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 is about the kids. Until everyone goes to bed, then maybe I can think about something interesting to work on for a couple hours before sleeping well less than 7 hours of healthy sleep. Or do you even give that up, and as soon as the kids are in bed it's time for the bedtime routine for yourself?
Just looking for some dads who can relate and maybe give some wisdom on the subject of having young kids and losing your ability to work on something interesting--which to be fair I never did before having kids because I was unmotivated, having not had that burst of energy yet...
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 back, once the kids are old enough to have some independence and interests of their own.
I'd recommend just enjoying being a parent while they are young. They need you at this age. Play with them, read to them, and all that. Write down ideas you'd like to pursue in a couple years when your free time returns. And you can be confident that it will return.
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 front of you, so to speak. Thanks.
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.
I always thought it would be incredibly hard to have a child with difficulties like yours. I teach a gymnastics club once a week and have an autistic kid there and instead of being problem she is one of the most rewarding ones to teach (in the limited time I have to spend with her). I’m not in any way a good teacher, but I’m learning a lot from her and actually get a lot out of it myself. I’m sure it’s much harder full time, but in the end it’s just the same challenge all parents have, to try and prepare your kids for life and hopefully give them a happy life.
It varies a lot from child to child and a lot depends on the environment. Our 5yo son, for example, finally starts speaking in 2+ words sentences and counts up to 20 after two years of therapy. Before we started the therapy we didn't think he could ever get even to this point.
That is tough. My mom was a speech language pathologist and I grew up around kids in therapy (and had fun learning sign with the deaf kids). I hope his progress is rewarding now that you can see some results. Going through it, for me, is so hard to appreciate the small improvements. I can only image two full years. I hope you continue to see progress!
That’s great to hear. Believe it or not, visual impairment usually leads to delay in speech and other development, so I get a sense of where you’re coming from. All the best to you guys.
Hi there, as a father of autistic son, I can feel You. But hang in there, your son is young enough for some interventional therapy. We pursued floor time therapy which is play based and it has helped our son since. OT and speech can go a long way in helping your child express them better and navigate their life better. If you do decide to send your child to a public school, make sure they can supper your child with special needs education program. They initially need a lot more of your attention but depending on now how their cognitive functions turn out they can go on to become more independent. Good luck, and if you need someone to talk to my contact info is in my profile.
I'm sure you are doing everything for him, and I've ran into an autism scare for 7-8 months with my daughter and I've read quite a lot(intervention options and books for parents).
Anyway, the guy hosting a 3 day course/workshop described and showed proof of his son intensive ABA intervention which started age 5 to 7 which culminated to his son making a full "recovery" -- I know this only applies to 50% of the cases.
They call them seasons of life and you are in a season, I was there, I have 4 children and had two in diapers. I could not see past the next day sometimes. But it does get better, when they cross the 7 year old threshold they become a lot more independent. When they cross the 10 year threshold you hit another season where they pretty much take care of themselves. When they hit teens your involvement becomes nothing more than soft guidance. They are focused on their friends and building their social skills. They still like you but they start to exert some of their first steps into adulthood. You will move thru these seasons and they all have the good with the bad. But I remember the stress of little-ones. I remember seeing the youngest swim for the first time, and I realized right then and there that I felt like I caught my breath for the first time in years. I lost a nephew to a pool drowning so it was one of my big stresses when they where that little.
I can jump in at being just a year apart from GP, mine are 3 and 5 now and it's already starting to get better massively. Having them so close to each other makes for some extremely hard first 2-3 years, but then they can actually relate to each other one and play together, which works out nicely.
Kids tend to be cutest from 3-5, so sit back and enjoy as much as you can, the time will come back — I'll confess I'm mostly enjoying the second one in that age only now, as the stress was too high with the first one.
To be honest, the second best thing about kids rather than themselves and getting to know them is what PG nicely put in the following way:
>> See what I did there? The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.
In the end, all these limitations will let you appreciate your freedoms so much more.
I can concur- we have got to the 3 and 5 stage and then choose to have another. That one year while they were both pre-school age was glorious, the kids were getting so much easier. Now we are back to never having time again.
For me the one of the best things about having kids is that they give me so much perspective. I might have had a great day or an awful day at work, but no matter what I’m feeling I still have to get to day care on time, get dinner on the table, help with the homework, get them into bed, read the story, and kiss them good night. By the time I’m at that point, the triumphs and tragedies of the work day have just faded away in importance. I just get to reflect on the day with a small feeling of accomplishment and the strange sound of a quiet house. And then one of my kids wanders in and asks for a drink of water :)
Mine are 15 and 16, they’ve been going out on trips with their friends for a couple of years. I will say though, the first years until they are in school full time are absolutely crucial. We reap what we sow in those few years for the rest of our lives, and they are crucial developmental time for the children. I never really knew how to deal with other people’s children much younger than myself, but having my own kids has been wonderful. Hard work, frustrating at times and yes it has to take priority over almost everything else for a long while, but it’s so worth it.
Thanks for this comment. My kids range from 8 to 3 and as I see the changes slowly creeping into our life’s (the occasional evening dinner or even weekend trips) the majority is a constant schedule. Getting up at 6am. Getting them ready for daycare and school (we have no longer time for a shared breakfast ever since my oldest is in school). The getting the younger ones to the daycare and head off to work. Here I get a relaxing morning as most others start two to three hours later. Then at five sharp going home and play with the kids and have dinner. After that the going to bed routine starts which can be, depending on the kids mood and of course oneself mood either be easy going or a terror ritual. I love the former ones. After all kids are in bed my partner and I have time for us. Or do we? There is of course the house and preparations for the next day etc. and the next morning the whole thing starts all over again.
Your kids are at the age before school where they are the hardest to deal with. Once a kid gets to school, magic happens. I mean it.
- They get tired from learning stuff. And the teachers know how to deal with them.
- They learn how to behave in a group. They start having actual friends.
- You get a bunch of friends who are in the same situation as you, and you can use their kids to cancel out yours. (AKA playdates)
- Having friends in the same boat will help your confidence a lot. They can help you directly with the kids, plus some of them will have older kids too, and they can tell you it gets better.
- As for your own time, try to be disciplined about the kids' bedtime. It helps a lot that school is tiring them out, and use that momentum to not let them decide when to go to bed. If you get them asleep before 8pm, how much different is your day really? You had to eat anyway, and you have to keep the house clean regardless. Your real problem is if they keep you up to 11pm each night, then your life is gone, and they end up in a cycle of having not enough sleep. Make them sleep, then code up your side project.
For example my kids started school at 4. I've put them in full time after school care as well, ending at 6pm. Now they're tired but awake when they come home and can eat a meal, then bath, then bedtime. You can read something to put them to sleep, then go and do your own stuff.
--Edit
Forgot to mention, the kid will learn how to read. From there you can give them a book and that will keep them quiet. Remember to teach them how to code as well, so they have proper tools to explore the world.
See this with my LO from going to daycare. Mob mentality is real, at home can't get a nap to save our lives.. at daycare napping at 12pm like clockwork.
Also the book thing is real, when my phone is off limits a book becomes the next fantasy reality for kids. For everyone reading, keep giving your toddlers something to do other than your phone. Everything is a teaching opportunity, and you are teaching them how to keep themselves preoccupied. Books, gadgets, legos, matchbox cars.. whatever, their imagination takes off exponentially once they hit 2
I want to bolster the reply you already got. Regularity Is everything for little ones, and it was hard for us to get in a good rhythm with sleep.
My wife lead the charge ( as she was the one our LO wanted at night, even after being well fed before bed ) and read a lot of material on sleep patterns. She started a routine of dinner - bath - reading - bed, with a target of 7:15 for bed. the first two nights were hard. building the pattern means sticking to your guns, making sure he -really does- have everything he needs, getting him tired and then not getting him out of the crib. Having your kid wailing in the next room is the worst thing in the world, but knowing that you're working on something that will help everyone is the only reason to let him "cry to sleep." We did 5 - 10 - 15 minute interval checks to soothe him, remind him we were still there, build confidence and independence, and on day two he "got it" and went to sleep after the second check. Now he's down within 30 minutes of 7:15 and sleeps really well. He still gets up in the middle of the night, and being sick or cold throw it all off, but he gets back on track. He's 16 months now and has been sleeping well for four months. Its a life changer. I hope you get some sleep.
Politely disagree. I feel like one should already have found a way to make their life meaningful before having a kid. Having a child just adds to it, changes the nature of that meaningfulness, enhances it ... but not be the cause of it.
> my kids started school at 4. I've put them in full time after school care as well, ending at 6pm
> you get them asleep before 8pm
> you can give them a book and that will keep them quiet
And then people wonder why kids don't listen to and respect their parents when they grow up. You're basically just giving school teachers full control to raise your kids at age of 4, and they only interact with you for 1-2 hours during the day and don't really know who you are. I guess I am just raised differently but I can't understand this type of parenting.
Why have kids at all, if all you do is try to get away from them and make them not bother you and live separate life especially at such an early age.
Parents talk a lot about stuff that lets their attention be somewhere other than their kids because that's the hard part, not because they don't also want to pay attention and have quality time with their kids.
It's good for kids to see their parents with autonomy and goals of their own, and simply not exhausted. Doing so doesn't have to be antithetical to having a warm relationship.
If you're in a loop of surviving the demands of very small children, then even when they have your attention it can be hard for it to be quality time. Carving out some auto only lets you be intentional and actively thankful about the time you do spend with your kids.
>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 is quite legit: why have kids in the first place if they are then put into daycare until they are grown enough to not to have to care about them anymore at all...
>for tens of thousands of years mankind spent 80%+ of the day with their offsprings/families/villages
For tens of thousands of years kids played with other kids or hanged in the village watched by the older people in the community, while fathers did some guild style job or worked at the fields, and moms cooked and tended the house. They got together to eat and sleep at various points. For less fortunate families, kids started working as early as 8-10 years old. Little kids (even 8-12 years old) were also very frequently made to cater and babysit younger siblings while the parents were working.
>why have kids in the first place if they are then put into daycare until they are grown enough to not to have to care about them anymore at all...
This presupposes what it was supposed to prove, that 1-2 hours per day are not enough time.
It also comes from a place of big privilege, as for a hell of a lot of parents 1-2 hours per day are more than their hand-to-mouth work affords, so the point where it's like questioning why those bad parents of starving children that don't have bread are not feeding them cake!
Yes, make it "for about ten thousand years". Was referring to standard post agriculture civilizations and most of the ancient / classical ones we know of.
If you’re living hand-to-mouth, that’s not a great environment for your kids anyway. Not being in that position is privileged, but it’s a privilege shared by all of the middle and upper class in western societies, which is who dominates this readership.
Not every comment needs to disclaim its privilege because the author speaks English, is literate, and has access to the internet.
Yeah, but hand-to-mouth is both relative and a continuum. It's not a black-and-white thing. More importantly, perhaps, having a high income and high expenses can lead to similar conditions and stresses as poverty, though, I suppose, it's better than actual poverty.
I wrote an article that touches on aspects of this a while back:
I've been doing all this as a single parent, and it's no fun. Most people would readily dismiss this as "not actually a hand-to-mouth existence", and indeed, I'm lucky to have this one and not some worse alternatives. But in terms of spending time with one's child, it can be just as hard.
>If you’re living hand-to-mouth, that’s not a great environment for your kids anyway.
Kids aren't supposed to be born to comfort and greatness, they're supposed to be born to life.
This talk is a talk of leisurely privilege anyway. If people in the past thought that "hand to mouth living" and harsh conditions mean you should not have kids, most of those making these claims today wouldn't be here, and the civilisation would be at medieval standards at best (since population growth is a crucial part of the economic engine in history - thou doesn't guarantee it).
Daycare isn't solitary confinement. The kids there are hanging out with other kids and the daycare employees. Kids who hang out in a variety of different social situations like this actually end up better adjusted than kids who only hang out with their parents the whole time.
I remember preschool (i.e. private daycare) as being a hell of a lot of fun. Same for summer camps. And if it gave my parents a rest away from me, then good for them. I still saw enough of them every day.
This question assumes that daycare is just, generically, a warehouse for kids. That is certainly true of some daycares. Some do perform a useful pedagogical function, more in line with what one can expect in more well-developed public state kindergarten/preschool/daycare systems in the Western European states. Moreover, as a sibling commenter pointed out, they get to see other kids there and develop socially--and this is particularly important given the propensity of most Americans to live in fairly insular suburban bubble-houses, and more generally the lack of a public realm and civic space that suburbia entails. It's not like they'd otherwise be out running around with other kids; they'd most likely be marinating at home in front of the TV.
I'd go so far as to say that not sending one's child to some kind of playgroup before school age is irresponsible.
It surely depends on the suburb, and seems to be a regional phenomenon to some extent. It's definitely not true here in the southeast in my extensive experience.
> 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.
little of any modern decisions is based on what humans have experienced, historically. We have evolved a set of core emotional firings that do not have much to do with how we live.
Why start/stop at the initial decision, when these issues go so much deeper.
Where is the 1-2 hr figure coming from? Even for my oldest, who is in school, and on a day I work. I'm seeing him on average 2 hours in the morning before he's off to school (young kids wake up early) and then another 3 hours on average in the evening (and he goes to bed "early" by his peer standards). This doesn't count night time wake-ups. Then weekends/holidays it's all day, of course.
8 o’ clock isn’t early for your average 5 year old.
It sucks only seeing the kids for 2 hours during a week day but people have to work, because that’s basically how society works for most people. However working parents more than make up for that lost time at the weekend.
The point the GP made about books is because with the best will in the world, sometimes you need your child entertained so you can get on with other stuff. Sometimes that is doing chores. Sometimes it’s just because after being woken up at 4 in the morning and then having spent 6 hours running around after your kids (often quite literally running after them), you do sometimes need 10 minutes to switch off before the next activity. An adults energy is only finite. Plus let’s also not forget that independent play is also good for a child’s development as well.
Also, before someone inevitably chimes in with the “why don’t you incorporate children into the chores?!” remark, yes, most parents will do this too. However sometimes you just need to get something done quickly. Or properly. Or without an argument.
Off the top of my head - nirvana. The post presented an idealized, "perfect" benchmark drawn from the user's own subjective experience, which is a problem in and of itsef, and suggested that anything less is not worth having.
Modern kids have a historically unprecedented opportunity to learn about the world they live in. In order to do that, they need to not be with you.
Do you really think that time spent is quality? People tend to remember emotion highs and lows. You don't need a lot of time for that. That trip to the coast that they'll remember as adults actually only lasted a few hours. The rest of the time is mostly drudgery like cleaning up plates.
And regarding behaviour, you'll notice they behave better when exposed to groups of people who aren't their parents. It's an important aspect of socialisation to expose them to other people.
Raising children is not about being a helicopter parent like many Americans understand it. It wasn't even in the US like that, until the 80s or so, when media people and book authors inspired profitable guilt to parents, and the boomers started making pandering and spoiling their kids the norm.
If we're talking about kids less than school age, then sure, parents are with them most of the day. After school age however, 1-2 hours per day with the kids is not "not spending time", it's rather more time than kids historically got.
In fact most kids will turn out Deliverance-level weird if parents insist of spending more time with them. It's up there to messing up your kids with homeschooling... Kids are not there to keep parents company, or for them to make into your image. They are beings of their own, and have interests of their own, and they should be let to do their thing.
> it's rather more time than kids historically got.
But... But... Any reference to this? All I can see here that some people think that "history" is how their great-grandparents were.
No!
After industrialization and urbanization, so less then a couple hundred years ago did humans start this new lifestyle. You don't even have to travel back in time, just travel to places where tribes and their commons are still around (to a certain extent). You will see, that "history" is far away from going to an office 9-5 and then spend 2 hours with your offsprings.
If you check the people from the 15th century, 1950s villages, or even the "tribes" you mention, you'll find that the children are either helping (small tasks, actually working, after a certain still young age), hanging out with members of the community at large, or mostly playing around with other children.
They don't hang out with the parents after a certain age, and they don't helicopter them...
That's neither, but it is better than what we have today, let me explain:
I was raised by my grandparents in the countryside, the worst part was my parents randomly showing up every 2-3 weeks or so, letting me always longing for them.
Now, as to the relationship with my grandparents, even if I was doing chores for 1 hour alone, it was no big deal at all, as long as I knew they were in close proximity or other significant adults were in close proximity.
Again, what really sucked was when my grandparents were out in the fields in the summer until dusk and I didn't know when they would show up.
As long as the child has ACCESS to the attention of significant adults, he can develop longer and longer duration of time when he doesn't really need the attention, it's absolutely normal and beneficial for the emotional development of the child to grow independent of significant adults, but the child absolutely needs to have a firm support base in significant adults and know he can rely for their support.
Maybe it's my bad experience with overcrowded daycare/kindergarden, but educators there were absolutely not in the role as significant adults, maybe in places where there are more educators per child, better trained, they can take that role as a significant adult.
It's being downvoted because it seems exactly like the kind of advice a non-parent gives to parents before they have to deal with the reality of the costs of children and how modern work is structured.
It's unsympathetic, unhelpful, and doesn't sound like it's based on anything except the author's prejudices about how "things should be".
Raising kids is hard.
As other posters have pointed out it's at least partially wrong, too in the sense that historically non-parents were much more involved than they are now.
This is utterly ridiculous. You live in the same house as your kids, they can and do get a hold of you literally at any time of the day. Yes, even when they are in school, they can get the school to call you for some issue.
To paint having 3 hours to yourself each schoolnight as somehow not wanting to be part of their lives is a cheap attempt at making people feel guilty.
Sort of agree, but sometimes hard replies can be the slap-in-the-face that makes people rethink what they're doing. Someday these parents may look back on the lovely little people they created and remember how much effort they spent trying to avoid being around them.
I am assuming you aren't a parent. We spent so much time with our daughter during her early years because we thought like you do. My wife didn't work, etc. Those were terror years. One day, my wife said she couldn't bear it anymore and asked that we bring her to the nursery for a few hours 1 day a week. My daughter LOVED IT. Her speech, everything about her development improved greatly. Every nursery day was the happiest day. She just wants to stay there and play. Now she goes twice per week. We wish she could go more often because it's great for her but we can't afford that
You would assume wrong about me not being a parent and you also assume wrong that you "thought like [I] do] based on a few sentences on a public forum.
Also, introverts need time alone. Quiet time. This is equally true for parents. It's not just a preference; it's a need. Without this, introverts are literally incapable of taking care of themselves or another human being.
Yesterday I fell in the Collatz trap (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21780068). So after a few hours my 7y old son asked what I was doing (what was I doing?!). Explained him how it works and then we did Collatz "by hand" for almost an hour. These sorta random triggered experiences are the best.
I love how inquisitive my 7 year old daughter is. She doesn't want or take a simple explanation and I enjoy teaching her about seemingly mundane topics that she makes exciting for me again.
Oh, God, I hope my almost two year old daughter turns out that way too, right now she seems most enthusiastic about me chasing her, dancing, airplaning her around; though I see some seeds of inquisity because she wants me to help her open up every drawer and appliance, pushing every button, opening every faucet and so on.
Her godmothers son, which is just 4 months older is so happy sitting in my lap for ages as I explain ilustrated books to him; my own daughter gets bored real quick with that.
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
Loved both frases. Will add them to my own. Mine is: "having kids is as beautiful as it is hard. And it's the most beautiful thing in the world".
My mom always says "the older the children, the harder the problems". Which is also true and quite counter intuitive. You might think that the harder years are when kids are young and demanding, but us humans turn into quite complex beings :)
As a father of 4 year old twins, all I can say is that you have described my life. We also bought a fixer upper when our kids were about 2 years old. I have nothing to contribute other than an upvote, and a plan to read through the comments in this thread.
Life is hard. I feel beat down and depressed a lot. I would also love some words of wisdom. All I can contribute to this discuss is that I can relate.
My kids (and I’m sure yours) are such amazing people. I love them so much. But I fear I have lost the ability to care about or love myself. We do finally have a great house to raise them in after many nights of back breaking labor done after coding all day.
I know so many people have it so much harder than me. Which makes it feel wrong to feel so broken. But there it is. I’ll probably delete this post out of shame but if you read it maybe you’ll know you’re not alone.
You aren’t broken. It’s helpful to remember that suffering is relative, so what other people go through is irrelevant to your current situation. We are all on our own individual paths.
My advice is to do less.
It sounds like you are trying to do too much stuff. Why? You are trading off being in a good head space with your kids when they are young to do what? Fix a house?
It’s not worth it. Nothing is worth it. You can buy a new house, you can’t buy back time with your kids.
Whenever I feel overwhelmed like this I make a list and prioritize it ruthlessly. This happens so often that I make a list daily.
Anything outside of the top 5 or so priorities, I ignore or delegage.
Oh and if you don’t like working on the house then stop doing it. Improving the house is going to have a marginal improvement. Use your time on things that are going to have a bigger impact.
Twin dad here. The struggle is real! This is just my 2c, but kids are designed to take and take until there's nothing left of you. It's not their fault, but that's just how it is. You can still be an engaged parent and have wonderful experiences with them, but you (major emphasis) cannot let your health suffer.
Keeping your mental sanity is as important as not letting them wander into a busy street or play with fire, etc. You are no good to them as an empty, stressed, beat down carcass of your former self. I have all kinds of strategies that I put into play when I find myself tapped out, but n=1 and I doubt it would be useful to others, I just wanted to share that I 100% get you. Take care of yourself, just like you would your kids.
As a father of a 6-year-old I suspect that it will get easier and easier for you from here on in. The kids will start to do so much more independently and so so many things to lift your spirits you weren't even imagining.
Have you considered counselling? Just having someone to talk your thoughts through with can be very helpful.
Stick in there.
A block from our home, a neighbor couple had triplet boys, just a year behind us. One of little guys has special needs. Plus, an older singleton. They're our heroes.
Words of Wisdom: Manage your energy. The car is a great place to take a cat nap. Enjoy the simple pleasure of hanging out in your own backyard.
-Do go on vacations with your kids. You are investing in having them travel with you in the future, and liking it. You can do it! Just give them tasks and treat them with respect.
-Ignore the kids menu. It's shit. Just order off the regular menu and share with your kids.
-Some kids are hard to raise, some are easy. You will probably have both if you many more than 1. C'est la vie.
-If you're like me and value time, get a job you can walk to. Have your kids go to a school you can walk them to. It makes things so much easier.
-Hire a cleaner every few weeks if you need a break.
-Buy used clothing if you can. Same with toys. No need to break the bank.
-Give them space, teach them to be bored on their own.
-Have scheduled electronics free time. Kids careers != Parents careers. They may end up doing things completely unrelated to your career. Let them find it.
-They will push you to the edge of your patience, and you will lose it. It's all good. Just try to keep calm. Even if you lose it once, just try to do better the next time.
-There is no instruction manual for kids - it was forgotten by the doctor inside the mother's womb - for every kid ever born :) So yeah, we're all winging it!
-My kids are 6 and 8. They have given me a new range of emotions that I never knew existed and have made me better for it.
-Kids make you value your time. Learn from that lesson.
Traveling expands horizons and gets people out of their bubbles. The world would be a much better, less hostile place if we could all experience other cultures firsthand from time to time.
Yeah, totally, let those instagram hipsters traveling off the hook, they are allowed to travel 10 times a year, God forbid a parent take his children on a vacation once or twice a year!
My 8 year old has his own workbench, and all the kids in the neighborhood garden. Thanks for mentioning that.
Regarding travelling, to each their own. Remember though, seeing new things and meeting new people is what broadens horizons. No need to even take a plane if you don't want. Simple driving trips to start are a great way to begin.
I made it clear with my wife that I would need to have some time for my activities before we had kids. Luckily she has some friends that believe the same because she has no hobbies. So we take turns each month giving each other time away from the kids. So she might go out with her girlfriends and I might go golf or kayak.
Also, I don't subscribe to the notion that a parent needs to be playing with their kid every waking minute. My wife is more toward the opposite but getting more flexible. My son plays with Legos and other building toys by himself and I like that. I did the same when I was young. You have two kids so let them play with each other and you and your SO should dedicate more time as partners together. Get your date nights in.
Your kids are getting old enough that they should be playing with each other all day long soon and that will open up your time. Mine are younger than yours so I have a few more years but I hear having multiple is a game-changer for parents.
The other thing I would suggest is to just take your kids with you everywhere you can. I got a hiking backpack and I take him to music festivals, he's flown overseas and traveled around Europe, National Parks, etc. He doesn't make a peep in the hiking backpack and loves being able to see different things outdoors. I highly recommend!
As far as doing a side project, maybe do the planning/strategy for it while hanging out with them but when your kids are playing with each other. I can't code very well with kids around but I can still ideate.
And it’s important for kids to learn to entertain themselves. In this time of YouTube and social media and all the other things that are trying to grab kids time, they still need to learn how to be at peace with themselves.
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.
> 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.
Although Briggs Myers archetypes are seen as pseudoscience, I've found that I totally relate to the postulation that archetypes need to develop their less used functions later in life in order to become more complete human beings, and I've found that is totally the case for myself, an INTJ with having my daughter.
Having young kids is like working 80 hour weeks. In fact it basically is that, just at two jobs rather than one. Plus you spend a lot more time keeping house, on top of it.
Most people don't have much left to give working those kinds of hours. Personally, I've had to dramatically cut back on hobbies and keeping up with various media, even, and all but drop some categories (I bet I spend 5% as much time gaming as I used to, for instance, and haven't even bothered to set up my gaming PC since a move about 1.5 years ago). I got a ton of reading done when each kid was young because you can just read them whatever, they don't know the difference, and you spend a lot of time feeding them or watching them in the bath so they don't drown or whatever, but now? Hahaha, so, so little reading.
Mostly I just watch movies or TV or read garbage on the Internet (ahem) because I don't mind as much being interrupted while doing those things.
My wife and I are having a discussion about this very point that has lasted since our first child 14 years ago.
She argue that I may have two jobs where one lasts 8 hours and the other lasts 16 hours whereas she as the one job that lasts 24 hours. The only difference is that I get to change my scenery and work environment, allow a refresh if you will, and allow a stresses to take a break. For her, she stays in the same office without any chance of a change and the stress does not take a break.
I heard someone, maybe it was Joe Rogan on his podcast after someone asked him how he stays focused and works so long and hard at his podcasting gig. His response was, "Are you kidding? I've got two young kids at home. It's like a vacation when I come to work."
Not saying yours does but my wife makes things way harder than they need to be at times. Like dinner. She lets my 2 yr old climb on her and eat her plate instead of his. So her dinner is often ruined. She gives in to his whining for snacks he doesn't need. Other things take way longer for her than me because she doesn't establish ground rules. He's an angel when I change his diaper and when I put him down for bed. He fights her getting into his car seat. Even at 2, they're smart enough to exploit. I don't think many parents understand that.
If you don't take time for yourself, let the kids own you, then yes it's really hard.
I put my 2 yr old in daycare twice a week and that really helped my wife's sanity and also helped him learn a lot. I encourage her to nap when the kid is and she rarely does.
I don't think you'll ever win that argument but whatever u can do to enable her to have more time for herself, get more sleep, etc, that will be good for you, your wife and probably the kid(s) too!
My theory is that the best thing you can do in raising a kid is having a great marriage. So I don't like this putting the kids first stuff. It's a bad perspective. You end up arguing over who's doing that more and you won't get the credit you deserve for working. If your perspective is focused on the marriage then I think the rest falls in place. What are your needs? What are your wife's? The kids will be great when you two are great. And they'll learn how to have a healthy relationship w a significant other!
Thanks for being open with your experiences. I can't disagree with any of your points. Tough love in parenting is essential part of bringing up kids, and that definitely allow a family to function in a sane manner, and not dictated by wishes of the child.
Our kids are on the Autistism Spectrum, and my wife has a genetic disease. She stresses about herself and our kid's future. I stresses about those two items and my work. However, I can switch my work stresses off when I leave the office. She does not have that option at all.
Yeah that definitely makes it even more challenging then. Thanks for sharing. I'm kind of similar with regard to stress. My problem is I rarely share any stress and I rarely show it, so my wife used to assume I'm never stressed. So sharing more has helped. She then understands why I might need some of my hobby time to maintain a clear mind and sanity. I also try to help her get time away from the kids because I know she needs adult only time. Playing and talking with a toddler and infant all day will wear you down. Does your wife resist time away from the kids? Does she feel guilty when she does?
In regards to taking time away from the kids, I would judge her resistance no more than typical when compared to other mums in similar situations. She sees it as a chance for father-child bonding time, so she does not feel any guilt from being away from the kids.
Have you found a way to balance family life against hobby life against work life for you and family? I am still searching.
That's great! So if you take more time solo w kids then she will get recharged away from them and get more friend or solo time. That opens you up for the same.
I do that to give me balance and help my wife out. I'll take a full Sat or Sunday with the kids. Then I just make sure to express in advance that I want to golf/kayak/fish/bowl/etc and she's very understanding now.
Golf and fishing are easier to balance because I can do them really early in the morning. So if I can make that work I do it. Then you can nap w the kids later. :)
I also hit the driving range on my lunch break which is nice. Or do a short par 9 during work time.
Actively encouraging your wife to do solo or friend time will open your game up. :)
And then just fitting it in when you can haha. Worth sacrificing some work output when you need it IMO, but I run a small company so I have some flexibility others may not
See if she wants to trade places. Let her breadwin - same salary as you - while you slave away at the '24 hour office'. Bet she's won't take you up on the offer.
It is not the case where she wants to trade place with me. It is more of me whinging about my stress levels at my work. Her jobs at home are definitely much harder and more stressful than my work. Kudos to her for managing it and keeping the household in order.
Both of us knows what we are good at and how we can help contribute to our family life.
It turned my habits around. I worked remote for 6+ years when my daughter arrived. Had a generous 10 weeks of leave of which I took 7 and I stayed up late at night or all night for the feedings which meshed well because I was always a night owl.
That was 21 months ago.
This week I was in bed before 9pm at least 3 nights and up at 7 am with the spawn to take her to day care. I get a shower and get her dropped off and get back home by 9am and immediately start work. I don’t get up from the chair till noon for a quick break and back to it for another 3 hours. My wife and kid get home around 4:30 or 5 and I slap together something frozen and barely healthy for all of us and then my wife does the bath routine and I read slack on my phone and think about how much I didn’t get done. We play for an hour or so and bed time is at 7:30pm. After that I try to wrap up loose ends and make notes for the next day and usually so tired I just go on to bed. I’m stuck in this cycle. It is so hard to stay up after bed time because I know I have to be up and at em first thing in the morning and can’t lay in bed till 8:30 or 9 because I stayed up till 2am.
I would work 2 or 3 side gigs on top of my job previously and now I have no mental room or energy for it. It’s a hard pill to swallow. I put a ton of stuff on my google calendar. Friends want to play a game on Friday night? It gets on the calendar and I usually can’t make it past 10:30pm. It makes me keep the value of my time in the front of my mind. Do I want to play video games or read and play with my daughter? Sometimes I choose the games for my own recharging. I want to start my own thing so bad and I just can’t get the courage to make the jump and don’t have the energy to do it on the side.
Remote work is a double-edged sword
I know that place you are at
Remote work "illness" #1 - failing to separate work and life(free time)
Not a problem when you are single and "on your own"
Heart-attack territory once you have children
Don't think playing a game on a Friday night will recharge your batteries, not that simple, not even if you'd spend the whole weekend doing it You can't escape a burned-out mindset withouth changing your habbits
Most probably,your day job pays for a 8h workday
This translates to 6h of active work time(optimistically speaking)
Wake up at 6am
Work from 9 to 12(3h)
Then take the next 2-3h free, go outside, cook some non-poisonous food, no internet, whatever you do don't think about work
Then work the next slot 15-18 and do a hard stop
Learn how to say "no" - no I can't, no I won't
Some of my projects are over a year late! I could easily spend an extra 2-3h a day just replying the most urgent emails I got within the last hour of my work day - won't do it - if anyone on the other side of the plannet is so brainwashed as to prioritize some corporate slaveowners well-being over his own health .. sorry but the thing you are living is a 21 century version of hell
Buy a stopwatch or repurpose an old smarphone, setup a counter for 6h and work your day job only those 6h
One very good excercise for self-discipline that helped me a lot
3 minute high-intesity workout every day
Time of the day is for you to choose, just make sure its 3 minutes - use a stop watch!
Always tell your self "If I'm not able to keep this f*ng 3min schedule how can I achieve anything else in life"
It'll do miracles
My kids are 8 and 11 now. I just spent the past hour working on my book while they puttered around doing... honestly I don't know what they were doing.
For me, the toddler years were the nadir in terms of having my own time. Babies sleep enough to give you some time. Older kids are independent enough. But toddlers, man, it's like living with a pair of destructive monkeys that you're legally forbidden to cage.
My wife did research for grad school related to this, so we went in to this eyes open.
Her studies showed that people who have a kid 3 or younger were less happy than equally situated peers. Their first smile is nice, but it's a lot of poop and your peers are going to Europe.
