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Having Kids

paulgraham.com

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Re: Having Kids

#621

Post by RomanBob »

codingdave wrote: post #210
triangleman wrote: post #131

Hey guys. Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything i…

It gets better - My kids range from 14 to 9.The 14 year old is hanging out with friends and making jewelry. The 12 year old is sitting in my bedroom, reading. The 9 year old is playing games. I'm coding on personal projects, and my wife is in the basement making blankets. We have an entire day of just all doing whatever we want. Weekdays are busier with school and work, but you the point is that you do get your time…

>The 12 year old is sitting in my bedroom, reading.

I have some news for you chap.

Re: Having Kids

#622

Post by kelnos »

sombremesa wrote: post #30
daenz wrote: post #13

>Having kids is one of those intense types of experience that are hard to imagine unless you've had them. But it is not, as I implicitly believed before having kids, simply your DNA heading for the lifeboats. But it is, because your entire biology has evolved for billions of years with the sole purpose of reproducing effectively. No amount of "I feel like I enjoy it" negates that it is programmed into you as an organ…

The interesting thing here is that if you take a long-term holistic view, there is actually more productivity (literally an extra lifetime), more time for ideas, and more ambitions being added to the world. You can choose to instill your values in your children and watch them bring ideas you might've had into a world you will never enter.

That only matters if you care about what happens to the world after you die to the extent that you're willing to allocate many person-years of your life toward raising a child. If that's not the case, and you just aren't interested in having kids, then this point doesn't really matter.

Re: Having Kids

#623

Post by kelnos »

DylanDmitri wrote: post #137
haberman wrote: post #43

As someone who has wrestled a lot with the question of whether I ever want kids, I've sought out data. One thing I came across was this: https://www.salon.com/2017/05/09/google-confessional-your-se... > Adults with children are 3.6 times more likely to tell Google they regret their decision than are adults without children. I'd be curious if others have data on this. I'm especially interested in how many people have…

There's bias: people with children were previously people without children and can realistically regret the lifestyle that they're leaving behind, but people who've never had children lack that same capacity for regret. And as to who is feeling overwhelmed and regretful, it's mostly women who are shoved into a thankless housewife roll and living far away from their family and friends.

I don't think that actually matters, in the "ignorance is bliss" sort of way. If you don't know what you're missing, you can't regret missing it.

If the goal is "minimizing regret" (probably it isn't, but let's say it is for now), then not having kids is a more probably way of getting there.

Re: Having Kids

#624

Post by hellllllllooo »

kelnos wrote: post #528
lonelappde wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful, one day you might realize you missed something important. After I'm dead, my kids can continue my work better than I could do it myself.

I would tend to think that, for people truly on the fence, it is much better to not have kids and later regret it, than to have kids and regret that . At least with the former, you can still have an otherwise full life, and you're the only one who bears the brunt of your regret. If you have kids and regret them, the kids are going to suffer for it, even if you do everything you can to hide that regret from them.

You can always adopt or foster children if you really regret it later. There are plenty of children that exist that need good homes without having to create more.

Re: Having Kids

#625

Post by city41 »

patentatt wrote: post #606
city41 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding meaning through kids means the kids then need to find meaning. It's kind of like a pyramid scheme.

You misread the comment. People who have kids, who aren’t narcissists or psychopaths, have found their sense of purpose and fulfillment in life.

But the cycle continues as the kids then need to find their purpose, which is what I was getting at.

Re: Having Kids

#626

Post by gcheong »

daxfohl wrote: post #620
gcheong wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go further and say that the central question shouldn't be whether having kids makes our lives better in some way, but rather is it right to impose a life on a person, as well as the inevitable death they will eventually have to face, with all the potential negative experiences in between just to fulfill a selfish desire. A strong case can be made that the answer is no: https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-no…

A case could also be made for the opposite: is it right to deny a hypothetical not-yet-conceived person the opportunity of life, just so you can have more free time? I think both arguments boil down to nothing.

No it can't because you cannot deprive a person that doesn't exist of anything. That's an absurdist position. Also the free-time aspect of it for me doesn't even factor because, as I said, the argument isn't whether being a parent or not is better for me but for the person that is going to have to live the live that is imposed upon them.

Re: Having Kids

#627

Post by stoicShell »

daxfohl wrote: post #258

So my experience was the opposite. I came in expecting this great "chemical change" where suddenly the world revolved around my kids and their future. Well the latter part is true: my world now revolves around them and their futures. But chemical change? No. It's just the responsibility I have now. There's never a break. It's all-encompassing. I mean, it's survivable, I can deal with it, and I do the best I can, but,…

> chemical change? No.

Not everybody gets the feels/chemical thing indeed, or not the first time. Some people are just less on the emotional / pathos side and more on the rational / logos, the 'rational' kind of feelings or rather 'impressions', 'convictions', sometimes just this 'clarity' — less feels, more words. Same result, just different brains to get there.

Re: Having Kids

#628

Post by rb808 »

daxfohl wrote: post #258

So my experience was the opposite. I came in expecting this great "chemical change" where suddenly the world revolved around my kids and their future. Well the latter part is true: my world now revolves around them and their futures. But chemical change? No. It's just the responsibility I have now. There's never a break. It's all-encompassing. I mean, it's survivable, I can deal with it, and I do the best I can, but,…

> There's never a break. It's all-encompassing.

I've felt like this too, I've learned you have to make some time for yourself & your partner. Try to get grandparents to look after the children, or friends to take them away. Definitely hire babysitters and maybe even a nanny. When you see them again you'll be re-energized.

Re: Having Kids

#629

Post by XorNot »

coldtea wrote: post #521
triangleman wrote: post #131

Hey guys. Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything i…

> Anyone else have the experience of having kids, getting a burst of energy, but of course all that energy goes directly back into the kids and house, and you have absolutely no life for 3-5 years or more? Because my kids are 2 and 4 and so far it's been 4 years of no life, no freelance clients, almost no learning/hobbies, just 35-40 hours a week of working as much as I can at the office and then everything is about…

If the best argument you have to do a thing which will make you miserable is that someone else somewhere else is worse off, that's no argument at all.

Re: Having Kids

#630

Post by whiddershins »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #603
WhiteAussie wrote: post #600

This is great to see. The harmful notion that modern young professionals are somehow 'above' children is ruining generations of Western adults. It boggles my mind that the idea that purpose can be found in an office cubicle making spreadsheets for a boss you hate has become so pervasive among our people. Along with many other toxic crumbs of anti-family propaganda, it's little wonder that our birthrates have collapse…

Cool it with the casual implied racism, first off. Second off it’s not that young people are above children. It’s that we can’t afford to make them and raise them with skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs.

First off I agree with you about the parent’s comment.

Second of all the cost of living thing makes no sense. People throughout all of time were poorer and had more kids, and people tend to have less kids during this time period when they have more advantages.

The notion that one “needs” a certain amount of wealth to have kids is actually an expression of values: some minimum material baseline that is arbitrary from an historical or global perspective, therefore has a culturally defined source that is in some sense subjective.

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