
Having Kids - yarapavan
http://paulgraham.com/kids.html
======
triangleman
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...

~~~
codingdave
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.

~~~
basilisks
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.

~~~
seanhandley
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.

~~~
jdswain
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.

~~~
stansm
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.

~~~
leetrout
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!

------
casion
I don't have kids.

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.

~~~
adrianmonk
> _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.

~~~
casion
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.

------
daxfohl
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.

~~~
smallgovt
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.

~~~
cadence-
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.

------
buboard
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.

[https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-
as-50-years-ago)

~~~
paxys
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).

~~~
edanm
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.

~~~
ericd
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.

------
burlesona
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.

~~~
legel
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?

~~~
stevedomin
Have you heard of Culdesac? It's a YC company building the first 100% car-free
neighbourhood in Temple, Arizona.

[https://culdesac.com](https://culdesac.com)

~~~
hueving
It's Tempe, not Temple and the neighborhood doesn't exist yet. Just announced
recently.

------
cushychicken
_...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.

~~~
gtirloni
Well, as they say, it's not wasted time if you enjoyed wasting it.

~~~
Invictus0
Parent is saying he didn't enjoy wasting it. He didn't choose to be alone.

~~~
kelnos
Except he says that he did: "I took a lot of steps to protect my freedom..."

~~~
jdminhbg
That doesn't say he enjoyed it at all.

------
quadrifoliate
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.

~~~
philwelch
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.

~~~
kelnos
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.

~~~
danenania
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.

------
d_burfoot
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.

~~~
anon9001
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...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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.

~~~
anon9001
Honestly? No, yes, and somewhat.

> 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.

~~~
jlongr
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.

------
sdotsen
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.

~~~
czbond
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.

------
SubuSS
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.

~~~
User23
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.

~~~
newnewpdro
> 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 _all_ _too_ _late_ , 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.

~~~
PunchTornado
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. :(

------
pkorzeniewski
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 :-)

~~~
perlgeek
Oh, the age old question for meaning in life.

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 :-)

~~~
city41
Finding meaning through kids means the kids then need to find meaning. It's
kind of like a pyramid scheme.

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

~~~
city41
But the cycle continues as the kids then need to find their purpose, which is
what I was getting at.

------
75dvtwin
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....

~~~
throwawaypa123
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.

~~~
75dvtwin
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.

[1] [https://blogs.psychcentral.com/family/2012/03/family-
dynamic...](https://blogs.psychcentral.com/family/2012/03/family-dynamics-
passed-through-the-generations/)

------
haberman
As someone who has wrestled a lot with the question of whether I ever want
kids, I've sought out data. One thing I came across was this:
[https://www.salon.com/2017/05/09/google-confessional-your-
se...](https://www.salon.com/2017/05/09/google-confessional-your-search-
engine-knows-if-you-regret-having-kids/)

> 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.

~~~
jessriedel
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.

~~~
hsm3
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.

~~~
trolololooo
This is absolutely true. I love spending time with my kids and I really don't
like being around most other people's kids.

~~~
jessriedel
Did you dislike it before you had kids?

------
daenz
>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.

~~~
scottLobster
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.

~~~
danarmak
> 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.

~~~
scottLobster
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.

~~~
unityByFreedom
What if every interaction we have matters and does influence the world, and
what if having kids can improve the quality of those interactions?

------
amoorthy
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.

------
ken
> 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!

------
beebmam
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.

~~~
saagarjha
> 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?

------
jccalhoun
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.

~~~
arbitrarylimit
At least sometime in your 40s, people stop saying "Oh, you'll change your
mind. You'll want kids."

~~~
jccalhoun
Which is why I stated my age :)

------
falcolas
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.

------
phs318u
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.

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

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

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

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

~~~
RobertRoberts
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.

~~~
samcodes
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.

~~~
RobertRoberts
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.

------
leesalminen
Wow, how serendipitous. My wife and I just arrived at the hospital after her
water broke. Great article and lots of great advice on this thread.

In just a few hours I’m going to be a Dad. Parker, if you read this one day,
hi! Your mom and I can’t wait to meet you.

~~~
ec109685
What an awesome post! Good luck

------
johnwheeler
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.

~~~
theli0nheart
Wow, that’s really impressive. 23 years of marriage at 40 is a rare (and
amazing!) thing.

~~~
johnwheeler
Well, we've been married for 17 and were together 6 years before, but thanks!
:-)

------
jv22222
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.

~~~
sershe
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.

------
zackmorris
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.

~~~
brightball
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.

------
knorker
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.

------
nickreese
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.

~~~
scribu
Can you explain how being selfish (i.e. wanting to do other things instead of
taking care of them) makes you a better parent?

It's not at all obvious.

~~~
scottLobster
To paraphrase Jordan Peterson:

"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.

~~~
luckydata
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.

