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

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

#421

Post by lee » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

WheatMillington wrote: post #90

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

One of the things I have a hard time conveying to non-parents is that the most time-intensive parts of parenting don't last forever. I've talked to a lot of young people who say they don't want kids because they think their personal lives will permanently halt the moment they have kids. I spend a lot of time trying to explain that: 1) I still spend a lot of time with friends and can do most of my personal hobbies/act…

I don't think I'm necessarily having the same experience as you.... my advice to people who aren't sure if they want kids, is DON'T. It's bloody hard, you sacrifice A LOT. Don't have kids unless you're very sure it's what you want. I have 2 kids under 6 and I feel like I just don't have any time for any of my hobbies any more. I leave for work first thing, come home in the afternoon, and haven't had any time for myse…

My kids are older now (10 and 13) and I really enjoy these years than when they were younger whereas my wife really enjoyed them more in the earlier years.

That period of enjoyment really varies between individuals, and I think in the aggregate men tend to enjoy hanging out with older kids compared to women. There was also a moment when I shifted my own personal attitude towards spending time with them that made it more enjoyable. Instead of seeing time with them as a time-suck where I could be doing something else, I saw it as fleeting moments that I could never get back when they're older. I became more grateful for the time I had with them.

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

#422

Post by mherdeg » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

bruce343434 wrote: post #347

type-r wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting list but I'd considering being less prescriptive in the future. Hard for me to really buy in when the opinions shared are so explicitly hardline: "ideally, every day"; "never" (3x!); "always", "every single" (both 2x) "everything possible." Part of the problem with today's parenting and why it's so demanding are these completely unreasonable expectations we are setting.

What did you expect instead? 3 nines %? 80% of the time?

A lot of the parenting blogs advise you to leave some room for being less than perfect and have a plan for how to deal with it (watching how you deal with it is often an important lesson to the kid, too).

Being able to say "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have taken away your favorite toy for a week, I was angry and made a mistake" is an important grace to give yourself.

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

#423

Post by fountainofage » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

dragonsky67 wrote: post #269

scandox wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy being a parent but my advice to people who ask if they should have kids is that you really have to want to have kids because all the benefits are intangible and all the drawbacks are tangible. People who say they don't want kids, usually mean it - whether they've identified their real reason or not.

I'm not sure why there is a stigma to deciding to not have kids. It's not as if your decision is going to have much impact on anybody except yourself or the potential grandparents who may feel that they are missing out, but that is very much their problem. All this talk of "perpetuating the species" is so much crap... The species will get along quite well without everybody contributing their genetic material. At leas…

> I'm not sure why there is a stigma to deciding to not have kids.

> It's not as if your decision is going to have much impact on anybody except yourself

That's pretty much every stigma, though, so it also makes sense why this one exists, too.

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

#424

Post by tiborsaas » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

scandox wrote: post #47

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

One of the things I have a hard time conveying to non-parents is that the most time-intensive parts of parenting don't last forever. I've talked to a lot of young people who say they don't want kids because they think their personal lives will permanently halt the moment they have kids. I spend a lot of time trying to explain that: 1) I still spend a lot of time with friends and can do most of my personal hobbies/act…

I enjoy being a parent but my advice to people who ask if they should have kids is that you really have to want to have kids because all the benefits are intangible and all the drawbacks are tangible. People who say they don't want kids, usually mean it - whether they've identified their real reason or not.

> People who say they don't want kids, usually mean it

Quite true, I'm almost 40 and still have a bunch of things that interest me way more than changing diapers and worrying myself to death.

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

#425

Post by fullstop » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

One of the things I have a hard time conveying to non-parents is that the most time-intensive parts of parenting don't last forever. I've talked to a lot of young people who say they don't want kids because they think their personal lives will permanently halt the moment they have kids. I spend a lot of time trying to explain that: 1) I still spend a lot of time with friends and can do most of my personal hobbies/act…

It all goes by in the blink of an eye. I've had my ~1,000 weekends with my oldest, and now she's at school and living on campus.

My youngest is in high school and spends so much time in activities that I only get to see her for a few hours each day and a lot of that time is while she is doing homework.

I'm now at a point in my life where I'm 100% debt free and I'm seriously considering cutting back and finding a low stress job which still offers decent benefits so that I can spend more time with her and give myself more time to spend on hobbies and with my wife.

We had kids in our early and mid 20s, so I'll have an empty nest before I'm 50 and I don't regret it one bit.

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

#426

Post by willtossabout » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

Having his just is not for everybody. I have one, and I hate it. I love him, but I hated being a father. He was planned, but then when he was born, he just didn't like me, was never affectionate towards me. 6 months after he was born I got a vasectomy but never told my *ex(wife, who wanted (and now has) two more.

