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Having Kids

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Re: Having Kids

#661

Post by daxfohl »

austhrow743 wrote: post #637
chillwaves wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is consumption, not population.

Population is a huge part of that equation and it's not talked about. There are people going around shitting out kids left right and centre and I'm treated like the antichrist for wanting some bottled water.

And the consumption required to sustain families itself is a huge part of the consumption aspect. I feel like my carbon footprint is literally 30x what it was before kids, and that's not even including the kids' carbon footprints.

Re: Having Kids

#662

Post by khaledh »

seanhandley wrote: post #302
basilisks wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this. My son is 2 and legally blind, so needless to say we have no life outside of him for now, but he is a joy. I would trade none of this for nothing. Often I feel like I will never again be able to have a life, read a book, finish a project, have an idea. I know that it gets better and that I should cherish the moments we have while he is so young (and I do), but it’s hard to see more than a foot in…

Our son is profoundly autistic and will probably need care all his life. He's 4 now and I wouldn't change him for the world, but it's taken 4 years to really come to terms with his condition and our ongoing role as parents and carers.

Our son has a severe intellectual disability, non-verbal, and depends on us for all his daily needs, no matter how small they are. He's 8 now, and it took us a while to come to terms with his condition as well.

It's getting a little better as he gets support from his school for developing basic skills. And he's such a joy and a charming little fella. I'm grateful for having him, as he taught me to see matters in their right perspective, and he taught me what unconditional love looks like.

I still get some time after he (and his normal 13 year old sister) goes to sleep to code on some hobby projects (right now I'm trying to write an OS from scratch and read half-way through the Intel manuals). It's not consistent, and life can be interrupted by trips to the ER every few months (he's asthmatic too). But we still accept it and make the best out of it.

Hang in there, and know that you're not alone.

Re: Having Kids

#663

Post by gsaines »

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…

I have two very young kids (19 and 7 months) and my experience is somewhere between OP and PG. Most of the time, kids feel to me like an endless, grinding to do list. The sleeplessness, sickness, and endless chores/cleaning are hard to power through. My career has definitely slowed down and I find that I already struggle with lower levels of professional ambition. That's not the worst part though: the worst part is the loss of control. Kids make life far less deterministic and most surprises suck. They wake up sick and can't go to daycare and so you don't go to work, you wake up sick and feel like death, they puke in their bed, they poop out of their diaper, they accidentally injure you, etc, etc.

The big redemption in my experience has been that I didn't really expect kids generally and this part of childrearing specifically, to be enjoyable or particularly meaningful. My wife and I agreed before having kids that at least the first 5 years were just gonna suck and we were just going to have to power through. I have still been impressed by how challenging it is, even coming in with that expectation.

On the plus side, I've always viewed having children as unrelated to happiness. If you care primarily about being happy, accomplishing great things professionally, or living an alternative lifestyle (and there's nothing wrong with any of these things) it seems pretty clear that having kids is not a good choice.

For me, I view the experience as a way to grow as a person and connect with something bigger than me. It's a way to become more human, and I'm getting what I came for.

Re: Having Kids

#664

Post by dvko »

austhrow743 wrote: post #637
chillwaves wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is consumption, not population.

Population is a huge part of that equation and it's not talked about. There are people going around shitting out kids left right and centre and I'm treated like the antichrist for wanting some bottled water.

That is probably mostly because the population argument is usually used by people in rich countries in order not to have to change anything, despite the fact that on average, a 10-person family in rural Africa emits less CO2 than a single individual in the US.

I agree there is probably no good reason for anyone to have more than 4 kids (at most, probably just 2 to go for a manageable population decline) but lifestyle is simply a more important aspect of the equation.

Re: Having Kids

#665

Post by spyckie2 »

gsaines wrote: post #663
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…

I have two very young kids (19 and 7 months) and my experience is somewhere between OP and PG. Most of the time, kids feel to me like an endless, grinding to do list. The sleeplessness, sickness, and endless chores/cleaning are hard to power through. My career has definitely slowed down and I find that I already struggle with lower levels of professional ambition. That's not the worst part though: the worst part is t…

> It's a way to become more human, and I'm getting what I came for.

I appreciate this self introspection. Humanity is a vast mysterious realm to explore and we've spent most of our lives focusing only on the concrete systems, like productivity loops or economics.

Re: Having Kids

#666

Post by topkai22 »

remarkEon wrote: post #500
paxys wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because the average neighborhood is safer than ever before. What has gone way down is our tolerance for accidents (which I guess is a good thing, but certainly has its tradeoffs).

Not sure this is the distinction that's important. I agree with what you're saying, but ... I think the difference is that while neighborhoods are "safer", they are less "known". Millennials (I am one) in big cities move around a lot because of high rents and high cost of living, and it's hard to establish permanence in a community. Even if you're a Church-going family that would have social structures to lean on, ev…

In all honesty- don’t be afraid to make the move, especially to family. I switched roles at one the tech giants from software development to the "field" (sales, service, and support) in order be able to move closer to my wife, and have stuck with it to be closer to family while raising our kids. It was a definite sacrifice and I won't pretend like I don't still fantasize abut jumping back into a product group somewhere, but I've still enjoyed my career so far.

