
Ask HN: Do you ever regret having kids? - throwaway_kids
For the HN users who have kids, do you ever regret having them?<p>I saw this article and was wondering what you think about it?<p>I have two kids and a wife. Love the kids but sometimes feel resentment that I got married young and cannot pursue some of my other interests, like entrepreneurship for example. Wife&#x27;s looks have also faded and the rare intimacy just compounds this feeling.<p>Would like to hear different perspectives.
======
ljsocal
Being a father is, by far, the best experience of my life. The opportunity to
watch and love a wrinkled little knot of humanity develop into a toddler, a
talker, a thinker and eventually into an independent adult, is a fascinating
opportunity. If you decide to do so, invest every available moment in the
development of your child(ren). Your heart will grow tenfold.

------
subpixel
Regrets are a mental trap. Once you let them develop and mature they can start
to influence your present mindset, and never in a positive way. Don’t give in
to the temptation to wallow in thoughts of what could have been. I have a
young child and a lot of grey hair. Should I have had kids 10 years ago, at a
‘normal’ age? It doesn’t matter.

My advice is work hard on being happy now, and stay open to opportunities.
(The last bit bears repeating: stay open to opportunities!) And never, ever
use your kids or your wife as an excuse for your own actions, or failure to
act.

A dumb mental trick that is nonetheless effective is to remember that you can
do all the right things, get everything you think you want, and still be a
miserably unhappy person. This is proved out in the headlines almost daily.

------
jmpman
I only regret lacking a good social network with my extended family. If my
wife and I want to travel to a kid unfriendly location (a la Vegas), my local
mother in-law is resentful if we ask her, my parents need to be flown in to
watch the kids, and my father in-law is only seen on holidays.

As for faded looks, mine have faded much faster than my wife’s, and I’m
secretly thrilled when I catch a wrinkle or gray hair on her. Success is when
we both look like wrinkled old prunes and are still happy together.

~~~
dirktheman
So alter your plans and bring the kids! Not to the casino floor or adult bars
of course, but kids love the shows, the crazy hotels, Bonnie Springs, the
pools...

But yeah, having a supporting extended family is super useful indeed. Not
mandatory, but it does make life easier.

------
howard941
We chose not to have kids. So we have a house full of cats instead. Obviously
it's not the same but it's as close as we get. I second guess myself all the
time and can't shake the feeling it was cruel to deprive my wife of the
experience and not insist on it: She'd have been a fantastic mom. Like you I
wonder if kids would have resulted in more happy times and the chance to look
forward to things not work related.

The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence.

------
jstewartmobile
Plenty of people with kids manage to swing entrepreneurship and hot wives, so
I don't see where the "but" is coming from.

For "faded looks", usually if you get your shit together fitness-wise, most
women will follow your lead. Do you have your shit together?

Only thing I regret about procreation is not starting sooner. You have all
your life to make money. The baby making window is finite.

~~~
ktpsns
Absolutely true. The pessimistic view of "closing doors" once you start a
family prevents one from doing anything. There won't be ever the right moment
of starting a family, so why don't just do it now. I did it during my PhD
studies, finishing now with my great little family. My partner and me both
work hard to get towards our personal goals. Sure, we live in a European
country. We don't profit from a close family but from cheap public-money-
funded child care. I absolutely can understand the feeling of loosing power (I
suffered a lot personally too), but if I got the correct idea I would not wait
a minute to start a buisness. Or do anything else wildly time consuming.

------
a-saleh
Not from the resentment angle.

From time to time I wonder if me having my daughter when 25 years old ruined
some enterpreneurship future for me, but then I remember, that when I was in
my 20-ties, I had many dreams about starting projects, but mostly I opted for
watching loads of anime :D

On the other hand, with some risk of getting too personal, me and my wife are
slowly going through separation and divorce, and despite my daughter bringing
so much joy to my life, I often think how easier my current situation would be
without her, and how hard it is not to hurt her in the process :-/

------
p0d
There’s many successful entrepreneurs with families and those without. I think
you are confusing two separate issues i.e. your family and your unhappiness
with your work. Family, in whatever shape it takes, always trumps work in my
book.

