Jeff Atwood On Parenthood • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

#171

Post by mkale » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 11:48 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #106

watmough wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I completely agree. If you have anything other than complete unconditional love for a child under about 10, then it seems possible there's something very very wrong. Its almost like he's talking about someone else's kids that he's baby sitting. Small children are a blank canvas. Good and bad. Mine is sitting down quietly paging through a book whilst I tap this in on the iPad. Moments ago, she was blundering abou…

This really bugs me. Why can't we have a normal range of emotions here? Yes, we are predisposed to enormously love our children. But it's just a massive bias , not an absolute requirement. Acting like anything short of complete and unconditional love with absolutely no complaints or downside somehow means that there's something wrong with a person just suppresses completely legitimate feelings and makes it difficult…

Often this comes up in the context of a conversation with people you don't know very well. (Like, on an internet forum.) When you're discussing some subject X with people you don't know that well, and you complain about X, people might get the impression that you don't much care for X. For all values of X, not just kids.

People that mostly like their kids and kids in the abstract, but nonetheless want to complain about some aspect of kids (understandably!), may not wish to create the impression that they're not into their kids. So they make sure to include a disclaimer in their complaint that their kids are wonderful, etc.

It's different among close friends -- there you find people complaining that their kids kept them up all night or whatever without feeling the need to include a "my kids are wonderful" every third sentence. Because their close friends know this implicitly.

Re: Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

#172

Post by chalst » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 1:43 PM UTC

tomxtobin wrote: post #138

As a childfree individual, I'm amused by the euphoric claims of parents regarding the improved quality of their lives after having children. All the science seems to point in the opposite direction: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyon... I have to confess: from the outside looking in, parents resemble nothing so much as cult victims gushing with conversion stories, complete with the requisite…

I sort of agree: the biggest "cult-like" effect is how mothers tell non-parent women it is simply wonderful to be pregnant, how small a deal child birth is, and how romantic breast-feeding is, and then later agree with these now-mothers about how ghastly each of these stages can be. It's a sort of selective conspiracy of silence.

The pros and cons of being a parent change with time. If you've built a good relationship with your children and they are not very unlucky in life, then by the time they are 30 they are a huge asset to you. I haven't met many happy 60-ish childless couples.

Re: Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

#173

Post by CPlatypus » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

gbog wrote: post #151

CPlatypus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have less free time, in smaller increments, and no longer under your control. Let's say you have no children, and work a standard forty-hour week. I know that's not common here, but bear with me. The thing is, that other 108 hours per week is yours, and you can arrange it as you like. You can choose to work longer hours at a startup, or spend time on strenuous hobbies. You can choose to stay up late and sleep in…

[edit: redoing my comment on desktop, was stuck with it on phone, sorry for the mess] When our kid was still sucking his mother's milk we went on 5 days trip in Dali, Yunnan, rented a 4*4, went to cheap backpackers hotels, no problem at all. The only diff was to wake up earlier than we would without him. For the interruptions, why do you allow them? When my dad was working at home, we wouldn't enter his place without…

Different concerns apply to children of different ages or temperaments, and to different situations. My seven-year-old daughter is actually better than most at entertaining herself with books or puzzles etc. She also has a mother who stays home. Thus, when I work from home, she's quite capable of leaving me alone and knows to do so. During the evening or weekends, though, it's perfectly reasonable for her to request my attention pretty often. My wife deserves her breaks too, and there are no siblings. Someone who would completely shut out a seven-year-old during those times, under those circumstances, is IMO too selfish to be a decent parent - or for that matter husband, colleague, ...

If your child is a different age, or has siblings, or is even more exceptional in terms of self-entertainment, or if you're content to plop your kids in front of a TV/computer for hours on end, or if you have other family/friends willing to take your kids often, then maybe you're able to achieve longer periods of concentration. Good for you. Please don't assume, though, that your circumstances and thus your choices are applicable to others. Among the hundreds of other parents I've talked to, this issue of limited and fragmented free time is a major challenge for every single one.

Re: Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

#174

Post by tomxtobin » Sat, Oct 29, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

chalst wrote: post #172

tomxtobin wrote: post #138

As a childfree individual, I'm amused by the euphoric claims of parents regarding the improved quality of their lives after having children. All the science seems to point in the opposite direction: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyon... I have to confess: from the outside looking in, parents resemble nothing so much as cult victims gushing with conversion stories, complete with the requisite…

I sort of agree: the biggest "cult-like" effect is how mothers tell non-parent women it is simply wonderful to be pregnant, how small a deal child birth is, and how romantic breast-feeding is, and then later agree with these now-mothers about how ghastly each of these stages can be. It's a sort of selective conspiracy of silence. The pros and cons of being a parent change with time. If you've built a good relationshi…

> I haven't met many happy 60-ish childless couples.

I'm admittedly generalizing here from what I've seen and experienced, but I suspect that you haven't met them because the childfree (i.e., those who are childless by choice) tend not to inhabit the same social circles as parents. Those who are instead childless by circumstance may well be the very image of unhappiness.

Re: Jeff Atwood On Parenthood

#175

Post by tomxtobin » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

technomancy wrote: post #153

tomxtobin wrote: post #138

As a childfree individual, I'm amused by the euphoric claims of parents regarding the improved quality of their lives after having children. All the science seems to point in the opposite direction: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyon... I have to confess: from the outside looking in, parents resemble nothing so much as cult victims gushing with conversion stories, complete with the requisite…

> I'm amused by the euphoric claims of parents regarding the improved quality of their lives after having children. I would go the other way and claim that the main benefit of raising a child is that it's the most effective way to banish the seductive illusion that you yourself are the most important thing in the universe.

I'd argue that "the most important thing in the universe" is always an utterly subjective feeling — an "illusion" — whether evoked by thoughts of oneself, one's child, or anything else. The interesting lesson is that the object of one's supreme devotion can change at all.