~~~
balls187
> American parenting is a cancer...you can’t go out because kids and you have
> to constantly hover them

Helicopter parenting is a problem, for sure, but that isn't any more american
than obesity is.

It's parenting based on fear, a reality of being in the information age and
less fortunately the age of social media.

~~~
zeofig
Well... obesity is pretty American.

------
lordleft
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.

~~~
tenpies
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?

~~~
PKop
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.)

~~~
Klinky
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.

~~~
PKop
>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_ ).

~~~
buboard
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.

------
Waterluvian
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.

~~~
balfirevic
So it _is_ a cult!

... just kidding. I think.

------
ARandomerDude
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.

~~~
nitwit005
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.

~~~
ARandomerDude
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.

~~~
deanCommie
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.

------
abalashov
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.

------
city41
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.

~~~
aetilley
> I also question the morality of bringing an intelligent, sentient being into
> this very troubled world without their consent.

A million times this.

------
jimktrains2
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.

~~~
sparker72678
> 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.

------
alasano
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"

~~~
luckydata
Or more simply, it’s because having kids is, on average, the meaning of life.
We exist to preserve the specie, everything else is a hobby.

~~~
kgwgk
Then having one or two should be seen as a huge failure, when you could have
dozens.

~~~
sethammons
See traditional Mormons and Catholics.

~~~
kgwgk
Antinatalist sects have existed within Christianism, but unsurprisingly they
tend to fade out.

------
overflow897
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.

------
jaimex2
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.

------
psim1
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.

~~~
miles
You might want to balance PG's essay with some other viewpoints as well:

Decades of data suggest parenthood makes people unhappy
[https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/should-you-have-
kids](https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/should-you-have-kids)

Google confessional: Your search engine knows if you regret having kids
[https://www.salon.com/2017/05/09/google-confessional-your-
se...](https://www.salon.com/2017/05/09/google-confessional-your-search-
engine-knows-if-you-regret-having-kids/)

Many Parents Are Happier Than Non-Parents — But Not in the U.S.
[https://time.com/collection/guide-to-
happiness/4370344/paren...](https://time.com/collection/guide-to-
happiness/4370344/parents-happiness-children-study/)

Having kids makes you happier, but only when they move out
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-
mak...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-makes-you-
happier-but-only-when-they-move-out/)

The depressing reason why having kids doesn’t actually make you happier
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-theory-on-why-
having-k...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-theory-on-why-having-kids-
makes-people-unhappy-2019-02-26)

------
alvatech
“ 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

~~~
tasuki
> Everyday I look forward to get home from work

I have met people like that who do not even have children!

------
emil0r
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.

------
bhouston
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.

------
734129837261
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.

~~~
asah
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.

------
techer
Despite not being a parent I am closely observing many of my friends tread
this path. To all I can only say:

You are more important than your children - for their sakes!

~~~
spookthesunset
I would slightly rephrase to say you cannot truly take good care of your
children unless you take good care of yourself.

It’s similar to the phrase “you can’t truly love somebody until you love
yourself”

------
TheAlchemist
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 ).

------
beilabs
Thanks for this pg. Scheduled to have two new arrivals in about a months time.
Positively shitting it as they are our first arrivals.

I don't think anything will prepare me for what lies ahead, feeling
apprehensive, worried but looking forward to it none the less.

I've no idea how I'll manage time for our team in between diaper changes but
I'm sure it'll all just work out for the best. Thinking positively.

~~~
erikerikson
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.

------
sombremesa
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.

------
booleanbetrayal
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.

~~~
kelnos
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.

~~~
booleanbetrayal
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.

------
getpolarized
> 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.

~~~
1996
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?

------
opportune
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

~~~
aklemm
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.

------
hhhhhhhhfhjc
I just have to chime in.

My daughter is almost three years.

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.

------
_bxg1
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.

------
cadence-
I can never understand why there is so much discussion in western societies
about whether to have kids or not.

It’s very simple:

1\. If you want to have kids, then you SHOULD have kids.

2\. If you don’t want to have kids, then you SHOULD NOT have kids.

3\. If you are unsure whether you want to have kids, then you SHOULD NOT have
kids.

------
acjohnson55
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.

------
danans
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.

------
kbos87
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.

------
zzzcpan
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.

~~~
whiddershins
That’s simply false. Testosterone levels drop in men who even cohabitate with
young children.

I have no idea what other changes might occur but I wouldn’t be surprised if
there were others.

~~~
zzzcpan
_> 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.

Wikipedia has good enough explanation about when testosterone levels change in
men:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Males](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Males)

~~~
whiddershins
Interesting.

------
uneewk80
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.

------
traderjane
> 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.

~~~
jonstewart
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.

------
p0d
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.

------
xvector
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.

