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Having Kids

paulgraham.com

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Re: Having Kids

#681

Post by abnercoimbre »

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 gay (male) with no plans to adopt, but instead wish to spend my family budget taking care of aging parents so my siblings with kids don't have to. I also very much use my freedom to travel, take professional risks, and create special moments with friends and loved ones. I'm happy for PG and hopefully we always have parents like him, but the essay was weird and your anger understandable.

Re: Having Kids

#682

Post by cadence- »

twmahna wrote: post #656
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,…

Thank you for posting your perspective. As someone who's contemplating having kids in the distant future, I'm wondering if there's a way to predict whether these chemical changes will occur for me or not. Do you have any insights here? In particular, I'm curious about these questions pertaining to your life prior to having children: - From 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy helping a friend out when it was a mild inconv…

I think it depends on how much you want to have kids. If you feel very strongly about it, then go ahead and have kids. You will probably experience the chemical changes in your brain that will help you cope. But if you are unsure about having kids, then don’t have them. You don’t need to over analyze it. If you feel the need to analyze, overthink and research it, then it seems to me like you don’t have the kind of brain that will make it easy for you to be happy while dealing with all the parenting challenges.

I believe that if you need to carefully analyze whether to have kids, then you will also continue to analyze and think about your decision after you already have kids. And it will make you miserable.

Re: Having Kids

#683

Post by zeofig »

balls187 wrote: post #148
luckydata wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American parenting is a cancer. I was raised in Europe and had a kid in California, I hate how most kids are raised here and I hate the expectations put on parents. Most people think you gotta stop having fun, you can’t go out because kids and you have to constantly hover them. I took my son out when he was 5 days old and I brought him everywhere since. He knows he needs to be quiet when we go in public and we will n…

> American parenting is a cancer...you can’t go out because kids and you have to constantly hover them Helicopter parenting is a problem, for sure, but that isn't any more american than obesity is. It's parenting based on fear, a reality of being in the information age and less fortunately the age of social media.

Well... obesity is pretty American.

Re: Having Kids

#684

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Having Kids

#685

Post by burfog »

kelnos wrote: post #542
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,…

Thank you for saying that. There's a huge taboo around admitting (even privately!) any regrets around having children, but I imagine there are quite a few people who'd say so if only they weren't too afraid to.

Another taboo is not loving them equally. I admit to regrets about some of them. I like the others very much.

It's too bad I couldn't pick my kids by personality. The random draw has been mixed.

Re: Having Kids

#686

Post by 734129837261 »

I've always been anti-children, I honestly dislike them. Even when I was one myself. They're loud and unpredictable. And if I were to have one it would be expensive and time consuming.

My current GF (I'm in my late 30s, she early 30s) wants children. She changed from "I don't care if I don't" to "I definitely need at least one.

So that's an impossible thing to compromise on.

And I won't. So I'll leave her to figure it out for herself. I'd much rather be alone than in a relationship if it means getting an innocent child involved with a father that doesn't want it.

"But you'll change your mind once you have one!" is a saying I often hear. Yeah, Stockholm Syndrome is what it's called. You have no choice but to say you like it. Fake it 'til you make it.

I've had colleagues and friends admit to me that they regret having children. They would have preferred to save tens of thousands of euros more, travel the world, treat themselves to gadgets and expensive meals, have all the time in the world to do whatever they liked. All the time to read books, play games, go on dates, meet people, or just work, or just do nothing at all.

With children, you're suddenly a parent. Your house is child-safe, your car is child-safe, the people you deal with most are also parents.

Or, how a friend of mine said: "I got a 20-something babysitter, cutest girl I've ever seen. I'm 41. I'd do her. My wife wouldn't approve, of course. But the girl tells me she isn't going to get children, because she sees how little time parents have. And god damnit, she's so right."

If he got to turn back time he would not have his 3 children. And that's not all: he would not stay with his wife, a marriage of 20 years. They coexist "for the children" as they so often do. But in truth it's because he isn't looking forward to paying her alimony and child support.

