if that's your thinking, you absolutely should not.

Re: Having Kids

#620

Post by daxfohl »

gcheong wrote: post #579
daxfohl wrote: post #425

I'd even go further and say it's irresponsible these days to post things like this. If nothing else, because we know the Earth cannot support many more people. Or at least it's looking that way. I think as a society we need to get away from sappy Hallmark channel stuff like this and celebrate the individual. We should not be made to feel like having kids is some transcendental thing. Studies consistently show childle…

I'd go further and say that the central question shouldn't be whether having kids makes our lives better in some way, but rather is it right to impose a life on a person, as well as the inevitable death they will eventually have to face, with all the potential negative experiences in between just to fulfill a selfish desire. A strong case can be made that the answer is no: https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-no…

A case could also be made for the opposite: is it right to deny a hypothetical not-yet-conceived person the opportunity of life, just so you can have more free time? I think both arguments boil down to nothing.
Post reply on HN