~~~
ajkjk
Mostly this just indicates that your model of what 'rights' are is flawed,
since it doesn't give the right answer for obviously true statements.

~~~
xvector
Elaborate on how having kids is moral is “obviously true.”

~~~
ajkjk
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.

~~~
xvector
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.

------
danielovichdk
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

------
virtuous_signal
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!

------
markus_zhang
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.

------
ChuckMcM
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.

------
jefftk
"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.

------
gist
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.

------
t0mislav
> The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used.

This is so true!

Now with kids, there is tiny bit of freedom, but this freedom (free time) is
spent 10x better.

------
cjken
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.

------
MrGilbert
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.

It‘s difficult.

------
throwaway_40
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.

~~~
ericd
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.

~~~
throwaway_40
Thank you. I am male. Still lots of work to do, but there's no way I'm going
to live this life without even trying.

------
raldi
_> 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.

------
kamban
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.

------
throwaway88444
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.

------
mlacks
> 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

------
ZguideZ
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.

------
laurieg
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.

------
pototo666
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.

------
madrox
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.

------
erikerikson
Most people's ambitions were created for them and all ambitions live in the
context of our lived experiences.

Imagine that one adjusts as one's life is adjusting around them. Surprise?

You discover if you had really seen the possibility space of life and weighed
it's options.

------
blueyes
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?

------
haxorito
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

~~~
MattRix
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!

------
jupiter90000
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.

------
kevindeasis
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

------
djaouen
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?

~~~
carapace
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.

------
mlthoughts2018
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).

------
actfrench
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!

------
RaceWon
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.

------
nightchalk16
People should remain childless. Remaining childless is the only guaranteed way
to prevent suffering. Also have a look at: [https://www.amazon.com/Better-
Never-Have-Been-Existence/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Better-Never-Have-
Been-Existence/dp/0199549265/) and [https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-against-
Human-Race-Contriv...](https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-against-Human-Race-
Contrivance/dp/0143133144/)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
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.

------
unsatchmo
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.

------
will_pseudonym
> 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).

------
lordnacho
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.

------
ripvanwinkle
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.

------
myzzreal
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 :(

------
solidist
Two kids here. And two things after I read:

One:

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).

------
electriclove
If you can relate to the joy in the article, I'd highly recommend watching the
Clannad and Clannad After Story animes:
[https://myanimelist.net/anime/2167/Clannad](https://myanimelist.net/anime/2167/Clannad)
[https://myanimelist.net/anime/4181/Clannad__After_Story](https://myanimelist.net/anime/4181/Clannad__After_Story)

------
sergefaguet
This is how I feel about taking paychedelics.

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.

------
KorematsuFred
Related read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism)

------
havetwokids
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. :)

------
lsllc
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.

------
ngngngng
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.

------
mirimir
This is so beautiful and honest. Also most all of the comments.

But I'm still glad that I never flipped the switch. As I see it, I get to be a
kid until I die.

------
8f2ab37a-ed6c
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.

------
wiradikusuma
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).

Then again, parenthood is different to everyone.

------
Liron
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.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-
ebook/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-
ebook/dp/B004OA64Q6/)

------
bryanmgreen
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.

------
cpr
Thank you for that, pg!

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.

------
randomsearch
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.

------
choppaface
Has come a long way since:

"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."

[http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html)

------
malkia
That article stuck with me -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/books/review/all-joy-
and-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/books/review/all-joy-and-no-fun-
by-jennifer-senior.html)

------
peignoir
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 :)

------
ausjke
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.

------
EliRivers
Kids are dull so dull SO DULL.

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.

~~~
spookthesunset
Other people’s kids can be dull. I can empathize with that...

But my own kid, despite statistically being just like all the kids and could
be considered just as dull, is most certainly not dull to me.

~~~
EliRivers
Yeah, does that not seem odd? Sure seems like a very suspicious coincidence.

Whatever is doing that to you is a blessing, I suspect, because there are
parents out there who do not have that. What must their lives be like?

------
markvdb
No llc-like protection available from children!

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...

------
hailhash
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.

Note: Niece and nephews are not your kids.

------
jelliclesfarm
Congratulations. You have made part of your DNA immortal by procreating.

Having kids is the only way to ensure life. It’s not you. There is no ‘you’.
It’s the genes.

Now substitute ‘part of me’ every time the word ‘children’ appear in the
article or any of the comments.

------
tonfreed
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.

------
lettergram
Funny enough I just wrote about some of this myself - perhaps it’s that time
of year:

[https://austingwalters.com/tiny-handcuffs/](https://austingwalters.com/tiny-
handcuffs/)

------
mwcampbell
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.