If your youngest is 4 or older, there's literally no difference in happiness. Europe is nice. Their first play, them as actual human beings - also nice.
When the _parents_ are north of 60, then happiness _and_ health go up if you have kids, by a rapidly increasing margin with time.
So when we decided to have kids, we just knew that for the first few years... Well, that's going to suck. It's made it easier knowing what we signed up for.
Your wife's research is almost surely correlational, not casual - I'm assuming it's some sort of OLS using the NLSY or some similar dataset.
The fact that happiness and health goes up dramatically when parents are north of 60 just reflects that in the past - if you didn't have kids - it's because you didn't get married. If you didn't get married, it was far more likely to be because you were somehow unviable as a marriage partner than because you didn't want to get married.
So, you're going to get a spurious, strong correlation between happiness/health and the interaction between age > 60 and having kids. If you run the same regression among Americans in 30 or 40 years, that same relationship will not hold, since whether to get married and whether to have kids are to ever-increasing degrees explicit choices.
Young kids go everywhere you go, so you can still go to Europe. It maybe take a cruise, that cash be pretty family friendly while allowing you to see a different city every day.
Knowing what you're getting into and having the rest of your life in order are golden, I guess.
I resent my wife for sort of slowly forcing it on me with promises of "nothing will change, my mother will help", I also resent myself for falling for it, but I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything in the world.
I've come to terms with the duality of being a parent, loving your children and raising them sucking at the same time, something I see non-parents completely unable to understand.
Great moments of being a parent, like 10% of the time, and sucking for the rest of 90% of the time.
Whenever I tell this to non-parents, they take it like "what, then what's the hype of being a parent, you must be broken somehow" or "there, that's another reason for me not to have children" -- both of which are far, far of from any conclusion I would take.
Ages 1-4 were absolutely brutal for me. I'd do it again, but I'd go in giving up any pretense that I was going to maintain anything like a life. I was an at-home parent for those years, and really struggled having no escape from it. I maintained a pretense that I was keeping up on my field and doing various other things, and I did put in a good deal time on that, but it was not well-spent. I should've given up that idea through preschool age. That's what I'd do differently, and I think as a society we'd be better off if we accepted and understood that parenting is an all-in big deal; it's not just another form of housework or chores that we all have to do and that are flexible.
That said, I agree with others that it gets way better. Ages 5-9 with my kids have been great. The stuff they do is actually fun and interesting to me, and since I was such a damn good parent, the kids are dynamic and somewhat responsible for themselves. We have a lot of fun now and I have choices for myself once again.
Warning: I hear the teenage years can be just as daunting at the toddler/preschool years, but for different reasons.
> I'd do it again, but I'd go in giving up any pretense that I was going to maintain anything like a life.
I really think it's best if you just accept that you'll be giving up most of what you used to do. You can find time for some stuff, but if you had a bunch of hobbies and were very social and did tons of side projects before something has to give—probably lots of somethings. There are only so many hours in the day and yours are largely spoken for—no large contiguous blocks of free uninterrupted time, certainly—12 hours a day, 7 days a week, now.
Trying to keep up with all of it is exhausting and frustrating. Gotta make the hard choices and actually choose. "Well, I'm not doing A, B, or C for a few years, seems like, so I'll stop trying, but I can keep doing D and E with the time and attention that frees up".
Exactly. This also reminds about what I call early childhood induced PTSD; it comes from the constant interruption and lack of sleep and endless dirty work. One's brain does not come out of that the same way it went in.
Good comment and yes, all-in parenting is a big deal. In fact, careers are obviously important because they're needed to survive and provide, but how we raise our children and prepare them for life is, in many ways, far more important than whatever tasks we may be performing at work.
"Warning: I hear the teenage years can be just as daunting at the toddler/preschool years, but for different reasons."
This was not my experience at all and it may not be yours if you've engaged your children in reasoning rather than "because I said so" disciplining; if you've developed a loving relationship with your kids instead of an adversarial one.
I'm in no position to offer advice, but I feel that in many ways having children in your twenties would be much better society wise -- if people had some psychotherapy to solve their issues and discover who they are and better relate to their spouse and if society was geared towards this, sort of like how the israelies have their military stage.
I know society is absolutely not geared to people having children in their twenties and having children is a big compromise between education, knowing yourself and what you want in life, finance, fertility and what's left of your life after you have children.
> Just looking for some dads who can relate and maybe give some wisdom on the subject of having young kids and losing your ability to work on something interesting--which to be fair I never did before having kids
Your problem is not that your kids have blocked you from interesting work. In fact it sounds like quite the opposite: you are so passionate and rewarded by childcare that it has inspired you like never before.
It just sounds like you need to look for a more interesting day job.
While I get the sentiment, I'd suggest many aren't built this way. Feelers are, and find value in the "feeling" of feeling needed, providing, caretaking. There are groups (of which I am one) who find literally no personal value in that. Childrearing is a series of rote tasks, performed repeatedly, that are performed on billions of humans raised.
If anything, childrearing made me suic-idal for years at the mind-numbing, repetitive, 'useful only to 1' tasks, and made me solely aware of the inefficiency of raising humans. My kids are 6 and 9 now, and things became much better when they're able to take care of themselves.
But isn’t it beautiful and awe inspiring that such an inefficient system has, over thousands of years, managed to produce such amazing technological breakthroughs?
It’s a slog, but changing your perspective can help you understand both the critical part you play in the progress of the human race yet the minisculity of everything that we do. It’s quite fascinating.
But the person I’m responding to is clearly built this way, and is just dealing with lack of interest in their day job. You’ve got a completely separate set of issues going on regarding caring for other humans. I wish you well.
The funny thing is, I have a pretty interesting day job. I think I have too high expectations to be able to also have, for instance, a side job. And friends. And a healthy marriage. Gotta prioritize, I think.
One of the reasons I'm never having kids is seeing just this pattern. For everyone I can recall right now, it lasts forever. They have more time later but the drive is gone. I've actually seen a few of people with a shared hobby and a toddler be like "kids won't stop me from doing X, in fact it's going to be better with kids to teach/inspire/...!", and then they disappear forever (up to 5 years so far). Or (skiing example, I don't ski in this case but the person as far as I know used to be good) in 10 years they tell you how it's nice to go to a ski resort, ride a couple of simple slopes and watch their kids ride then have a beer.
Same applies to intellectual hobbies like coding (again, from my anecdata).
Nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea.
From my experience, this is absolutely true. I figured children wouldn’t interfere with my hobbies because I’d still have evenings and the weekend to do stuff.
Turns out that during the week you are generally too exhausted, and in the weekend you always have to figure out where to leave your child if you won’t want to saddle your partner with them.
You could bring your kids, but people without children (rightly so) quickly tire of this, so you mostly end up interacting with other couples with children, and that’s glorious too, because suddenly there’s 4 instead of 2 qualified adults to pay attention.
On the other hand, I didn’t expect the amount of satisfaction I would get out of children to be this great either, and it was definitely worth the bargain.
> always have to figure out where to leave your child if you won’t want to saddle your partner with them.
Inartfully stated, but access to childcare is a huge deal. As a step-parent I've got Bio Dad taking the load off usually one evening a week, every other weekend, and he does the needful in an emergency. Grandparents aren't nearby but often take them home or on a mini-vacation during the major school breaks. A cousin spent last summer with us, which gave us a lot of freedom at much less expense than summer camps and babysitters.
I can't fathom how a relationship survives raising children without substantial outside help.
And then there are some people who actually seem to have time for all of that, which kind of makes it sad for the rest -- I remember a female coleague -- drop dead gorgeous, two kids, 28 years of age, always taking her kids for activities, full of energy at work, sometimes I wondered if she was on stimulants, which she couldn't be, because they are not legal in my country.
Consider that perhaps what they found is actually greater happiness. Not saying it’s true or that everyone should follow the kid path, but I’m experiencing what you describe and can confirm that the hobbies/interests were and still are fun but are turning out to be not the best part of life.
That's what I meant, to each his own.
Also, as far as finding better happiness goes, PG is careful to qualify his view by referencing the chemical changes... That makes it more complicated; some people mention it as a positive (i.e. even if it turns out to be as bad as I thought I won't feel nearly as bad); as for me, it makes me even more wary, the thinking being similar to the cult analogy in the article... I don't view such things as positives.
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.
As someone who knows several people who wanted to adopt - it's not as easy as you might think (at least unless you are able to spend a lot of money adopting children from abroad).
Adopting older kids who come from problematic backgrounds has a significant probability of them having experienced some sort of trauma before they got to you. It's absolutely a great thing to do to take care of these kids but potentially very difficult as well.
This is why it's very difficult to get to adopt babies - they are the ones that everyone wants. Not saying this should make anyone not adopt just that it's not as easy as you seem to think - western countries actually don't have that many orphans & a lot of people who want to adopt them (which is of course a good thing!).
You may also realize that you missed something important by not founding a startup, climbing Everest, travelling the world, paragliding, writing a fantasy novel, or getting hooked on heroin. This is a vacuous statement that can be used as a reason to do anything at all, or nothing.
After I'm dead they can toss my body outside the gates. And they can give me a stick so I could fend off the scavengers - that is, if I care to ;)
> After I'm dead, my kids can continue my work better than I could do it myself.
Assuming they find your work interesting.
I'm really hoping my son enjoys playing games (board and video) and programming, but he could totally turn into a jock. (Although genetics says he'll never be good at basketball.)
There are folks saying “it gets better.” I have a different experience I’d share- which is it gets different.
I work for a fortune 50 company. I’m about 25 years into my career. Ymmv.
You will hit a point in your career where expectations will increase. You’ll be the person folks look to for guidance. There will never be enough hours in a day, and you will increasingly look at your time as the single most valuable commodity. You will always have to ask- how much impact can I make in this slice of time? Is this thing someone asking me to do the best use of that commodity? Is it more important that I spend that time with my kids?
Conversely, your kids will need a lot of low value time from you as they get older. They need rides to sports, rides to class, they need direction on chores. At a certain point, you’ll realize that self care, so playfully bandied about by zoomers and millennials will literally become a life-or-death priority. You’ll have to make decisions about your time that are best guided by clear knowledge of your values.
I’m a bit surprised by this turn of events. I’d advise folks that are younger to recognize that this is a long process. Make sure you invest time early in figuring out your values, and start investing in them as soon as you have established your foundation. The teens are a time where your parenting gets complex. It may be less physically demanding, but you’ll likely spend a lot of time asking yourself if you are making the best choices possible.
Thanks for this comment. I was just about to close the tab, having read over the comments for the past couple days and finding mainly my age with kids my kids age or younger/childfree comments. Yours was the comment I was looking for and I see myself really asking these questions now about time management now. Actually as I type this out, my kids have converged on me in my office to play with random things around. Building the foundation of my values is something I never really did, or thought about, I always just approached life as a thing I did in the moment. I now see my inability to schedule-in time for exercise as the beginning of "time management" problems I'm already running into. What did you mean by, "values"? What kind of things should I be be figuring out now that my kids are 4 and 2? One thing that has gotten better is my marriage seems to be much more stable now that we're done "making babies", so I feel I am on the right track there--being nice, listening, being helpful beyond what I would do for myself.
>> What did you mean by, "values"? What kind of things should I be be figuring out now that my kids are 4 and 2?
What your life goals are. Identify what your purpose is.
I developed expertise and experienced in a field that was rare. I like what I work on. I knew that I needed to like what I do and find pride in my work.
I also have a long history of creativity. I feel like I will be judged by what I have created. I want to be able to look at tangible things I’ve made as evidence of my contributions to others and of my own creativity. So finishing things is an important value.
I had parents that weren’t great. I feel like I overcame them more than I was helped by them. I found that it is more important for me to mentor my kids than tell them what to do.
I have benefited from mentors. I decided I am obliged to pay that favor forward, even when I feel like a failure.
When you identify your values, it will help you decide what you should be doing. Do I need to take my kids to this appointment? Or can I put it off on family and spend time mentoring? None of the answers are easy, but they’re easier when I consider my alternatives and how they align with my values.
My life goals are to take care of my family and have a material positive impact on human health, in that order. I guess what worries me is that both of these are long-haul, compounding-type efforts when I've spent my entire life pursuing short-term goals like finish school-grade, finish college, finish grad school, finish post doc, start job. Now that I've been working in my career for the longest stretch of my life (just recently passing length of grad school), it's no longer a "sprint" and I'm not sure exactly how to do it fully. I have been taking on different functions at work every few years, so I have new and exciting things to do but there is no end-goal. Sure retirement is a possible end-goal, but I really, truly love what I do and I would love to not retire fully from science--I doubt I ever will. So then what is the life-goal? Keep on trucking, compounding the gains. That scares me because it's so nebulous, no count-down, no "number of steps left". Same now with parenting now that we're done having kids. Now what? Compound those gains. With children there are always new things since they're changing so fast, but that's so much of a gradient as to be unchanging when analyzed in the moment. I guess my wife and I discuss, "once the kids get into school" and "once the kids go off to college". sigh I imagine this is a common thing ambitious people feel at this point in their career-life matrix. Sorry for the rant, thanks for the opportunity to reflect. Didn't mean to take your time without asking.
Pro tip: Pick 'values' that don't require unlocking experience points, hitting milestones, or achieving things in this transitory world. Values that you can just do, now.
I appreciate that, and I've understood the sentiment for my entire life. I guess I'm just unable to grasp doing something that I can't follow my progress on. I think it's a personal fault of mine. Kind of like when people say you shouldn't compare yourself to others. How do you actually only compare yourself to who you were yesterday and only strive to be better than them? The whole mindfullness movment of recent makes me feel 'less than' because so much of my mental time is spent comparing myself to others' success...So when you say, "love well". Love well compared to what? What's the reference to compare against? I feel like at some point I'll hit a zen moment where I'll see with eyes crosses outward some inner "ah ha" and then I'll get it. But I'm not there yet.
There's not a lot you can do except be super mindful about where you spend your time and try to optimize your time management as much as you can. You basically can't waste any time, even the "time breaks" during work I acknowledge as a luxury "stress-free" period and try to make the most of by relaxing, clearing my head and not thinking about anything as much as possible.
I'm fortunate to be able to work from home which saves the time on commuting, but you'll want a private office to avoid interruptions, esp. important for any concentration-intensive work like programming. But there's no getting around it, all kids before school needs to be supervised at all times, either with day care, a full time in-house nanny or as it's now in my case my better half is effectively the full-time nanny during the work day. We're starting to see some light at the tunnel with the eldest just starting school but as our youngest is only 10 days old, it's going to be a long time before they're all in school. At the same time, you're going to miss this time you had when they are this young so you've also got to cherish the journey before the parental reprieve when you get to lock them in the school system during the day :)
The only tip I have for prospective parents is to get all your travelling, hobbies and interests out of the way pre-kids as your life after kids essentially is going to revolve around the kids and family commitments.
Another time saving habit I keep forgetting about (that differentiates from my childhood) since it's been eradicated from our daily lives is not watching TV, we only watch Netflix/Prime À la carte on occasion when we have downtime (i.e. kids are in bed), but the time you save is more productively spent on your interests and hobbies.
>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 the kids.
So, 35-40 hours of work a week, at an office, and then some family time, and then "at best" a couple hours of free time to work/study whatever you like, plus 7 hours of sleep.
Doesn't it sound better than what 99.9% percent of humanity had to endure for the latest 10,000 years and 80% of humanity still has (including a good 50-70% in the US itself)?
I believe the level of work and childcare you had to do some 8000 years ago to be quite a bit less than what it is now, since basically everything was communual.
Of course, you didn’t really have the same things to study either, so it might still work out positive.
First, there are no "arguments" that solve life predicaments. There are explanations of one's predicament and relative estimations of its impact.
Second, whether something (a lack of a specific amount of wealth, a status symbol, a job, etc) makes you miserable or not is mostly due to a social comparison. It's not the thing itself, but the thought that others have it better, and that you could have it so much better. Nobody in the 1500 century felt bad for not having a "side gig" or a Porsche.
If that's all you know, or you understand that most are worse off, you gain a little perspective and can count your blessings better. So "you have it way better than a huge majority already" is a great reminder for people not feel bad about their situation.
Older guy with advice here. Spend as much time as you can preparing financially for the future. Your kids when they get older will care more about what you have done and what you can do for them and forget the fact that you missed spending time with them for honestly what are trivial events (while that may be true in some cases it's also I feel a myth created by writers and Hollywood and certain 'whiners' where it mattered).
What my kids (grown now) care about? That I can afford to give them money to help pay with their rent and any financial issues and that their Dad is not 'a loser'. Not whether I read them books or went to games or school events. It's all perspective and how you present it to them honestly.
But to your question yes it's a huge energy drain. Not going to get better either. Just try not to get sucked into things 'because that is what you do for kids and if you don't they will resent it and they will be screwed up'. Not true. Ok maybe in some edge cases true but many of us that are older grew up in a era where Dad and Mom were not our friends and we didn't want them to be either.
Just a word of warning here: my dad thinks along similar lines.
He's extremely self-centered. Anything good that happens to him is his doing, and anything bad is someone else's fault. And he has zero empathy.
After he had his third affair and my mother divorced him, my my brothers and I gradually cut ties with him. He is just not pleasant to be around.
He doesn't understand this. He thinks he is "owned" some love, after all the money and time he spent on us. He thinks my mother manipulated us (it's always someone else's fault).
I know this because after 10 years not talking to him, I allowed him back into my life. But it was out of pity and a bit of a sense of duty, so he could meet his grandson. I don't love him and my siblings positively hate him. He doesn't know my nephews, and probably never will.
My dad too. And same thing, about a decade not talking and now a very superficial relationship that is more sad than anything. All he cared about was money, no empathy, everyone else's fault. Not fun growing up around this -- and can't remember a single time he ever read to me. But I remember my mother often doing such (amongst other things), and we have a very close relationship.
> What my kids (grown now) care about? That I can afford to give them money to help pay with their rent and any financial issues and that their Dad is not 'a loser'.
Well, maybe you should have done a bit more and this relationship would be a little bit less transactional. Something to think about.
I can't begin to imagine how what I said relates to what your experience was (which I am sorry to hear about).
Just because people share some things in common obviously does not make them the same or make a point of view incorrect.
It's like saying 'well my Dad was a hunter as well and he was a lousy father so therefore being a hunter is bad' (Not sure the name of this but I am sure someone will fill in the blanks for the concept).
Yikes.... that is a.... uhhhh.... interesting take on things.
One thing I do agree with is it helps to have your own retirement squared away. It will make it easier on your kids. But all those “trivial events” like reading to your kids... that is what they’ll remember. I remember my dad reading to me and singing me to bed every night. I love that I can pass that down to my kids.
Another older guy here. I can barely wrap my head around how much I disagree with this comment.
Spend your focus on acquiring money for your kids leads to kids who want money from you. Spend your focus on giving love to your kids leads to kids who want love from you.
> Spend your focus on acquiring money for your kids leads to kids who want money from you.
I didn't say that that. And nothing wrong with kids who want money from their parents. It does not mean that they are worthless in their own right. I deal with many people (in what I do) who have very wealthy parents. And despite the stereotype they are not living off their parents but sure they take advantage of the things that money can buy. They are actually (the ones that I deal with) really nice people. Some of them have funded multiple startups and have well known names. I have been paid for what I do by their 'family offices'. But honestly they are really great people in how they operate (with me anyway). They don't appear to have the same 'dog eat dog' way of operating that some hard scrabble people have. This is all anecdotal but what I have found (and it surprised me). A few of them got into 'the good schools' as a result of money their parents gave to those schools (I am pretty sure).
Also what is particularly ironic in this entire thread and your comment is that everything revolves around the kids and not the parent and any of their needs.
Also ironic is the fact that the only reason that anyone is commenting in this thread is because the post was an essay by Paul Graham who surprise surprise 'is successful and has money'. And one of my points is what Paul can do for his kids because of the success and money that he has. Not to mention that people will listen to what he says as well and honestly drool over every single morsel of advice he gives as if it's more special in some way than what you say (as 'older guy') or what I say. [1]
> Spend your focus on giving love to your kids leads to kids who want love from you.
I dated a girl once whose father was a school teacher. He sat in the basement when he got home early from school and watched movies on the VCR. He watched so many movies that he wore the machines out (and as an 'older guy' you remember things were built pretty well, eh?). Anyway I remember her saying to me something like 'Honestly he gives us all the time and attention but I wish he made more money'. In short she kind of thought of his as a 'loser'. He was always there for the kids but was not able to provide a living that kept them up with their friends. (And keep in mind he had a solid job and wasn't an addict or criminal etc.).
[1] And you know this is the case. And it's not like he has some superior angle on parenting that he does on what he is an expert in. Right? It's just interesting because of his 'fame' with the other things that he has done.
"Also ironic is the fact that the only reason that anyone is commenting in this thread is because the post was an essay by Paul Graham who surprise surprise 'is successful and has money'."
Your posts are riddled with these very wrong assumptions, insinuations, conclusions, and pointless diversions.
I'm in the same situation kid-wise but I don't feel like I have no life. I do manage to get some time to myself to exercise and grab coffee with friends now and then.
The key to this is working remotely. Two major advantages that apply here:
1. Not wasting precious time on commuting (even 1 hour makes a huge difference)
2. Being way more flexible so I can run errands and house chores mid-day if I'm feeling unproductive and use the time I earned to catch up on work later.
If working for a distributed company is an option for you - I can highly recommend. If not - from what I see around me it gets way easier and more fun when your youngest is ~3 y/o.
For real. I have a 1 year old daughter, my wife stays home. I work remotely from a very nearby co-work space or from home some days. Life is still a constant challenge though, can't imagine having to be in an office 8+ hours plus commuting. My wife would lose it.
Commuting time is not necessarily wasted, at some point it was the only guaranteed private time I had as a father of 2. Sitting in the train, reading or just staring out the window, thinking.
I only have one kid, but after becoming a parent I'm possibly more productive than before. I've managed to do as much or more learning and work on side projects than without kids. And I readily confess this point was a big fear of mine.
The key for me was learning to actually manage time better. The challenges of having a kid have made me see how little time for other things I have now, which in turn made me manage that time better. Previously, I'd fall into the trap of "there's so much time" that I could easily waste it. A whole evening free, planning to work on a side project? First I do something else, get carried away, then figure it isn't worth working for just two hours, and so waste the whole evening. Now I'm much better at using the time. An hour free? I can do some actual coding. Fifteen minutes free? I won't start coding, but I'll maybe update the SSL certificates on my server or read an article I've been planning to.
Yes, there are periods where that doesn't work. There can be three days where I have less than an hour combined to myself. Or some nights of such bad sleep that my creativity is at a zero. Speaking of sleep, I also made a habit of sleeping more after having a kid, and honestly it's a productivity booster. Sleeping for 7-7.5 hours means I can accomplish more the next day than sleeping for 6 hours. Having the right day job definitely helps. I'm very lucky in that my commute is fifteen minutes door-to-door, and that I have a quiet working environment.
Even in the best case, you have to give up some things - I haven't seen a full length movie in two years, rarely watch any series, and it sure takes me longer to get through a book. But at least in my experience, becoming a parent doesn't have to mean putting all learning and personal/freelance projects on hold for a few years.
Curious about the age of your kid. Mine is 3-4 yrs old, the only one. My life has changed, a lot, over those years. What you describe was the first 18 months for me. The next year was hell with zero productivity. Then 5-day a week pre-K changed everything again. I hear it will change again in a few years even better. Hoping for it.
Mine's 2, so I'm about to hit the period that didn't work for you. I'm sure a lot varies on the specific kid's disposition. Mine's now at a stage where he loves certain activities like sorting stuff into boxes, and can spend extended periods entertaining himself with those, as long as I'm in sight.
I'm more or less mentally prepared for rapid change now though. Having seen how rapidly a child's habits can change, I know that any day can mark the beginning of a particularly hectic, or quiet, period.
I read a sentence just before our first son was born that I’m glad I heard. “One day, your parents put you down and never picked you up again”. Every time my son woke me up in the night I would cherish every exhausted second of holding him.
Yep i was there. Picked up bike commuting to work because it replaced time driving, not required more time. I also started drawing because you can do it in short spurts, and you can do it anywhere.
The time commitment has changed for me but not quite enough where i can sit for hours and code something outside of work. My kids are 5 and 7
Guessing by your name that you are a climber. How did having kids affect that part of your life? I am a pretty devoted climber at the moment, to the point that I left my job to pursue it more. Eventually I want kids though. Obviously I know that will affect how much time I can spend climbing but I'm curious to what degree it affects most climbing parents.
Not OP, but my wife and I were pretty avid climbers before having kids (we have a 2 year old now). To be brutally honest, I haven't climbed since he was born with the exception of a few gym sessions where we got a babysitter. I've gotten deep into biking and skiing, which at least where I live are things you can do over a long lunch break. If you live or work near a climbing gym then I imagine that's similar, but the sort of climbing I enjoy requires at least full toddler-free day. And when that happens there's a list of about 100 things that are higher priority than climbing.
That being said, some friends who live in our neighborhood and have a kid the same age hire a nanny twice a week so that they can go climb after work. If it's a priority, you can make it happen.
But I am looking forward to teaching my son how to climb in a few short years, and cherishing the stage before then...
I'm an absolute begginer in climbing, only did gym climbing, going only once a week meant almost no progress(going twice was much better) and I just loved climbing and how I felt after; I even loved the slow progress, I was like "whoaaah, I'll be entertained for years just with this gym", I've seen much younger climbers getting discouraged by their peers much faster progress(never mind those peers put much more training time), I'll be just happy to climb the same gym for the rest of my life; clymbing is one of those things I suck about, yet love, I love the gear, the almost empty gym on a friday evening, failing a route for a month and nailing it after, I love just how great some routes are that are just a biit out of my comfort zonr; my only regret is I didn't give it a chance when I was younger.
Anyway, I hope my daughter will love it too in a couple of years since she loves climbing on everything so we can take clymbing lessons in parallel.
I'm still getting a bit done, nothing like I used to, but getting out is all the sweeter when it happens. We have a toddler. She came to Scotland with us in the van this summer and my friends dragged me up two sea stacks... Lovely trip :-) The little one likes to hang in the the van side door like Alex Honnold. Last year my wife kindly spared me 2 weeks to go new routing abroad though honestly it felt like a long time to be away. (I returned the favour while she went on a yoga retreat, not for nearly as long though).
I do plot a return to fitness one day! Although I primarily used to climb outdoors (and now have a crag within walking distance of the house) I do miss living near an indoor climbing wall for the convenience of climbing any time of day, any weather, partner or no. It's all about the convenience when you have to fit it around job and parenting. Mountain biking as one sibling comment said is far easier logistically (and right now I'd rather teach the little one to mountain bike - lower consequence I think - climbing can wait a bit). Caving as well as it's a proper adventure I can do on dark wet evenings near home.
One climbing couple I know I saw in the wall for years taking turns child minding / bouldering. Anything can be done with enough dedication, it's just harder. Hey, Dave McLeod still pushes e11/12(?) with parenting responsibilities so honestly operating many rungs below that I have little excuse.
Paul's line in the op about not actually using all those freedoms before I had a child really resonates with me though. I went to a lot of amazing places and did amazing things but only for like 10 percent of my leisure time in the average year (maybe 70 percent in a keen one). The years when I was climbing my best came to an end long before we had a child purely because I got bored of maintaining the necessary fitness.
One thing I will emphasize is having a child ties you to a location more than ever before in terms of jobs, friends, support networks and before long, schools. I'd love to live somewhere more mountainous than the UK one day but now it's not the right time for the family. Will it ever be the right time before I'm too old to climb the routes I want? Who knows. If I relived the last 20 years I'd have done more of it in different places and possibly picked a different place to raise a family. But things are rarely that simple of course.
Would I change our child for anything though? No way :-)
My experience is it gets "easier", but it doesn't get "better". Some parents really relate to their kids as they grow up, but it never happened for me. If you've ever seen the movie Rushmore, remember Bill Murray's character and kids? Just, no common interest and he's obviously defeated and burdened by them. That's about what it's like for some of us.
Yep. There’s a refusal to acknowledge this in polite company, as it definitely contravenes the party line. But I can intimately relate as a single parent conscripted into this role by an addict partner. My job hitherto was first and foremost and essentially "provider", and that's what I'm set up for.
> then maybe I can think about something interesting to work on for a couple hours before sleeping
Those "golden hours" in the night or in the morning where I got to read or learn or do what I wanted were precious. As others suggest, getting some alone time by trading with your partner (if possible) is rejuvenating. But it's ok for you to not be as productive as you were before, because you have less time to be productive.
I have older kids and can tell you that it gets better. The kids get more independent. They want to do stuff with their friends. I have friends with teenagers and at that age they rarely want to spend time with you and you can leave them alone at home for hours (or even days).
Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the amount of time needed by my kids, I remind myself that soon enough they'll be teenagers and won't want to have anything to do with me. We're now halfway to that point with our oldest and I can say that with that much hindsight this advice has been spot on so far.
So yes they need lots of time now, but when they don't you'll miss it too.
"I remind myself that soon enough they'll be teenagers and won't want to have anything to do with me."
Is this really what you want? Because it depends on the relationship that you establish with your children. I found it such a pleasure to have teenagers who enjoyed being with me. I've always been kind of shocked by the desire of parents to be rid of their kids.
I never said I wanted that; I don't. The point is that I'm not going to assume that in the future they're going to want to spend as much time with me as they do now.
So, I have one 6-year-old. I will say the number one source of my hobby programming time over these past few years is sacrificed sleep, and while I feel it's been worth it, it's a finite resource. I'm in the back half of my 20's and feeling the age; I can't pull all-nighters like I used to. Thankfully, my son is also a little more self-sufficient now, so I find that if I've got some wholesome activities for him to throw himself into (Legos, visual art, writing, music, occasional movies) then I can find time to do my hobby programming. I also spend a lot of my spare brain cycles at work reading and having/developing ideas over time. Patience is key here - the idea for my current project came to me months ago, and it has taken a combination of reading, planning, waiting, and one all-nighter to get to the point where I can opportunistically use a 1-2 hour burst of energy in the morning / evening to accomplish something concrete. It's still not easy though, because at the end of the day you do need to relax and recuperate. I think I find this project relaxing to work on because I create a lot of pressure on myself to release it. If you don't have that pressure on yourself, you may not feel like it's worth it to use that time to work on a side project.
Excellent point! 2 or 3 times a year my wife offers to let me have a few hours off, but all I want to do is sit or lay down. Which confounds her, but she gets about 40x more work/kid free time than me, so kinda makes sense.
My kids are 7 and 1. I know what you mean about that burst of energy and motivation, and about how it gets plowed right back into the family and it’s needs. Frankly, I do little other than work and kids. And that’s okay. It’s a stage of life, and it will pass (and you’ll probably miss it when it does). It’s important to carve out some time for you and your spouse, for socializing, networking, etc., but be realistic about your expectations.
Dad of three kids + two dependents.
One child special needs, no other income to dependent on.
No degree, started in field at a late age after having two children.
First off, if I can find time anyone can.
I’ll be blunt. Sounds like you just don’t want to do it.
When you want to do something I mean you Really want to do something it will get done. Otherwise it requires discipline. Simple as that. No shame in saying you rather spend time with your family then work on a project.
I got married and had an “instant family” a wife and two sons who all needed my attention.
I made a rule shortly thereafter - no side projects. Anything we can’t afford from my main job, we don’t need. If I can’t learn skills that keep competitive while working 40-45 hours a week, it’s time to change jobs.
They are older now, but I still have the same rule. I spend my time on hobbies - not development side projects either for pay or resume building.
My kid is 2, so I've only had 2 years of this, but my experience is identical. I didn't get started in software until ~a year before she was born, so I definitely feel like I'm behind professionally because I simply don't have the time and energy to do all things it's implied you need to, to stay relevant. Socially, we've largely become outcasts—most parties don't start till 7 or 8 (otherwise known as bedtime for us), and we've only just been able to get our daughter to accept an evening babysitter for a couple hours at a time. I don't mind as much as I'm a fairly solitary person, but it's driving my wife insane. I'm lucky enough that I have a few very different projects to work on at work and enough room to play with them as I see fit to keep that side of my brain somewhat satisfied—if I didn't have that I think I would go insane!
If you are trying to work a full time job and then do side work on top of that, it won't happen with kids. Your full time job is even more important when you have kids because that's all the time you are going to devote to your career. You have to be in a place that's interesting and where learning happens at the office.
As for whether you have no life, well, I think this is life. It's far more fulfilling than when I spent my time outside of the office futzing around on somewhat productive hobbies that were ultimately not life changing.
The hardest part has been staying close with friends. I'm lucky there in that a bunch of my friends had kids at the same time so we all made the transition at once. Suddenly instead of going out to bars we all want to hang out on a Saturday afternoon with our kids. Without that I genuinely don't know how we'd keep our adult social life going.
