Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

shreyans.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 260 posts

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#221

Post by elijaht »

deanCommie wrote: post #181
crystal_revenge wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would career advice from someone who just landed their first job. I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life , don't really start to emerge until after the first few years. Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of pa…

To put a counter-point on your counter-point: * Divorced parents aren't representative experiences for most parents. (The oft-used statistics that >50% of marriages end in divorce miss that those with one divorce often end up with N divorces. Aka most PEOPLE, and most COUPLES, do NOT end up divorced) * The job of a parent is to raise an adult. There are certainly those that become enamored with the idea of parenting…

Some brief googling suggests that 41% of first marriages end in divorce (ex. https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/). Obviously not >50%, but certainly in the neighborhood

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#222

Post by ricksunny »

mberning wrote: post #128
mr_mitm wrote: post #9

Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.

I absolutely do not share my true feelings about fatherhood. They would not be viewed kindly or understood by most. Also, how I feel about things does not matter, at all. My obligation is the same regardless of how I feel. So I do my best to adjust my attitude and soldier on. This is just one of the many alienating and lonely aspects of fatherhood.

Thank you for sharing genuinely in face of societal pressures. Yes so the autosquelching of valid voices to the conversation like this are part of what keep are from seriously considering taking that big, and especially irreversible, life step.

It's like, in this day and age where anything and everything is said by somebody, we can detect, however subconsciously, an artificial absence of expressing a position expected to exist. So, societal pressure (per the comment) in this case evidently.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#223

Post by ToDougie »

llm_nerd wrote: post #47

I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudd…

> a couple is often entirely on their own.

Yeah. This has been the worst part. Neither of our parents feel the need to help with their TIME, but they will sporadically send us money after making us feel bad about asking. Meanwhile they had all kinds of help from relatives, in time, sweat, and money. Part of the problem is that you don't get your full Social Security benefits until age 70, so for the one grandparent that is still working, they literally do not have the time to help. If they wanted to retire early, they would have to forgo what they perceive as critical $. Alternatively, they could sell their multi-million dollar home and downsize, but their egos could never handle that.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#224

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

llm_nerd wrote: post #47

I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudd…

I wish more of the country had tech work. I shouldn't have to move away from my village across the country to one of a handful of tech hubs.

Incentivize remote work so we can spread out into these cheaper and under served communities.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#225

Post by kbelder »

ricksunny wrote: post #179
mr_mitm wrote: post #9

Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.

I'm also very concerned about self-selection bias for the positive stories like this. Ideal would be an aggregate of fathers anonymously reporting satisfaction vs those reporting dissatisfaction with their choice of having kids , and then (male) non-fathers reporting satisfaction vs dissatisfaction with having kids.

>(male) non-fathers reporting satisfaction vs dissatisfaction with having kids

How would that work?

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#226

Post by ndriscoll »

beAbU wrote: post #215
DAGdug wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury” I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?

I would hope that my own current contribution to the fiscus would pay for my eventual old age pension. And my hypothetical children's future contribution would pay for their own retirement. But alas this is probably not the case.

It couldn't possibly be the case. The only way that could make sense is if your contribution were paying for something like automation of the services you will one day need. Otherwise, at the end of the day, the services you'll need will require labor, and if there's insufficient labor available because not enough people had kids, then the amount of money you contribute today is irrelevant, and it's ultimately unfair to expect a future generation to devote most of their available resources to taking care of a previous generation.

Money is a grease to help direct resource utilization. You can't expect the big bucket of grease you saved for the future to mean much if there are no resources to flow. You cannot rely on a financial abstraction to "invest" in the future without everyone also actually concretely investing in creating a future.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#227

Post by JambalayaJimbo »

anthonypasq wrote: post #214
The_Colonel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you're poor and child-less, you can still sleep in on weekends, watch Netflix/game all day/night or whatever other (cheap) hobby you have. It's even possible to do a decent amount of travelling on a very tight budget these days (low-cost airlines, couchsurfing...). All things considered, toda…

is just so absolutely bizarre to me as a 28 year old childless man who intends to have kids that gaming could possibly be something that you would trade vs raising a literal human child who is a genetic copy of you and the person you love most in your life

I agree; as someone who was _very_ into gaming at different periods of my life. Both gaming and travelling struck me as things young adults do to pass the time when they don’t have the privilege and responsibility of a family.

I understand procrastination for sure, but the idea that someone would avoid having kids to do the above is absolutely bizarre to me.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#228

Post by The_Colonel »

anthonypasq wrote: post #214
The_Colonel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you're poor and child-less, you can still sleep in on weekends, watch Netflix/game all day/night or whatever other (cheap) hobby you have. It's even possible to do a decent amount of travelling on a very tight budget these days (low-cost airlines, couchsurfing...). All things considered, toda…

is just so absolutely bizarre to me as a 28 year old childless man who intends to have kids that gaming could possibly be something that you would trade vs raising a literal human child who is a genetic copy of you and the person you love most in your life

Please don't take it as a personal attack, but you're 28 and from the way you're talking, it sounds like kids are not a priority for you right now, so apparently you want to do certain things before getting them. Many people who end up child-less are just like you - they don't actively decide "I'd rather game than have children", they just make excuses and postpone until it just doesn't work out at all.

One thing which I kind of regret about having children relatively late in my life (although I wasn't that much older when I had my first than you are now) is that I won't be there for them (and potentially grandchildren) as long as I wish I would be, esp. in good health. A depressing way to think about this is that every year I've enjoyed the freedom before them is a year I'm not going to spend with them.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#229

Post by hiatus »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #80
hiatus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't addressed the secondary point I was making: what does an innocent child have to repent for? What is the purpose of their gruesome death? If it is for the benefit of others, that means some of us are just pawns for the lessons of others. The alternative is that some kids just die through no fault of their own and for no reason at all (which leads to the question: why would an all-knowing, loving god allow…

To understand this, you have to start with four components: God’s sovereignty; human’s autonomy with consequences; individual vs group effects; all sin (evil) must be punished. God is sovereign which means He can do what He pleases. He created us to worship Him and love each other. He’s also painting a story of humanity that shows who He is (all attributes), who we are, and how that interacts. We are all part of the…

I do appreciate the thoughtful responses you have given. I need time to digest what you have said, but you have given me a lot of food for thought.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#230

Post by deanCommie »

elijaht wrote: post #221
deanCommie wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put a counter-point on your counter-point: * Divorced parents aren't representative experiences for most parents. (The oft-used statistics that >50% of marriages end in divorce miss that those with one divorce often end up with N divorces. Aka most PEOPLE, and most COUPLES, do NOT end up divorced) * The job of a parent is to raise an adult. There are certainly those that become enamored with the idea of parenting…

Some brief googling suggests that 41% of first marriages end in divorce (ex. https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/ ). Obviously not >50%, but certainly in the neighborhood

I'd be curious how much of this changes once you account for a few basic fundamental things like:

* Being over 25

* Having a college degree.

The people who worry about marriage because of these stats are typically in this category. I bet just by accounting for these 2 points, the numbers would plummet to the 20s if not teens.

Post reply on HN