I went-part time a few years back and enjoy supporting my family and pursuing
my own work.

~~~
bwb
Well said, it blew my mind how much if something is wrong with your
marriage/family work just can't be done well.

I think with my next company I plan to have a seperate slack channel just for
spouses to talk and support each other, or something to help them stay well. I
think companies should pay for couples retreats or something to make sure the
home life is good.

------
thraway-kids
It's a brave question to ask yourself. Overall no I definitely do not, but
sometimes I fleetingly think "WTF I am not dad material, I am not a 'dad'
person". And sometimes they drive me nuts.

You can do a lot more than you think. You have to differentiate between "is
the kids" or "is it my partner". You might have to focus on one main thing to
do outside of kids/family. For example a single person might travel, get
ripped at the gym and start a startup. Whereas the family person might choose
one of the above.

Travel gets expensive with a family, so maybe then you need to work for FAANG
to afford it, so there goes the startup.

------
lemony_fresh
There is an unwritten NDA stating you can’t discuss these things and people
have an innate moral repulsion to anyone who speaks out about it. However the
scientific literature is clear:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/24/marria...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/24/marriage-
kids-children-relationship-suffers-research)

~~~
jstewartmobile
If by "scientific" you mean non-reproducible newspaper fodder from sociology
and psychology departments that "The Guardian" shits out because real
reporting is too expensive.

~~~
lemony_fresh
If you follow the links in the article you can read the literature.

~~~
jstewartmobile
I did. All garbage.

------
100-xyz
I did not want to get married or have children. Then, married late in life and
now have a 2.5 year old daughter. Absolutely love being a father.

------
Gustomaximus
In a pure practical sense, I look at it like 70/30 good/bad. Overall its
better but it does come at a cost. Main pain points are loss of life freedom
and the cost.

There's also something very wholesome and fulfilling that is the je ne sais
quoi about it. We have 7 and 10 yo but if were younger would have gone for
more.

That said, I havent hit teens yet...

------
sloaken
No. I regret not having kids earlier so I could have more. I started late and
stopped at 2, as I could see it was hard for me to keep up.

As for missed opportunities, I have had a lot of them, but not so much because
of the kids. They do tie you down and keep you from making BIG life changes.
But they also drive you to succeed as you feel a need to provide.

As for the article, assuming it was like the one in the guardian, there are
many things wrong with it: 1) it was an opinion piece 2) it used very bad
logic that would only be acceptable in a 3rd grade science fair, but nowhere
else

I hope you did not marry your wife just because she was hot at the time. Look
for other features to value in her. Myself I have grown a bit large, so I know
I could improve by changing.

------
bwb
I am 37, and my wife and I have an awesome little 2.5 year old boy named
Calico Jack.

Do I regret having him?

Not for a second, having a kid is like seeing the world through new lenses and
just so rewarding. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have some costs that even
with a lot of forethought that I didn't quite anticipate. No regrets, but def
some costs in terms of impact on our marriage and on my wife that I didn't
anticipate. We've overcome a lot of them in the last few years, but it was
hard and took some time. And, it still takes a lot of time to make sure we are
connected. Money helps too so you can get a babysitter for a date once a week,
or to pay for the insane cost of pre-school. We are thinking about a second
but nervous about the further impact on things.

I started a few companies when I was younger and I've had a few good exits, so
I came into the marriage a pretty seasoned entrepreneur. Starting a business
while married and with a kid is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than being in your 20s/30s
and single (or in a relationship). It can def be done, but I've had to get a
lot better on time management and have some honest conversations with myself
about what I have to stop doing in my life. I think in some ways it gives you
some hard boxes around decisions which make decisions easier too...

I do think you can still pursue entrepreneurship, but it has to be a team
decision and it can't sprawl around like it might be able too in your 20s. It
will def cause relationship stress as finances always do that. My wife and I
run a Facebook support group for spouses of entrepreneurs on the subject
([https://marriedtoanentrepreneur.org/](https://marriedtoanentrepreneur.org/)).

Hopefully, you can rekindle intimacy in your relationship as that doesn't
sound like a good place to be :(. One of the big joys of being married for me
is traveling or hanging out with my wife, and making time for that really
helps to reset me and remember that we have strong connections. If that was
lost it would be more like having a roommate who gets on my nerves sometimes
:)

Hope that helps!

------
cerberusss
I don't regret it, because I'm not the type to look behind me.

But still, I'd say you can pursue entrepreneurship. Plenty of people do. I do
subcontracting and I love it. It's not a jobby-job but still is pretty stable
(provided you are a good saver because IMHO freelancers need one year of
living costs set aside).

As for intimacy, I found out that the key is not to be overly tired all the
time. Both need to have a breather at least once a day. Get a babysitter or an
au pair or something.

------
CommanderData
My friend decided not to have kids. He suffers from health issues and fears it
may be passed down and can't cope seeing his children suffer the same way.

At first it struck me as a bit alarmist however having a not so serious issue
myself helped me see his point of view. But my feelings about his decisions
are never fixed though and sometimes I do wonder if he'll ever regret his
choice, especially since genetic issues are not always passed down.

------
quizbiz
we are all human with fading looks