Dad of a newborn here. I had to adapt. I had to make time for things that I want to learn. When I am on the train, now I take a book or even get work done on my laptop. I had to also cut down my netflix time to zero. I almost have no time left for physical exercise. Planning to fix that by getting a treadmill at home.
I have been reading amazon reviews for the foldable ones. Not sure if I can trust them though. I have given rowing machines some thought. It will be a toss between the two.
One time I was watching some retrospective about the TV show MASH with my dad. I asked him what he thought about the show. He said he wasn't too familiar with it. I was surprised because the retrospective made it seem like MASH was extremely popular and a cultural institution for years. My dad said that, due to raising three young children during the time MASH was on, he missed most of the series since my parents had no time for TV, music, and movies. Later on my dad did get back into popular culture after the children were older.
I am now in a similar place with my own young child. I am totally drained after putting her down for bed and fall asleep within an hour or two. I'm not at a place where it's gotten better for me, but I know it gets better. Hope that helps.
Edit: typing out MASH correctly messes with the formatting on this site!
My kids are 1 and 3 and I feel like I get plenty of work done still. That was my biggest fear as I’m running a startup but don’t feel a significant difference on that front from before. My spouse is very supportive otherwise that would be much harder.
Oh and one of the biggest surprises for me was how much free time there was immediately post baby. I actually got a lot of work done because there was nothing else to do and I was bored out of my mind (both of our kids slept a ton in the weeks after being born)
As for personal activities? Definitely impacted, but only ones that took me out of the house on my own. Otherwise my gaming habits haven’t changed and I fit cycling in by taking my oldest kid to school on bike. Trying to just find new hobbies I can do with my kids instead.
Both ours slept the majority of the day in the weeks after they were born, and that seems to be pretty common amongst my friends as well. Of course, every baby is different and YMMV!
The problem tends to be more that they don't sleep in long enough time blocks... So you get punctuated sleep. When my son was little we eventually adopted his sleep pattern as much as we could for naps to compensate for the broken sleep..
When he got a bit older, one of the highlights of the weekends was taking him to soft play because we knew it meant we'd get a nearly 3 hour nap afterwards.. The first time he came back from it and didn't fall asleep was soul crushing...
I have a 1 y/o and can see that this is the normal for a long while but it’s where I want my available time spent. I shifted my focus towards managing a remote team to build my ideas instead of building them myself. Truth is I quit giving a damn about knowing the lastest tech stacks long ago. I have more interest in building a business. Programming is not my profession, taught myself as a means to an end. So this shift is a good one that I needed to make. I just have a DIY approach when possible. The best thing is my time commitment is a daily review & feedback email and the other project management tasks. The down side is it comes with a cost; albeit quite affordable due to remote labor cost.
My answer is yes: I give that up, for now. My health —- and thus a proper amount of sleep —- is more important to me than side projects. I intend on o ‘sit this one out’: wait a few years until my kid is old enough so that I have more time again. Before I had a kid,I already prepared myself mentally for this possibility.
This works for me because work is already plenty interesting. Things can always be more interesting, but I have chosen to optimize for my health instead. I also see kids as an investment: raising them takes a lot of energy and pain, but long term return is increased happiness, reduced loneliness. Think about how life would look like when you are 70 and have no kids.
I made a change to go to bed when the kids do, i.e. around 8-8:30 and wake up naturally, which happens around 4-5. This gives me the same number of hours to myself as if I were going to bed later, but: they feel more productive because I am freshly rested, I can sip my coffee, and don't fall to the same distractions as at night. At night I feel my brain is a bit tired and more susceptible to just giving up and watching a bunch of TV or playing games. Also, at night there is no hard stop so I often end up eating into valuable sleeping hours.
Easier said than done though, been meaning to do this for 20 years and only managed to do it now.
I have a 1-and-a-half year old. I'm very lucky because I work from home, my wife doesn't work and I'm in a good work-life balance situation (good company).
The incredible advantage of working at home and being a Software Developer is that I don't need to sit at a computer all the time to do my job. Good chunk of it is thinking through a problem, I can do that while I lay on the floor and let my baby crawl on me ;)
That being said, I can relate. I end up an entire week where all I did was work, get groceries, get other stuff from somewhere else.
I did try to optimize my time though: when I'm in the washroom, sitting on the throne, I read 5-10 pages of a book instead of my RSS feed (I leave that to the moments when I'm too tired). That over the course of 1 years adds up, I almost finished 4 books, which is a lot with a kid!
I got a tablet to stream my PC there, so that I can play a few videogames when in bed, however most of the time I just fall asleep or play 30 minutes at most. I need 10 hour to get decent rest (the baby moves/do stuff during the night. Yes she sleeps with us, otherwise we would get 1 hour of sleep).
Audiobooks have proven very helpful, I listen to those when going to buy groceries, I manage to keep growing while I wait to get back my time.
What I'm missing the most is time with my wife. I mean, we stay all day together, but we rarely get to play something together. We recently made a big purchase: a board game table. This should allow us to play when the baby naps and keep the board game set, so hopefully we can go back to play board games without having to wait 4-5 years.
That's all the "wisdom" I have to offer. I bet you already figured out all of it since you are further in the parenting voyage, but in case you missed it, that's my 2-cents, hope it's of some help.
That being said, I do love my baby. Some weeks I really need that 1 hour of gaming or reading, otherwise I go crazy, but most of the time is either work or kids.
Some weeks I just need 10 minutes hugging with my wife, to recover lack of "us" time
Those years are intense. It gets better after age 6 or so. I remember when I moved into this house and the neighbors across the street had one age 8 and triplets age 5. When I saw Rick across the street in his front yard, that man just always looked tired :) Mine was 2.5 at the time.
Anyway, it gets better, and interaction gets more intellectually stimulating. Do your best to enjoy every day as it comes at you, because all too soon you will be parallel parking between orange cones in a big, empty parking lot, and soon after paying tuition bills to the fanciest school they can get into.
Totally no regrets. And I don't blame anyone for anything. In fact I love my life with the kids and wouldn't trade it for anything. It just feels so surreal sometimes.
A few things helped me
- part time child care/day care
- putting grandparents to work, especially the first few months
- wife cut her work hours
- lots of YouTube as background distraction. I haven't seen any ill effects from screen time.. in fact he actually knows his colors, alphabet and numbers and he's only 18 months
- get as much done during naptimes as you can
It slowly gets better... Definitely a hit on productivity but less wasted time. I'm able to get at least 2-3 3h blocks of time a week to work on projects.
I have twins, they are 4, I do almost nothing other than work and be a dad. I struggled with that fact for a little while, but accepted it over time. It takes 100% of my effort to do my job, be a dad, take care of the house/cars/meals/etc, and fit in workouts and sleep. I typically go to bed immediately after them. My workouts are “dad workouts”, finely tuned brief basement fitness routine to try and stay fit enough to be a dad and somewhat mitigate the effects of a desk job.
If you can afford it, get comfortable with delegating. I also have a two and four year old. I have someone come over and do the dishes, laundry, pick up the toys and clean the house a few times a week. It has been a huge relief and now I get to spend way more one on one time teaching and playing with them. I can't say I understand what it's like to be a working Father. I'm a stay at home Mom with with a debilitating disease that can take up a lot of time and energy.
A good motto with kids is, if you can afford it outsource it. Part of what the US does not do well is provide a basic level of outsourcing (day care) to those who cannot afford to.
You are not alone. I also do have serious imposter syndrome. Not about work but about not being a good enough father. But as with work imposter syndrome, my head knows I am probably ok, it is meant to be hard. But I feel guilty for any time I spend on my computer and not playing with the kids.
However I always wonder how these robot parents do it, those that seem to be able to raise 4 kids, time to volunteer for PTA and kids sports, work full time, go to a gym, have hobbies, socialise, tidy house and look impeccable doing it.
When daughter number 1 came along it was hard. Cut down socialising. Gaming and coding only after 11 pm if not already asleep.
But then number 2 came along and it was near impossible. No socialising, no gaming, no exercise, not enough sleep, and no coding.
Though since I work as a contractor I have often taken a month or two off between contracts to both spend time with my kids and catching up with new tech. And lately not had full-time clients so been able to some personal coding during day time hours. Also if I have a client in London I have some me-time for coding on my hour-long train commute.
Though in September the youngest started school and suddenly the house is so much quieter. And daily routines are so much easier. We may resurface soon.
100% in your exact shoes. With girls that are 9, 4, and 2, it is unquestionably the 4 and 2-year old that zap the vast majority of "extra" time, energy, and attention that could otherwise be going to many other things, such as hobbies, more time to exercise, hang out outside, think, start a company as a side hustle, you name it.
In terms of actual "available" hours to do what I want, it looks a bit like this:
Work ~10 hours (assumes some amount of commuting, getting ready, etc.)
Evening/dinner/cleanup/nighttime routines (~2-3 hrs)
Sleep ~7-8 hours
That leaves around 3-4 hours per day. Weekends are actually similar since that is a team effort of running the household and parenting along with my wife (And she needs a break too!). 3-4 hours sounds like a lot but the problem is that do you want to immediately go from activity to activity with no pause, no recharge time, no time to just "do nothing" and take a break from being around other people, tending to others' needs, work, etc. People need "recharge" time which might include resting, thinking, reading, or otherwise laying down and relaxing, with a spouse or not, or with a movie/show or not.
I can relate! I'm 13 months in with my first and while I love him to pieces and am very happy to be a father, ensuring he's cared for and gets what he needs at all times while also being there for my wife eats up a great deal of time and energy. I don't have any answers yet but hear similar things from friends a few years further ahead. The answer seems to be to just keep muddling along as best we can!
You're not alone. My kids are 4 and 9, and I've got a similar experience. Used to try and take on freelance work, but after missing some commitments, I've stopped doing that now as I don't have the time or energy for it, and take on very little freelance work now.
Still have the desire to build stuff and learn new technologies, and find myself watching random tutorials on YouTube sometimes late at night if I don't feel like watching anything on NetFlix.
It's been a challenge to get my kids into a good bedtime routine, so by the time they are asleep, I've usually got little desire to sit back down in front of the computer and actually work on anything else, including actually working through those tutorials.
Hoping things get easier when they get older and I have more time to myself again (and hopefully more energy) to work on side projects. Combined with working on stuff in my day job that isn't particularly fulfilling either for most of this year, it's a bit of a depressing predicament in some ways.
I'm right there with you. At about 915, after stand up and coffee I have this spike of energy that gets me into work and makes me think 'tonight I'm going to put aside two hours for x'. Where x is side project, exercise, date night, whatever.
By 7:30pm that energy is a vague memory. Often the best I can manage is not falling asleep while I put them to bed.
People talk about crowding out the bad with the good: don't make time for things, just do them and let the world mold around what you love. In this stage of life though, the consequence of don't this can be massively damaging.
Kids this age are relentless, if you push hard for yourself it can be very hard to recover. But in line with other comments, I can feel the change coming. At 2 and 4, the sleep is better and their needs on us are becoming less.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and this helps me recognise that right now just isn't the time to push hard.
I have 3 kids, all 4 and under. Exact same situation and I feel that exact same feeling. It's rare my spouse and I to find free time for hobbies. I find myself with a drive to work on things or learn that I never had before I had kids, but hardly anytime to do any of it.
I'm in a fortunate situation of having both my parents and my in-laws so close and that my kids love to have sleep overs with them. Those seem to be the only times where I have a decent amount of time to dive into something, but even then, there are still up-keep responsibilities and a desire to just rest during those times that causes that window of time to disappear faster than I'd like.
I don't have any advice to offer but just an answer to the question on if anyone else is in the situation you described. Just know you're not alone :)
My kid is in that age range and I'm going through the same thing as you.
I wake up at 4AM, walk the dog, get to work before 7 AM (some days as early as 5:30), work until 4 PM, get home at 5 PM, play with kid and eat dinner, get kid ready for bed and read to them, and then I have 30 min - 1 hour before going to bed. By this time I'm exhausted and when I try to do anything technical fall asleep 10 minutes in.
Our weekends revolve around my kid 100%. It is rare for me to be doing something besides playing with them or doing errands with them. I'm starting to see some independence though.
I really enjoy playing with my kid and it is a wonderful experience, but I've gotten out of shape and there are a lot of things I want to work on but never can. No hobbies right now outside of being a parent.
I'd never blame my child and it isn't their fault.
Before they were born I had time to work out, put in more hours at work, go to movies and out to dinner regularly, time to read...etc. I now fill all that previous time with them. I don't regret it (not one bit). It does take a while to get used to though.
My local gym watches kids for up to 2 hours a day M-Sa. If you have similar options and want to do laptop work on a treadmill you could have an extra 54 hours per month to work or just, sit in a hot tub/sauna and not have to do anything, which is nice.
I have two kids (roughly 3 years apart), though compared to other parents, mine slept pretty well very early on.
I had to scale back on hobbies, but haven't given them up.
I wrote two books while I had small children at home, mostly while they slept and in the subway during commutes. I paused doing my favorite sport (table tennis) for about two years, and resumed afterwards.
It was harder for my wife, who breast fed (and my younger child wouldn't accept anything else). She had a harder time leaving the house on her own.
Wisdom is hard to come by from a sample size of one. I'd just recommend to reserve one evening a week for things you used to like to do, and do even if you don't feel it in the moment. Best to leave the house for it.
This is me now. I’m working on https://losthobbies.com because I think it’s a real problem for people. It’s hard to get back to your hobbies and interests when life gets in the way.
It helps people get back into their interests and hobbies that might have fallen by the wayside due to family or work commitments.
The problem I found was that I had been out of the loop for so long and found it difficult to find a starting point. My solution, or part of it, is to give someone a list of items that have recommended by people they follow on Twitter. This will narrow down their search and they could just get back into their hobbies rather than distracted by searching for something online.
Does this help? I’d love some more feedback! Thanks again...
It helps to make friends with other families and then hae pact of "one have all kids one day, other have all kids another day". Possibly with sleep overs.
Plus it will get better. The older they are, the easier it is. 2 and 4 is probably arouns low point.
I have two boys, ages 4 and 7. Here's my take: raising kids is not about you. It is a selfless thing that we do as humans because our DNA tells us so. Like others said, it will get a lot better. Just remember that what you do now builds the platform for your relationship with them in the future.
Believe me, I know how you feel. I have a basement full of half-finished projects that stalled out seven years ago. But, I've replaced those things with two little mini-mes that love football and trucks and travel. Looking back on the last seven years, I wouldn't trade them for the world. It's been awesome and it's getting a lot better.
Sure. That's just how things are when you have kids. You'll get better at management and they'll need less attention overall, but that's it you got your main project running now.
In the other hand, I never had such a fruitful experience. I can teach my kids. I can make them respect my daddy time. And I can let them help with the chores.
It all comes down to honesty. Honesty bro yourself, your partner, and your kids. If a side project is what you want to do. Tell everyone and make a schedule. The thing is, even if kids are the most fragile and beautiful part of a family they are but a part and need to understand that at some point.
It might be more difficult for you as you have 2 kids, but my approach is that there's a lot of interesting stuff to work on and learn that might align with your own kids' interests.
As for myself, just to name a few; I got the opportunity to build big stuff with lego, I learnt how to draw, got to know a lot more about mythology to tell him stories, honed my cooking skills, I even tried golfing (it was boring for both of us).
My kid at this moment is only 5, but I can say that my interests and myself as a human is greater than before. I might have delved deeper into some stuff if I didn't have him, but I think my perspective would be smaller.
Mine are 4 and 5 (with 13 months apart). I'm now BARELY holding my head above water. In terms of time allocation it's getting a bit better in the sense that I have more small time pockets for myself. But on the other hand it's getting more complex also (extra-curricular activities, etc.)
Sleep: it's better in the sense that If I get lucky and they sleep all night in their beds without coming to mine, I sleep for 7 hours, if not, then well, I don't sleep all that well.
Work: it's super hard and I work a few hours after everyone is sleep. I have tried waking up earlier but I'm using that time to try and hit the gym.
I guess the Indian system of living with your family comes to some use here. Kids are entertained and taken care of by their grandparents, cousins, etc. ever so often that parents do get a decent bit of time off.
It might be a similar feeling to getting a burst of energy late at night, right before bed time. Feeling like you're now ready to work on that project, but alas, you need to get up in the morning, so it will have to wait until another day.
The truth is, you weren't going to do that thing anyway. That burst of energy is an illusion. It's a defence mechanism to make you feel like you would be an extremely productive person if it weren't for your obligations. In my experience, if you take away the obligations from that scenario, the burst of energy disappears.
One day you might become a granddad. My socks, that I am wearing right now, have embroidered: "I love my grandpa".
You do have to lose yourself a bit for a while especially when the little loves are very young but there are so many repayments in kind if you notice them. Try and describe the first time your child looked into your eyes and you felt loved ... really, really loved and wanted and the best person in the world ever because you are dad and the little darling is ensuring that if mum is not around then you are the absolute dogs nadgers 8)
My learning / hobbies turned around a bit. I now like to read stuff about kids, their mental development, hoe to stimulate their growth etc. I love it.
Yes, it's very different from the hobbies I used to have, but for my brain, making the kids a hobby/'project' works pretty well.
I do kinda agree with another commenter here that it does somewhat sound like you simply need more challenging / interesting work. My four day workweek is fun / challenging enough that I don't really need to do anything similar (i.e. write software) as a side project.
We have kids of 6, 3 and 0 and that's my experience.
It took some adjustment but now we have.. I really enjoy it. Playing games with my kids is fun, seeing them playing with their friends. Baking.
Our gym has a creche so I can still lift weights, read manga and get enough sleep (when the youngest allows it).
I don't code for fun anymore, but honestly I haven't done that for a long time. I've spent 30 years on computing, I keep up to date via work so my spare time is spent learning in other areas: history, the natural world, math, politics, physiology.. whatever interests me..
Just enjoy the time with them. You being a great dad is the biggest project you will ever work on. I'm not exaggerating. These kids will become adults and the good job you are doing now will pay off big time.
You will get your time back in due time. If you screw this up now, you wont forgive yourself. When you went to college (assuming you did), you probably focused on getting good grades. This is the same. Just get a ~4.0 in parenting, the rewards are massive not only for you but for society as a whole.
I can offer that I, too, have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and I’m often in bed at 9pm because I am completely wiped. I can offer that you are not alone.
The other thing I’ve learned is that all (and I’m banking on) is that none of these stages is forever, because right now I know I can’t keep this up. Like when my first child didn’t sleep through the first 14 months we thought we were going to lose our minds and then...he did. And it all changed.
So at the very least, this part is brutal but it will, at the very least, change.
My daughter will be 1 in a few weeks. It’s exactly that. Long hours at work, and at home nonstop her and house. I have about three to four hours a day, in the evening between 9p and 1am, to do something. That something is talk to / hang out with my wife, work on personal stuff, learn, shower, take a dump, etc. It is what it is, and works only if I have a schedule. I hope it gets better. It’s still definitely worth it, but really hard. Weekends are even worse, schedule-wise.
That is _exactly_ my life. Wake up early, kids, run out of the house, busy office day, get home and it's all kids until everyone is settled in bed and asleep by around 9:00pm (sometimes later). Then I clean up the disaster that was made in the house during the day. Now it's 10:30pm and I spend 1.5 hours trying to do something I want/need to do. Wash up at midnight and start getting to bed. Might be asleep by 1:00am. Rinse and repeat.
AS they get older things might turn up better but yeah, once you have kids you are now only waiting to die while preparing your kids to carry the mantle of future.
My kids are 3, 5, and 7. I feel your situation exactly. Luckily, I’m an early riser and have my creative bursts before most people are even in the office. I’ve learned to make my “me” time a priority but early enough that even on the weekends I’m still present and helping carry my share of the load around the house.
I’m usually up around 4:30 and have the dog walked by 5:30.
Summer in the Pacific Northwest means I’ve got plenty of light by 6 and I go hit the archery range or take the dog for a longer hike through the woods.
In the winter it’s pitch black til 7 so I go to the office earlier.
Go to my office between 5:30-7:30 where I’m going to focus on learning something new, side project, hobby project, etc. til 9:30.
Gym at noon (most days), home by 5:30. I don’t even try and do mentally taxing work after we get the kids to bed (around 7:30). Usually it’s helping cleanup, hanging with the wife, TV, and asleep by 9:30ish.
Because life is life, some mornings I’ve got the dog walked and am in the office by 5, sometimes I’ve got a meeting at 8, or have to take kids to school.
On weekends I do the exact same morning routine except I’ll be on the computer at home and usually no gym.
There are plenty of times where I’ve got a good flow going and my alarm buzzes at 5pm and I just have to tear myself away and get home.
Traveling is what kills me. My morning routine sets up my whole day and gets my head where it needs to be. When I’m traveling for work it’s not so bad because I hit the hotel gym and usually get even more morning time to myself. Traveling with the family (like over the holidays when I’m staying at the in-laws) leaves me jumping out of my skin without the physical and mental exercises I’m used to. I haven’t cracked that nut yet, but I’m really trying to not be such a dick about it to the wife this year.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention the most important part! I’m definitely still working on this, myself. I found that really jumping in and ACTUALLY participating with the kids is a salve for that mental itch that seems to not be getting scratched when I am obsessing over something in the back of my mind. Building LEGO, kicking ass at Guess Who, etc. can still be pretty fun if we just get over ourselves and let go. Or if I REALLY still want to take the dog in the woods, bring the kids with and it’s a whole new adventure.
2 kids here (10 months old and 2 years old). The early morning schedule has been key for me too, it’s the only way I’ve found to get a consistent 8-9 hr workday in while still being around to help with breakfast, preschool dropoff, and dinner. I try to be in bed by 8pm, read for 15 mins to help quiet my mind, and try to be asleep by 8:30pm. I get up around 4:30am and can usually get a solid 1.5-2 hours of focused work time in before the kids get up around 6:30am.
Haven’t found much time for anything other than parenting + work, but I switched to biking for a portion of my commute so that gives me 40 mins/day of exercise every weekday (except when traveling).
Your point about participating with the kids also resonates with me. It’s easy to be grumpy/impatient after a tough week at work followed by a long night of multiple wake ups, but some of the best days I’ve had since my 2nd was born are when I manage to hit the mental reset button in the morning and get myself back into a state of mind where I can still have a good time with my kids.
Edit: also, I’ve found that getting up at least an hour before the kids do, even if I haven’t slept well and in principle should probably keep sleeping, helps me keep my sanity.
I don't have kids. But I have three generations now of friends with kids. What you are going through is completely normal. Small children take everything you can give and then some. You have another couple of years and it'll get a lot easier. First off you won't need to watch them constantly. And then they get friends of their own and you'll get some free time back.
I have a 1 and a three year old and I’m going through the same thing — if you make a good tech salary, a live-in au pair is surprisingly affordable compared to full time day care for two kids and it has helped us so much. Not just for day care while you’re at work, but just little things like watching the kids for a 15 minutes while you run to the store or if you just need a break.
My three kids are now 17, 15, and 12. And yes, of course it gets easier as they get older. They learn to do more and more by themselves, want to enjoy their friends, and grow more independent. By the time they get there, you'll start to miss when they were younger and needed you more! smile
So, just enjoy it while you can. It's one of the BEST parts and you'll be happy you did.
Kids take time away, but it is what it is. Because of family circumstances and the ebb and flow of business I’ve become the primary caregiver of my 3 children, all under 5 years of age.
I’ve put my professional life on hold to kick start my children’s lives. I fought against it until I realized this was an opportunity I’ll experience only once in my life for a relatively short amount of time.
Same for me. Kids are 1.5 and 4. I used to do so much just hacking around, and now it's non-existent.
As far as bedtime/sleep stuff: I pretty much just wind down after the kids go to bed. Meditate if I haven't got that in yet (or maybe do a shorter session if I have and am feeling stressed). Read. Then try to get to bed early enough to give myself an 8-ish hour sleep window.
I have a 5 and an 8, and I can tell you things get better in terms of time savings and enjoyment at a few stages:
-Potty training
-Social play with other kids
-Full time school
-Reading
-Interest in Legos and games
I am still coming out of an eight year productivity valley (and my wife's of course was worse), but as Paul says, it's worth it. For me two fun things are when they beat me at a game for the first time and when they say, "Look what I made!"
I really just look forward to the day when my kid can be unsupervised in another part of the house without an appreciable probability of some stupid coin-swallowing, furniture-toppling or power plug licking death.
Right there with you triangleman. My guess is that PG wouldn’t have written this when his kids were your kids age. A 2 years olds life is 100% dependent on your attention still.
Now I can comfortably look at the tired in a new born parents eyes and say been there. Hopefully I will get to the PG point when my kids are both in school.
You pretty much sum up what I am going through. I'm optimistic things will improve. I think one of the more practical aspects of this essay was about "work finding a way". For me, that means an hour to 2 of quality focused time some evenings to counteract the brain fog during the day that makes me less productive.
I was very happy to be a Dad. Up til around age 8 I was 100% focus on family / work. Side projects, consulting, friends, video games tanked.
It's gotten a bit better. (My daughter just turned 10) It's more like 95%. And each year I get a sliver more back. I think that in a few years more it should shift even more dramatically.
Yep. That’s about it. That feeling of not being able to do something, but not being able to do nothing. I keep imagining that when they grow up and leave home I’ll have an almighty outburst of productivity as I get cracking on all the thoughts and ideas I’ve had that haven’t made it far up the priority list.
Your story is my story. And I am positive the story of most dads. When you have young kids to take care of, you absolutely have no life.
However as my kids grow older and they need less care for daily basic stuff, I find myself get more motivated. I have to provide for them so I am absolutely motivated to be more productive.
For the first few years I spent more time thinking about projects rather than actually implementing them. Often this pays of in the long run as you have a much better design by the end and save all that wasted time when you change part way through a project. Plus it made me feel better.
I have twin babies who are 2 years old. No matter now much you plan, nothing prepares you for life after a child is born. I agree that you do not get time for 2-3 years after they are born, but weekends become better as children become older and are able to play on their own.
Agree completely. Have found that, in addition to the bursts of energy, I've honed my already-refined productivity and organizational habits to the extreme as a result. Hoping these will retain usefulness/accuity after we get through the early childhood years.
Your story is a clone of mine (4 and 3 by now)
I don't tend to hear others with older kids as the only to know it is to live it. So my cent is to wait patiently for the next stage. Until then enjoy this one till disgust, so you will not miss something nice.
I recently saw a study that showed your happiness goes down relative to adults with no kids for most of the 18 years they live with you but then goes up after they leave
There have been a series of studies demonstrating that happiness of parents with l children at home is lower than non-parents.
However, if I remember correctly, parents with children at home also tend to have higher degrees of life satisfaction or meaningfulness, even with lower happiness.
Think about having kids as like starting your own start up which you want to invest in for years to come and will very likely IPO with huge investment one day.
Time passes fast, you will have plenty of time, you would want to spend time with them but they will be busy with their stuff. First 3 years are the busiest.
From my experience, I also had energy before having kids, but otherwise I can relate. Kids are just super high maintenance in their first years of life.
Your kids are more interesting and fulfilling than any work project you'll ever do. If that's not the case, pour that energy into making your kid project more interesting.
Where are you getting this overly broad statement from? Don't imply your own particular experience is what even comes close to being the case in other situations. People are different. What floats your boat or my boat is not universal or even close to that. There are plenty of people doing plenty of interesting things (or for that matter ordinary things) that are way more exciting than 'the kids'. And no the answer is not to pour energy into 'making your kids project more interesting' either. I'd even say it's the opposite. Don't feel you need to hand feed kids the experience. A parent has many responsibilities not just giving 100% to their children (or even close to that) the way I see it (and once again from my experience going through that with children).
Now that said sure if I worked at a job that I didn't enjoy or did unimportant work that was boring I'd probably think it's pretty exciting and find kids very interesting.
There's a cheesy saying that applies here. The grass isn't greener on the other side, it's greener where you water it. If your children aren't there most interesting thing you do in your life, then water the grass on that side of the fence. You owe it to them and yourself. Otherwise, why bother having children in the first place? 20+ years and hundreds of thousands of not a million+ invested in a project that just isn't that interesting? What a terrible waste.
I empathize, having been in a very similar position, but it's time for some tough love. You need to grow up and deal with your life as it is now.
You are getting 35-40 hours a week of structured time at the office away from your kids and you're complaining about not having enough time to absorb your "bursts of energy"? Only a "couple hours" to think about something interesting before getting 7 hours of healthy sleep?
You aren't having "absolutely no life". On which planet do people get to have 2 tiny kids, work full time, then have a jam-packed evening full of "freelance clients, learning/hobbies and interesting stuff"? Your expectations are just fabulously off-beam.
The good news is that you're at Peak Kid in terms of how much time they take - in a couple years they'll be at school, and a while later, you'll be looking at them wistfully wishing they needed you to entertain them all evening like they used to. I have 2 kids (13 and 16) and while they are not stereotypical sullen teens, they are almost too capable of entertaining themselves. One of the secrets of parenting is to let yourself enjoy each stage for what it is as far as that's possible (modulo scary events like illnesses and injuries and so on), not sit there waiting impatiently for the Awesome Next Phase of parenting when the workload is lighter or the kids are somehow "better".
I would suggest that if you have the luxury of a structured 35-40 hour work week (who is looking after your kids then, I wonder) that you find a job that can absorb the bulk of those bursts of energy and doesn't leave you thinking you need to work on something interesting for a couple hours. I joined a startup with a fun algorithmic problem and would often think idly about NFA matching and the like while watching the kids in the early AM (my wife called me, mildly exasperated, "notebook guy").
I'm glad this wasn't too obnoxious - rereading what I said did make me feel that I could have worked on the tone. A good deal of my irritation in that "missive" is directed at myself - I used to be one of those "I can't wait until X" parents (last diaper, last interrupted night of sleep, last faceplant on the sidewalk while learning to walk properly, etc.). But now I look at toddlers in the park and wish I could change another diaper or soothe a crying baby or bandage a knee one more time if we could have more of the good bits too.
Not to over-romanticize it all; I've had scary hospital visits and known parents with colicky babies who were genuinely run to the very limits of exhaustion, and parental depression is a real thing. I don't want to make it sound like everyone should find every single day of parenting an unmitigated delight ("or else you're doing it wrong, and are probably a way worse parent than I obviously am in my infinite wisdom").
This is something nobody can answer for you. Kids are all different. Some are low maintenance, some are extremely high maintenance, and it's a roll of the dice as to what you can expect. My kid was extremely high maintenance in his first few years, and remains high maintenance for his age to this day (he's 15). So for the first 5 years or so both career and personal life were basically put on hold, and our marriage very nearly fell apart because we felt trapped. I have friends whose kids just do the right things all on their own though, so I know for a fact not all kids are high maintenance.
2 kids (3 and 2months old). Since having our first, combination 3 new jobs, 3 international vacations, countless domestic travel and daytrips, both working and continuing to progress in both careers. My comp has grown ~3x while my wife ~50% (2 mat leaves). We both learn more now than we ever dedicated to before having kids.
I have 3 kids, 1.5 year apart, and I can completely relate. Not sure what kind of wisdom I can give you though... besides getting a baby sitter as often as possible
However, I teach up to 18 hours a day with children of various ages. I've done this for 22 years.
I also have been the de facto babysitter for my family since I was 14. Kids in my home almost constantly.
The #1 thing I've learned is that kids love to help,
. If you are busy and shush them away then they'll cause havoc. Involve them ever so slightly and you can continue your task.
Realizing this was the biggest boon to my productivity that I've had in my life. Sometimes the kids can increase your output by utilizing their curious/helpful minds or attempting to apply your thoughts in their space.
I'm sure this would be different if it were my children, but I constantly see parents making the mistake of thinking that their thoughts/activities and mutually exclusive to their children's thoughts/activities. They're not.
It does take time to learn to engage and frame your thoughts/activities, but children are only a pure attention sucker if you treat them as a distraction.
> kids love to help [ ... ] Involve them ever so slightly and you can continue your task.
I think it can be a mindset or awareness thing, but some people are also resistant to involving anyone else in their stuff.
It requires having an attitude where you believe others might have have something worthwhile to contribute, and it requires exercising faith in that person. And thinking through how they might contribute and/or what reasonable limits are. Some people aren't willing to do that, and they tend to shut people out so they keep control. (This applies to both kids and adults.)
IMHO (as a non-parent), it might actually be way better parenting, too, if you can get this right. People often respond well if you give them a stake in things and responsibility for something (assuming it's not genuinely more than they can handle). You're telling them you believe in them and giving them an opportunity to grow. Many people will take that opportunity. And if you always avoid giving them such opportunities, you're implicitly suggesting you don't think they can handle it. Developmentally, I think a kid needs to have these experiences where they see that they are trusted with things, learn to step up, see that their contributions fit in somewhere, and see how to do more of that. If they don't, they are probably going to go out into the world not really expecting anyone to want their contribution.
I think that's the most succinct way to put it: Give children stake in your interests.
It doesn't even have to be direct. If I'm working on a lesson (I teach technology), I can ask the kid to come up with some ideas, help clean the room, decide on what to have for lunch, help me grade assignments, etc...
