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What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

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Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#61

Post by thatguymike »

quattrofan wrote: post #17
ericalexander0 wrote: post #3

It will make you a better person. There's nothing easy about it. You'll have less time for selfish things. Your self control will be challenged as you try to maintain composure in many challenging situations. Some that involve diaper blowouts at 3am, the night before a big presentation. You'll be forced to adapt as your lifestyle changes. Old friends without kids will invite you out less. You'll find new friends with…

"make you a better person" how incredibly arrogant,and I would argue having children is incredibly selfish. You are filling a need for yourself no-one else, there is nothing that couldn't be improved by less people on the planet.

I don't think the poster necessarily said that nothing else in the world will make you a better person... I think it's impossible to deny that learning kindness, patience, humility, acceptance makes you a better person.

Is it the only way to get that experience? In theory no, in practice it's hard to recreate the sheer intensity of the experience of raising children in other parts of life.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#63

Post by dogma1138 »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #44
kohanz wrote: post #12

Having kids is a personal choice. In order to have them, you should want to have them. It's a gut feel. Conversely, if you don't, you shouldn't need any supporting arguments or evidence to justify that choice to someone else. It's your life. I get the sense that you already have the gut feel, but are looking for supporting evidence and I would ask "why?". The worst thing someone can do is have kids when they don't wa…

The problem is when your gut is inconclusive, or when there’s a biological clock. Anecdotally from my experience, those are both common.

I don’t know why this is being downvoted.

I would say that plenty of people have kids by accident or because it’s expected of them then biology takes over.

I would say people that know they want kids 100% from the get go are probably in the minority it doesn’t mean that those who don’t love their kids any less or aren’t as good of a parent.

It also doesn’t mean that you can’t feel that you want kids and then regret it once reality sinks in.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#64

Post by treeman79 »

twelve40 wrote: post #60
treeman79 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro tip. No phones. No social media. It was unreal to see a happy, social, respectful teenager become depressed, uninvolved and nasty with a phone. Then a complete reversal every time it was taken away.

not very realistic. Bay Area, schools force parents to buy ipads (with Hangouts and everything else). Eventually they also need laptops to do projects. Pretty soon the house is littered with devices, old and new, trying to decide every second if a device is being used for a "legit" purpose or not becomes impractical. The best hope is to teach them what's sensible and what's not, and leave it up to them, after all, th…

Couldn’t disagree more. We have all the electronics for school.

Kids make terrible choices. Force good habits as long as possible.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#65

Post by hackeraccount »

hellisothers wrote: post #55

Part way through the hellish first year somebody asked me a similar question (after commenting the first year is brutal) “if you could go back in time and tell yourself about how hard this is would it have changed your mind?”, my answer was and still is “my previous self wouldn’t be able to understand”. My friend took this to mean I regret having and kid and wish I hadn’t; that isn’t the case, my point was it’s just…

I've gone through that thought experiment "What would I tell myself if I could go back in time?" enough times to know if I ever see an older version of myself when I'm walking down the street I plan on doing a 180 and running like hell. I imagine that the only thing my future self is planning on doing is laying a major beat down on the present version.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#66

Post by emerged »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #44
kohanz wrote: post #12

Having kids is a personal choice. In order to have them, you should want to have them. It's a gut feel. Conversely, if you don't, you shouldn't need any supporting arguments or evidence to justify that choice to someone else. It's your life. I get the sense that you already have the gut feel, but are looking for supporting evidence and I would ask "why?". The worst thing someone can do is have kids when they don't wa…

The problem is when your gut is inconclusive, or when there’s a biological clock. Anecdotally from my experience, those are both common.

I seriously can’t understand who would downvote this or why. The grey area of gut is literally the purpose of discussions like this one. I’m in that grey area and it’s like being stretched out by the limbs and waiting to find out which will give.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#67

Post by emerged »

ericalexander0 wrote: post #3

It will make you a better person. There's nothing easy about it. You'll have less time for selfish things. Your self control will be challenged as you try to maintain composure in many challenging situations. Some that involve diaper blowouts at 3am, the night before a big presentation. You'll be forced to adapt as your lifestyle changes. Old friends without kids will invite you out less. You'll find new friends with…

I think to a large extent the selfishness just expands to include your kids. Most parents are even less likely to consider the needs of people outside of their family because they weigh the needs of their kids far above others.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#68

Post by slumdev »

mdorazio wrote: post #56
slumdev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the comment I responded to. It said nothing about sustainable levels: > I would argue having children is incredibly selfish

Yes, read the comment you responded to. It said nothing about permanently dropping fertility rates to zero either. You made a straw man argument and I called you out on it.

That poster made the unqualified statement that having children is a selfish decision.

If there are at least some people for whom the decision is not selfish, then it's a false statement.

If there are no people for whom the decision is not selfish, then if every couple were to act selflessly, the human race would end in a single generation.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#69

Post by slumdev »

elite_hackers3 wrote: post #57
slumdev wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having travelled, gone to grad school, and had kids, I can assure you that kids are more challenging and more rewarding than either of the other two. Describing the decision to have a family as "another experience to be consumed" betrays an otherworldly level of antinatalist smugness.

The fact that you compared the experiences and concluded that having kids is the more rewarding one - pretty much proves my point. There was no need to do it and yet you did it anyway…

If this is some kind of weird incel troll humor, I'm not getting the joke.

Going around and telling parents that they didn't need to have their children is inflammatory. You'll have a much better time if you learn not to say things like that.

Re: What you learned after having kids that questioned the decision of having kids?

#70

Post by rognjen »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #41

Something I haven't seen in the comments, yet, is that kids are truly a one-way decision. I knew this before I went into it, but the repercussions didn't really hit me until after we brought the kid into the world. You will find out things about your spouse and yourself that you never knew about, but your kid will have inherited them. Some of these things are attractive features, others are not. You might have to fig…

> Some of these things can be fixed in post

Excellent turn of phrase. Some of the bugs will have to be fixed in production but some technical debt you'll just be stuck with.

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