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Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#251

Post by nostromo123 »

bhouston wrote: post #106
pingpongrandom wrote: post #99

IIRC, 42 is around the age where the window closes, at least, that's what my physician told me. Regardless, if that gap has closed, it may be some consolation to bring this up to your friends and relations who are on the fence about having kids. Everybody's chuffed to tell others about how they made the right choice for them. Rarely, does one hear from another with the courage to say "I changed my mind, and wish I'd…

Pregnancy success is women dependent (egg quality is the problem, and leads to increasing fertilitization and miscarriage rates) and start to drop at the beginning of one’s 30s and gets really bad in late thirties and near impossible in early 40s. Every women is different and some have earlier falloff in success rates. The moral of the story is don’t want until you are 30 to have kids. Have them young and it is easy.…

So impossible that both I and my neighbour of similar age got pregnant within a couple of months of trying at 40...must be something in the water here. Or maybe we are just healthy and have good hormonal status ;-)

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#254

Post by opyate »

jlizzle30 wrote: post #206

New(ish) parent here. Two things: First, the bad news: lots of comments saying stuff like "Don't have kids to fill a perceived hole in your life". In general, the advice "Don't do ____ to fill a hole in your life" is good for frivolous things, but I don't think this applies to being a parent. Parenting is a biological and psychological life milestone. To me it's felt more like leveling up my maturity than buying or a…

> my experiences (and accounts of friends as well) suggests that attachment to a child is less biological and more developed than you'd expect

We found this too, and my wife felt validated by this article she found recently:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/10/the-big-idea-w...

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#255

Post by medvezhenok »

thefz wrote: post #238
jlizzle30 wrote: post #206

New(ish) parent here. Two things: First, the bad news: lots of comments saying stuff like "Don't have kids to fill a perceived hole in your life". In general, the advice "Don't do ____ to fill a hole in your life" is good for frivolous things, but I don't think this applies to being a parent. Parenting is a biological and psychological life milestone. To me it's felt more like leveling up my maturity than buying or a…

> Parenting is a biological and psychological life milestone Allow me to disagree. First: there's no evidence of any change in your body, as a male, after becoming a father. Second: supposing such a "wireless" change would happen, getting someone pregnant and immediately disappearing from their life would yield a perceptible change even with distance and no involvement with the life of the child. Third: I personally…

Not exactly true - they have found statistically significant hormonal changes in men after becoming fathers: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/parenting/baby/fatherhood...

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#256

Post by cat_plus_plus »

Have kids, would recommend :-) As far as I can tell, adoptive parents are just as happy as biological ones. And as a guy, you can easily have biological children through IVF and surrogacy. If it's important for your wife to carry the baby and/or have it be biologically related to her, there are medical options for that as well.

Now in terms of broader happiness, you got to realize that it's mostly a physical condition and you can't talk yourself into it through therapy. Having kids is also not a one in all solution. You got to do regular physical workouts, be in nature frequently and maintain social connections beyond your immediate family. All of these things are also important for good parenting.

Do not assume that you have to spend all your time coding just because you used to, you probably know enough that the challenge is gone. Find some other hobby, ideally with your spouse so that you can reestablish your connection and discuss these kind of concerns with her rather than random geeks on hacker news.

Also get a dog, but a calm kind that you would not be scared to have around eventual baby. All in one exercise, nature exposure, hobby, bonding with spouse and a taste of greater responsibility so you can decide if you are up for even more. Take heart, it does get better!

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#257

Post by seltzered_ »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #175
seltzered_ wrote: post #170

To take a different perspective, I try to remember some argue we've overshot population: https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/def... , and honestly get leary at seeing how friends are raising kids. One of my friends works with tutoring kids all day and very consciously had a vasectomy after finding a partner. Why not partner with your spouse on something like ecosystem restoration? https://happenf…

> we issue a global appeal for women and men to have at most one child Let's wait another 20 years and see how the results of such a policy pan out for China. They've already back tracked on it (their current policy is 3 children as of 2021) but the damage is done. I'm hoping for a relatively soft landing, a complete implosion of Chinese society would be a humanitarian catastrophe.

Im trying to point out a broader predicament and thinking of the systemic tradeoffs between human impact (in terms of population size but more importantly population pressure), planetary boundaries, and changes in resource availability.

Start with reading 'a good life within planetary boundaries': https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#259

Post by bhouston »

nostromo123 wrote: post #251
bhouston wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pregnancy success is women dependent (egg quality is the problem, and leads to increasing fertilitization and miscarriage rates) and start to drop at the beginning of one’s 30s and gets really bad in late thirties and near impossible in early 40s. Every women is different and some have earlier falloff in success rates. The moral of the story is don’t want until you are 30 to have kids. Have them young and it is easy.…

So impossible that both I and my neighbour of similar age got pregnant within a couple of months of trying at 40...must be something in the water here. Or maybe we are just healthy and have good hormonal status ;-)

Anecdotal success after 40 is real. But the statistical distribution means that you and your friend are lucky. My friend circle has a lot of couples in it who have had fertility problems. Often it isn’t spoken of.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

#260

Post by cat_plus_plus »

jlizzle30 wrote: post #206

New(ish) parent here. Two things: First, the bad news: lots of comments saying stuff like "Don't have kids to fill a perceived hole in your life". In general, the advice "Don't do ____ to fill a hole in your life" is good for frivolous things, but I don't think this applies to being a parent. Parenting is a biological and psychological life milestone. To me it's felt more like leveling up my maturity than buying or a…

It's especially not true for frivolous things, go for it unless it will absolutely ruin your health or finances. Why would a nice car NOT make you happy? It might not give you lifelong fulfillment on its own, but then nothing will, you always have to find new goals and work towards them as a journey.
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