At home it's the same. Help clean, ask if they can help me find a mistake I made, ask about food, ask them to comb my hair (funny, but kids 3-10 love doing this for some reason), ask them to put some music on for us, etc...
Of course it doesn't always stick and the kid wants some other attention, but when it _does_ stick I find it to be as beneficial as the time lost.
Great insight and I agree. I would add that you don't need to believe your child have something to contribute to involve him/her.
They are little brats and don't know shit, they get discracted by anything and so clumsy they are dangerous to themselves! I'm talking about 1 to 3 years old.
You have to involve them so they can have a chance to learn and grow. You are the most important, strongest, knowledgeable person in they little world and they want to be part in everything you do. How could one be so heartless to ignore this most basic and pure need and not involve them in everything? :) Part of parenting is dancing on that fine edge where they can excel, want more, able to fail and try again without hurting themselves too much and develop their skills and interest in a safe environment.
I do this often with my little humans and we're doin great. But there are caveats:
1. If you cannot priorize having fun and teaching your children over the actual thing you are doing, you gonna have a bad time. Filling the dishwasher with a 2 yr old? You will spend 45 min on it while laughing 10 times, having a heart attack two times and maybe break a chip off a plate or break a cup now and then. Of course you can do it alone in 15 minutes if you could get rid of him/her... As soon as you get frustrated by the slowness and just want the task done you've lost. There is no task for you other than to teach them and you need to incorporate your daily chores into this task. This is of course fuckin' hard and sometimes impossible and a great source of frustration, shouting and regret.
2. Kids add a time multiplier for everything you do together and for he first 4 years it's gonna be less than one. After that there is an ever incerasing chance for them to be actually useful and reduce the time needed for a task. But the catch is : if you let them empty and fill the dishwasher regularly at 2 yr old and endure the long task they will help later on and you will benefit. If you don't they won't be interested in helping when they are 6,8,12 years old and their help would actually make a difference.
Yes! My kids love me fixing stuff, so I can multiplex minding them, fixing up the house and, in a sense, educate them all at the same time. Obviously it takes longer with them spilling tools everywhere, but chores get done and the kids are happy
Speaking as someone who was raised like that as well, you are doing your kids a great service. I feel pretty comfortable being the handyman in my house all because my dad involved me with his projects from a very young age.
I've noticed this when seeing my sister's kid at her home. Cooking is hard for her because her son constantly wants her attention. For a while (when he was 2ish), he really wanted to help cook. Obviously giving him a kitchen knife or letting him near a hot stove/oven would be a terrible idea, so instead she would give him a big bowl, a spatula, some flour, a used spice shaker that she'd put flour or something colorful in, and have him sit on the floor in the kitchen and "help cook". Sure, he made a bit of a mess, but it wasn't hard to clean up, kept him occupied, and made him feel a part of the action.
> The #1 thing I've learned is that kids love to help
This this this a 1000 times. Feeling needed, learning to help, and being rewarded with happy words and a clear sense of success and achievement is like a hard drug.
Every children will lean towards different activities; involving them will need a slightly different approach; and you will need to learn patience while they learn, so it's not a trivial task, but IME if you work it out, it works wonders even with the most challenged (or challenging) kids.
That's kinda how my parents managed me as well, and it definitely paid off for everyone involved. Holding the flashlight for dad at 5 years old turned into helping build the car port by 10.
My parents got free labor they would have otherwise needed a pricey contractor for, and I got practical skills that have helped me to this day.
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, while it's certainly not PC to say, I regret it. I thought it would be great, and it's not.
What would I be doing so much better with my time had I not had kids? I don't know. Probably nothing. But it doesn't change the fact. I was happier before.
This article made me angry. That's great that Paul has such a wonderful experience. I'm happy for him. But don't act like you can speak for everyone.
Thank you for sharing that. PG doesn't seem to realize there's a tremendous survivorship bias in what you read about kids due to the taboo of saying you regret it.
I know many parents and there is a giant unspoken difference between the ones that truly love it, and the ones that are just hanging on and trying to survive. Thanks for being honest, it is way more refreshing to hear than anything paul had to say.
Indeed. Also, it's important to remember that a lot of these rainbows and unicorns don't apply to people unwillingly forced into single parenthood (my situation). That's a very rare situation for males, so it kind of gets the short shrift on this forum, but, we're out there...
I had this experience too. Being isolated with that amount of responsibility is a huge burden. Not many people actually get it... It's easy to find superficial sympathies, maybe equally easy to find people who discount your struggle, and rare to find those who really get it. Then to find help; nearly impossible.
I didn't regret my son back then, but it felt like the ultimate sin to ever express my stress or pains because they clearly were due in part to his existence. It's wildly unhealthy not to be able to do so. Shit, it's wildly unhealthy to be isolated like that and absurd not to be able to be openly upset about it.
I'm grateful for my son. I have Paul's experience with all of my kids in terms of the good feelings and the desire to have them in my life. But I'd be lying in a bad way if I ever said they weren't a large part of my suffering at different stages of our lives. It's part of it.
Being a male in that situation is also awful because people kind of shrug it off like... Well, you're not a single mom. Whatever. You're a programmer, you make tons of money. You're lucky!
I appreciate the commiseration. You’re right that it’s hard to find people who really get it.
The economic challenges of self-employment combined with the cognitive / mental demands of programming conspire to make “programmer” a uniquely difficult thing to carry on as a single parent, despite the income benefits. There are many days I wish I had a more dull job consisting of some sort of mind-numbing piecework, or a low-level management position consisting mostly of meetings and parrying email, the kind of stuff you really can noodle around in 15 minute blocks instead of requiring huge chunks of many unbounded hours to even get into the right headspace for.
As it stands, child-related impositions and constraints feel like an onerous theft of time and focus because programming is so time-intensive and so dependent on precious, scarce focus. That’s really what having that type of responsibility robs me of the most. It’s hard not to get inadvertently resentful and irritable about that.
The causes greatly contribute to the resentment. My child’s mother is a meth addict, and basically abandoned all three of her children to live on the streets and do meth. The other two ended up with her mother. And all of that after being fleeced by the family law industrial complex for $80k in custody litigation (absurd that it took such a sum to make the humanitarian point). I think it would be a lot easier to come to terms with if the cause weren’t so flagrantly, insultingly ignoble.
Oh my god, I'm sorry. I'm sure that introduces more than enough challenges for the children too, not just you. Drug addiction is hell for everyone involved.
You're dead on about the challenges of programming in this sort of situation. It feels like you're constantly falling a little further behind, losing out on opportunities, endlessly switching contexts... It's hard as hell. I often feel as though within 10 years I'll be irrelevant to this industry because I can't possibly be keeping up with my colleagues.
On the bright side, my relationship with my son is a significant motivator, and things do get easier. There's a light at the end I guess.
THANK YOU for saying this. Not only is it is service to would-be parents, parents who don't feel the chemicals but do feel guilt, but it's also a service to those of us without kids and without regrets.
...and "you da real MVP" for raising your kids well, without "chemical assistance." Thank you.
I'm gay (male) with no plans to adopt, but instead wish to spend my family budget taking care of aging parents so my siblings with kids don't have to. I also very much use my freedom to travel, take professional risks, and create special moments with friends and loved ones. I'm happy for PG and hopefully we always have parents like him, but the essay was weird and your anger understandable.
Thank you for posting your perspective. As someone who's contemplating having kids in the distant future, I'm wondering if there's a way to predict whether these chemical changes will occur for me or not. Do you have any insights here?
In particular, I'm curious about these questions pertaining to your life prior to having children:
- From 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy helping a friend out when it was a mild inconvenience to yourself?
- From 1 to 10, how positive of an emotional reaction do you get when you see a cute dog?
I have a completely unfounded hypothesis that the 'chemical' changes that PG describes are akin to how our brains react when we see cute pets.
I think it depends on how much you want to have kids. If you feel very strongly about it, then go ahead and have kids. You will probably experience the chemical changes in your brain that will help you cope. But if you are unsure about having kids, then don’t have them. You don’t need to over analyze it. If you feel the need to analyze, overthink and research it, then it seems to me like you don’t have the kind of brain that will make it easy for you to be happy while dealing with all the parenting challenges.
I believe that if you need to carefully analyze whether to have kids, then you will also continue to analyze and think about your decision after you already have kids. And it will make you miserable.
Caveat emptor, it's not all fire and brimstone either. It's been a rough couple weeks on a few fronts so everything I've said is slanted by that. Still, everything stands.
Rather than divulge my psychological profile on a public forum, I'll say the following. Spend some time with kids. Volunteer and do activities involving kids. There's plenty of stuff out there. If you end up enjoying them, then you'll probably like your own kids. If you feel like what the hell am I doing here this is not my cup of tea, then my warning is that activities with your own kids is potentially not so different.
I dgaf at all about cute pets, like -1. But a lot of everyday experiences with our toddler are pretty magical feeling.
One thing I've found, if you're exhausted and just waiting to do something else, the whole thing just sucks. I've definitely done that/had days like that. But if you throw yourself into playing with them, and really try to engage, interact, trick them, tickle them when they don't expect it, etc, it becomes amazing, because he picks up on that and gets really into it too, and he appreciates it so much. Like beaming joy. And that's one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed.
Just a point of anecdata. But it really seems to be one of those things where you get more out when you put more in. I don't know that I got an obvious chemical lightswitch thing, it's been a relationship that's grown more and more over time.
Cuteness is not a good indicator. Both kids and dogs can fast grow out of being cute. Just think about how cute they are when you have to clean up their poop.
OTOH, in my experience, raising a dog is quite comparable to the first two years of raising a kid. Less so with cats, they are too independent whereas a dog relies heavily on you.
Another possible way of finding out if you have it in you being a parent, is to play "The Last Of Us". That might sound strange, but I've seen many people say that they felt very protective of Ellie and had parental feelings towards her.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I was apprehensive about having kids, and it's certainly true that it's been a big change to my life where I now can't do a lot of the things I used to enjoy doing. However, I find that I'm a lot happier when I don't go around focusing on what I can no longer do but on the enjoyable things in my current life.
We all have aspects of our life that are less enjoyable, but focusing on those do nothing but make you less happy. I'd encourage you to look into Stoic philosophy for advice on how to focus on what's good and enjoyable in your life.
I believe there’s research showing that people are on average less happy after having kids, at least for a long period of time.
As a new parent of an 8 month old, I can certainly understand this, even though so far I personally feel much happier than I did before. I think a lot depends on your life situation. With reasonable financial stability, a flexible schedule, and a spouse who (happily) devotes most of her time to the baby, it’s overall a beautiful experience that has given my life a whole new sense of meaning, a depth of love I never knew I could feel, and lots of those peaceful moments pg talks about.
But take away one of those supporting pillars, and I could easily see the stress and responsibilities overwhelming all the positive aspects to the point where it might not be enjoyable anymore.
Thank you for saying that. There's a huge taboo around admitting (even privately!) any regrets around having children, but I imagine there are quite a few people who'd say so if only they weren't too afraid to.
Agree with this. I love my kids like crazy. But I see other parents here that are doing circuit boards and such with their kids, and mine are just not interested at all, and I can't help but wonder what it would be like if.
There was no chemical change for me either, but it's weird to think the world revolves around my child. It doesn't. As parents we have responsibilities, and we try to make sure our child lives a balanced and peaceful life, but I don't spend every minute of non-work time doing stuff for my kid. Neither am I unhappier that I have a child to take care of, nor am I enthralled about it. It's just a part of my life man.
Did it get easier to change at all once they were old enough for school?
I'm genuinely glad you said this too. I don't have children and don't really want them. I think it's totally fine if people want to have kids.
Even if there isn't a discernible change in your cognitive and thought processes, human beings still can be happy with the choices we make (and we're actually less happy with reversible choices; see Dan Gilbert's talk on happiness).
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.
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.
I've seen studies that show it makes you less happy on average, with wealth mitigating the impact. I'm sure having paid full or part-time help makes an enormous difference.
Please don't cross into internet psychiatric diagnosis on HN. Even though your intentions are good, comments like this are more likely to land as personal attacks than anything supportive.
I've often encountered people who've told me that my desire to not have children is immoral in some way; that I'm being selfish. It's not a perspective I agree with at all, and I know several other people with kids (that they wanted to have) tell me there is nothing wrong with not wanting kids.
I've heard people make a moral case for having children, but I've never heard people implying others are mentally ill for not wanting them.
It does get into deeper questions about what are mental illnesses; how some illnesses warp our perception and cause delusions, but others are just things we've socially evolved to think as unacceptable because they cause harm. Homosexuality was once a mental illness, and now it's not.
Maybe if Earth's population takes a big hit and we're under 1 billion again, I could see some case to be made for society to adopt procreation above all else; but today .. we've moved past that .. and I agree; not wanting children or regretting having children is not a mental illness at all!
Worth noting that this is a western city- centric view of children. It's much different for people living in small communities or near parents and other family. Children spend way less time near parents when the neighborhood is familiar and safe enough, and instead spend most of their time playing with other kids. Parents today spend twice as much time with their kids than 2 generations ago, and it's probably not because they really really want to, but that there is no other option. I'm also not sure if kids spending so much of their childhood around adults instead of other kids is better.
Of course, in the good/bad old days, sometimes kids just died. My wife talks fondly of free-roaming LA in the 70s, and parenthetically mentions the kid that got molested and the other one that got run over by a car.
In general, in the West at least, folks had bigger families and started earlier (just make a new one!).
A friend of ours from rural China (Dalian province, I think) talked about how all the kids would go out by themselves and teach each other how to swim in the river. We expressed some admiration for that, and she said, "oh, I don't know - a few kids drowned every year". Every year!
In my experience, people who go on about 'helicopter parents' are awfully brave with the welfare of other people's kids.
We're pretty free-roam, but I spent a lot of time worrying about traffic when my youngest was the height that he could be invisible before stepping out from behind a car.
Maybe I'd be more relaxed about this if, for instance, someone blasting through inner-city streets in a SUV while texting, was legally treated as a potential murderer (or an actual one if things go badly).
I grew up in a more rural area east of San Diego. Very free roam. Kids were spread out but we could bike to each other's houses. A couple of kids at my elementary school died. One in a cave-in of a small cave some friends dug in the side of a cliff. Another when he went for a ride in the 4WD of a teenager that flipped over on a hillside. I wonder what the fatality rate was in the old days versus these days.
My parents (who grew up in rural China in 1960s) love to talk about chopping firewood or collecting mushrooms in the forests, alone or with their siblings, when they were 8 or 10 or something. They often give me parenting advices like "don't worry about the kids; they just need one more pair of chopsticks" (as in you feed the kids and they'll take care of themselves).
In part I think it's also the development of greater paranoia and zero risk tolerance (for whatever reason). It seems like nowadays if you let your kid play by themselves, or even if you aren't hovering over them close enough, some other parent will call the cops and you'll get in trouble for being a "negligent parent". When I was a kid (80s/90s), I'd ride my bike around the neighborhood alone or with friends, walk to friends' houses by myself, etc., and that was the norm.
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, everyone is facing the same problem.
The struggle of establishing a family here (on the West coast) makes me want to just give up and move back to the Midwest, to be honest. We want to have lots of kids and it's just horribly hard to do that out here.
Edit: My sister just brought up a good anecdote. She babysat for three different families on our block growing up. I can't ever imagine that being possible where I live now. No one has kids, and those that do move out of the city.
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.
I'm not sure that's true, when comparing cities to towns (and parent specifically mentioned this was a city-centric view of kids.)
While there is less crime, there is a lot less space for kids to just run around, mostly because there's cars everywhere, which are obviously extremely unsafe for kids.
Yeah, this has me looking for a city where cars are kept on the outskirts, so that most of the city is safe for kids to live and participate in without our watching them constantly. I know this is a thing in other parts of the world, especially Europe, but I haven't found a good one in the US yet.
Safer in terms of crime, but if you live next to a street where cars are moving at high speed, the older behavior of just letting your kids run outside would likely be unsafe indeed.
I wouldn't conflate it to a western view, but a suburban one.
Most suburbs lack the density to make neighborhood friends. None of my friends from school lived near me; my little neck of the suburbs was occupied by retirees or kids over a decade apart from me. Visiting friends meant parents organizing a play date and a 15 minute one way car ride. There are rare cases where you do have a little neighborhood gang to play with, but it wasn't like when my parents grew up in the 50s-60s when an entire generation was birthed in sync and you could walk to 8 kids houses on a whim. Suburbs used to be only new families, with zero retirees when they began.
Living in LA now, I get to see that urban upbringing I missed. Kids are always walking around with their friends or siblings, visiting parks and rec centers, taking transit, walking to school, going to stores, etc. There are enough people where even though the generations of kids are blurred compared to the massive pulse of the boomer generation, you live among so many people that there will always be a few kids your age nearby that you can play with.
Suburbs or in the city, this rate of having a similar aged neighbor is probably the same, so upping the amount of neighbors makes this outcome almost assured.
In degrees. In my opinion, NYC, Chicago and SF are about the only cities recognisable to a European, and even then, a great many of their denizens reside in suburban settings hardly differing from 99% of Middle America (apart from costing 4x more).
Having grown up in the Midwest/Rust Belt and then moved to the southeast, I can safely say that older cities up north are more dense and have some aspects of traditional community building. The south - with its pervasive new construction and far-aflung exurbs and cookie-cutter subdivisions - seems to be the absolute worst. Not sure how things are in the middle of the country. The west seems to vary a lot.
But no, I don't really know any place in the US, apart from inner-city NYC, Chicago, SF and maybe Seattle and Portland and one or two other places, that isn't fundamentally car-dependent. Life in the vast majority of the US is quite homogenous in this regard, at a general level.
Yeah, that mirrors what I’ve found. Hoping to find something smaller than SF/NYC that’s also dense enough to be walkable. A book I read called “Happy City” mentioned streetcar suburbs (suburbs built when streetcars were dominant for commuting) as good options for walkability, but I’m not sure how to identify those without knowing cities pretty well.
Here in Chicago, half my team bikes or walks to work and the other half takes public transit. Most everyone over age 30 or 35 can scrape up enough to own a property on a rather average tech salary. Other than the intolerable weather during the month of January it really is a fantastic alternative to the coasts.
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. I liked Chicago when I visited (in the summer, not the infamous winter).
I'm really hoping to find a place with no cars where unsupervised kids can get run over by them, but I know that might not be possible to find in the US. Dense and walkable would be a decent consolation prize.
I agree with this a lot. I was pretty anti-kid, not in the sense that I didn’t want them ever, but that I didn’t want them “any time soon.” My wife was this way too, until one day she wasn’t. I still felt pretty ambivalent about the whole thing until our first was born.
Children really are interesting, and really do fill life with all kinds of quietly wonderful moments.
We live in San Francisco, which is very hilly. When we drive up and down steep hills, my daughters get so excited. They squeal with glee like they’re riding a roller coaster, and beg us to drive up and down the hills again.
That may sound mundane, but when you’re there, sharing the sheer joy of life with fellow humans, it’s anything but.
Now looking back, the thing that I regret is that the modern world is pretty anti-kid, and makes things harder than they need to be. Cars, in particular, are terrible for kids. The roads are deadly, my number one fear is that they’ll run into the street and get hit. Car seats are also the worst. Long road trips are physically painful for the kids, I’m sure, so we’ve cut back on those. I wish, very much, that I could find a car-free city in North America to move to, but this doesn’t seem to exist.
The car-is-anti-human sentiment is one I can deeply empathize with. Just like oxygen and water, cars and their perils were with our generation since birth, and therefore for most are subconsciously taken for granted in life. But once you spend enough time in urban areas that have consciously rooted them out, you realize that their super loud noises, toxic smelly fumes, and omnipresent fear of death from them are indeed crushing to the human spirit. I’m also looking for cities in the U.S. that really do put “walkability” (and biking, e.g.) first. But the damage is so bad from the 20th century, thanks to the invention and explosive proliferation of the car, and socially the psychology of their existence so deeply rooted in most of our minds (“There could be no other way...”), that I don’t see enough strength to this movement. I’m typing from South Beach in Miami, e.g., which I think would be a perfect home were it not for the (probably, on average by land use in many cities) ~40% ownership by cars. I’ve lived in e.g. Amsterdam where the entire transport system was built around biking, and that from experience was such a liberating mindset to have every day, being able to bike across the city in 15 minutes. Alternatively I do wonder about e.g. Barcelona’s superblocks, about how the livability in small car-less or minimal car neighborhoods may improve (i.e. what small-scale neighborhoods without cars but also with sufficient amenities could be fantastic to live in?). Living on lush college campuses is typically a good example of where a much smaller percent of the land use goes to car transport, and it is expected that people walk and bike more - generally across landscapes with a lot more green than dead concrete.
I’m wondering if there any new urban projects, ideally in the U.S, potentially on the scale of the superblocks or e.g. NYC’s High Line / Atlanta’s Beltline / Miami’s Underline, where ecosystems are emerging beyond the reach of cars?
Actually a pretty old project, but take a look at the Park la Brea development in LA. It's a gated community in the middle of the town taking up two city blocks. They are extending the subway there as we speak.
There's also the village green, where the interior of the development is completely pedestrian only. That place isn't far from the expo light rail and the upcoming lax light rail.
LA has a lot of small bungalow courts that face inward to a courtyard rather than the street, but they aren't nearly to the scale as the above developments.
And everyone (especially parents) feels like they need an SUV, because everyone else has one, and they believe being in an SUV in a crash will make it more survivable (especially if the opposing vehicle is an SUV). It's a vehicular arms race, and everyone is defecting instead of cooperating.
North America is too big. And many decisions we made in the 40s and 50s put the car at the center of life. Car ownership was an expression of freedom and a growing middle class. The Eisenhower highway system ensured we could drive coast to coast.
In NYC, Robert Moses put the car at the center of his infrastructure build out. That's why Manhattan has two highways up and down it's waterfront... A squandered opportunity to have created a city that was more attune with it's surroundings.
Ultimately you might need to move to Europe to go car free. But most of the cities I'm thinking of were planned a millennia ago.
...most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.
Paul's written a lot of smart stuff, but this might be the smartest.
I took a lot of steps to protect my freedom before getting engaged to my partner, and I realize now that was a shitty tradeoff. Freedom was an unexercised resource I had, which is to say it was largely wasted on me. I spent a lot of time being lonely - not alone, which implies by choice, but lonely - having no steadfast companionship and with no alternative to that.
That statement in the article actually turned me off quite a bit. Loneliness is not the opposite of having kids. Having kids is sort of an "easy mode" for filling your time[0]. So sure, if you don't have kids, and don't have a romantic partner, and and don't have friends, and attempt to go through life expecting that you and only you are necessary for entertaining yourself, yeah, you'll be lonely.
Earlier in life I often considered loneliness to be my biggest fear, but I eventually realized that loneliness isn't something that just happens to you. It's a choice. If you don't want that choice, then you have to put in effort to find and maintain friendships[1], find a hopefully-lifelong romantic partner, etc.
Beyond that, though, there are plenty of elderly people who are profoundly lonely because their children have families and lives of their own and rarely see them. Perhaps if they tried harder to maintain relationships outside their nuclear family, they'd be better off. Not saying all that is easy (especially with kids in the mix), but I certainly think it's worthwhile in the end.
[0] "Easy" in that your time will always be filled, with no searching needed on your part; I'm not suggesting that raising kids is easy.
[1] Being friends with parents (when you are not one) is hard, but it's worthwhile to make the time, and be flexible with your time since theirs often isn't.
I think it's smart in concept, but it feels like its a little too overarching.
Taken literally, it sounds like he's dismissing his relationship/marriage and saying he was lonely while in it, pre-children. I'm not going to try and extrapolate if that's what he truly meant or what the implications of such a statement would mean.
The sentiment, I think, would improve from removing kids and saying "I didn't take advantage of my pre-children freedoms and was lonely because of that."
It also raises an interesting question... If he had maximized those freedoms, how would that have affected his decision to have a child?
Ironically, this essay shows the biggest problem I have with having kids -- especially in the US, people with kids seem to single-mindedly focus on them and can't stop telling you about their kids. What remains of their social lives and all their holidays seem to revolve around the kids. I think pg echoes a bit of this sentiment himself when he says:
> To some extent I'm like a religious cultist telling you that you'll be happy if you join the cult too — but only because joining the cult will alter your mind in a way that will make you happy to be a cult member.
My offhand guess is that this general situation is due to dual-earning families that live separately from the grandparents. This seems to be social experiment started after World War II, and from the point of view of an observer I can tell you it's not going great. I suspect that the traditional large joint family approach is probably best in case you do want to have kids and not have it completely upend your life.
I think it’s the other way around: somehow we tried to build ourselves a civilization without children at all. I think in most human cultures, children are considered an important if not primary concern. Not having children well into adulthood is a modern privilege—one could even characterize modern childless adulthood as merely an extension of our own childhoods. But by starting to normalize childless adulthood, we’ve made the most normal and natural thing human beings do come across as a weird cultish type of social deviancy.
Logistically, extended families are a good idea. But I don’t think they stop people from putting their children first in terms of life priorities. On the contrary, a culture where parenthood rather than childless adulthood is normal is one where talking about your kids is a universal common ground you can share with other adults. (People need to have lots of kids for extended families to be normal—everyone will have grandparents but not necessarily aunts and uncles). Maybe you’re just observing one of these (sub)cultures from the outside.
>Not having children well into adulthood is a modern privilege—one could even characterize modern childless adulthood as merely an extension of our own childhoods.
this.
>Logistically, extended families are a good idea.
My fiancée and I have discussed buying a duplex, and moving her parents or mine (or both) into the other half. Looking into the future of what elder care will look like for them ... it's not pretty. A nursing home in a city I don't live in, staffed mostly with people that aren't even from this country (nothing wrong with that, generally, but it's something to be considered). For them it would be the best option, moving in with us. They get to see their grandkids, and we get to see them as they sunset their lives.
There's a difference between using kid-talk as a way to find common ground and bond with other people, and being literally unable to talk about anything but your kids. That latter bit actually does happen with a disturbingly-significant number of my friends who are parents.
The main commonality among parents I know who are afflicted with this problem is that they have no or few relatives living nearby. Those who have relatives (especially their own parents) nearby seem to be more well adjusted. While they still talk about their kids a lot, they can at least speak about other interests and events unrelated to the kids.
One of my friends who also is able to talk about other things is a freelancer and is not a workaholic. I suspect number of hours worked to be correlated here too.
Don’t people do this regardless though? Most people mainly talk about themselves and their interests. Kids are just a very common interest.
There are also a lot of people out there who only talk about work, or tech, or sports, or who hooked up with who, and anyone else who doesn’t share that interest will be bored to tears hearing them go on and on and about it.
It's hard not to talk about the most dominant thing in your life, and only a few people have the skill of being genuinely interested in the priorities of other people.
Some people are boring about their hobbies, some are boring about people, some are boring about work, some are boring about their kids.
If you find the conversation boring just remember they are probably just as bored at you droning on about blockchain or whatever it is you are keen to talk about.
This is a fair point. Taking it further, I also think it may just be that people with kids find "kid talk" to be a good default, safe topic of conversation with other people who have kids, so 50% or more of cases it actually makes them more interesting to those other kid-having people they can bond and empathize with.
Whereas I, who am not interested in that stuff, end up mentally putting them all into a single "boring" bucket, while the guy who can't stop talking about his 24-pack of Soylent gets his own separate "boring" bucket.
Definitely 'or more'. Something like 85% of adults 35+ have children. It's a pretty reliable low-effort conversation starter that immediately gets you a point of commonality with someone.
I don't have kids, but am involved in the lives of young relatives and am generally interested in questions about how to raise a child in ways that lead to them being competent, well adjusted humans. To me, parent talk seems to fall into two broad categories: discussions about raising children in general, and anecdotes about some supposedly funny thing that a particular child did last week. The former I find interesting, and I can engage in these conversations for hours. The latter bores me to death (and when the child being described is present I actively try to derail the conversation, as I hated listening to embarrassing stories about myself as a child and imagine most children feel the same way even if they lack the courage to voice that opinion to their parents). This is the difference between discussing the mechanics of a blockchain and discussing some anecdote about Coinye West rebranding as Coinye. I'm not too knowledgeable about or even particularly interested in cars, but I can listen to a mechanic talk about different types of engines and be genuinely engaged. I can't be genuinely engaged by somebody talking about the new paint job they put on their muscle car last week. I can recognise that others seem more engaged by anecdotal narratives than discussions of underlying systems, but I still think this distinction is different than simply being interested in one broad topic like "children" or "blockchains" over another.
It's just random small talk. It's the equivalent of talking about goofy stuff you run across at work. Or that you really like programming language X for <these subjective reasons>. A lot of people use sports for this too.
A good portion of the discussions on even this website are on the level of "I painted my car red last weekend". The articles are oftentimes better than this, but not always. Any fashionable piece of tech tends to have articles devoid of intellectual effort. E.g. back when NoSQL first came around, or just about any article about microservices.
Huh, I have the opposite opinion. For context. I am relatively young in the workforce, and also don't have kids nor immediate plans to have any.
I find general discussions about child development less interesting than humorous personal antidotes while parenting. Specifically when talking to my coworkers over lunch. Kids do stupid things, and hearing about the stupid things of the newest generation from my coworkers perspective can be a fun and interesting break from software engineering work we usually engage in. Where as a technical (some might say "deep") discussion about parenting and child development as a process feels more similar to the stuff I already grind at day to day.
Agreed. I do remember reading somewhere that the average current full time working mother spends more time with her children than a housewife in the 50s. Children used to go outside and play and have more unstructured time. I feel like there is this whole odd child-centric culture in the US. It is bizarre how many young adults I meet nowadays who have not been left without adult supervision for more than 15 minutes their entire childhood.
Most of my friends are from childhood. For the ones who have children, about half of them have turned into uninteresting people who are incapable of carrying a conversation about anything other than their children. And some of them were extremely interesting beforehand. A few have snapped out of it when their kids have turned 3-5, but most seem stuck forever.
When I go to visit family and family friends outside the US, they all have a bunch of kids but none of them have this disease where they can only talk about the kids. But there's also much more family support nearby and societal norms allow the children to be more independent.
> When I go to visit family and family friends outside the US...
I was raised outside the US, and this has been my experience as well. My friends/family outside the US with kids do talk about them sometimes, but it's usually blended with other anecdotes, like "We were going on a trip to this place, and Timmy was well behaved for a change (eyeroll)".
In the US these conversations tend to be more along the lines of "Timmy had underwater basket weaving practice, so we had to drive 5 hours to take him, and he threw in the car on the way there and back. Did I mention he's getting really good with those baskets?"
Agree with CalRobert that this could very well be because of stingy PTO and parental leave policies in the US which seem to have been designed with hard-driving male car salesmen in the 1960s as the target group.
We're American but live outside the US. Honestly our parent friends in the US seem sad and exhausted by comparison- the cult of workaholism is terrible for families, and the (guaranteed month of real pto/decent parental leave/shorter commutes/million other little things that make life less precarious) add up.
Wow, I don't think I had ever realised that connection; you're absolutely right. I guess if you don't live with an extended family, then more flexible work hours, or even 50% work (which is common in Europe I hear) makes a huge difference. Ha, more parental leave will make for less boring parents in addition to everything else :)
While I agree with your later point about having larger families leading to a healthier mix of time spent, I cant agree with your first point.
Yes, most parents talk a lot about their kids and that can be annoying if you don't have kids. Most single people are just as annoying though. You can talk about your kids or you can talk about your vacation, or your job... for the most part people will find it interesting if they relate and boring if they don't. I don't think there's a qualitative difference there between parents and single people, just different audiences that will be receptive to what they're talking about.
I don't know if that's fair. I talk about my kids too much, no doubt, but only one of my (not single, but childless) friends is annoying that way. He likes to smugly point out what he did this weekend that had nothing to do with kids. I make a point of not discussing my kids or family life with him, and he still makes it a discussion point. Most other friends in my circle are pretty relaxed about the kid thing, either because they have kids, or because they know that kids are just people and therefore part of our larger social group, so discussing them is okay.
I agree what you’re saying is a problem, but it isn’t universal. Anecdotally the trend seems to match living preferences: parents in central cities tend to be less myopic about their kids, parents in the suburbs more so.
For my wife and I, the book “Bringing Up Bebe” was really influential in how we thought about kids before and after we had them. It’s a perspective shift kind of like this: your newborn human can’t talk, can’t move, doesn’t have any hobbies, interests, or friends. Rather than bend your life around that, why not invite this child into your life, to join in your hobbies, meet your friends, etc.
That may sound silly but it’s actually a pretty influential idea to latch on to. We don’t have a schedule wrapped around our kids, or weekends wrapped around our kids. We go places we want to go, and do things we want to do, and include the kids and tell them what we’re doing and why and invite them to join the fun. The great thing about kids is they’re pretty much up for anything, so they usually love this and jump in :)
I think, as an adult, you also have to make a conscious choice to keep up your independent life.
