75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12

I remember being happy --- I was a kid. I remember when it stopped --- gradually when I became a teenager and completely when I became an adult. I had a career, I had money, more than I could spend. I had a loving wife, better wife than I ever expected to have. I lived in a free country. I was passionately interested in a myriad of subjects: Films, books, sports, programming, science, I had a lot of hobbies, never stopped being busy. All those hobbies I had since I was a kid. But I realized that I don't see them the same way I saw them when I was a kid.

Sports, I hated long-distance running as a kid, found it tedious and grueling. As an adult, I would run and run and run, run through pain, through exhaustion, became sick with over-training, developed anemia, had multiple injuries, had pain almost every day, ran through injuries because I didn't want to lose fitness, reached almost 20 BMI, was frail and weak. What for? Nobody cared, not even me. It was just an obsession, looking for something that wasn't there.

Science, it was no longer the wonderful curiosity-satisfying endeavor that it was when I was a kid. It had become stressful research, anxiety to learn as much as possible, guilt and feeling of worthlessness when I couldn't really understand something after studying it for a period of time.

Films, I would watch 100-150 per year. Had a film-club subscription and watched pretty much everything they put on. Went to film festivals and watched 30+ films in a week. Watched something at home regularly. When you watch so many films they become tedious and you hate 90% of what you watch but I had to keep doing it because, what else would I do with all the free time I had?

I realized that there's nothing wrong with all those activities, what's wrong is what I expected from them. I wanted too much from them. I wanted them to give meaning to my life which was at a point when no meaning could be extracted by such activities.

And then I had kids. It was stressful, yes, it was tiring, yes, but oh boy --- no doubt about it, I was happy. I wanted to run out on the streets screaming from my happiness. I could not get angry any more. Everything that happened to me I just smiled and went on. And 6 years later I miss every time I awoke at night, every time I held them screaming. I am absolutely and positively sure that there can be no greater happiness in this world than the one I felt back then. I realize that I can have another kid now but it won't be the same.

And it all feels like it was one second ago. It all passed me by in an instant. Now my kids are old enough to do almost everything by themselves. Soon they will know how to read. I now do all the activities I mentioned above. But no obsession. I run enough to stay fit. I started weight-training which made me feel and look better than ever. I study science with a smile and with an understanding that I will never understand everything.

Everything has meaning now.

It can fill up your life, and if you have good close friends it may be enough to feel long term OK and have amazing moments, which I kinda was. In fact, I've spent all my 30s like that, and backpacking around the world. I needed that, I felt I needed that back then, and when looking in retrospect it was right emotion, it made me a more complete human being (and later better parent too). Some can get there without, I couldn't, didn't have the right environment for it when growing up. This worked very well even when married, my wife complements me well in this (we met on a climbing session so that part was covered).

And then kids came, one just before covid and one during. I clinged to that climbing (with buddy) a bit, that was my escape for few hours a week into easy good times that were. Then I had this year injury of wrist, and then broken foot (all in civil setting, ie falling down the stairs in kindergarten) and I lost it all, and I blamed kids internally. I was depressed a bit. My sleep for past year was never, ever uninterrupted, good 8 hours (those damned teeth, how could evolution fucked up so badly? any animal with this trait would simply die out over few generations). That normal sleep is just gone, and I am mentally at maybe 70% at better days, more irritable, less patient.

But the thing is, kids bring up the hardest moments just as much as the best moments of your life. And we humans generally are OK with suffering quite a bit for those few nice moments. Kids bring tons of those. Even when walking relative valley of the shadow now with small kids (diapers, various naps during day that block anything bigger, teeth and lack of sleep), without cheaping out and outsourcing many troubles to nanny (or grandparents), they are amazing to watch, to experience. They love you back, unconditionally (for now), and it just feels natural to continue what all generations since ever did. It had been a rough year, few folks died in close family, and when my grandpa died 2 days ago, hugging my kids made it much much much more bearable.

I am pretty darn sure that skipping kids would be by far the biggest regret of my life later, met quite a few older folks like that. No need to always do the mistake to realize others were right again. But - if one has some serious mental issue which make them unable to be a stable partner and caretaker, then it should definitely be avoided. Too many sad stories out there already.

When they are 6 they become much more self contained, they don't need constant entertaining. They will leave you alone, without being asked, for hours at a time to do what they want to.

You have 2 so you will have a bit of a longer spell, but after 6 you enter into the high summer of their childhood. They are small enough not to have any real problems (apart from, god forbid, medical ones) but they are big enough to give you time and space to breath.

I hear your pain. But it will be worth it, and it will improve.

There is no more depth in life than raising kids properly, the good and bad combined. If you are up to it.