The only times I ever enjoyed being a father was when he visited me in Europe and we walked for hours without talking or making eye contact. Otherwise, our relationship has been just a disappointment.

Frankly, he's an asshole exactly like I am. At age 9 he told me he would be happier if I only came on his birthdays, so I did that.

Now he's 16 and I haven't seen him since Covid. Life is so much better. I would spend weeks dreaming the 4 hours of trains/taxis and 14 hours of flights to see him.

He gets spoiled like crazy, I've already put together a trust to pay for his college and buy him a house after he graduates, and I send his mother $3,000 per month.

In the end, I wasn't meant to be a father, only a sperm donor and an ATM.

Before he was born, I wanted children because my parents were dying and wanted grandchildren. Had I waited a year, my sister's twins would have fulfilled that bill and I would have been off the hook.

Since he stopped returning my texts, and I stopped sending them, I have found the most peace and happiness I have ever known. My career is finally back to where it was before he was born, I've lost 150lbs, I travel 3 months of the year, I've got a girl in many ports. I am living my best life now.

Maybe in his '20s he'll call me before I die, but if he doesn't that's his choice and I respect it.

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

#427

Post by ciphol » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

Defitio wrote: post #388

natnatenathan wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my experience, probably from age 28 until I met my wife at ~34. My friends and I would go to all these bars, clubs, rock climbing trips. While I loved my friends and generally enjoyed doing those things, I felt this long-term malaise of meaningless. The loss of freedom getting married and then greater loss when having kids was unexpected and a jarring change. But it has made me such a better person. A…

In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life. My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern? Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them? Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? Unfortunately for me I'm not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes. A…

When I was a teenager I thought kids were a pyramid scheme. If your life isn't worthwhile, then what point is there in creating another life whose worth will be equally questionable? This sounds like your "scapegoat for meaning of life" idea.

What I eventually gradually realized was that the kid might just be another person, but you're not just creating a person, you're also creating a relationship with that person. And it's a unique kind of relationship, in some ways more intimate than any relationship you can have with anyone else including your romantic partner. (Which adult runs with beaming face to hug you whenever they see you come home from work and you know it's all totally genuine?) I'm not an expert on what has objective meaning in life, but I'm pretty sure that deep relationships like this are one of the stronger candidates.

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

#428

Post by HideousKojima » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

Defitio wrote: post #388

natnatenathan wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my experience, probably from age 28 until I met my wife at ~34. My friends and I would go to all these bars, clubs, rock climbing trips. While I loved my friends and generally enjoyed doing those things, I felt this long-term malaise of meaningless. The loss of freedom getting married and then greater loss when having kids was unexpected and a jarring change. But it has made me such a better person. A…

In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life. My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern? Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them? Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? Unfortunately for me I'm not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes. A…

>I have the opposite though: perhaps I need to not to have kids to stop the cycle of creating meaning through procreation.

You won't stop the cycle though, others who do actually have kids will simply continue it, and the single biggest way in which you could have had and influence on the future of the world and the human race will have been eliminated.

And that's before you get into any religious implications of having and raising children.

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

#429

Post by navane » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #387

chronofar wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also tangible benefits. Economic models needing to adjust to non-perpetual growth is not an impossible nor existential crisis.

Adjusting economic models? We’re significantly below replacement level. That means population collapse and, eventually, actual extinction. We’re not headed toward a future where we just stop growing. We’re headed for a future where populations shrink by more than 50%. It takes decades to create this problem, and even more decades to fix it. People aren’t paying attention because from a raw numbers perspective our pop…

I dont agree population decline is a problem. Nevertheless, if it were, at any time of our choosing, we can open the gates and access a practically endless supply of people wanting to move and work in the countries with population decline.

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

#430

Post by nmcfarl » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #282

Panzer04 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels a lot like a more extreme version of what I'm doing now (especially the camping thing), and I'm a lot younger.. Thanks for the perspective.

Just don’t take it as a rule though - I had a kid late also and I don’t regret the camping, brunches, career and travel at all. Some are memories I’ll keep forever and all those experiences make me feel like I’ve had a fullish life already, which can make it easier to deal with the no-life of having kids :)

There’s 1000 places in this conversation to say this, but I thought here would work. I too had a kid late and do not regret the camping, but wanted to say the no-life is time limited^, or can be if you are lucky.

My kid is now 9, and while a fancy brunch is beyond him, he can do a sit down sushi dinner. We've done a couple of international trips with him, and we've settled into a friend group with similar interests so we are constantly doing camping, backcountry backpacking, and in the winter skiing - all with him and his friends. It is pretty good, and certainly not a no-life.

---

^ And we knew what we wanted, so even though many of the early trips where miserable, the kid can say he’s been backpacking and xc-skiing every year of his life.