Losing your independence is something that happens to people for various reasons - you see it sometimes when people get married, and then they withdraw from all their old social life and kind of retreat into each other. It’s a lot of pressure to be someone’s entire world... I haven’t seen many of those couples stay happy.
I think that’s the part of having kids that’s hardest. Because they do have needs and do have to be accommodated, it can be easy to just worry about taking care of them and give up on everything else because it’s not as easy as it used to be to maintain your independent life. But it’s a choice you make, and in my experience it’s deeply worthwhile.
This is offensive. People talk about what they’re passionate about, and who are you to judge someone who is passionate about parenthood? It’s condescending. You could apply that same logic to anyone who talks about anything to a degree more than you deem it to be worthy of. I hope you someday get some perspective on life and learn how to appreciate people who are different than you are
I try to avoid telling unsolicited stories about my kids, but what else am I supposed to answer when people ask about my weekend? It's not that I'm mistaken about how exciting my kids are, it's that other people are mistaken about how exciting (for them) my weekend could possibly be!
Despite not having children, I like hearing about my coworker's and friend's kids. Complaining about them can get old, but funny stories and things they are proud of are great to hear. I don't think I'm unique in this.
I don't mind -- and am often interested in -- cool/funny things about my friends' kids, but the complaining... ugh. I get that kids are far from being all rainbows and sunshine, and I would never begrudge my friends the occasional (or even more than occasional) venting session, but after some threshold of complaining I just want to say "maybe you shouldn't've had kids if all you can do is complain about them".
Eh, you’re thinking way too hard about this imo. It’s a biological thing. Having a kid takes you back to a level of animality that probably only sex gets close to—you’re tapping into a bilogical instinct and you’re ruled by instinct—that’s why people talk so much about their kids—there’s really not too many experiences in everyday life that have such a fundamental psychological and biological effect—as soon as you have a kid nature has wired you up to put that kid before everything else —just look at how a mama bear will react when you get between her and her cubs, human parents are not so different, so obviously their intense focus on their kids seep into their social life.
It’s probably not something varianece in social structure will change since it comes from a fundamentally biological place.
Can you elaborate? What exactly is wrong with parents talking to you about their kids? Kids are a big part of our lives. We're telling you about our life.
I think what you're saying is that you want us to be interested in different stuff, more along the lines of what you're interested in, because you're not interested in kids. That doesn't sound so much like a social problem to me as a simple personality mismatch.
> Can you elaborate? What exactly is wrong with parents talking to you about their kids?
I'm not sure I can, but let me try. Some of my coworkers will chat to me for five minutes about watching that new Scorsese movie, and maybe make plans to hang out after work. Let's call this Group A. Some other ones will talk to me for twenty minutes about how their kids are really into Frozen 2, and how they dressed up as Elsa for Halloween. They also never have time to hang out. Let's call this Group B.
It so happens that none of the people in Group A have children, and that's really my problem with it. It's not really that I care whether or not anyone has kids (none of my business, really) -- but it seems like the people I overwhelmingly have no interest in listening to or talking with always end up being the ones that have kids. And so I end up wondering if this divide is inevitable, like of your (hah) sibling comments seems to say.
Like pg notes in his essay, there's a good chance that there are members of Group B who are parents but you don't notice because they're not talking about their kids all the time.
But as others have pointed out, you're ignoring those of us in group A who like to talk about our kids, but also about films and hobbies and interests and all the other stuff you like.
I mean, look, it's possible your world is populated by a discernable "Group B" who "only" talk about kids and "never" hang out after work. But that's not a representative sample. Most of us parents have both lives and kids, and express both in our public lives.
I think if you look harder at your B subjects, you'd probably find that they do the same thing. I bet they talk about their new Teslas, and kitchen renovations, and vacations, and other stuff that you'd be presumptively interested in even as a single person. But because those are "family" activities I'm guessing you're lumping them in with the "kids" bucket and... maybe just refusing to engage a little?
Again, it doesn't make you a bad person to hate kids. But if you do, at least recognize that it is you that is doing the isolation here. Parents are more interesting than you might think.
They meant there are parents in Group A. You might be talking to someone (who is a parent, but low-key) about a new Scorsese film, and think "this here's an interesting person, talking about interesting things!" You aren't thinking about the fact that the person you're talking to is a parent.
It's normal to be friendly with people you meet, that often leads to friendship - which is convenient. Certainly it's more fulfilling to work with friends than mere acquaintances IME.
If I'm insulting anyone, it's only out of genuine concern rather than intent to denigrate. I don't want them waking up one day at 45 realising they've missed their chance and have 40+ long years of emptiness and regret to reflect on their mistake. I don't want them observing the demographic changes around them with overwhelming guilt for their doing nothing.
I want them to experience the joy and fulfilment of family. Parenthood fundamentally changes people. I see it. You do too.
I didn't even know Paul Graham had kids. I don't recall them playing much of a part in his business, his essays, his creations, etc.
So how exactly does that show the biggest problem you have with kids?
Alternately, for some reason you laser-focus on the topic for some reason and you can't help but let it fill the entirety of your perception. This appears in Facebook a lot where people complain about baby pictures or anecdotes and somehow ignore the 99.99% of absolutely irrelevant inanity that the rest of their feed is ("Oh you ate at a restaurant...wowwweeeee"). It happens in loud restaurants when people filter out enormous volumes of ambient sound to focus on the sounds of a child sixty feet away. When someone has some sort of hangup about children, it's amazing how large it can appear in their perspective.
People who have kids (and people who really want kids) and people who don't (and people who don't want). They can't understand each other and most of one camp think the other camp dull and crazy.
It's just pov, and yeah, I keep distances from people with kids when the kids are around, because very possible they will leave their kids to me to gain a couple of hours to themselves.
> I keep distances from people with kids when the kids are around, because very possible they will leave their kids to me to gain a couple of hours to themselves.
I recognize that you certainly have your unique circle of acquaintances, but in general I find the above statement to be extremely improbable. Not only would I never leave my kids with an unwilling babysitter, it's actually the opposite -- you have to convince me that you are a safe choice.
Note that PG has two incredibly important positive factors that make his experience of parenthood much better: he has a great partner, and he is very wealthy. People who don't have these power-ups might have much more mixed feelings about the experience.
I would actually like to have kids, but from a young age I decided that I would not do so unless I achieved financial independence. The reason is that if I were forced to stay in a job (or other life situation) that I hated for the sake of the kids, I would start to resent them.
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 but a relaxed and happy life at home, that they now owe our system 40+ years of labor?
If I can achieve a level of wealth that would ensure my children could follow their dreams, then I'd love to have kids.
It's very hard to find a partner that would be able to say "Well, if we don't have $5M+ by age 40, we'll be childless, and that's fine. If we do make a lot of money, we'd love to have a big family."
I know lots of people here are doing it, but how can you ethically commit your unborn children to a lifetime of work?
And god forbid you have a child with disabilities and don't have a sizable financial buffer...
So you consider your life so far has been only pain, nothing of worth or fulfillment because you've not had a nest of millions-of-dollars to lie in?
You'd rather not have lived? Do you resent your parents having you?
[Questions, not rhetorical statements, genuine curiosity.]
It's certainly an issue for many when considering parenthood - is it fair to raise a child in this situation - but I've not seen it expressed so extremely as you have.
> So you consider your life so far has been only pain, nothing of worth or fulfillment because you've not had a nest of millions-of-dollars to lie in?
Not only pain, but definitely not actualized either. My life to date is a gamble that I'll maybe be able to achieve autonomy before death. If I was born into wealth, I would have started with autonomy.
Not everyone is cut out for work, and I have to dedicate pretty much 100% of my being to make it happen.
My week is consumed by work, my weekends are consumed by resting for more work. Maybe some people can compartmentalize work in such a way that it doesn't eat their life, but I haven't been able to figure that out yet.
> You'd rather not have lived?
To date? Yes, I suppose. But my hope is that I'll be eventually be able to buy my freedom, so maybe I'll eventually be thrilled that I struggled and achieved independence, if that ever happens.
I'm hoping that someday, by not having kids, I'll be able to stop working and give living a try. Maybe I'll be an artist? Or work on some kind of cause to help others? I might be getting too old for sports, but it'd be nice to physically train full-time for something to see what my physical capabilities are. Or maybe read the classics and study philosophy? I don't know, the point is, I can't know, because I can't pursue anything else full-time while working.
I don't really consider my 30-something years so far as much "living", because I can't think of a time after childhood where I've had longer than 20 consecutive days without a job to be done. Even as a kid, it was only 60 days or so of summer vacation. Incidentally, that was the time I learned to write code, which ended up becoming a job because I couldn't learn anything else while trying to pass school.
> Do you resent your parents having you?
Somewhat, because I wouldn't have done it myself. I will never understand how they could toil for others for their entire lives and then think it would be great if we could continue the tradition for another generation.
I try not to be bitter about it because there's no sense in that. I can't really undo my parents choices, so I'm trying to make the best of things. But if I were somehow able to advise them before they decided to have me, I would have tried to politely decline existing.
From my perspective, I really only exist because they wanted children, so my purpose in their life is to bring them happiness. I can really only start setting my own purpose once I achieve enough autonomy that I don't have to work to exist.
If I can scrounge together enough wealth to retire before I die, I'll consider it an enormous victory. There's a good chance work will kill me before I can leave it. I'm pretty sure I'll never make enough to have kids.
I'm holding out for the chance that I'll be able to restart life in my 40s, but this time with a trust fund of my own creation. Then, without work, perhaps I'll be able to achieve a good life.
I know my view is considered extreme, but I don't see any other way to look at it.
I don't consider your view extreme. I think it is quite rational and probably what many people believe but are afraid to express in the face of the uncompromising exuberance of those who have children.
>I can't think of a time after childhood where I've had longer than 20 consecutive days without a job to be done.
This resonated with me in particular. I can't imagine placing another unwitting individual onto this ceaseless treadmill.
My mother always told me that having kids was a sucker bet. My ancestors sacrificed for millions of years to have offspring and the first one to figure that out and cash out their chips is the winner.
Note: I was my mother's only child and an accidental baby, which caused some resentment from both parents. I got snipped in my early 20s.
I had the same problems with work, but I solved it with finding a part time job. In my country we get paid vacation so I can take a month off if I want. I have to live somewhat frugal but I don't want kids so it works for me.
(Maybe unlike you, maybe not) I enjoy my work, and I even enjoy life and the beauty of the world yet I support your view, you better understand the true reality of human condition than the majority of people.
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 free seems like a great way to ensure they aren't adapted to face adversity.
> 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.
There are a lot of fulfilled people with jobs. Having someone leave the work force can cause more stress and harm to them, even if economically it is “fine”, so I don’t think a lifetime of working a job your children like is that bad.
Quality of life is also improving generation after generation, so someone working an average job will “have” a lot more now than 50 years ago.
Anyway, your post raises a lot of good points. Thank you for sharing.
Having kids is not that expensive if you have at least a middle class income. You can still advance in your career while having a good work life balance.
Very few are in their ideal situation when having kids and yet they still have positive experiences being a parent.
Those without kids and new parents think they need to be perfect, but in reality, there is no difference between being perfect and being good enough when it comes to raising kids.
Social pressure tends to push parents toward perfection. In fact as income goes up, expenses go up.
A kid in the Bay Area will realistically cost a professional (upper middle class), dual working couple over $1m through college; that certainly is expensive.
>...I decided that I would not do so unless I achieved financial independence.
This, right here, encapsulates what is so wrong with this present iteration of society. Having kids is now something that you do if you're wealthy and can afford it, or if you're extremely poor and cannot afford birth control (or just don't know about it ... before the downvotes come, yes I know there are a lot of factors that influence high birth rates among poorer demographics).
This isn't a sustainable situation, at all. We need a complete realigning of what society - and indeed Civilization - is supposed to be about. Family formation is used as an economic marker today, for a ton of policy proposals. More families means more purchases of stuff. Fewer families means less buying of stuff, and leads to policies that might be tuned to address the economic "problem" but don't really address the societal one.
The "stuff" thing really resonated with me. I value not having a lot of stuff. I prefer less clutter, fewer things to maintain or care about. I hate that our society is often centered around the acquisition of material things, most of which have no practical use, and even dubious aesthetic use. I'm certainly not completely spartan, and do have stuff, but I try to be careful about what I let into my home (and admittedly have a few boxes of things that I really need to go through and probably get rid of). My sister and her husband own more kid-related stuff than I own stuff in total. If I do have kids, I don't want that, but struggle to see how it's possible. The necessities alone are pretty numerous, and I find it hard to believe it's possible to raise a kid without at least some books, toys, etc.
Life decisions and outcomes go through a big calculation engine. Every life scenario has pros and cons, associated probabilities and timeframes.
So, financial independence: obvious pros. Cons: low probability event in short time frame.
Kids: pros: they're awesome. They make you very happy on balance. (I would assign a high probability to that). Obviously a subjective point of view. They are also way lower maintenance (cost) than you think. Cons: they take up a lot of your time.
Also there are interaction effects. Getting kids will reduce your available time needed to work to get financial independence.
So you need to weigh these things out. Point is, money (or lack of it) shouldn't be too much of a deciding factor in the kids decision. IMHO
I would ask yourself how likely this nightmare scenario really is, since you seem to be planning your life around it. Seems super unlikely. I'd invest in selling you insurance at like 4:1 odds that it won't come true that you would ever resent your kids because you were forced to stay in a job that you hated.
I have been a huge fan of PG for 15 years. But early on I realized his advice about starting a company is similarly for people in a different situation. If I had rich supportive parents and no student debt I would certainly have started a company right out of school.
I have two kids (6 and 3) and if I had to do it all again I would not. I miss my old life. Not that it was anything special but the things we take for granted like grabbing a quick bite to eat at a diner or going to the bathroom becomes a chore. I realize it gets better but damn, years of tending to the kids flew by and I can't for the life of me recall what I did for fun.
my problem has been that I'm an overachiever and I've been career oriented for the most part of my life. I know there's a saying where folks on their deathbed would never say "I wish I could work another hour," but I don't know anything else besides work. I definitely need a hobby and I feel bad at times when I resent my kids because I can't do what I was able to do before.
As an overachiever, who has hobbies - but one of them is working a lot, I agree with much of what you said.
Just recently, in talking through my similar frustrations (I have a 6 & 9 yro) - I've realized I love being, and playing with my kids, but not doing the rote parenting. We've considered placing kids in afterschool care longer, having more babysitters, etc. We've also considered getting an "au pair" to be around me, but to do the basic block and tacklin g so I can focus on the bigger issues.
One thing that I don't see much discussion on is a single income setup.
My wife was employed when our daughter was born (oh lord 13 years ago) but we had hired help (this was in India - that was a very affordable option). Eventually she decided to stay at home because she wanted more family time and quite possibly that's the best thing that ever happened to our family.
Suddenly all of us had time and the luxury of one person with flexible time is amazing.
My career hit an exponential growth after this and she has a major hand in it. I am able to enjoy a cycling habit (20hrs every week) because of this.
It was a hard decision at first. Obviouslt financially, we also hadnt accounted for how much of our identity was defined by the job, so that was interesting. Navigating friends and family who considered that to be THE defining thing was also interesting :). I obviously have a lot to write on this since it is still a thing :)
Overall Id suggest it to anyone who is willing and able to try.
In my observation a single income setup is some kind of local optimum. I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal. It is a real job that requires an exceptional level of responsibility, creativity, and effort, but it's one that is extremely financially and emotionally rewarding. When I ask they all say, essentially, "We didn't want work just to hire someone else to raise our children for us." That said, part time hired help is very affordable in the USA too. You can get a fully qualified part time babysitter who is also willing to do light housework for about $15 an hour in California. I imagine in other states it's even more affordable.
When you look at the market value of the labor the homemaker does for the household, and consider that it accrues tax-free, the financial benefits are considerable. And there are also substantial tax benefits to married filing jointly when one spouse has no taxable income. For the arrangement to be successful though, the "working" spouse needs to fully recognize the value provided to the household and make sure it's well compensated, both emotionally and financially. If you can do that, it works extremely well.
I hated being at home, would prefer to be the one to work. Anecdotally, I know multiple women who disliked that too.
Of course, you gotta know each other really well to talk about it. I would not talk about that to everyone, because some (male childless thinking about it) collegues looked shocked when I just hinted.
> I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal.
When our second kid was born, my wife and I mutually agreed it made sense for her to be a stay-at-home mom. The flexibility to run errands and take kids to appointments is incredible. Logistically, I don't know how we would have survived with both of us working.
But it has been a very difficult emotional transition for her. Much of her identity was based on her profession (she was a teacher) and a chunk of her self worth came from knowing she was financially independent. It's working out OK, but it's one of the biggest life transitions she's gone through.
> I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal.
For an extreme example, consider a battered spouse who is afraid to leave because they have no financial independence. Even with alimony and such, the stay-at-home spouse takes on a lot of risk.
However, two working parents with young kids is a very difficult endeavor, so I can definitely see the appeal of one parent having time and flexibility!
> I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal.
Until the nest empties, and they have no retirement funds or worthwhile employment options to speak of. If the breadwinner turns out to be more of a jerk than realized amidst the business of raising children, and maybe the homemaker learns by this time they've actually been exploited as a low-cost servant all this time, expected to continue in that capacity until death, then it can start feeling like a very raw deal alltoolate, now feeling trapped in it as well.
A good friend's parents went through this, it was a few years of family crisis with the homemaker living with relatives wanting a divorce while she slowly had to accept there's effectively no other option financially; go home and sleep in the bed you didn't realize you were making.
Kids are a very effective diversion for setting this trap, men have been doing this to women for ages. At least now women can get jobs and delay having kids until after a career with some retirement savings and marketable skills development.
this has happened so much and there are more subtle forms of abuse.
Unfortunately even in my family, my mother, who was forced to have some big career gaps due to 3 kids, had a much lower pension compared to my father and my father considered it to be "fair" that each spends its own pension and split the bills equally. :(
>I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal
Until the kids grow and you get into a really vulnerable position. No job, less skills, no retirement funds, less connections and more dependent on your spouse (which sometimes can easily forget you sacrificed your career)
> I've never met a full time homemaker who thinks she's getting a raw deal.
There's one or two posting almost every day on /r/parenting. Usually because she has a small kid or two and a husband who doesn't help with the kids or housework.
Just want to say - the prices I've seen for that hired help in California is more along the lines of $25 per hour to start. And that's just to watch the kid - additional housework will cost more.
And that also doesn't include paying for their vacation time.
Single income setup is quite common in some European countries. In my country you can get paid leave up till your youngest kid is 3 or 4 years old. The amount of money you get is way bellow even minimum wage (~ 200 USD/month depending on the number of months you want to take off), but most people who can afford it stay at home.
My wife is currently finishing her third year at home and there will be at least two more.
The problem with this setup is once the kid is off to school, the mother might not enjoy all that extra time. Work is somewhat of a good distraction, a socialish environment etc.
One thing that started to bother me recently is the meaningless of life in general. Think about humans from a wide perspective - it all boils down to survival of the species and what difference does it make if we reproduce in a cave or a modern house? Sure there are more of us now, but does it really matter? We are driven by a simple algorithm - find a partner, reproduce, keep the babies alive and die. Repeat. No real reason, just an instinct shared by every living organism, everything else is just a facade. It's not like the existence of the universe depends on our survival, we could we wiped tomorrow and nothing would really change.
Oh, and having kids must bring joy, that's how evolution programmed us, otherwise at some point people would just consciously stop having babies and we would dissapear :-)
This assumption makes sense given the limited modern scientific view of the world, but it falls down pretty hard when you consider how incomplete our understanding of the universe still is.
The piece of knowledge which is still missing, and which you should direct your search if you feel the way you outlined in your post is, what's consciousness? What're the mechanisms by which it functions? We might be biological machines with a single, hardcoded directive in one sense, but it's very inside the realm of possibility we possess the potential to escape that.
There are basically three possible answers to that:
1) The scientific one you alluded to. Our purpose is to make our genes survive (though that in turn serves no greater purpose, that's just the mechanics of evolution)
2) religious / spiritual reasons, if you believe in those
3) the realization that a rational meaning (or lack thereof) doesn't matter much if you feel a sense of purpose
Having kids moved me pretty firmly in camp 3), though I realize the irony that that's a direct consequence of how 1) works :-)
One clear change that happened with me, once having a child -- is that I understood my Dad much more.
I understood what made him upset, and I understood how he reacted and why... I started showing same behavioral traits as him. But it was only after I had our first child.
Stuff that I took for granted when my Dad was doing it, now I understood, was actually meant to take an effort, on behalf of a parent.
Unfortunately, my Dad passed away weeks after my first child was born. It felt like the 'nature' decided to make a replacement.... and exchange the life of my still young dad, to our first child...
So I did not have the time to express back to him, my gratitude, my newly found understand of his sacrifices to make his children happy & confident, and, at the same time, isolated from bad/unfair stuff....
Therefore, my advice is, do not repeat my mistake. Show your parents, while they are alive -- that you understand their sacrifice, and you are prepared to do the same for your children....
That's my concern, I never want to become my father given my own painful upbringing.
Even further, I worry that if i ever have kids i'd have to distance myself from parents as I do not approve on how they live or manage their lives. As their child i can manage via effective boundaries and I'm able to ignore their stupidity.
If i ever have kids though, they will want to be part of their lives and I can't really say no and keep their delusions alive.
They think they did a good job raising me and they would use that as an argument and I would never want to enlighten them with what i really feel.
i wouldn't want them parenting my kids like they did me
they love/loved me but love isn't enough. i do care deeply for them, but i do not respect their judgement.
I understand that. I was lucky having dedicated parents, that were willing to sacrifice their own ambitions, and take risks that would clearly be more beneficial to me, rather than to them.
Others, might not have been so lucky.
For me, caring about my own children's health/well-being/future was bit eye opening, in the sense that I was a lot more egoistic, before becoming a parent.
I also think that recognition improved my spousal relationship.
And that's what I wanted to tell my Dad... but I missed that opportunity...
There is a lot of materials out there about family dynamics that get passed through generations. [1]
It is exceptionally difficult for an individual to recognize negative traits that must be filtered out, if he/she is to have a more normal relationships with their spouse and their children.
Most families have traits, that overtime, should be filtered out. But not forgotten.
Significant portion of my parent's upbringing was dictated that their parents went through (physical torture, captivity, war, loosing loved ones, loosing first families during war, real famine, property taken away, ridicule and persecution at work and otherwise, for their ethnic background and so on ).
My parents, filtered out lot of the family dynamics that was passed on to them due to the above.
But we did not forget what my grand parents went through..
And just like my parents,
I do not excuse my own actions by saying 'well, my parents that that to me...' or anything like that.
It is a conscious act, not 'natural' (at least not for me), and I work on it with my spouse, recognizing that there is nothing wrong in improving what we learnt in our upbringing.
> 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 a reaction like Paul Graham (a switch flipped, it's inconvenient but totally worth it) vs. how many end up feeling overwhelmed and regretful. The latter thought carries far more stigma, so it might be harder to know how many people experience this.
One possible confounder is that having children is a pretty much irreversible step. Whereas many people who don't have children might choose to have them later. So they regret their choice less, because it's a less final choice.
Another confounder is that parents with kids know what it's like to be single. Most people without children have no idea what it's like to have kids of their own. There is a subset that knows exactly what it's like, and it's those who have lost their children. Ask them if they regret their choice. Or actually don't, because people in that situation almost never made it there by choice.
Not having children is assumed not to be a final choice. But in many cases, it is. The more I learn about correlations between genetic disorders and parent age (including the age of the father), the more I feel I have been deceived about this.
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 endorse looking at data like this, but I think there is much better way to estimate how kids would affect your happiness: do activities that put you in extensive contact with kids, e.g., volunteer to baby sit for your friends/family, offer to tutor/advise neighborhood kids, and coach youth sports. (In addition to learning about yourself, you're helping out parents and kids when you do this, so win-win.)
Obviously these activities do not capture huge things about the 24/7 job that being a parent is, but they will probably tell you a lot more about how you relate to children than looking at population self-report data.
This might work for some people, but for me it would have been a worthless and tragically misleading signal. I got modest-at-best enjoyment from being around kids before I had one, but the past 10 years with our son has held many of the best experiences of my life. Your own kid is a very different thing than all the other kids you might spend time with.
My experience is more like pg describes, where I had a lot of trouble projecting what it would be like, and in retrospect all the rational pro/con analysis I did wasn't really getting to the core of the matter.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you would enjoy spending time around a stranger's children as much as your own! I just mean that if you like spending time around a stranger's children more than average, or if you find babysitting less grating than average, this gives you some info that's specific to you, rather than being at the population level.
Yes, I agree with that; my experiences lead me to strongly believe that 24/7 parenting is not for me. Right now, I like kids in small doses.
The question I'm attempting to answer with data is: how likely is it that I would experience the "switch flip" that Paul describes here, and would it be enough to overcome the feelings I have about it now? If the data strongly indicated that most parents experience this kind of "switch flip", it would make me more inclined.
> but I think there is much better way to estimate how kids would affect your happiness: do activities that put you in extensive contact with kids, e.g., volunteer to baby sit for your friends/family, offer to tutor/advise neighborhood kids, and coach youth sports
I strongly disagree that this gives good evidence whether you'll enjoy having kids yourself. I never liked dealing with kids of any age; the experience with my own kids, however, is vastly different, and I really enjoy their company.
When people who attempt suicide but fail are interviewed later, they almost universally claim that they don't want their life to end, they just want their suffering to end. So it doesn't necessarily follow that they regret being born.
>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 organism. It just re-enforces how integrated the drive is with your psychology and consciousness.
The negative points from the post:
* less productive
* less time for your ideas
* less ambitious
If you're the type of person for which those points sounds disastrous, don't have kids. Get a pet instead. You can still fulfill that nurturing side of you without having it take a wrecking ball to your productivity.
I refer you to his later point: "On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?"
I'd argue that your ambition simply shifts upon having kids. If you channel that ambition into being a better parent everyone benefits.
And from an "accomplishment" perspective, I'd ask which of a would-be parent's projects are so world-changing that they'll be alive or still affecting things 70 years from now? If you're Elon Musk maybe you can make that argument, but for most people their kids will have more overall influence then their work ever will. So if you want to make an impact over the long term and aren't just satisfying an obsessive workaholic itch, kids can be a great way to do that.
> If you channel that ambition into being a better parent everyone benefits.
That's begging the question. Your original ambition doesn't benefit. What if it was something really good and worthwhile?
> for most people their kids will have more overall influence then their work ever will.
This can't be the case, unless you think the amount of 'influence' always increases as generation pass (why?)
My kids are humans, just like me. If we're both selected at random, we should expect equal 'influence' for both. If I have some reason to think I'm above average in influence, then I should expect regression to the mean for my kids.
I'd say having kids is also really good and worthwhile if you raise them into responsible, productive adults.
Why would influence have to always increase? Kids have a lifespan as well, it's just much longer than most projects.
The piece of software I'm currently working on will almost certainly not be doing squat 20 years from now. It will have been replaced with something else or upgraded beyond all recognition. And if I wasn't there to write said code some other software developer would be hired to do it. My personal contributions will have zero or asymptotically approaching zero influence 20 years from now. Kids on the other hand...
Kids aren't entirely selected at random, you select your partner based on impulses evolutionarily designed to produce stronger offspring. Then you spend over a decade shaping their behavior, whether you choose to do so directly or not. If you're a responsible parent you teach your kids what you know so that they can build on it as they see fit, when they grow up. And then they pass along a diluted form of said lessons to grandchildren. Now there's no guarantee of this happening, tragedy can strike and you can mess it up. But it's an effective enough mechanism that, for most people, your indirect influence through raising kids will be far greater over time than your direct influence via your work. It's one of the ways generational wealth is formed.
If you can take an honest look at your work and say:
1. If I don't do this no one else will, or they'll do it substantially worse
and
2. Its direct or indirect impact will still be felt 70 years from now
Then sure, don't have kids. And I'm not being facetious, if you're working on some unique device or policy that shows real promise at saving/fundamentally improving lives and your leaving would set development back years or worse, that qualifies. Most people aren't doing stuff like that though, in part because simply being in a position to do so is largely luck. In that case, kids are probably a better bet.
> > for most people their kids will have more overall influence then their work ever will.
> This can't be the case, unless you think the amount of 'influence' always increases as generation pass (why?)
There are three errors in your reasoning:
1) Having kids won't completely eliminate any non-child influence you've had or will have in the future.
2) If you have two or more kids, they'll together have more influence than you have (respectively three or more kids, if you account for your partner).
3) Your kids will potentially have kids themselves, further increasing the influence your kids can have.
>On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?"
It's a disingenuous argument. He acknowledges "attention is a zero-sum game" and that having kids has lowered his ambitions. Therefore, it's not a question of what is there "to spare" (implying leftover time/energy), it is a question of "how much are you willing to give up" to make room for the new priority.
It's not a question of ambition being strong or wimpy, it's a question of your tolerance for lowering your ambition.
Yeah, that didn't really track with me either. If attention (and therefore ambition?) is a zero-sum game, diverting attention from $SOME_THING to your kids implies diverting ambition as well. Either you divert less attention to your kids, and are still able to fulfill your prior ambitions, or you divert more, and you aren't. Or somewhere in between. It's not that your ambition is wimpy, just that it's finite.
I do better when I'm busy. Calling attention/ambition zero-sum doesn't add up for me. I don't really consider it finite either. We can usually find a way to push past our previous limits.
Do you like food? Or sex? Or being at a comfortable temperature? Because those are all programmed into you as an organism, too. Do you enjoy social status? Accomplishing goals? Material prosperity? Same deal. You are an organism and all of your root-level desires and goals are programmed into you by an evolutionary process of self-replicating genes and ideas. You’re not an immaterial ghost of rationality haunting a meat puppet that might hijack your life goals; you are the meat.
My point is not: "it's biologically programmed, therefore bad," as you seem to be suggesting. My point is: "it's biologically programmed, so it's silly to say that it isn't just because you enjoy it."
The same argument could be made for literally anything you or any other meatbag ever experiences, desires, or enjoys. It’s completely fatuous to use this line of argument to distinguish having children from any other human goal, activity, or desire because the criticism applies on both sides and hence cancels out.
If you go back to my original post, I used the idea of "biologically programmed" in the context of "sole purpose of reproducing effectively." That's the context that I am using "biologically programmed." It seems you are using it in a much broader context of "all possible human behavior." I am using it to distinguish between behaviors that support reproducing effectively and those that don't. If you are using it to include all possible human behavior, which it seems like you are, then of course we are going to disagree, because our basic definitions are not aligned.
Example: suicide before reproduction may be a "biologically programmed behavior" in your context, but not in mine, because it's not a behavior that supports the biological programming of reproduction.
In other words, you’re making a circular argument: since you’re defining “biologically programmed behavior” as “having children”, you’re only proving that having children implies having children—a tautology.
You’re also missing my point. The only reason you have any desires or goals or ambitions in the first place is because, at least heuristically, they serve some sort of self-replicating purpose. Not all possible human behavior serves a self-replicating purpose, but the vast majority of actual human behavior does, at least heuristically. That’s why we behave that way and not in some other way.
>In other words, you’re making a circular argument: since you’re defining “biologically programmed behavior” as “having children”
No, I am pointing out a contradictory argument, which was PG's "X is not X (because some Y)." Well, no, X is X, because that's how reasonable people define identities.
His original quote:
>But it is not, as I implicitly believed before having kids, simply your DNA heading for the lifeboats.
How I read it:
>[Having kids] is not...simply your [biological programming to reproduce].
That is obviously wrong to me, and the clearest way to point that out is to show that "biological programming to reproduce" is the definition of having kids.
>You’re also missing my point. The only reason you have any desires or goals or ambitions in the first place is because, at least heuristically, they serve some sort of self-replicating purpose.
I'm not missing that point, I agree with that point. I just don't see the relevance to my original argument.
> If you're the type of person for which those points sounds disastrous, don't have kids.
This is not a great advice. Those points only "sounds disastrous". It can be totally changed after you have kids.
As a developer, I always know I will be less productive etc. after having kids. On the other hand, I know I am not a genius, and I know I will be fulfilled more from my kids than from my lost productivity.
And then, you know what? When you get older, you will realize that losing productivity is unavoidable. It is so great to spend time with your family outside of work. Nobody can stay at 20s forever.
There is one more important factor: If you want to have a life without kids, you need to find a partner with the same mind set, which is not easy, or just stay alone.
> you need to find a partner with the same mind set, which is not easy,
That's actually not as hard as you probably think it is. More and more people (of both genders) are skeptical of child-rearing than ever before. Certainly any showstopper requirement you place on a romantic partner will reduce the size of the pool, but I think the pool of people who don't want children is plenty big enough these days.
At any rate, "I want to have kids because otherwise I won't find a partner and will be lonely" is a horrifyingly selfish and terrible reason to have kids, and if that's your thinking, you absolutely should not.
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.