~~~
koboll
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?

~~~
mensetmanusman
yep

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257612445_The_Sacre...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257612445_The_Sacred_Hour_Uninterrupted_Skin-
to-Skin_Contact_Immediately_After_Birth)

------
gnzoidberg
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.

------
jonplackett
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.

------
Bostonian
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.

------
asah
Ah, the parenting cult rant.

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

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

------
ZguideZ
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!

------
musgrove
"If I had kids, I'd become a parent, and parents, as I'd known since I was a
kid, were uncool."

If you're still thinking that way, you're still a kid.

------
yters
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!

------
oluomike1
I have 1 and 3 years old. I do manage to get time for myself but can get
really though. It's one hour to my "golden hour" ;)

------
known
Happiness = Money + Children
[http://archive.vn/LvxSN](http://archive.vn/LvxSN)

------
dumbw4tch
Of course after having kids there is no way back, so people try to convince
themselves and others of what a great experience it is...

------
rdiddly
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!

------
the_wheel
Kids are 1 and 3. The 1 yo doesn't sleep through the night. No family nearby.
I really needed this thread.

------
trevyn
Question: Does anyone decide to have children selflessly, for the explicit
benefit of the unborn child?

------
smitty1e
Parenthood, if appropriate, is a set of tiles that make a fine addition to the
mosaic of life.

------
thearn4
Also, some parents do develop those feelings, but over time rather than
immediately.

------
exabrial
Good parents don't have to worry if they left the world a better place

------
mmhsieh
[https://www.bartleby.com/3/1/8.html](https://www.bartleby.com/3/1/8.html)

Of Marriage and Single Life

Francis Bacon

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.

------
Xelaz
In the latest essays the in-text links to footnotes are missing ...

------
georgewsinger
> I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my
> identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious.

Of course this is true. Can someone think of a single $10B+ founded by someone
who already had a kid? Now a single $100B+ company?

~~~
sethammons
I don't follow start ups, but the one I am familiar with: SendGrid. One of the
founders had several kids.

~~~
georgewsinger
SendGrid is not a $10B+ valued company.

~~~
sethammons
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.

------
honkycat
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.

~~~
dzohrob
As a counterpoint, this essay resonated with me very deeply, and I earn a low
salary for an engineer in NYC.

We do fine as a family and have to make compromises I couldn’t have imagined
making prior to having kids, but it’s totally worth it.

This type of experience isn’t universal but doesn’t require massive wealth.

~~~
davidw
No one is saying it's not possible or not worthwhile; just that it's a very
different experience in some ways.

------
rm2040
what is the augustine quote he is referencing?

~~~
User23
"Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

A right knave's prayer, but then Augustine was a right knave until his saintly
mother finally set him straight.

------
starpilot
Reminds me that I need to schedule my vasectomy.

------
ryanisnan
Beautifully written Paul. Thank you!

------
tunapizza
TL;DR having kids is cool.

------
fnord77
one of my biggest regrets is not having kids.

I had the chance, but I squandered it.

------
sgwealti
Graham not being able to appreciate something until he experiences it himself
is peak PG.

------
haimez
Paul, what’s it going to take for you to get a free SSL cert on your personal
blog?

------
vearwhershuh
Yes.

We should structure society so people can have kids. With stay at home moms.

Not just impossibly rich older guys.

Everyone.

------
rb666
Didn't know sites without TLS/SSL still existed!

------
taksintikk
Nice article but not convinced.

I see zero upside in having children.

~~~
iamkroot
Then don't have any! People get so prickly about discussions about children,
like they're scared someone is going to press gang them into parenthood.

------
themark
Please adopt. There is no reason to clone yourself.

------
Cougher
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.

------
Myopic_PG
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.

------
malexbone
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..."

:)

------
anon1253
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.

------
eanzenberg
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.

------
coleifer
> 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.

------
crimsonalucard
The experience of having kids involves a relationship that spans something
more than 25 years.

I remember seeing research done on people that have had the full experience
and the overall ratings of happiness were lower.

~~~
sparker72678
Citation needed

~~~
miles
Decades of data suggest parenthood makes people unhappy
[https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/should-you-have-
kids](https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/should-you-have-kids)

Many Parents Are Happier Than Non-Parents — But Not in the U.S.
[https://time.com/collection/guide-to-
happiness/4370344/paren...](https://time.com/collection/guide-to-
happiness/4370344/parents-happiness-children-study/)

Having kids makes you happier, but only when they move out
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-
mak...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-makes-you-
happier-but-only-when-they-move-out/)

The depressing reason why having kids doesn’t actually make you happier
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-theory-on-why-
having-k...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-theory-on-why-having-kids-
makes-people-unhappy-2019-02-26)

~~~
crimsonalucard
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.

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nightchalk16
Someone with the power to delete comments realized something unpleasant... how
long will it take for this comment to be deleted?

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daxfohl
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.

~~~
gcheong
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...](https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-not-life-affirming-
its-immoral)

~~~
daxfohl
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.

~~~
gcheong
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.