Overall though, its been worth it. The familial support is just such a game changer, as is living in what is IMO a friendlier and more family centric community.

I've known a fair number of people make similar jumps and come out fine. I don't want to make any blanket statement that moving out of a coastal tech capital is the right move generally, but it is definitely possible to accept a down grade in your work life for an improvement in your home life and feel like you came out ahead.

Re: Having Kids

#667

Post by anon9001 »

lutorm wrote: post #605
anon9001 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this for me, but I would go a step further. I don't want to birth kids into this exact situation. If I have kids now, I'll have to work into old age, and so will my kids. That's a very sad situation in my view. If I achieve financial independence personally, but I have kids who will have to toil their whole lives, then I'd feel I'm making a selfish choice. How could I explain to my kids, who would see nothing bu…

Why do you think your kids will have to toil more than you? Achieving financial independence is more about prioritizing your wants than having a huge income, and that's definitely something you can pass on to your children. I think it would be a lot healthier to grow up like that than as a child who could have whatever they wanted (monetarily.) Sending the signal to your children that things in life just come for fre…

> Achieving financial independence is more about prioritizing your wants

Except that's not true... Life in the US is expensive. If you stop earning money, you go homeless and hungry.

I'd like to opt out of all of this and I'm in my 30s. Unless you're counting healthcare, food, and shelter as "wants", you need to work.

I'm lucky enough to still have my parents, and their advice on this is that I can stop working when I have enough money to retire. Solid advice, makes good sense.

But if I look at how much money that requires, I'll probably be done in my 40s. If I had kids, it'd probably be in my 50s. If one of the companies I've worked for has a big exit, maybe I'll be done with work by 40.

I don't want to prescribe that to another human, especially one that's predisposed to having my views.

> I think it would be a lot healthier to grow up like that than as a child who could have whatever they wanted (monetarily.)

I'll admit I haven't given a lot of thought about parenting, because I don't think I'll ever get to do it, but I'm pretty sure that's not how the relationship would work. I'd probably let them follow the crowd and if they thrive and are happy, all is good.

If I detect that they're about ready to off themselves rather than go to the office for one more day, maybe I'd open up the treasure chest and tell them to go live life as an artist. A poor parent can't offer that.

Re: Having Kids

#668

Post by littlethrowaway »

We have a 15 month old. She is probably the easiest kid imaginable, sleeps really well, eats really well, great temperament. It's still ridiculously hard work. My partner still isn't recovered from the birthing process (some latent muscle imbalances came out). She wants another one, I'm happy to stick with one healthy one. So incredibly hard to know what to do when _most_ stories you hear are about how it's better to have two than one.

If anyone has some research which says only children are totally fine I'd love to read it (even if just to confirm what I'd like to hear ;) heh.

We are happy we have her, mostly, but our old life was kick ass too. If you're not reasonably sure you want kids, just read some of these comments, you really should expect to (somewhat) leave your old life behind and enter a new stage, where looking after the new human is the top priority.

I still get out biking, playing squash, bike a bit, life definitely goes on, but it's definitely a rewarding sacrifice.

Re: Having Kids

#669

Post by spyckie2 »

kmarc wrote: post #547
coldtea wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and they only interact with you for 1-2 hours during the day and don't really know who you are As if 1-2 hours per day is "little"? That's not in any way why kids "don't listen to and respect their parents when they grow up". Kids spent even less "quality time" with their parents (a relatively modern boomer invention) back in the old times when they did fully "listened to and respected" them.

Hmm... I thought the 9-5, office work, working for other people/businesses are the modern inventions and for tens of thousands of years mankind spent 80%+ of the day with their offsprings/families/villages. It's interesting to think that "quality time" which in this context simply means "2 hours per day together" should be enough. This is not how humans evolved. As harsh as it sounds, the philosophical question above…

> It's interesting to think that "quality time" which in this context simply means "2 hours per day together" should be enough. This is not how humans evolved.

Just pointing out that this is an assumption and should not be taken as fact.

If this is a fact and it's obvious, I would encourage you to write down in detail the reasoning.

The best way to improve your thinking is to do this. Usually writing to explain encourages you to study your own presumptions. Digging into your presumptions usually leads to realizing that your world view does not take into account enough detail and forces you to seek out more detail. This detail usually changes your world view, which then changes how you argue things.

Re: Having Kids

#670

Post by asah »

Ah, the parenting cult rant.

I was going to write a long response with dozens of examples highlighting the richness of child-free lives, but decided it would be the ultimate brag, since there's a million things parents can't do, don't have time to do and simply don't do. Unimaginable depth and breadth, resulting in wild creativity and cross-pollination of ideas. It's also really fun, full of joy and having big positive impact.

Heh, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

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