I agree your DNA is heavily involved, but I don't think he's trying to deny that, at least the way I interpreted it.
I think "simply" is an important word in that sentence, and when I read "is not ... simply your DNA", I read "simply" as "merely". He's saying that, sure, there is a biological compulsion involved, but there is also more to it.
The kid is a human being you can have a meaningful relationship with. They will do or say things that are interesting or worthwhile or significant in a way that's not really connected to the fact that they're your kid.
(It can be compared to a romantic relationship. Are there hormones making you want to be with a romantic partner because you like their looks, etc.? Absolutely. But on top of that, you can have a real friendship with a romantic partner where you have shared interests you enjoy pursuing together, you have interesting discussions, you support each other, and so on.)
On a side note, some parents can only see their kid through the lens of parenting. They rarely or never connect with their kid on the human-to-human level, and every thought and interaction is on the parent-to-child level. Maybe they just haven't thought in those terms, or they're afraid of undermining parental authority by being too much of a buddy, or their sense of parental duty dominates their thoughts, or maybe they can't connect personally to anyone else either.
And yet if you look at some of the highest achieving people, many of them have kids. Presidents have kids. CEOs have kids. Billionaires and movie stars have kids. Nobel prize winners have kids. Not all of them, but many. A key part is probably having a spouse who is willing to do a larger share of the childcare, but kids do not seem to be a disqualifying factor for achieving just about anything.
My first 7 months with the newborn were exactly that: absolutely unproductive at work (got fired) and no time for anything of my own. And I was OK with it, because my only concern at the time was making sure the baby’s needs are met. After the initial 7 months passed, things went back to “old normal” - baby was much more stable and predictable, and I could get back to work.
> If you're the type of person for which those points sounds disastrous, don't have kids.
I agree 100%. But at the same time, I have to appreciate that nearly all Presidents (to use an example) have children, many of them young enough to live in the White House. So maybe it's not quite as brtual as 'take a wrecking ball to your productivity' unless you want it to.
Anecdotally, I also observe that I don't mean that many folks in senior management and above who don't have kids. It's clearly possible to remain ambitious and be very successful even with kids in the picture.
Now, if your definition of productivity is coding every waking moment, then ... well, that goes away with age regardless :).
I'd also say don't get a pet unless you really want one. I'd much rather have another kid than a dog.
It varies from person to person. For me it was mostly a sacrifice in leisure time. But I spent most of my weekends hanging out with friends and playing games. If you spend 24/7 focused on career, then yeah you're an extremely ambitious outlier and will have less time towards those things you listed.
But in my experience most people actually spend a lot of time hanging out with friends or doing nothing at all. This is where sacrifice of leisure and time management kicks in. I don't actually work on side projects any less than before I had kids. But I play games, hang out with friends, and do nothing a lot less.
* less productive
* less time for your ideas
* less ambitious
These points may or may not be true depending over what timeframe you measure.
If it’s your own lifetime, sure. If you measure your productivity over the next 300 years as what you plus your transitive offspring accomplish, it’s possible having kids is a huge boost to your aggregated productivity.
> 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 organism. It just re-enforces how integrated the drive is with your psychology and consciousness.
I don’t think it’s programmed into me. I am
actively repulsed by children, the thought of reproducing, the concept of adding more humans to society, or increasing the resource consumption of my leaf node’s subtree.
The whole thing seems disgusting and self-centered and self-indulgent and selfish and irresponsible to me.
That said, I think that myself and others that feel this way stand in contrast to your claim that we are simply programmed to reproduce. We are not—only a subset of us are.
It depends on what you count as biologically programmed, I think. Certainly there's a great deal of cultural programming driving people to reproduce, which is a kind of software programming, even though it's much more malleable than a hardwired instinct would be.
Just remember that your desire for productivity, for time to think, and your ambitions, all come from that same place that makes you want to have sex and maybe kids.
You get to decide what kind of slave to your genes you'll be, but no one gets to build themselves free of them.
Such a great thread with so many parents talking about how much joy they get from their children, especially ones with learning challenges. You all are really role models. Thank you.
One quick comment on PG's statement here:
"Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children."
When I had my son I didn't feel anything different for the first few months. I felt bad as everyone said "something instantly changes" but I didn't feel anything. But a few months in, when he started to react to my efforts, and we did stuff together, I fell in love. Now I adore my children more than I knew possible.
So, if you're a parent who didn't feel an instant chemical reaction when your child arrived perhaps not a cause for alarm.
> Before I had kids, I had moments of this kind of peace, but they were rarer.
My cynical take: certainly, for people with sufficiently stressful jobs, having kids is going to be less stressful. Still, it's far easier to switch jobs, or take up meditation. Plus, then I won't have that old stressful job!
> On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?
This definitely reads like it was written by someone who made a lot of money, and then had kids. 13 years ago, he wrote: "Young startups are fragile. A society that trims its margins sharply will kill them all." You just need to have so much ambition you can afford to spare it, even though you're doing something where the margins are so thin they mean the difference between life and death!
It's very simple why I haven't had children and why I won't be having them: I don't trust any of the people I've met in my life to raise any children I'd create them with, and I don't believe I'll be meeting anyone else where this would change.
Even if having children would reduce my loneliness, I simply don't think it's moral to subject them to any potential abuse or cruelty on the part of potential partners I've met in my life.
I'm old enough now that having children just doesn't make sense for me. I'd rather spend my time improving the lives of those that already exist, including my own.
> I don't trust any of the people I've met in my life to raise any children I'd create them with, and I don't believe I'll be meeting anyone else where this would change.
Do you trust yourself to raise these children? If so, why do you think you’d be better at it than everyone you’ve met?
I don't like kids. I don't want kids. I'm 46 and single and I don't want to date someone with kids. It drastically reduces my dating pool but I'm willing to live with that.
There are enough people on earth as it is. I don't feel like I need to increase that number.
Having kids don't automatically make you a better person. Anecdotally, most of the people I know are the same after having kids as they were before having kids. The only difference is that they're working an extra job.
The ones who coo and cuddle with their kids are those who would coo and cuddle any child they come into contact with. Those who are patient with their kids were patient before having children.
The chemical high from having a child doesn't necessarily change who you are. If anything, it simply amplifies existing traits by putting you through a high pressure, long-term project.
The biggest (positive) child-related change I've noticed? The sudden and prolonged surge of happiness when those children are out of the house. Everything else tends to be the effects of time blunting the worst of the negatives.
As a point of reference, I have no children of my own, but I had two teenage girls adopt me as their father. I spend several days a week tutoring and helping them. I get the high of watching them grow into themselves without having to live with them.
Am coming to this discussion a bit late, but having raised two kids, now adults, the advice I would give myself 20 years ago would be this:
1. Your children are not mini-me's. They are independent little munchkins that transition through confused, pained and painful teens into eventual adulthood. Don't expect them to behave or respond like you.
2. Be present. This isn't about quantity of time spent or kinds of activities shared. It's about quality = anytime your kid knows you care and enjoy being with them.
3. Focus on the journey not the outcomes. Read anything you can about "stoic parenting".
4. Don't be a hypocrite. Every lesson you give your kid must be applicable to you. If not, then shut up. There's no faster way to parenting failure than hypocrisy.
I'm not sure if this advice would have changed things too much. But it would have made all our journeys easier.
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.
My oldest just graduated from college. Just like childhood, if feels long while you are in it, when it's over it feels like it went fast.
But, now I have a young adult that is permanently attached to me in a close and wonderful way for the rest of my life. I wouldn't trade any extra hours of netflix or going out to eat for having my own people.
Have as many kids as you are willing/able to have. I had 5. First one is a shock. Second one means one kid per parent. Third is now a full family, but the oldest is so thrilled about a sibling now and there is play and joy in the house. 4th and 5th don't really add any extra work (mentally) other than you have a few extra years dealing with kids. And you need a minivan. (which I love anyway for many reasons) The older the kids get the more they take care of themselves, and eventually add more to the family than they need.
Now, when my two oldest visit, we have a defacto party and we have so much fun hanging out and playing, talking, laughing, cooking together, making plans...
I get this for the rest of my life now.
Best investment I have ever made.
Edit: We know a family that both parents were single kids (they said their childhoods were lonely) so they had 7 kids and then adopted 7 more (all siblings from a messed up home). They love it, their house is like a dorm. I couldn't do this, so I think its so much about your life experience.
I have a 4 year old and a two month old. We’re in a major metropolis, and most couples seem to choose between 0 and 1 kid, but my wife and I have both always said we wanted 3 or more. This was a nice perspective to hear. For the first 2 years of #1’s life, I couldn’t imagine having a second. But the feeling of “that was it, no more kids” only lasted like a month with #2.
One thing I’m noticing - I expected the joy to grow linearly with number of kids, but I think it actually grows linearly in number of relationships in the family. The interactions between them are so amazing to watch. I’ve always been really terrified to die, and now I definitely don’t want to, because I want to be there for my kids... but if I know that they will have each other’s back, I’m much more okay with not existing one day.
That is an interesting way of looking at the relationship connections with "joy" (in a generic manner perhaps?). My kids' interactions with each other certainly add more to our enjoyment than just 5 individual people separately.
There are a few things I can identify that makes my experience with my own children same as PGs.
The first is extremely low expectations of what having children would be like. The last 7 years or my life have been the best, by far.
I have lost a lot of ambition, but I welcome the loss. It feels good to look at the lot I’ve carved out for myself, which is fine by any standard, and breathe and just enjoy my time and life with my kids.
Another thing that has bolstered my experience is a strong bond with my wife. I’m 40, and we’ve been together for 23 years. We know each other pretty well and have worked most of the bullshit out.
This is one of the best and most accurate things I have ever seen written about having kids - it truly is a paradigm shift for your life - in a good way.
My kid (5yo boy) is very outgoing and talks to just about anyone he meets, about anything that comes to his mind (which is usually some aspect of playing Minecraft or Slime Ranchers).
He gets so excited about it and tells them about his latest discovery like Minecraft portals or Quantum Slime.
When he does this, it's so easy to tell who has kids and who doesn't because the ones who do really engage in the conversation and the ones who don't (95% of the time) try to end the conversation as quickly as possible.
I think back to before I had kids and somehow I can't remember a version of me that was like that, but I probably was.
The thing that resonated with me most was when PG talked about finding peace.
There's so many random moments when I'm with my kid and I think, this, right now, is the happiest moment in my life.
I had this experience with nephews (I have 6 now, I think) and the kids conversations, taken at face value of their content, are just super boring. Repetitive, often make no sense, and really simplistic. It's like a football fan who doesn't even know much about football but keeps telling you about how his team is going big this year and playoff odds he read off 538. People with kids give kids a large leeway to be boring because they are used to doing this for their own kids, or as PG mentions because now they suddenly like all the kids, I dunno. People without kids just treat the conversation like it should be treated... except with a super boring acquaintance it's socially acceptable to get distracted by someone else in the room and then avoid them forever, whereas with kids it isn't, so you have to wing something to make them go away while seeming nice.
I'm curious about how to have kids in the face of failure. My truth is that I'm caught in a turbulent stream of life where I can have anything I want except success. It's a strange feeling to have time or money (but never both). To have freedom or love (but never both). And so on and so forth. If my definition of success is to have both of something, and my life is already half over, the evidence doesn't point to that ever happening.
Is it possible to be successful and have children? This is part of a larger thought experiment about spirituality, metaphysics, existentialism, etc. My feeling is that no, it's probably not. But that being human is learning to cope with the failures of everyday life and eventually life itself.
Or maybe having children is a drug that changes the spirit to realign one's truths. I know that all things of any importance that have ever happened in my life were not of my own doing. So is it just that when we give even the most minuscule effort, like skipping a stone off the river, that it changes the course of the river in some unforeseen way? I'm standing on the bank holding the stone, and am so tired that my only thought is to somehow set it down. It's no more work to throw it, but I have lost the will to do so. I guess this question is to God as much as the internet.
You also get to define what success means to you. For a lot of people, success means having a happy home and good friends.
Attaching success to finances is where things start to skew because no matter how much you have, you can always have more. It’s something that people take for granted in a country where we are all in the top 1% of the world...by birth.
Remember, money isn’t the root of all evil. The love of money is.
You can have money and time if you have a massive amount of money. But you don't need that much money to have an enjoyable & meaningful life. Most people have to work.
You can't have love and freedom both, by definition. Love means giving a part of you to someone else.
The drug isn't having children, the drug is dedicating yourself to the service of something outside of yourself. That could be children, or other things.
May be great for you, and maybe even most people. But to me kids would take away every single thing I enjoy in my life. Everything. I have a hard time seeing them making my life better since it's be a case of tearing down every single life joy, every single part of my life, and build up a new one. A new one filled with nothing I currently value, except connection to people (which I already have).
The first paragraph of this essay doesn't convince me that this person's story applies to me, either. "I'd have been sad to think I'd never have children", he says. Nope.
Uhh. Just going to chime in here. It is absolutely OK if you don’t experience the emotions he writes about here.
You aren’t broken.
I write this because I read and it immediately messaged a few friends who respect Paul as well asking them if I was broken.
Everyone experiences parenthood differently.
I never had the chemical changes in my brain and often over the past 3 years have realized just how selfish I am when it comes to taking care of the munchkins. There are other things I’d rather be doing, learning, building.
That is OK.
Just because the HN generally respects Paul doesn’t mean that if your experience as a parent doesn’t match his something is wrong.
You are OK and chances are you are a better parent than you think.
This is very true because yes, kids can be a lot of fun. They can also be exhausting, frustrating, terrifying, and just plain boring at times. That too is ok. It's kinda how it's supposed to be.
I suspect one of the reason Paul Graham views them the way he does is because he has approached them with a genuine sense of curiosity. If you're trying to mould them too much (a mistake I'm sad to say I've made too much) then things are going to be rough for both of you. But if you explore the world with them, placing boundaries only where true danger lies, then things can become really intellectually and emotionally interesting.
Also, you know what? Take some time for yourself periodically to recharge! You know what else? Let and encourage your spouse do the same! Also? Take some time together without the kids from time to time. Your kids might complain at the moment but you'll all be better for it in the end.
Probably another factor is wealth. He must be, what, at least a hundred-millionaire at this point? That's going to afford a lot more options for dealing with the dreary parts, and give him a lot more confidence that he'll be able to follow through on those protective urges he describes.
The Rules of the New Car
by Wesley McNair
After I got married and became
the stepfather of two children, just before
we had two more, I bought it, the bright
blue sorrowful car that slowly turned
to scratches and the flat black spots
of gum in the seats and stains impossible
to remove from the floor mats. “Never again.”
I said as our kids, four of them by now,
climbed into the new car. “This time,
there will be rules.” The first to go
was the rule I made for myself about
cleaning it once a week, though why,
I shouted at the kids in the rearview mirror,
should I have to clean it if they would just
remember to fold their hands. Three years
later, it was the same car I had before,
except for the dent my wife put in the grille
when, ignoring the regulation about snacks,
she reached for a bag of chips on her way
home from work and hit a tow truck. Oh,
the ache I felt for the broken rules,
and the beautiful car that had been lost,
and the car that we now had, on soft
shocks in the driveway, still unpaid for.
Then one day, for no particular reason except
that the car was loaded down with wood
for the fireplace at my in-laws’ camp
and groceries and sheets and clothes
for the week, my wife in the passenger seat,
the dog lightly panting beside the kids in the back,
all innocent anticipation, waiting for me
to join them, I opened the door to my life.
When my 4 year old comes and wakes me up to ask for breakfast, I can't just tell him to go away, even if I only went to bed 2 hours ago because I sometimes have trouble sleeping.
When he asks me to play with him it breaks my heart when I say no because I'm working. I work from home, so I need to maintain boundaries otherwise I'd always be playing with him.
I feel terrible that I resent him for waking me up early, and really have to work at reminding myself that I don't hold it against him and that I did get up and care for him, even when I didn't want to.
It breaks my heart to disappoint him, but I need to work or he doesn't eat. I also try to actually keep working hours so that I have time to spend with him.
Honestly, just meeting your childrens basic needs as well as you can is being a good parent. We can't be there all the time to do everything possible. We're human; we don't have the time or attention.
As for the chemical change mentioned, the only difference I've ever felt is I get much more sad when something bad happens to a child, but otherwise, I don't think I think I've changed much elsewise. My heart wasn't bursting with joy when either was born, not to say I wasn't happy.
When I had my first kid in 2009 I was expecting this whole life changing experience, instead it was just...the same, except now there's a baby take care of.
Three kids later and I definitely have strong feelings around my kids, but it's not some kind of revelation. They're people just like me, they just have less experience. It's my job (legally and ethically) to make sure they have a reasonably well informed, if biased, framework to examine, test and act in the world.
Yeah I didn't have that instant flip. But after about 6-9 months, when they become increasingly interactive I started to enjoy it more. Before then it was more a sense of duty to help this tiny thing survive.
The way I explain it to my non-dads male coworkers, 1 to 18 months is mommy time and you’re there to help, but month 19 and forward is all daddy time until they’re 15 and they hate you. You’re literally the coolest person on earth for them. I like being a superhero.
I have kids and what I’ve learned and noticed is that kids are, unsurprisingly, just like people, and there are selfish ones, and not so selfish ones. Generalizations don’t really work with people, or kids, because kids are people.
Parphrasing Brian Tracy [0] all people (and kids) are - lazy, greedy, ambitious, selfish, ignorant and vain - this is just a human nature. We're not bad because we feel those - because everybody does - what makes a difference is how we react/what habits we develop around those feelings that counts.
[0] Six basic character (...) - Psychology of Achievement - Brian Tracy
Kids demand a lot of time but can be remarkably unselfish. My 3 y.o. daughter made my bed this morning and tries to help me if I seem tired. We help each other out, and parenthood opened me up to a way of living that was less self-interested.
And the 50 lines of code you hurriedly typed in a flash of inspiration is also likely to not compile. Because it's a project that starts off very rough and requires work to shape it into what it needs to be.
All kids are different, but FWIW, my daughter used to take our her pacifier and stick it in her twin brother's mouth when he was crying. When she was a bit older (maybe three?) she'd often give him the last strawberry or whatever from her plate if he finished first. She's five now, and she's an extremely generous and high empathy kid.
Maybe that's unusual, and on average kids can be selfish (or maybe self-centered), but it's not as black and white as you're describing.
And you're playing a game of teaching them about what it means - more general what everything in the world means, how to read the world. You will find it frustraiting and interesting, arguably your task is to shift the balance so it's not frustrating for you and your kid, you'll learn a lot about humans, yourself and kids along the way (or not).
Out of curiosity, how old are you? I was much more selfish and 'go go go' in my 20s. In my mid thirties now and mellowed a lot. I find parenting a joy now, but think I would have hated it 10 years ago.
For sure. I wasn't intending to give life advice, just a personal account for younger folks who regret/are afraid of parenting. It's easy to change without realizing when it happened!
My first child was born at 1 AM, on our third night at the hospital that week. All I felt was tired.
> over the past 3 years have realized just how selfish I am when it comes to taking care of the munchkins.
Ditto. Part of the deal with parenting is to grow out of the selfishness. It's never completely gone (at least, not for me), but I've grown to a place where I am (hopefully, at least) less selfish than I was.
I have a 2 year old. I enjoy playing with and spending time with him, but after some amount of time I get bored, and the time becomes more tedious. If I spend an entire weekend day only spending time with him, I find myself growing resentful and doing things to just pass the time -- like driving him somewhere reasonably far away, just because driving seems more stimulating for me.
But if I carve out a couple of hours for myself and my hobbies, then I'm able to be more present and engaged and better enjoy the time I spend with my son, which I think makes for a better overall experience for both of us.
I also did not feel a sudden transformation when my son is born. It took about seven months for my wife and I to not feel like we had made a major mistake (note that women are also not necessarily transformed immediately, but that it is even less culturally acceptable for them to admit this.) But somewhere around 18 months that warm, protective feeling that pg described kicked in and I don't have any regrets now (but sometimes it's still boring).
I don't know if this is what was implied - but my wife and I have always believed strongly that you have to maintain the "hub" that is your relationship in order for the bigger picture - the family - to thrive.
My kids (now 12 and 15, goddamit!) are 100% the entirety of my life: the beginning, middle and end. They're the reason my wife and I work for ourselves, the reason we don't work all the time, the reason we haven't grown our business even though we could have. We want to be here for them in the tiny period of time we have them at home, and who cares if we end up financially poorer because of it - our lives are infinitely richer with this time we have as a family together.
But.
Some parents become parents and let their kids dominate. And I don't mean in a disciplinary way, I mean that the kids - especially when tiny - take over the adults lives too. This was obvious for us in the parents that let their kids stay up until whatever time, had no routine, let their kids sleep in their bed, never got out as a couple, etc etc.
The point I'm making is that having kids is THE single hardest thing you'll ever do. It's also THE BEST thing you'll ever do, but it's the hardest. And if you don't take care of you and your partner - by making time to be together, making time to be a couple and not parents, making time to be in love and connected and all those things you did before being a parent - then the whole thing is likely to fall apart.
Whether this is what the poster meant as "selfish" I don't know, but being aware of yourself, your partner, and your relationship in this rollercoaster of a ride seems to me to be an incredibly good thing.
When you're on an airplane, the instructions are to put on the mask before assisting others.
As a parent, it seems counter intuitive to save yourself first.
Self-care and balancing your needs (for whatever definition of balance applies) helps makes sure you are fully present and able to parent--making you a better parent.
It may feel like you are being selfish by putting your needs first; but that's our culture of shame and not a reflection of parenting skills.
It doesn’t make you a better parent. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about your experience just because someone you respect wrote about their experience and it doesn’t mesh with yours.
You’ll make the hard decisions to do what is best for your kid but it isn’t always roses or easy as Paul makes it sound. I’m lucky if I have 3-4 experiences a week where I’m 100% in the moment and enjoying it. That is spending between 3-6 hours a day with my kids during the week.
There is a delicate, nebulous balance between modeling independent adult behavior and being a care giver. Every parent has to decide where that line is; it's constantly changing and difficult to evaluate. We live in an unprecedented time in humanity's history, the longitudinal research is still coming in, and everyone's making up the rules as we go along.
Not exactly, but my take was similar, that he seemed to be implying that it doesn't make you a "worse" parent.
Specifically:
> I never had the chemical changes in my brain and often over the past 3 years have realized just how selfish I am when it comes to taking care of the munchkins. There are other things I’d rather be doing, learning, building. That is OK.
Had he said "That is OK, provided your partner is also ok with it of course." I would have a different interpretation.
I'll chime in and say it's a balance like everything else in life. If your kids instantly get your attention whenever they want they may have a pretty unrealistic expectation of the real world later when they aren't such a special snowflake.
It's tricky business though and varies by context (age, finances, relationships), and I doubt anyone really knows best. You can easily (and will) err on both sides.
"No one ever walked into my psychology practice because their parents made them too emotionally independent."
There are some parents out there who continually martyr themselves because they think it makes them a good person (I get 4 hours of sleep a night to make sure my kids have everything! I'm awesome!) but are in fact overinvolved and setting a bad example for the kid by not taking care of themselves. Anecdotally I've found most of my married friends who are/were hesitant about kids were raised by such parents.
It's healthy for the kid to see that the parent needs some enforced level of time to themselves, short of neglect of course. The precise balance is up to the individual.
American parenting is a cancer. I was raised in Europe and had a kid in California, I hate how most kids are raised here and I hate the expectations put on parents. Most people think you gotta stop having fun, you can’t go out because kids and you have to constantly hover them. I took my son out when he was 5 days old and I brought him everywhere since. He knows he needs to be quiet when we go in public and we will not be listening to him if he tries to interrupt our conversations without asking politely. He’s completely fine and well adjusted and the teachers love him.
If you want to raise your kids well, stop treating them like they are a rare Chinese vase and they’ll be just fine.
> I took my son out when he was 5 days old and I brought him everywhere since.
Generally, this is advised against to minimize chances of the child contracting a virus or bacteria while there are no good treatment options in the first few months of life. Also, putting them in a vehicle increases their risk of being in a collision, which has the same problem of having few good remedies, so playing it safe is considered OK.
It's not really clear to me why your comment is being downvoted. You're expressing a constructive opinion.
It seems to me that children can thrive under a wide variety of parenting styles. I consider that my own upbringing was a bit "rough around the edges", but with age I respect and understand my parents more and more.
In retrospect, I wouldn't have it any other way. I respect my parents a lot more than I used to.
This is true. Having kids changed my life and outlook, but it didn't necessarily subtract from my personal ambitions. I've experienced it more pragmatically than as an epiphany. Some epiphany, for sure, but it didn't change my personality.
I highly recommend watching Mike Birbiglia "The New One". It's on Netflix, which is how I watched it, but I bet it would be pretty awesome to see in person.
I definitely did. First night home she projectile pooped all over me, and my instinct was to laugh and think it was cute. That brought me up short and i realized my brain had been hacked for the purpose of the species' survival. I would still rather vegetate than play with her on many occasions, but something flipped a switch and all kids are way less annoying than they were. A friend of mine who has gotten all his out of the nest says it wears off. My father in law says the same until you hit your first grandchild when something similar kicked in.
What almost always bothers me about Paul's essays is that he includes 'facts' like they apply to everyone. This is why I don't like most of his eesays.
For example: "..but having kids may make one less ambitious.".
It might apply to Paul but I have never been more ambitious since I had kids.
In his next sentences he almost makes us feeling guilty for it because "..you're probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself."
Ehm, no. Taking more care about your kids has nothing to do with ambitions. At least not for me. You can have great ambitions which include your whole family.
The decision to have kids is a lot like the decision to continue living. There is no logical basis for it. Or rather, any latticework of logic you erect to justify this choice is based on a foundation that has nothing to do with reason. It is an emotional and spiritual desire to live and love, and give more life and more love to the world.
That's why I when see people engage in complex rational calculations about the utility a child may or may not bring into their life, I feel like they are missing the point. Of course people ought to be thoughtful about the decision to have children. And there are very good reasons to abstain. But in a sense they are not grasping that having children is a profound act of hope.
> There is no logical basis for it. Or rather, any latticework of logic you erect to justify this choice is based on a foundation that has nothing to do with reason.
Any formal system is going to be based upon some set of axioms. You can't apply reason without some foundational choices (ie. your axioms).
The bright line you are looking for is a lot fuzzier than it seems at first glance.
If you take as axiomatic that "the human race surviving is a good thing we should work towards". Having kids becomes an exceptionally rational thing for people to do.
Funny how my belief system is basically the contrapositive.
"Having kids is not universally good so the survival of the human race might not be that important (but we should still work for the quality of life for the people who are and will be alive.)"
Agree. In many ways I wonder if we're seeing a couple compounding forces at play:
* The introduction of birth control and giving people (yes both men and women) too much control over procreation without having to control the impulse for procreation.
* Seeing people solely as material beings as a consequence of the Enlightenment. After all, if you're just the matter you're composed off then you're no more special than a rock or your iPhone or a dog. Why sacrifice so much material comfort in exchange for the material discomfort that parenting will inevitably cause if the baby is just matter?
Yes, and you're getting downvoted, but the whole framework of individualism and enlightenment principles prioritizing individual autonomy above all else often locks people's views in such a way they cannot conceive of having children as a fundamental responsibility/obligation to continue legacy of their ancestors.
There is this enlightenment western philosophy that everyone is an atomized, isolated blank slate acting only in their own self interest, severed from any ties to the past... it goes against long standing views of having inherited legacy, and responsibility to continue this legacy which applied much social pressure to having children, even many children like in more traditional/religious cultures, and this has been abandoned in a very short period of time (seen in declining birth rates, marriage rates, increasing age of having children etc.)
There is no responsibility or obligation to one's ancestors to have children. This is a construct you are creating to justify your choice, or rather "lack of choice". You're playing the logic games you're saying others play to justify not having children.
>There is no responsibility or obligation to one's ancestors to have children
I think it's probably a philosophical, maybe even a spiritual argument. Enlightenment individualism has ingrained in western cultures the idea they have no connection or ties to the past, or their ancestors, and shouldn't even conceive of themselves in terms of these other people. Blank slate, complete autonomy, etc. I think it's just a fundamental philosophical disagreement to start from a different premise that isn't self interest per se.
"Lack of choice", I like that. It removes the consideration to construct arguments about self-interested "choice".
I'll make a logical one though:
Every single person's existence is the sum total of all previous generations of ancestors action of making the choice that led to you. Not just one or a few of your ancestor's, but all of them are owed this choice. Maybe even this choice is owed to the universe (~God) itself?
The evolutionary "winners" will be the ones that consistently take this action. You can simply say, are you evolutionarily a winner, or a loser? Will you continue the propagation of your genes, or won't you? This is the "forest for the trees" way to frame it, I believe, as it steps back to avoid endless lower-level convenience rationales for opting out (if the choice is available to you of course).
Evolutionary arguments in this day and age are moot points. We are already a genetically modified species (through IVFs and more recently , crispr) and won't be long before we can grow babies extracorporeally. And it's pretty certain , when designer babies become the norm, the trend is not to select traits that resemble some mythical ancestors, but the traits that are likely to maximize their happiness in the future.
Glorification of your ancestors, or having the expectation that your descendants will procreate in your honor, sounds like self-interested ego stroking and a vain attempt at establishing ones own importance in the universe, when that importance in the grand scheme of things is questionable.
Adopting a belief of "Lack of choice" is still a choice, as no one holds a gun to your head to have children, and birth control options are readily available to much of the world. This sounds like an excuse to remove inhibitions around sex, in that you are somehow doing this sexual act to honor "something greater than yourself", rather than it being your own self-interested pleasure seeking.
Species that adopt breeding = winning behaviors often experience overpopulation pressures which leads to catastrophic die offs. Turning this into a winners vs losers argument, over an act that is not that terribly complex or worthy of ticker-tape parades, seems again more self-interested ego stroking. How many points do you score when you have a baby, and who is keeping score? Maybe just you.
> The introduction of birth control and giving people (yes both men and women) too much control over procreation without having to control the impulse for procreation.
Why "too much" control? I'm curious why you think the amount of control is larger than it should be (and to what end).
To add to everything you said, which I agree with, having children is also a profound act of responsibility, or even obligation.
Along with all the logic games people play to justify not having children, they miss the overarching principle that they have a responsibility, to their ancestors, to match the gift of life that was given to them, to the sense of continuing the legacy of their parents, grandparents etc.
Or... one should, or even must, think this way to overcome the obsession with seeking a logical or selfish reason to have kids when they might not find one.
I could say a lot about having kids, but I'll keep it to this:
The fundamentally most powerful thing I feel about having kids is faith. I have faith now. An unwavering, unquestionable understanding of my purpose and direction on this planet. It makes so many questions so easy to answer.
Paradoxically, I think the hard part about having kid is having too few of them. My wife and I have 7 kids. People stare at us like we're crazy all the time. But it's way easier to have 7 kids than 2.
Older kids help with the younger kids. When the 2 or 3 playing together get bored, they mix it up. They have daily big games that would ordinarily take a lot of effort arranging playdates. Many hands make light work, so household chores go by quickly. It's great.
My advice for those struggling with kids: don't stop at 1 or 2. It's hard to have 1 or 2 kids.
This sometimes badly backfires on people. You're essentially betting that your first kids will be willing to do this, and will be responsible enough to do a decent job of it.
When kids get older it seems fairly common to start fighting over having to look after siblings, as it's a barrier to having friends and studying.
I don't disagree that this is a possibility. I'm sure it happens. In our house, we have a zero-tolerance policy for fighting or rudeness, and we strongly encourage polite problem solving, even with the toddlers. It works well.
As for academics, we homeschool and vastly outpace the public school curriculum. For example, my 8 and 10 year olds are using a college Latin textbook. My oldest knows Clojure. It can be done, and, as I said previously, it's easier with more kids. I've been a father of 1, 2, 3, etc. and there's no comparison in the joy and ease that come with a large family.
Talk to me after your oldest have been out of the house for a decade.
What works for you will not work for others.
There are plenty of stories out there on /r/raisedbynarcissists from people whose parents expected them to contribute to helping raise their siblings, and they were deeply resentful that they couldn't live the life they wanted.
You made the choice to have 7 kids. Your older kids didn't get a choice when it comes to having to help you with your parental responsibilities.
My grandma had seven kids. Practically the only thing she says now that she is well into her eighties is "what was I thinking? that was way too many kids."
Both my grandparents had 7 kids, and I recall a conversation when I was maybe 7 or 8, when my mom had stopped at 3, where my grandmother made the same point you're making - that you should keep going. She did stop, and regrets it now.
Not having children is the single most impactful thing one can have on their carbon footprint. I simply can’t imagine with the way society is going, that this will change in many generations.
Well, my ex-wife took up drugs and I became a single dad from the time my son was aged 2–after spending $80k I absolutely didn’t have on custody litigation. That’s in addition to a large six-figure mountain of back-tax debt and all the struggles of self-employment I’ve written about.
