Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

Ridiculous. As stated elsewhere, having kids is giving a part of your self to create a new independent self. It will teach you the hard way compassion, love to the other, etc. It is exactly the opposite of selfishness.

How the hell can you hold such a paradoxical statement?

editadd: There is a very strong anti-child line of thought in the US, I felt it in many occasions (on Lifehacker, for instance), and I think it is very strange, and dangerous. Is it because of a fashionable thinking that humans are too many? Is it a consequence of utilitarian morals? Honest question here: I think it is a subject of tremendous importance. Hidden behind this apparently innocuous sentence and pushing its logic to its limits, one may find the death of humanism and the end of civilisation.

You're not a slave to your instincts unless you want to be."

That's old tabula rasa thinking - it's false. Tell that to someone who has fallen in love (another example of this type of genetically-programmed behavior) or who has bonded normally with their child. They'll laugh you out of the room. They would, in a heartbeat, throw you and themselves under a bus to save their loved one(s). They are slaves to their instincts.

Until the "switches" turn on, few (in modern society at least) realize/believe the switches are there! It isn't easy to counteract something internal that you have no belief in and have not experienced before. And it may be best (for the other, certainly) not to try.

Some say, for example, that romantic love isn't real. But romantic love is automatic and non-participatory: that is, your conscious self doesn't do the decision-making. And when you fall in love, every conscious system in your brain will be suborned to justify your automatic genetically-programmed behavior. So much for "free will!"

There are many instances where a parent does not bond with a child - they will not be protective or nurturing. In extreme instances they may kill the child. But none of this is normal or common.

I imagine there is all this code in your brain that doesn't run because 'if (kid)' resolves to false. It can freak people out when that code starts being run. I've never met anyone who thought it was like they had imagined it would be. Kind of like sex in that regard.

I resonated with a lot of what Jeff wrote. And the funny thing was after my first kid I became an expert. I studied her and figured out all the responses to various stimuli, created models and developed strategies. Then when I had my second I discovered I knew nothing. I didn't give up trying to make models but I've spent time discovering the unique value that each of my children brought with them to this world.

Sometimes, it doesn't feel like I had children, it feels like they were simply waiting for me to be ready to meet them.