Right now, he's miserable with 1 child-safe car and 1 car he likes in a house that's too big.

And look at the divorce rates out there. Even if you look at only the first-time divorcees, it seems most marriages fail. I am not looking forward to anchoring myself down by adding a child into the mix.

I'll be single. And if I do turn out to be miserable, I'll just off myself without leaving a dependent family behind.

Re: Having Kids

#687

Post by djsumdog »

overflow897 wrote: post #433
rbavocadotree wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My good friend, as well as my Mom are family/young child psychologists, and they talk about people like you a lot. How's your mental health? People with negative self images, underdeveloped personalities, unresolved trauma, anxiety, depression, etc, are all very likely to have those same feelings. They may be telling you something.

Are you implying that if you don't want or don't enjoy having children, you have mental health issues?

I've often encountered people who've told me that my desire to not have children is immoral in some way; that I'm being selfish. It's not a perspective I agree with at all, and I know several other people with kids (that they wanted to have) tell me there is nothing wrong with not wanting kids.

I've heard people make a moral case for having children, but I've never heard people implying others are mentally ill for not wanting them.

It does get into deeper questions about what are mental illnesses; how some illnesses warp our perception and cause delusions, but others are just things we've socially evolved to think as unacceptable because they cause harm. Homosexuality was once a mental illness, and now it's not.

Maybe if Earth's population takes a big hit and we're under 1 billion again, I could see some case to be made for society to adopt procreation above all else; but today .. we've moved past that .. and I agree; not wanting children or regretting having children is not a mental illness at all!

Re: Having Kids

#688

Post by asah »

734129837261 wrote: post #686

I've always been anti-children, I honestly dislike them. Even when I was one myself. They're loud and unpredictable. And if I were to have one it would be expensive and time consuming. My current GF (I'm in my late 30s, she early 30s) wants children. She changed from "I don't care if I don't" to "I definitely need at least one. So that's an impossible thing to compromise on. And I won't. So I'll leave her to figure i…

Good for you, but no need to be defensive or resigned to getting single: there's an entire society of joyous, happy, well-balanced, office contributors to society, who don't have kids. You don't need to justify it.

Re: Having Kids

#689

Post by blago »

mrfusion wrote: post #490
throwaway2519 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. That also sounds appalling g to me to see your kids 2 hours a day and putting them to bed early on top of that.

People are responding to how the argument was presented, not the premise. The post contained a lot of presumptions, logical fallacies, and judgment.

Some examples:

> And then people wonder why...

> ...they only interact with you for 1-2 hours during the day

> ...don't really know who you are

> Why have kids at all...

> ...all you do is try to get away from them and make them not bother you...

Combined with the username, it almost looks like deliberate trolling.

Re: Having Kids

#690

Post by unlinked_dll »

whiddershins wrote: post #630
unlinked_dll wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool it with the casual implied racism, first off. Second off it’s not that young people are above children. It’s that we can’t afford to make them and raise them with skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs.

First off I agree with you about the parent’s comment. Second of all the cost of living thing makes no sense. People throughout all of time were poorer and had more kids, and people tend to have less kids during this time period when they have more advantages. The notion that one “needs” a certain amount of wealth to have kids is actually an expression of values: some minimum material baseline that is arbitrary from…

Well we shouldn't compare across all history to look at families that lived in abject squalor compared to today with atrocious infant mortality rates.

We should compare to recent history, such as the economic conditions experienced by the greatest/silent generation, baby boomers, and Gen X before reaching our current economic scenario where aging millenials and older gen-Z folks are putting off having children. Look at their level of debt, the expected value of their income relative to cost of education, cost of healthcare, cost of homes and percentage that rent/live together... it's not a pretty picture.

Just personally, I wouldn't be able to support a family on my Bay Area engineer's salary and that's why I don't. I want to provide a better life for my progeny, and that's not possible given the housing situation in California today and my own financial reality. Not for at least a decade.

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