So, I suppose I can’t relate to PG’s essay. Of all the many possible eventualities I considered when having kids, this one didn’t enter into my imagination, and is not what I signed up for--especially in view of the foregoing hardships, even if they're ultimately self-imposed. Brilliant life choices and that.
Of course I love my son, and it's difficult to speak in terms of regret now that he's here. But I regret having him with someone a reasonable person (not me at the time) could have anticipated would not be a viable mother, and denying him (and myself) that. At the same time, it has inexorably altered my life and made it quite challenging.
To the extent the status quo is tenable at all, it relies on a large and expensive army of help and caregivers. Without them I don’t think I’d have a livelihood at all; we just don’t have 40 hour weeks in my industry that bend to a working single parent schedule, whether freelance or W-2. My son goes to daycare full-time but that doesn’t free up even remotely enough time and energy to sustain and grow my business, so a lot of other crutches are needed. Childcare is far and away my number one expense, greatly eclipsing housing. Even so, it’s all a struggle.
It's very socially unacceptable to admit you regret having kids. But the internet has enabled that viewpoint to surface through anonymity. I see having kids as a huge gamble. If you realize it's really not for you, there's no way to go back. I also question the morality of bringing an intelligent, sentient being into this very troubled world without their consent.
A bit of this feels like rose coloured glasses. I don't regret having kids, and I love them to death, and even at 2 and 4, they really are interesting to talk to and interact with! However, they're also at times the worst housemates and worst companions there are. As Graham says, kids take a tremendous amount of time and attention, which can be very frustrating. Kids are possibly the greatest inconvenience one can imagine, maybe even more so.
I think it was a ted talk I watched long ago whose basic premise was that with kids the highs are really high and the lows are really low. It goes on to say that a major component of the lows is that we feel like we shouldn't feel like this because it's not socially acceptable to talk about the negative aides of children. However, if we talked about how frustrating children are, we could help make those lows a bit less low.
Like I said, I don't regret mine, but it definitely not all flowers. I'm not really refuting anything in the essay, as he highlights many of the good parts of parenthood, I do think it's important that we don't look at child rearing with rose coloured glasses. I mean, it _is_ super awesome, but it also _sucks_ too.
> I mean, it _is_ super awesome, but it also _sucks_ too.
Totally.
In my experience the inconvenience has changed pretty dramatically (for the better) as they've gotten older. Maybe it's just that I don't mind the new inconveniences as much as the old ones, but I do _not_ miss the diaper/toilet training/can't talk/can't get into the car themselves phase.
Probably one of the more honest and rational takes on this subject that I've seen.
Asking people why they want/wanted kids usually (but not always) results in a loop of they have kids because they wanted kids. Or they want kids because they want kids.
Not that's it not a sufficient answer, just that it's different from some "artificial" wants which can be justified more easily.
My favorite other simple answers were just "I grew up with four siblings and three dogs and I like there to be lots of movement at home" and "I'm not plotting for world domination only to let it go to waste after I die"
Right , that's what I meant by other more "artificial" desires. This one is as natural/biological as it gets and that's why wanting to have them because you want to have them is a perfectly acceptable answer.
a small percentage of the population can avoid having kids and work a "support role", that's not a new thing. We even codified some of that with priests, monks and nuns. Overall though having kids is the "normal" thing to do and most people do it.
If the premise is "parenting is great and you should do it", it should include the caveat "if you're a tech millionaire".
I can't help but wonder how far removed pg's experience of parenting is from those without his resources, which is most people. The lows of parenting probably hit a lot less hard when you don't have to worry about money or work multiple jobs.
To anyone reading to see if they should have kids, here's my take on it. It's not the magical euphoric experience described here, some people get that but I've always been more of a down to earth person.
It's more or less like getting a dog ( I take really good care of my dogs ). You take it out, stick to a routine, take care of it, love it and enjoy its company and bond that comes with having one.
If this is you then you'll be just fine having kids. If you dump it in the backyard and occasionally have time for it then it's not going to be great.
I regret reading this essay because now the discouragement is back. I have wanted children; my wife has not. I am determined not to force the issue as she would be the one undertaking most of the burden, and why should I cause her to resent me? So I made peace with it, but every time something like this comes up I am torn again.
You're right not forcing the issue. But this is something that merits at least a dialogue. You don't have the right to force your partner to do what you want on this, but you have the right to be able to speak about your desires, and having them acknowledged.
Forget about this idea of burden, this is not for you to decide, and if you are serious about that, you should be clear about sharing the workload.
And yes, there are also the specific burdens of pregnancy, lactation that you can't share, but also for plenty of women, there is also a reward for those activities. A reward that you as a man can also only reap vicariously. So, for every woman there will be a different balance of perspectives, some value more the rewards and will be happy having kids, others will feel more actually the burdens. Not your business to decide that.
But, what is your business is to understand what is important to you. To understand that if you feel so strongly about it now, it probably won't go away and that you will resent over time, if not right now.
And then, if you have such different attitudes about this matter, maybe, just maybe, it would be best for both of you to free yourselves from each other.
“ when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children”
This happened to me two months back when I had my first child. Yes having a child has made me less productive with my work but I feel I’m happier now. Everyday I look forward to get home from work
Welcome to the world of being a parent. It can be frustrating, perplexing and mind-bending. Few things compare to those little arms snug around your neck, the head leaning on your shoulder, all in complete trust that you love them and wish them the best.
Kids are great and fun. My business did better after I got married and then even better once the first kid came around. In some ways it appears that working less and being grounded and less stressed helped a lot.
Kids are just a lot of fun.
I do not live in NYC or silicon valley. Those places are expensive and kid unfriendly to all but millionaires.
I've always been anti-children, I honestly dislike them. Even when I was one myself. They're loud and unpredictable. And if I were to have one it would be expensive and time consuming.
My current GF (I'm in my late 30s, she early 30s) wants children. She changed from "I don't care if I don't" to "I definitely need at least one.
So that's an impossible thing to compromise on.
And I won't. So I'll leave her to figure it out for herself. I'd much rather be alone than in a relationship if it means getting an innocent child involved with a father that doesn't want it.
"But you'll change your mind once you have one!" is a saying I often hear. Yeah, Stockholm Syndrome is what it's called. You have no choice but to say you like it. Fake it 'til you make it.
I've had colleagues and friends admit to me that they regret having children. They would have preferred to save tens of thousands of euros more, travel the world, treat themselves to gadgets and expensive meals, have all the time in the world to do whatever they liked. All the time to read books, play games, go on dates, meet people, or just work, or just do nothing at all.
With children, you're suddenly a parent. Your house is child-safe, your car is child-safe, the people you deal with most are also parents.
Or, how a friend of mine said: "I got a 20-something babysitter, cutest girl I've ever seen. I'm 41. I'd do her. My wife wouldn't approve, of course. But the girl tells me she isn't going to get children, because she sees how little time parents have. And god damnit, she's so right."
If he got to turn back time he would not have his 3 children. And that's not all: he would not stay with his wife, a marriage of 20 years. They coexist "for the children" as they so often do. But in truth it's because he isn't looking forward to paying her alimony and child support.
Right now, he's miserable with 1 child-safe car and 1 car he likes in a house that's too big.
And look at the divorce rates out there. Even if you look at only the first-time divorcees, it seems most marriages fail. I am not looking forward to anchoring myself down by adding a child into the mix.
I'll be single. And if I do turn out to be miserable, I'll just off myself without leaving a dependent family behind.
Good for you, but no need to be defensive or resigned to getting single: there's an entire society of joyous, happy, well-balanced, office contributors to society, who don't have kids. You don't need to justify it.
Live the life you want, but be as direct and open as you possibly can with your partner if that is your position.
> I'll leave her to figure it out for herself.
The most ethical thing to do would be to force the issue and break up with her. Otherwise, by the time she figures out that you're not going to change your mind and breaks up with you, she'll resent that she wasted time off her biological clock.
I understand that your perspective is "She might change her mind in time, so if I'm happy with her right now, why should I force the issue? That's on her if the status quo doesn't work", but you've already seen the way her mind changed and it's not going in the direction you want. So at this point you're more aware than she is of the reality of the situation.
My experiences matches very well Paul's. Especially this one "I remember perfectly well what life was like before. Well enough to miss some things a lot, like the ability to take off for some other country at a moment's notice. That was so great. Why did I never do that?
See what I did there? The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used."
For me, it was the case with my ambitions. I sometimes, not so often, catch myself thinking "damn, if I just had more time (implicitly thinking - less time spent on taking care of my kids), I could achieve this and this". But that's pure bullshit. I had plenty of time before kids, and I didn't use it. Period.
I actually think, I'm doing more things now, that I have kids. Precisely because I have so many responsibilities, I do care a lot about my free time and how I spend it. It turns out, we all have plenty of time. We just waste most of it.
Having kids, I feel like it's my obligation to show them how to best live their life. And since kids, very often, just try to copy what you do, there is no better way to show them than just living the best life you can. Win-win.
Besides, as Paul says, kids are pure joy and they are extremely interesting (especially if you are interested in machine learning :D ).
It's not always delicate and perfect but you'll do fine. Consider how many other humans have done this successfully before you. Just do what you can without driving yourself and your co-parent(s) crazy and accept that your best might gracefully be a bit different than it used to be.
As someone who's two new arrivals recently turned two; it's by far the hardest thing I've done. I envy those who have one at a time. Having a startup fail around me was a piece of cake. Singlehandedly building a house (not commissioning a house) was peanuts. Building and shipping products now used by the billions was far less stressful than keeping two little rascals alive.
But I'm managing and I'm sure you will too. Clichés exist for a reason: as it turns out; I wouldn't trade it for anything.
It's good that he thinks about "getting enough done" now. That should be everyone's focus in the first place -- if you're focusing on only doing what's necessary, the quality of your choices is bound to improve (Warren Buffet's punch card analogy comes to mind). It's depressing to me that with productivity culture we've left this so far behind.
Since having my children, my capacity for patience and empathy have increased significantly. Surprisingly, these newfound attributes aren't solely directed towards them, but to the general population as a whole. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing I've experienced outside the pure emotional impact one would expect.
That's interesting; I wonder if you're fairly unique, or if what I've read was flawed: I've read that new parents direct most of their empathy toward their children and have scant little left for anyone else.
Patience and empathy are practices, and raising kids provides a whole lot of opportunity for exercising them. As a result of becoming better at these practices (or at least more mindful about them), people around me have benefited.
> Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch.
I have a step-daughter. It's amazing how protective I am over here. I'm not violent or confrontational by any means.
One time this drunk guy didn't like that she was on her phone (she wasn't doing anything wrong).
This guy was basically yelling at her... my adrenaline spiked and I was immediately in this guys face protecting her.
I mean you'd think this was the natural thing to do right? Of course it is... but what's interesting is that I don't have any recollection of actually making a conscious decision to take this action.
It was almost done and over with before I realized what happened.
The guy was actually arrested for public intoxication and taken away. He had been drinking in the movie theater and came out drunk.
I don't understand. Was the guy angry because the kid was using a loud/bright (?) phone during a movie? Was he angry just because he was drunk? Like some people get booze-happy, and some booze-sad?
Question to people with kids: if you could do it again, would you do it at a different time of your life?
Personally I’d like to wait until I’m in my mid 30s for some of the reasons Paul mentions: you have less time outside of work to do other things once you have kids. Seems like being a founder or even just trying to advance aggressively in a standard career is a lot harder if you have dependents.
There’s also two key trade offs I see too: money vs. energy. The more financially well off you are when you have children, the easier things will be (affording the house in the right neighborhood, daycare, etc.). So in that respect it’s probably better to delay having children. But if you delay too long, you might not have enough energy to do things your children want to do, and have a higher risk of health problems cropping up which take time away from kids
If I had started younger, I would've tried for 4 kids instead of 2. I was 33 and 36 at my childrens' births. I would definitely do it younger if I had it to do over because now I want as much time with them as possible and would like time with grandkids. That said, we are fairly comfortable financially, and if that would necessarily not have been the case if I'd started younger, then it's really hard to say whether I would chose that in retrospect.
That said, I'm not sure having kids has to be so bad for your career. Nothing focuses a person more than needed to keep work time-boxed in order to leave time for family. Perhaps the totally self-motivated types would suffer, but for me and other parents I've known, it can sort of add a level of maturity and focus that can actually help a career.
I recommend you have kids as early as you can, but no earlier. You don't understand until you have children, but your life is divided in two: the time before you have kids and the time after. You don't know this, but you actually want more time with your kids, but you won't know this until you have them.
I would have had them earlier (I had 'em at 34 and 37) if I could do it again. Probably like 30-32 if I could.
I had my kids when I was 30 and it's worked out well. I wouldn't want to go much later. I have friends who started later and it's fine now, but when their kids are in high school, the parents will be in their fifties. I want to have a little more youth and energy to spend with my children as they enter adulthood.
My twenties were a very parenting-unfriendly time of my life. I was in a couple of bands, going out a lot, moved around a bunch. It was convenient to have that luxury for a while.
I used to work with a guy who had his kids at 18. I can't imagine being a parent when I was that young and dumb, but I gotta admit to some real envy. When I worked with him, he was in his thirties and his kids were getting ready to move out. Having the child part of parenthood "done" and still having plenty of youth and many years of time to look forward to — spending time both with and without now-grown kids — sounds pretty amazing.
I was 27/30 when my two kids were born, and don't regret it.
I do remember having the wish to have children, and thinking "not yet".
And somebody I respected told me "it's never the perfect time to have children".
There's a tendency towards thinking that, whatever your current situation might be, there might be a better time.
I finished my degree, moved in with my girlfriend of several years, and started a PhD program. I considered waiting with procreation until I finished the program, but decided the time was good enough. Sure, having a PhD and a well-paying job would be even more awesome, but even then I might have wanted to wait for that next promotion around the corner, or owning a house, or whatever.
There's never the perfect time to have kids. If you want kids, ask yourself: is it good enough now?
Once you're an adult, the younger you can have them, the better. You're right that you need the health and the energy, but it's more than just that. There's a world before kids and a world after kids, and the world after kids is much better. It's night and day. You want to live in the post-kids world as long as possible.
Like Paul is saying, it'll change your perspective on everything, and you'll be much less grumpy. You'll understand the world at a much deeper level. You'll be more accepting of everyone around you. Your priorities will be a lot better. Your perspective will stretch outside yourself and across the generations. As much as people think they have it together before they have kids, they have no skin in the game, and they have no idea what they're talking about.
When I meet people who don't have kids, especially as they advance into their late 20s and 30s, my overwhelming sentiment is pity. They're yammering on about their expensive cars, their exotic vacations, their large empty houses, and the long hours they waste slaving away for some distant corporate master on some irrelevant chunk of code, and while many seem to think these things are impressive, the only thing I feel is pity for the empty materialism and wasted effort that dominates their lives.
It's obvious they're looking for some meaning in the wrong places. Humans need the significance and the responsibility that come from parenthood. It's irreplaceable, incomparable. Life without kids is all but worthless.
My advice is stop planning because everything you think you know is wrong. Get married and have kids. It's hard, sure. You don't have as much time for personal interests, also sure. You don't have as much spare cash (usually hardly any). But none of that matters, and if you think it matters, it's because you don't have kids yet.
I had a kid at 30 and think it was the perfect time. I wouldn't want to be too old when my kids are going to college, I want to be a good age where I can enjoy my free time and travel around.
I am a small business owner (half a million in revenue).
My girlfriend (we’re together since our teens and both in our 30ties) and I decided she’ll stay home until our daughter is ready for school (when she is 4 years).
The pregnancy was complicated and birth became an emergency c-section.
The moment our daughter was delivered I felt nothing less than absolute all encompassing love. I am sure we had it relatively easy once the pregnancy was over as our baby was a happy bundle of joy that slept well and didn’t cry a lot.
It brought me so much focus in my life, all that is not important I can’t any longer tolerate, this goes professionally as well, it has become a proxy for doing the important things right and a source of love, joy and wonder.
For me becoming a parent has been magical from the get go.
For me it's not about some vague sense of "wanting to keep being 'fun'". I know that doesn't last forever. It's the fact that right now, I know there are things that are more important to me in life. And I think it's wrong to have kids if you can't make them the most important thing in your life, while they grow up at least.
I suspect that may change one day: once I've done certain things and had certain experiences and found certain elements of my personal happiness, maybe I'll have room for a priority shift. But I'm comfortable with my knowledge of my own needs. I think premature sacrifice and the inner conflict that follows is what makes for a bad parent.
Two things stood out to me when my first kid was born.
First, my life didn't fundamentally change overnight. My life's a lot different now, a couple years and a couple kids in, but it was a gradual change. Lots of slow roll through phases, with some dramatic small-scale shifts. Granted, I'm super lucky to have healthy kids and almost daily help from my in-laws. I can see how the change is significantly more dramatic for most.
The second is that it's a lot I like the experience of traveling in an unfamiliar country. If you like constant novelty, tiny surprises, and having to adapt to your own ignorance, it's a blast.
As others have pointed out, ones experience of having children depends on many factors, particularly personal economics (which after all, translates from Greek as "household management").
If you can afford the expenses associated with having children, and are not completely put off by the idea, there's a good argument to be made that there is no more fulfilling a way to spend your money.
Given this, it would be interesting to hear how pg's take on having children intersects with his other public thoughts on things like UBI, universal healthcare, education, etc.
As someone who doesn’t have and doesn’t plan to have kids, I have a lot of respect for parents. They have made decisions and trade-offs and now have responsibilities that I will never have.
The one thing I will say is that the modern world is so, so built around the notion that the normal and right thing to do is to eventually have kids. As a gay person it’s easier for me to take the path other LGBTQ+ folks most often take of not having children, but I still see and feel the societal pressures. Do what’s right for you, not what you think you are supposed to do.
I have a 9, 6, 3.5 and one on the way. My schedule for the most part has been 8-10 hrs on the day job, coming home for dinner and night rituals about 2-3 hours. On most week days I go upstairs when the kids have gone to bed and work another 1-3 hours on a range of things: Sometimes its finishing off stuff at work, most times it's own projects and learning. Thankfully wife uses this time sometimes to catch up on sewing projects, school grading so we're able to sit together. It's not ideal as we actually want to spend the time together but we do our best to just leave work alone and be with each other sometimes. We also try to prioritize when something needs to be done talked about/discussed. Another thing is we agreed I can use most week nights to work on my side project I am trying to bootstrap. We agreed it's a sacrifice we're willing to make for the time being. I think you have to be willing to experiment try and see what works for your relationship and family. I admit I'm not the best for getting 6-8 hours a night of sleep but average about 6hrs. I always remind myself to enjoy my family because I can now. Life is such that we can never tell what's coming around the corner. I don't want to regret anything looking back so I do my best to tell my wife and kids how much I love them. Kiss my kids often and try to pursue the dream in my heart about the side project. It's a lot and seems like a tall order but in the grand scheme of things it's a number of key decisions and choices each day.
> Some of my worries about having kids were right, though. They definitely make you less productive. I know having kids makes some people get their act together, but if your act was already together, you're going to have less time to do it in. In particular, you're going to have to work to a schedule. Kids have schedules. I'm not sure if it's because that's how kids are, or because it's the only way to integrate their lives with adults', but once you have kids, you tend to have to work on their schedule.
> You will have chunks of time to work. But you can't let work spill promiscuously through your whole life, like I used to before I had kids. You're going to have to work at the same time every day, whether inspiration is flowing or not, and there are going to be times when you have to stop, even if it is.
> I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there weren't something real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once you have kids, you're probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself. And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project you're working on.
This is likely not a problem pg has, but becoming a parent can provide an ambition to provide for them and have enough success to be able to spend time with them.
My wife and I's families did the best for us growing up but a lack of money, alcoholism and our parents having a rough time growing up meant growing up for us maybe wasn't what it could have been.
My wife and I now have the most wonderful family and my two kids are young adults. My family is the best thing in my life. I still don't find it easy to express myself as some others do verbally, or be huggy, but I would do anything for my kids and I know the reverse is true.
I went through a phase about 10 years ago when I started to worry about death. Fear would come over me like a cloud and I started to worry that the cloud would stay. It took a while before I told my wife and I will never forget her response. She said, "you should be glad you are starting to feel normal things for the first time in your life".
This was so true. I had never been loved so unconditionally before by my wife and these two little kids. Their love fixed something in me which was broken. Ironically I can now say I have no fear of departing this world. The peace that Paul talked about is very real to me. There is a completeness in being part of a loving family which makes you grateful for what has past rather than worrying about the future.
When my son was a toddler we would go for walks and he was happy to play with a stick. This boxing day the kids and I will go to see the new Star Wars movie. A different type of stick but the joy continues.
Do we have the right to have kids? It goes against every principle of "informed consent" - bringing a life into the universe is a grand and momentous thing, far more life-changing than any other action that would normally require consent.
Anyone who is born will die - eventually they will suffer, and they will lose everything. And they may not even live a joyful life in the interval beforehand.
We require consent for far less severe things in modern society.
If a being cannot give consent to exist, then it is not our decision to make.
No, what's obviously true is that it is incorrect to say you do not have a right to have kids. There are, perhaps, other moral issues, but 'having rights' is clearly not one of them.
You can't really say that without substantiating your claim. It follows that you have just about as much of a right to have kids as you do to kill people.
How is this case different from how our society currently operates with respect to underage kids? They have limited consent, and "informed consent" is seen as irrelevant.
The core of the issue still stands: creating a life is a critical and momentous thing. Do we have the right to make this decision for another being, or is this simply accepted because it is normal?
Why people with kids is shocked about the energy and times it takes, shocks me.
Kids are not something everyone should get. I would go so far to say, most people shouldn't get kids, and yet most get them for a personal reason, as it is something which life itself is intended for.
Don't get kids just because you can. Get them only if you really want to show them the love and the size of the world.
And we don't need anymore people in the world, so before you go ego and get kids, take care of someone elses heritage. Please
Almost everything he says rings true with me after we got a dog. Especially the moments where I feel present and the joy from doing mundane tasks. Get a dog if you are childless!
TBH I think it's just the chemical change. Basically you are happy in one way or another, and once you made decision most people tend to regret a bit/lot afterwards.
It does change your life in a lot of ways, and is one of the 'big divisions' in one's lifetime (before/after things like marriage, college, kids, Etc.)
What I like about this essay was Paul's ability to understand that he really didn't understand, on a fundamental level, the point of view of parents before he was one. I think every engineer I have known both before and after they had kids had this same shift of perception.
An interesting variant was one of my friends who married a woman who already had kids and grew into the perception over time rather than "all at once" as so many who were present at the birth of their first child do.
In discussions here and on other forums it is easy to spot the difference in responses from those who are parents and those who are not. It really is a different way of thinking.
My wife stated the obvious to me when I was going on about how amazing this change was. Her comment was "Well maybe if your boobs doubled in size in the 9 months before the birth you would have figured out that things were getting ready for this new state of affairs." Changes in your view on the world are less visible but quite profound.
"Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children."
This, almost exactly, happened to me. I wasn't interested in babies, and then suddenly my newborn baby in particular and babies in general were amazing and precious.
A bit of survivorship bias going on with what Paul has written. He gives the example of having kids when I believe he was already financially secure and in a different place in his life than many people are when they have kids. That is not to say that the children are not wonderful (big YMMV there) but that he could (most likely) afford to sit back and 'smell the roses' with his kids. And enjoy the experience and be 'mr relaxed and happy parent' let's say.
Compare that to perhaps how it was for him (or for me) growing up. Parents under a great deal of financial pressure. (In my case immigrant parents one who came here with nothing one who grew up here with nothing). Work long hours (for both themselves and the kids) and when they get home from work not a bed of roses. Not having the luxury of having a Harvard degree either (as Paul has) (I have a good degree but the reason is my parents busted their asses so that I could get into a good school).
No such thing by the way as a blanket 'kids are a blessing' don't let anyone paint it that way. Sorry to rain on the parade. Plenty of people's lives don't revolve around the joy of children (whether they have children or not (I do)) and that's ok. I have kids but don't particularly enjoy doing any 'kids' things just not my thing. Nothing wrong with that. Once again it just seems like a box that some people want to put you in based on their own happiness and experience in life (or at least that is the way it seems).
You know you read it all the time. 'The best day of my life was when my child was born'. 'I want to spend more time with my family'. 'So you can spend more time with your family'. 'I love coaching my kids sports teams'. Picture of fun on Facebook. And so on.
Kids also help ease existential dread. Life is big and heavy, even without kids. And I think these days, lots of people try and find purpose through their work (forgoing or delaying kids), but I’m not sure that‘s the most direct path. Kids answer the big question of “why am I here” in a way that nothing else can. I often wonder if we’re programmed for it to be so.
My girlfriend and I are raising my sister after my parents passed away. It‘s a whole different set of experience, because she started living with us when she was 15. That was 2 years ago. (I‘m 33, my girlfriend is 39)
And you realize that it‘s difficult to deal with someone who grew up differently. I left our parents house when my sister was 5. My girlfriend grew up completely different. And then you have a teenager, who, besides the fact that having a teenager is a whole different story, also doesn‘t share your mindset at all, because you didn‘t raise her.
Our time is running up. My gf is turning 40 next year, and we don‘t have kids on our own. After these years (I think my sister will move out in the next 24 months, as she turns 18 next year), we are not sure if we want to have kids at all.
Alright so I'm using a throwaway account for this as it's kind of personal but I really want to hear the HN community on this one.
I'm 40, I've suffered anxiety distorders and depression and I just never dated. I'd love to, but I just got stuck in this rut where I was kind of happy with my own company and just scared of change in my life in general. 30-40 is in some ways for me a lost decade. I spent lots of time working on my mental illness, had some fun experiences for sure, but just settled into this groove.
Now I'm reading stuff like this and, you know, I feel like I do want kids and I'd be really sad if I never ended up having them. Is it too late? Does anyone who was in my situation have some stories to share?
Really looking for some kind of encouragement I guess.
Personally I think late 30s or even early 40s is ideal for a lot of men. I'm 36 and just had my first kid, and I honestly can't imagine doing it any younger. I just would not have been ready in many ways. Obviously I don't know your personal situation, but i don't believe your age should slow you down. Best of luck if you end up down that path!
Not too late, though if you're a woman, it gets harder to have a natural pregnancy the longer you wait. But we have some technology for that! My dad was nearly 40 when they had me, I know there are many new dads that are older than that.
> To some extent I'm like a religious cultist telling you that you'll be happy if you join the cult too — but only because joining the cult will alter your mind in a way that will make you happy to be a cult member.
There are strong parallels here to my feelings about Burning Man.
This is a good write, I am a new father, 4 months old. Already in the process of adjusting my schedule to his. But it’s satisfying to stay with him than sticking with my laptop all the time. Given the fact we are all wired to be a good parent, it’s no surprising i guess.
I grew up watching heartwarming TV shows and movies about families sharing wonderful adventures together. If you expect this, you will likely be disappointed. Those moments can be super rare.
Some kids are introverted, or mildly autistic, and are super-reluctant to communicate. You can tell it's painful for them, regardless of how good of parent you try to be, or how many parenting books you read. They may shut you out.
Meanwhile, other parents will brag about how miraculous their amazing children are, implying it's the norm. And to them it is, so what can you say?
Other non-parents will say things like, "oh, why don't you make them do ____", as if it's that simple. Turns out kids are their own persons, who rarely happily just do what you ask.
> Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children. As I was driving my wife and new son home from the hospital, I approached a crosswalk full of pedestrians, and I found myself thinking "I have to be really careful of all these people. Every one of them is someone's child!"
This just flipped a switch in my (kidless) brain. What a strange feeling to realize every person on earth is someone’s kid. Someone’s grand kid. I’m now puzzled at how we humans can even conceive of being less than stellar to each other
By the way - the best part of being a parent is getting to be the best teacher you never had. I love it. I taught my daughter to read at three(it was a lot of work every day and it took patience, perseverance, and commitment - not easy for either of us) , we have been coding together for a year or so with Scratch, we talk about philosophy and life, and I work really hard to understand what she's excited about and then to channel it into things I think will help her have a better life. I'm helping her to reach her best potential (I hope) and in the process she is helping me to reach my own. I know I'm lucky, I have a great child but my goal is to also make her lucky by having a great parent.
Topics like this really make me feel the pressure. I'm getting older and I want to have kids but I'm not in a good enough financial situation to do so. It's hard to bring a person into the world when you are not sure about being able to support them.
My wife is going to give birth in a few days. Yet I experience everything PG writes before he has children. I dread it. I'm afraid that it would hurt my project. I don't like my experence with children. It is the best time for me to read this essay.
Ironically, I once ran into Paul Graham and his family on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London. They were flying first class. I imagine this unconsciously factors into his views, much like the Marissa Mayer “being a mother and a CEO is really easy” comments.
I agree with a lot of points that PG makes here. There is also a key component that he didn't really mention, a precondition of having kids, which is finding the right partner to raise them with.
While it is difficult to know how someone will bear up under the stress of raising young children, nevertheless, your partner's ability to shoulder the load with you in those first years will be crucial to your sanity and happiness.
So in a sense, for someone who thinks they want to have kids, the first question to answer is: what are the characteristics of the kind of partner who will work well with you to raise a child? How do you identify them and convince them to embark on that endeavor with you?
This is a nice essay. While he's right I only notice the bad parent situations probably, I've seen numerous instances of incorrigible kids had by otherwise successful parents with drug addiction and mental health issues that have almost no relationship to their parents and are in and out of institutions including prison into adulthood. The parents haven't experienced much joy or pride around their kid in a long time. If everything works out fine then it's probably lots of joy like Paul says. My family history seems to suggest to me I'd be in for a long hard road, I'm not willing to subject myself or offspring to that kind of suffering.
After giving a lot of thoughts I made a decided I will never have my own children. Which is probably very unfortunate for my family line as I’m the only child. I looked at the world we share and decided that it would be best thing I can do. What right do I have to bring another life to this world? I didn’t ask to exist, my parents made decision I wasn’t part of, I can’t do the same to someone else. I don’t see us having a higher purpose to exists... No one exist for a reason, we all die alone, best thing I can do is to take this world for a ride, and don’t make a mistake my parents did.
Don’t get me wrong! I’m happy for OP and everyone who has kids. It’s just me and my personal POV
You could easily make the opposite argument: what right do you have to not bring another life into this world? After all, the vast majority of humans alive right now would rather exist than not exist!
Nowadays, I have a hard time reading, im not sure why. I used to love reading anything in the past few years, now I find it easier only to read documentation from programming frameworks.
Thank you for writing this great piece that made me need to finish the essay
I honestly don't know how anyone could justify having kids giving the current climate change situation. Don't you feel responsible for any potential pain your kids might feel as a result of the world going to shit?
Yeah, this bothers me too. Why would you bring someone you love so much to this crazy, doomed, hellhole of a planet? It seems fantastically short-sighted and selfish to me to have children right now (and for the foreseeable future.)
I don't want kids in large part because I do not think I would be a good dad, and I'm not going to do that to another human being, even (especially!) if they share my DNA. But the main reason I see for foregoing children is that I would be handing them a terrible world without hope of salvation. (We might pull through, and I hope we do, but I have no basis for that hope other than faith, and that not enough to justify incarnating a new soul.)
I can't imagine explaining to my child what the monarch butterfly migration was like. What elephants were. What reefs were. What the dawn chorus sounded like.
how can you base your whole life on such a "surrounding nature" prognosis? our children are not their carbon footprints and the planet future is not an impending doom even if there are some climate change effects
think about that.. our parents could have decided the same based on the old prognosis from the 70/80s
this dangerous world point makes sense if applied to our faith/morals, but not to the nature environment which affects our souls/happiness/feelings much less (we have all kinds of people in all kinds of environments but still all livable)
I'd lay my life down for my kids, but I can't live vicariously through them.
They are both adults now, one has a Masters in Psychology and teaches Austic kids (deciding on persusing a PhD), the other has 4.0 GPA as a 3rd year Bio major and is on the path to being an MD. I'm proud of them, sure, but accomplishments are their own. They are not mine.
My goals have changed since the first one was born and I was still wearing fireproof underwear as often as I wanted, but I chase my dreams stll and I always have... for better or worse.
Apparently, that seems to have rubbed off on the youngins.... for better or worse.
I've been a teacher for 15 years in public, private schools - and as a tutor to about 2000+ kids in 3 countries - and am now starting to think about ways to develop a new education model with a more flexible school schedule that would allow for more family time and greater parent participation in learning. I'd love to connect with parents who might be interested in this idea to discuss their hopes and dreams for their child's education (especially in San Francisco). If you're willing to chat, you can contact me at manisha[at]manisharose.com thanks!
Sure, let's all do that, and then the human race will go extinct, and then (after we're all gone), then there will be no more suffering. Also no more laughter, joy, love...
Why is "not suffering" the ideal? Why not "more joy"?
You have a very empty view of life if the only thing you see is suffering to be avoided.
The future belongs to those who believe there will be one.
When I was an intern at Apple in 2002, Steve Jobs gave a talk to our cohort. Someone asked if he had any advice and he replied “The things that are important to you now, will not be the things that are important to you later. Sorry, I know that vague but I don’t know how else to say it.” Now that I’m a father (and an actual adult), I think I understand what he means. Don’t feel ashamed because your priorities shift and you lose “ambition”. It could come back or it could be gone forever, whatever the case just try to enjoy what you have at that point.
> What I didn't notice, because they tend to be much quieter, were all the great moments parents had with kids. People don't talk about these much — the magic is hard to put into words, and all other parents know about them anyway — but one of the great things about having kids is that there are so many times when you feel there is nowhere else you'd rather be, and nothing else you'd rather be doing.
This is definitely a phenomenon to be explored, the "unshared" tacit joy that people experience in their lives (not just as parents).
What I would say about productivity is that particularly for mothers, they may have less time for work, but they get more done in a given amount of time.
Simply there is so much to do, if you're not organized you will go under.
Thinking back to the before-kids era, it's clear I wasted a lot of time. A lot of the volume of work I did was due to having loads of time to burn on it, not due to being effective with time.
So I would give a bonus point to people who've raised kids. They clearly have survived a time in their lives when being organised was essential.
I can identify with PG's sentiments almost entirely.
I also identify with the observation that one is more likely to appreciate kids when the basic necessities of life are covered - food, housing, healthcare.
I really, really want to have kids, but I'm "on the spectrum", have huge troubles with socialising with people, and, after my parents died and my girlfriend left me soon after, struggled with severe depression, which left me hollowed and deprived of any self-esteem - which, in turn, makes socialising even more difficult. At the age of 30, I feel like my life is over. Whenever I read about the joy of having kids, I know I'd want to have my own, but I probably never will :(
The greatest hat tips to the maker's schedule (building or writing anything) while having kids is the trust and support of your partner knowing you introvertly struggle. Hobbies, software, whatever.
Without this, it would be unlikely I could still create while raising.
Two:
One phrase used by me is "the moments." I believe he used this one as well. Moments happen at all ages. With your children. But also new moments of extreme empathy such as connecting with others with children (and their struggles and moments).
Hard to explain to those who haven’t done it. Sounds like a cult. More enjoyable moments than any conceivable moments before. Magic hard to put into words. Changes you forever. People who haven’t done it simply don’t get it. And it is pretty much profound deep and fundamental happiness on tap.
I don’t intend to have kids but I am curious how it compares. At present I am dubious having a child can compare to the profound depth of a peak psychedelic experience.
A beautiful and thought provoking essay and definitely one for pg’s kids to cherish later in life.
I see people in the comments trying to glean lessons from the essay or to compare pg’s experience to their own. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from having two kids, it’s that a lesson learned from one can be exactly the wrong thing for the other. Parental advice and experience is so hard to generalize.
I look forward to the follow up essay when the kids are teenagers. :)
Honestly? Enjoy it while you can! You might well have to put work on the back burner for a couple of years -- kids that age are a full time job! although it gets easier once they are at school.
I say enjoy it because firstly, you never know what challenges life will bring. But soon enough, they'll be in high school and then you'll be packing them off to college and you'll have plenty of time on your hands again for work & projects.
I love this article, and I've experienced parenthood quite similar to Paul (I have an 11 month old), but I disagree with his statements on ambition, maybe it's because he was so full of ambition and success prior to having children. But for me, I now feel a great drive to provide this baby with all the opportunities and experiences in the world. And I can't give him those things without great professional success.
Disclaimer: I do like kids, but, anybody else out there with 0 urge to have em?
I'm already somewhat behind the prime of when most people would be having some, but I don't regret it because I simply have never felt the call.
I'm sure I'd be an ok parent, I've done alright at most other parts in life, but it also seems like a thing you actually would want to want if you're to commit to it.
I read a few comments here basically saying, "oh because he's rich". I respectfully disagree.
I was at the lowest point in life financially when I have my first son, but a lot of what PG said resonates with me. Particularly, I feel very emotional whenever I hear/see children being abused (people share video of violence by nannies in WhatsApp).
This essay jibes with the thesis of “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids” [1]. It’s a book that nudges you to have one or two more kids than you were otherwise going to have.
Ultimately , I guess all you have to consider about having children is how much you need/want "to love" and "be loved in return".
Once you have that answer, you can deal with the rest (emotional/financial/relationship/time stability and security [sorted alphabetically for no reason]).
Also, props to PG for writing one of the more coherent articles on having children.
As a father of 8 and grandfather of 11 (so far) at 65, you can't imagine the joys ahead of you, at every stage, but especially when your kids are grown and you realize they are just delightful people you love to be with!
Working from home for 30 years now (running a "lifestyle" company) has given me the freedom to do whatever, whenever generally, with the family.
It's interesting to hear PG's opinion on this, but I wouldn't put too much weight on it. It's just one datapoint.
I'd pay enormous attention to what PG says about VC-backed startups, but for advice on kids you're probably better talking to marriage counsellors, teachers, childminders, or anyone else with exposure to a broad range of experiences.
"I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon. But you're not allowed to ask prospective employees if they plan to have kids soon."
I have no kids yet, but I always thought the goal of life is obviously to have kids wether they are dna or idea ones. We re hard programmed for that like any other species. The issue now is cost in terms of time of money. I see a couple of solutions to these, will test and document :)
This is an ideal situation, I have a few kids too, but I still need put priorities over them, as otherwise I can't help them in their needs. Everything Paul said is right, except you have to be quite successful so you can enjoy as much as he does, at least that is true for me.
It's not their fault. It's not personal. They've never done anything, they've had no experiences, their tastes are bland and repetitive because of their physical state and their limited experience, of course they're dull and uninteresting.
It's not their fault, but it's still the case. And they're not even like dull adults whom you can choose not to interact with (and even adults are often dull in a different way - some of them are hyper focused on something so niche that in that regard, in that niche, I'M the child with no experience and no understanding). Children seem to suck up so much of people's time and energy.
There was a post some time in which someone talked about how their small child got into MineCraft. Great, thought he. We can do this together. So they did. Building the exact same building every night, no deviations, just repetition. I suppose it's a more modern version of having to read the exact same storybook every night.
Imagine you have a Martin Shkreli-like figure for a child. Don't let the fear of that be your only guide deciding to have kids or not, but know the risk is real.
Seeing close friends bitten by this has definitely made me more risk averse...
Have a kid and know it for your selves. Ignore whatever Graham is saying, that’s his personal experience. Your experience will be totally different from his, if it’s not, then you are a robot, just another brick in the wall.
Sent this to my wife, we've been talking about having kids but she's still nervous about it. Maybe it's just my personal biases, but he's confirming a lot of what I've long believed about parenthood.
I wonder if the same chemical switch that he talks about gets flipped if you adopt a child, or marry a single parent and thus become a step-parent. If so, I wonder how young the child has to be for that to happen.
It’s not a switch, not in a meaningful way. It’s the time spent together that forms the bond. I don’t love my kid because I had sex to have him, I do because I taught him how to walks and speak, go to the toilet and play with marbles and had all kinds of fun in the process. I love him because every time I show him something new, or I let him have a spoon of my coffee (he loves it) there’s a wide smile appearing on his face followed by “I love you daddy”. Its the most validating, gratifying experience I had in my life, even if it’s a pain in the ass and I’d rather watch tv or tinker in the garage instead of sitting on the bleachers of this gym while he practices somersaults. If I adopted him it would be largely the same thing.
If it's chemically-based, maybe it can be induced.
I wonder - and I'm being serious here, although this could certainly be a terrible idea for various reasons - what would happen if, say, a low dose of MDMA or similar were administered to new parents when they first began bonding with their child. Surely a spike of serotonin and oxytocin plays a role in the physiology of parental attachment? Perhaps guaranteeing such a spike could have significant long-term effects by helping to cement this bond?
Thanks to PG for writing this. I will never have kids and I don't want them (I'm old enough to know for certain). But I appreciated this essay. It's good to know what I am giving up.
I’m a dad of a 2 year old and identify exactly with everything in this. I’m so happy to see a post like this at the top of hacker news. Dads don’t talk from the heart like this enough.
This essay reminds of the book "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" (2012) by economist Bryan Caplan, which I suggest to people thinking about how many children to have.
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.
Agreed. Except you can still take off and go to any country you want once you have kids. It just takes a little more work - don't give up your freedom so easily PG!
From watching nature with a dispassionate eye, you would tend to get the idea that the meaning and purpose of life is nothing more than reproduction, i.e. making more life. Well, why would it be different for humans, other than the exquisite vanity of our wanting it to be different? Our wanting the universe to be governed by a god who looks like us, for example. Our wanting to be "happy" or "fulfilled" and so on. No, we're basically animals, just mentally a bit more complicated. So I think our lives are pretty much all about reproduction too, but with an overlay of "meaning" that is completely arbitrary. Your life can be about reproduction if you want, or it can be meaningless, or it can be filled with whatever meaning you want to fill it with (i.e. make up from whole cloth, or borrow from the collective). I find this freeing, because it puts me in control, but your mileage may vary.
Anyway, my challenge to everyone here is to try and unify the pre- and post-children mindsets. The stuff you're interested in doing before you have kids might be the same stuff that later interests you about your kids. Take the statement, "Shoot, I have kids, so I can't go out anymore." Well why were you "going out?" Was it "to meet people?" That's kind of just code for "meeting sex partners" and don't tell me this is not at least in the back of your mind, hovering near the threshold of consciousness (if not an explicit goal). And well, you know what sex is for. It's not so you can have a good time; it's what evolution uses to trick you into making more humans.
When you're attracted to someone, you're really just assessing them and deeming them reproductively fit. Those traits might include a fit body indicating health/robustness; a nice face indicating (studies have shown) the person is near the average of the gene pool and therefore carrying tried-and-true genetic material; a personality that indicates a good chance they would behave kindly toward any offspring; and an intellect that shows they could solve any problems that come up.
Working with computers or doing any other challenging mental problem, playing an instrument, having a bunch of money (or things that cost a lot of money), doing feats of daring like base-jumping or whatnot, all of these are ways of displaying your fitness for mating. Before some of them became "occupations" you could earn "money" with, they would've been used for solving problems to protect or feed or clothe (etc.) the village or tribe and its progeny. (Not base-jumping specifically, but challenging oneself with risky feats of daring, and coming out on top, that does prove something about your courage and skill, which would at the very least be useful in hunting or defense.)
School and all childhood learning are preparation for mating, or for learning one of the above preparations for mating, or for "being an adult" which equals mating. Interestingly some of that involves sheltering the child from mating concerns, which is consistent with how we train noobs everywhere. We don't be givin' you the source code for the compiler during the "Write your first hello world" tutorial, for example.
Life is meaningless, or it's about mating, or it's about whatever bullshit you want. Have a nice day!
HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences. 1 Nay, there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous 2 minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati [he preferred his old wife to immortality]. Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both of chastity and obedience in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men’s mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men’s nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel 3 to marry when he will. But yet he 4 was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry,—A young man not yet, an elder man not at all. It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband’s kindness when it comes; or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends’ consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.
Sure. But they got to over $1B. I'd imagine this particular co-founder has a net worth approaching $100MM. That sounds like success to me. And it was done with a family and multiple children.
I'm not knocking Paul Graham or anyone who did well for themselves. But comparing your experience with that of Paul Graham, one of the richest people on the planet, is pointless. The wealthy live on a completely different PLANET than you or me.
Of course he enjoys having kids, he has NONE of the stress of supporting himself and his family.
His kids are going to have private tutors and house cleaners.
He won't sweat the cost of daycare. He will never have to worry about paying for college.
He is going to have a nanny whenever he needs someone to watch the kids.
He will never have to worry about making rent for the rest of his life.
He will still be able to pursue whatever he dreams of with basically 0 risk.
Agreed. I'm in my early 30s and don't have kids because I don't think I can provide for them unless I spend all my income and free time/ambitions on them. I make a good income as a programmer but I still live paycheck to paycheck because of cost of living in the Bay Area.
I watched the people I went to high school with have kids very late allowing more structured time to complete their education as early as possible and excel to vice president positions in the corporate world. They excelled far more quickly and far more early in their careers than I.
In contrast my children will be out of the house and on their own while I am barely middle aged. Since I have never entered management in the corporate world but have grown two simultaneous careers, corporate software developer and military security analyst and network operations chief, I have a combination of skills I would not have developed otherwise.
In a bit when the children are out I can pursue all the career and startup dreams that young people dream of but without regrets or challenges of raising kids. Perhaps I am still naive, but I am certainly not rich.
I met a person in a similar situation via a mountain bike group where I live. Kids are out of the house and now he has time for bike riding, date nights and, being in his 40ies is still fit, healthy and very active.
Definitely top 0.01% in the world though. Quick google search estimates lower end of net worth around $250m, and top 0.01% in 2012 was about $111m. So he's up there, but yea, not the tippy top I guess.
Most of us have rich lives compared to the average parent in 1950. I was struck by how Bryan Caplan put it in perspective [1]:
> If you asked parents in the Fifties to imagine raising their four children with the help of the technology and wealth that we take for granted, they probably would have cheered. Why are so few couples taking advantage of this historic opportunity?
No, worries never go away no matter where you’re at in life. It boils down to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
He doesn’t have to worry about financial stuff and instead gets to focus his worries on getting sick, dying prematurely, and not giving his children the awesome life he can with his unique personality.
You didn’t mention that anywhere in your list, but I guarantee you it’s on his.
Poorer people also worry about that. And that's even worse for us with a lower wage. If I die, who will be able to provide for my children? I'm sure Paul is able to make arrangements so his kids can still have a finatially stable living if he dies prematurely.
It is a fact that life is easier for him now. Just as much life is easier for me than probably around 99% of the people in the planet. Even though I'm nowhere near to even be considered rich.
I've had a lot of thoughts while reading posts here, but my predominant thought is about how vital it is that we approach parenting with a mindset that helps us place our roles as parents in a helpful perspective. While your work is important for the obvious reason of supporting yourself and your family, raising your children well is far more important in many ways. Unfortunately, the cause and effect or investment and reward of parenting is far less tangible than that of work. Many of us spent a lot of exhausting, sleepless days and nights in college. It was an investment in ourselves to prepare us to live independently and successfully. These exhausting, sleepless days and nights that we spend as parents is a similar investment, but this time it isn't an investment in ourselves: it's an investment in our children. Are they worth the investment? Of course they are, and I don't think anyone here is suggesting that they are not. People are just trying to grapple with the struggle. One of the ways to handle an arduous struggle is to meet it with a healthy mindset; a different mindset than the one we've developed to that point in life.
Mindsets are not always easy to change, but changing them is part of life and sometimes the changes are forced on us. For example, when we lose jobs, we have to change our career mindsets; the old career that we may have loved may no longer work in our lives. That's life. Life isn't a static state and sometimes the states change whether we want them to or not. We go through stages of life and we change as we grow older. Yes, we developed hobbies, made friends, and had fun before we had kids, but when we have kids, they should be one of our new “hobbies”. They should be a new “job”. They can be our new “friends” and new fun. Parenting shouldn't be something that gets in the way of your life; it is your way of life. These little people depend on you to make them into functional people who can meet the demands of life. We can't just be task-masters who change diapers and shovel food into their mouths. Meeting their needs well will develop their senses of security, responsibility, and belonging in life. We have to treat them like the people that they are; we're getting to know them and they're getting to know us. It's far more important than that though, because we're shaping them and they're shaping us.
We also have to pay attention to how we socialize with them. How we interact from the very beginning is going to help determine how they interact with us and with others. I've seen so many parents who mindlessly fall into antagonistic relationships with their kids and spouses, without a philosophical idea of how this impacts the development of their personalities and our relationships with them. And here's the kicker: how we interact when they're babies and toddlers will help determine the nature of our relationships with them as they grow older. Contrary to what so many people say, it is helpful to reason with children long before they understand the full ramifications of the reasoning process. It's like on-the-job training of life: you're teaching them to reason. If there's a reason why they shouldn't be doing things, explain to them what the reason is instead of spanking them or dismissively saying, “because I said so.” Your willingness to invest the time with them when they're young and your determination to make that time meaningful will help make it more likely that you'll have meaningful time with them as they get older. Having teenagers who wanted to hang with dad was so much more rewarding than my peers whose kids wanted nothing to do with them.
Big picture thinking. It doesn't give us more energy, but sometimes inspiration does. Another thing that may help is looking at your little children and imagining how helpless they are in this world. And they're looking at you with awe, believing in you and depending on you to make their lives work.
There's something I've noticed that's always conspicuously absent from Paul's writing: The ability to view the world from a perspective other than his own.
I'm sure having kids was great when you were rich and it was the '90s. Not so much anymore, especially if you aren't rich.
Hi all, longtime HN reader here. I see the angst in some posts and would like to let you know it's possible to have time for what matters to you and good relationships with a spouse and children.
First off - I'm 44 and have 5 kids, expecting my 6th.
TLDR;
Lots of kids, lots of (good) coffee, lots of love and laughs.
My wife and I are expecting our 6th child, a boy, in April. We live in a suburb 25 min North of NYC having previously lived in Manhattan. She's from NYC, I'm from he Midwest. Neither of us come from big families.
Anyway, my kids are an 11 yo girl, 7 yo boy, 5 yo boy, 3 yo girl, 18mo boy. I'm sure people think we are nuts. We are not religious, we are not particularly wealthy, we don't have nannies or even a baby-sitter for that matter, we just want to have a big family and figure it out as we go.
Before I get into details, I highly recommend investing in a very good espresso machine and very good coffee. It's pretty important ;)
The way we have things set up is as follows: I run the business (small web dev consultancy that's basically me plus a few freelancers) while my wife runs the household, schedule and logistics for he family. This is key. Good planning makes everything flow. Kids like to understand what to expect and it enables them to contribute appropriately too.
I work from home as much as possible so that I can take my kids to/from school and schedule calls and meetings when I know the little ones are napping. I am capable of completely tuning out noise and getting into the zone so I can work from the couch if I feel like being in the mix with the little people running around. Usually I manage to snap out of my work trans at key times like when someone wants my help or attention and then return to whatever I was doing without being totally derailed.
Work/life balance? What's that? I've been documenting the good life with kids from my perspective for eventual release in a "dad" blog (for a change since there are so many mommy blogs) and I work at times when other people sleep, on vacation, pretty much anytime/anywhere but I like it.
It's gotten easier with practice, all of it. Easier to really listen to what people of all ages are really saying. Easier to share how I feel about things and elicit exchange. Easier weed out drama and incompatible clients, taxing relationships and unfulfilling habits.
Basically, the necessity to be on track with right livelihood has made the distinction between work and life kind of unimportant because I just do what needs to be done and what needs to be done is what I want to be doing... It's kind of liberating and feels remarkably clear and carefree given the responsibility I have.
It has not always felt like this. I have bouts of worry and anxiety that peel away to the eventual "back on track". 11 years into fatherhood I feel happier than at any time in the past and with greater stability.
Sometime around the time my third child was born, I had developed the "tune out noise", "tune out bullshit" and "focus on what counts" skills to recover from anxiety, work stress and life's surprises out of necessity. The skill arrived little by little, pretty much automatically without any conscious effort on my part.
On that note, my 3rd child was the hardest psychologically (in the months leading up to his birth) and to some extent logistically. Thoughts of "Where will we live?", " How will we afford to provide the things we want to?", "What if I can't do it?", "What if I can't pull it off?". The poor guy brought up all of my suppressed insecurities - in my mind going from two children to three was turning things up to ELEVEN! Turns out, he was suer cool, I was able to pay rent, we figured it out...
After an adjustment phase replete with lots of changes (moves, business changes and more) things became clearer on their own and what do you know, life went on!
I told one of my colleagues in Vietnam who is thinking of staring a family about the fear of not being able to provide or live up to some ideal and he told me a nice proverb:
"The earth gave birth to an elephant and then gave birth to grass"
I like that better than "Necessity is the mother of invention" it seems kinder...
My 4th and 5th children have been the easiest from the "have time" perspective...because I know how it works now.
Whether or not it's accurate, I perceive myself as having more time now, with five children, than how I felt with two children.
I imagine that 6 will be pretty overwhelming at first because I've been feeling the scale of meals, laundry, bathing, schedules, transportation, any activity we do as a group... but I know that we'll find a rhythm and it will work out.
Regarding work with kids schedules, they punctuate my workday to say the least but it's great. I spend a lot of time with them and get a huge charge from our relationships.
Will I ever retire? Probably not, even if I could. Do I have a lot of money to throw around, nope, not yet. I am ok with this. I would pay more than I could earn without kids to have the relationships I have with my children and to facilitate them growing up together.
Before my first child was born, I had a sort of flashy lifestyle and no sense of continuity or meaning beyond striving. Goals would be set and meet and followed by either a desire for more or emptiness. I no longer feel this way in the least.
I attribute that shift in large part to the quality of relationships I have with my wife, our children, our family and community. I am focused on things that are important to the people I care about and it works for me.
I doubt I'll ever regret the time I've spent with my kids or the "sacrifices" I've made to accommodate having a large family. I think each age offers magical opportunities to learn, connect, nurture, grow. I think that the time and investment I make in family causes me to enjoy the present, focus on what is really congruent with what matters to me, our family and our needs.
Have you ever heard of someone proclaiming any of the following on their death bead?
"I wish I had spent less time with my children" or "I wish I had been a bigger success and much richer instead of having a family" or "If I'd only had fewer children, I would have lead a fuller life..."
ight, so this will probably come across as self-centered an pathetic. But it’s what I feel right now. I’m a 28 year old male, have a significant other, good income, and an education in Artificial Intelligence and Epidemiology (PhD drop out to start my own business). So nothing to be ashamed of, I don’t think. I run a small team, with nice, friendly, competent, and hand-picked colleagues. I have family that cares about me. But every day, all day, I spend looking at a computer screen. Day in, day out, I’m glued to my screen. Some days it’s exciting, some days it’s mind numbing and boring. Some days I go for a walk, alone. And no days, for the past year or so, I’ve felt like I connected with someone. I tweet about 10 tweets a day, I get favorites, a retweet occasionally. I work from home. I’ve alienated all my friends. I’m barely in contact with the people from high-school or university. I don’t know why, I just forget or neglect to message back. You can do that twice, then they forget about you too. I rarely forget though, they still linger in my mind daily.
So what’s the problem? Is there a problem? I worry a lot. I think we’re headed for a disaster. As a species, as a culture, our days are numbered. I read the reports, I’ve done enough math to see the implications; climate change will kill us. There might be some things to stop it, but they’re too few, too late. I worry, a lot. In my day to day business I don’t deal with this. I do machine learning for evidence based medicine, natural language processing basically. But what occupies my mind is the disaster we’re headed. It’s all connected. That sounds like something a mad man would say, in a delusional rage rant of incoherent sentences. Maybe it is. But, the thought fills me with a cognitive dissonance, a numbing and parallelizing feeling of nothingness. Are we even worth saving as a species? Why are we here? Why am I here. I did some philosophy reading. I like Sartre, Camus, Karl Jaspers. The absurdity of your own choices, your own life. Am I doing the right thing? Wouldn’t it be better to spend my, arguably well educated, skills on the more pressing matters in life?
I made the choice not to have children. It’s stupid to have children. We’re overpopulated, and our resources are stretched thin. Unless we make space colonization or transhumanism a priority there’s just a finite amount of “stuff”. We’re reaching the finiteness of that stuff. Maybe not today, but growth is exponential, the cup will be half full before it’s full. Things change slowly, then quickly. Some people think it’s arrogant not to have children. But what makes your genes so special? I sequenced mine, all of it, it’s nothing special. I might get a tattoo with my special genes (the ones with a low minor allele frequency). Perhaps some people get children because they’re lonely. I’m lonely. What’s left in life? What will be my contribution? If it’s not another random soul on a planet headed for disaster, then what is? I’m thinking about planting trees. A lot of them. I spend months thinking about preventing climate change, and “trees” is all I could think of in the end. Besides, I cherish and romanticize the post-melodramatic idea of walking in my own forest.
What is the cause, what is the symptom? Where does my own hubris end, and do the problems of the world start? I am not so sure anymore. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. My ideas go unvalidated, they run amok in the days glued to my screen. The moments I’m in “the zone”, and can focus on nothing but the code in front of me, are meditative. There’s a spirituality in connecting with computers, alone. It’s often neglected in the hipster computer science culture, with their faux new-atheist movements. Experiences can be mystical, there is a desire to transcend. I used to identify as an atheist, read the cruft by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins. I don’t think they hold water anymore. Mostly because they turn out to be assholes. I like the term Humanism. I like rationality, science done proper without the dogma. Our human condition is more than that though. I guess Jaspers would call it the “encompassing”. Or some such, never got that figured out. Neither did he, probably.
Why am I here. I’m 28. With my health habits, I’ll probably die of myocardial infarction at the age of 50. A BMI of 26 and bad genes does that to you. Male European genes are bad, mind you. Males are the weaker gender, don’t be fooled; just look at the flimsy Y-chromosome. What will be my legacy? Does it even matter? I’ve been thinking of moving to Iceland. It makes sense to me: good sources of energy and water, small population. With the increasing climate change it might even be good for farming. Climate change has upsides. Migration coupled with fascism is the big downside, that and death of course. I had an idea for a short story: I’ve migrated to Iceland. Under a bright aurora I decide to go outside. The world has gone to shit. I didn’t see the aurora coming. The NOAA satellites were deemed strategic assets for what was left of precision agriculture, and hence shut down for public access. I look up and see the bright green filaments move across the sky. I decide to take a look uphill, take my camera. I’ve made it, I’m happy. I still got it, I got my self-sustaining home, my books. I watch our insignificance as I ponder the implications of basic nuclear physics. I trip. And as I fall down the hill, breaking every bone, I gasp in my last life’s breath “well isn’t this ironic”.
It’s all been done before hasn’t it? It doesn’t matter, what matters is that you do something with your life. I’m a mess. Not on the outside, I give talks in my domain, I’m respected in the very narrow subfield I’m in, do the laundry, keep my teeth clean. I even take care of my body, although not as much as I like. But it’s my mind. It’s my goddamn mind. We’re headed for disaster: I can see it when I close my eyes.
Once you’re caught in one of the migration streams, trying to catch the next plane or boat, you’ll think of the endless queues in Disneyland. That is what will happen. And here I am, alone, sitting behind a screen.
Oh god, let's get at least a little bit sciency about having kids. There are no serious chemical changes in men, only in women to a) deal with and forget the pain of child birth and b) form a bond with the child. Men are dreadful of having kids because they fear of having to support them, they are sort of tricked by women and pressured by peers, society, government to do it. Some men can find enjoyment and fulfillment in raising children of course, but it's much harder if they have to worry about providing for them.
> Testosterone levels drop in men who even cohabitate with young children.
I call bullshit. There is at best a correlation of cohabitating with young children and periods of sexual inactivity, but probably correlation of periods of sexual inactivity and participating in the study you pulled that data from, i.e. it's a bullshit study.
There’s a lot of self affirmation in these comments. “I knew it was going to suck” so it does suck.
We knew we wouldnt be able to do as much but wanted to live like we had before kids. 2 kids (3 years and 2 months) later, 3 international vacations (2 more booked next year), 3 new jobs, 3x tc growth, and continuing to push and progress in both careers. And we’re not all that special. Its just a non-defeatest mindset and mutual effort.
This unfortunately just gives the same old description of having kids from a position of extreme privilege.
When you have no job stability, or you yourself suffer severe depression, or you’re just poor and have no means or support network, then having kids is insanely stressful way way way beyond the kind of yuppie parents-who-think-not-sleeping-is-stress lightweight stuff.
Kids, like houses, vacations, fancy university degrees and adequate medical care, are something only accessible to rich people (and triggers a knee-jerk reaction in such people to try to argue they aren’t rich with ineffective anecdata and arbitrary thresholds).
> changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children.
This was my experience, too, and I was utterly unprepared for it despite having been told to expect it -- and even welcoming such a change in myself. So Paul is right, there seems to be no substitute for first-hand experience in this case.
For those who can and cannot have kids: remember the tremendous need in the foster care system! As St James says taking care of orphans is the true religion!
There's a strange anecdotal contradiction with the research. Although much research says otherwise I'm finding that anecdotally people disagree with my statement and they actually end up have multiple children indicating that the first one was an enjoyable experience.
I think what's going on is that those research studies are picking up on unbiased measures of happiness.
In general if you ask people if children make their lives happier, they answer yes. However if you ask the same people about there overall happiness on a 1-5 scale people with children score lower then people without.
This makes sense from a biological perspective. Having an extra person to take care of; who only takes advantage of your hard earned resources without contributing does not give you any intrinsic form of happiness in any context unless this extra person is your child. Your body produces chemicals to counteract the unhappiness to satisfy your biological imperative but the main stressors are still their and can be measured in a survey that asks you questions about your happiness without the context of children.
It's hard to say if it actually is better to have kids. Is it like falling in love? Are we better off with the ability to fall in love?
As of this writing, my initial post has negative three votes which indicates general disagreement. Obviously, I don't have kids so I can only observe the phenomenon from an impartial standpoint.
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.
Well we shouldn't compare across all history to look at families that lived in abject squalor compared to today with atrocious infant mortality rates.
We should compare to recent history, such as the economic conditions experienced by the greatest/silent generation, baby boomers, and Gen X before reaching our current economic scenario where aging millenials and older gen-Z folks are putting off having children. Look at their level of debt, the expected value of their income relative to cost of education, cost of healthcare, cost of homes and percentage that rent/live together... it's not a pretty picture.
Just personally, I wouldn't be able to support a family on my Bay Area engineer's salary and that's why I don't. I want to provide a better life for my progeny, and that's not possible given the housing situation in California today and my own financial reality. Not for at least a decade.
I am just inviting you to see it is a value judgement you are making, not one someone is making for you.
What Boomers might have had in the past is not directly relevant to the quality of life you are or are not able to provide for yourself or your children, any more than a zillion other possible comparisons.
What you are expressing seems to be that you have a certain value about economic position and having kids relative to that.
This is absolutely fine. I just think it is important to recognize it is a statement of values with regard to your circumstances, and your expectations.
When the generations you mention had kids many things in the world were so catastrophically worse for those kids than anything we are likely to experience now ... it was a smoke and alcohol fueled world where muggings often involved hospitalization because someone would hit you in the skull with a roll of quarters from behind. It was a world that had every reason to believe the risk of total annihilation by war, and medical treatments were primitive by comparison to what we had now.
It’s pointless to compare to some other time in history. It’s just a personal decision about what you value.
I'd even go further and say it's irresponsible these days to post things like this. If nothing else, because we know the Earth cannot support many more people. Or at least it's looking that way.
I think as a society we need to get away from sappy Hallmark channel stuff like this and celebrate the individual. We should not be made to feel like having kids is some transcendental thing.
Studies consistently show childless people are happiest irrespective of age. Parenthood is just a thing to do, nothing more. There's no need to make people believe they want to have kids when it will more likely decrease their happiness, and definitely increase co2.
> Studies consistently show childless people are happiest irrespective of age.
Funny, another poster somewhere here suggested that studies show people with young children are less happy, but after about 5 years old or so, happiness is roughly the same, and after the parents turn 60, happiness and health tends to be higher than for older people without kids.
No one seems to be posting sources, so it's hard to verify these claims.
Yea and once you start digging through the papers, it can get all over the place. I mean, trying to measure happiness is pretty subjective anyway. It's almost always a self-reported score and there are so many other variables it's difficult to lock down solid correlation.
I'm not sure if it's possible to tell if kids make people happier or not. There are simply too many other factors.
If you want kids have them and if you don't, then don't. Your mind will compensate if you see it as a non-reversible decision. Our minds have a power psychological immune system to help us accept whatever irreversible choices we've made (Dan Gilbert does a good talk on this. I also wrote a post about this about 10 years back: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/science/time/).
> Studies consistently show childless people are happiest irrespective of age
Not true. It depends on the support network around the parents. Government support, kindergarten opening hours, grandparents, etc. I would conclude that spending time with your kids is great in moderation, but achieving moderation is nigh-impossible without (a lot of) help.
That's a bit over the top, but I agree there's a bit too much social pressure toward parenthood. And it's a bit presumptuous to make parenthood sound like rainbows if it may actually make a lot of people miserable.
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.
You can presume that your kid will have roughly the same lifestyle, and emissions, as you over a lifetime - so having a kid is a decision of doubling your emissions.
With that attitude, yes. This actually illustrates my point of changing consumption habits perfectly.
We became vegetarians the moment we became parents. Not because I think our individual change will make a difference but because I want it to be a no-brainer for our kids to drastically reduce meat intake.
If you don’t want to raise kids, that is fine. But don’t act like having 1 or 2 kids is ruining the planet. It is not, it’s the way we live that is.
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.
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-not-life-affirming...
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.
Just looking for some dads who can relate and maybe give some wisdom on the subject of having young kids and losing your ability to work on something interesting--which to be fair I never did before having kids because I was unmotivated, having not had that burst of energy yet...