[HN Gopher] The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
___________________________________________________________________
The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
Author : shreyans
Score : 117 points
Date : 2024-12-08 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shreyans.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (shreyans.org)
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| That was a great article. It highlights many things I routinely
| hear in church about how God works through families. They and the
| books we read talk about how children are a gift that humbles us,
| starts transforming our character, and teaches us a lot. God uses
| children in big ways.
|
| Recently, we've been reading Disciplines of a Godly Man by R.
| Kent Hughes. Today we're to discuss the chapter on Fatherhood. I
| was happy to see the author had learned a few of these lessons.
| Here's a few for those interested.
|
| Do's include investing time in them, speaking tenderly, teaching
| them, setting an example, discipline where necessary, and
| especially praying for them. If they have Christ, and God
| intervenes for them, many situations day to day work out better
| than if left purely to human nature. My friends strongly attest
| to this with many examples.
|
| Don't included too much criticism (or too little praise),
| excessive strictness, irritability (esp "been at work all day!"),
| inconsistency, and favoritism. He gives examples of each hurting
| relationships between fathers and sons.
|
| I thought those were a nice start. Character of Christ, putting
| the children first (love), and some specific tips. Lastly, we can
| be calm knowing God is in control of every step of our future. He
| just expects us to act on what we've learned a day at a time.
| He'll only let happen what needs to happen for His plan for our
| lives and our kids' lives. That's comforting.
| hiatus wrote:
| > He'll only let happen what needs to happen for His plan for
| our lives and our kids' lives. That's comforting.
|
| I am sure that parents can find comfort in "god's plan" when
| they are mourning the loss of an abducted child or worse.
| Unless some lives are just pawns for the lessons of others,
| which does not seem to be the message preached by Christianity.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| You've brought up important points. Why does suffering exist?
| How do people face it differently if they know God
| personally?
|
| God intended for us to live forever in a paradise with Him.
| Instead, people wanted to be their own gods, lie, lust,
| steal, kidnap, etc. Even if warned, all have sinned and
| continue to choose evil. Suffering is God's wrath on sin,
| often through our own decisions but not always. He wants
| people to repent whereupon they will eventually see a world
| restored.
|
| (Essentially, everyone who commits evil was the cause of the
| dead children, etc. A collective responsibility. They won't
| stop doing evil either. Not even to save children.)
|
| Parent also tell me how the Spirit of God and prayer help. So
| many situations go better than they would have. That's by
| good teaching (character), a disaster avoided by an unlikely
| event answered in prayer, more calm during it, or increased
| wisdom on the way out of it. The peace God gives to believers
| in all circumstances, an inner peace, helps facing chaos and
| uncertainty. Like sending kids to college knowing God is with
| them.
|
| I interviewed tons of people as a hardcore atheist. I've
| listened to many as a Christian. My friends lost children,
| had their sisters kidnapped (two murdered), etc. I had PTSD,
| etc. The difference between how people experience these
| events in Christ vs on their own is very evident. Also, God's
| interventions for those that pray can be huge.
|
| Here's a recent one. A couple I met in a store told me why
| they appreciate Christ more that week. Their son's car was
| smashed into a tree (looked like it was compacted) with
| driver leaving his body in a ditch to die. A relative, devout
| Christian, felt an overwhelming urge to take a different road
| which they thought was from God. They saw his body in a
| chance event. In the hospital, after more prayer, he had a
| swollen eye and a rod in his leg instead of dead which the
| EMT's said happened to everyone else they saw in that
| situation.
|
| Likewise, my friend whose sisters were kidnapped wasn't close
| to Christ. Situation made the news. Two girls were killed.
| Many people prayed for God to intervene. Between the
| attacker's decision and a bystander's presence, an unlikely
| tip happened that led police to where the other two were
| held. That could've gone very differently.
|
| Two more. Another friend lost her daughter to a hit and run
| by a texting teenager. While depressing, she's been highly
| impactful to others thanks to a strong relationship with
| Christ. Didn't go back to hard drugs she had just kicked.
| Also, love of Christ motivated her to worry about the
| driver's emotional health so much she contacted her to
| counsel her. She and the woman who killed her daughter are on
| good terms despite the tragedy.
|
| In another case, baby Silas was dying in the hospital.
| Pictures showed him a gray color with holes in his neck. Eyes
| rolled back in his head. They were praying as a group for
| him. He's alive and well today.
|
| Better than all of this, our experiences with Christ just
| point to the greater truth that one day all who believe will
| be in heaven with Him. There will be no pain. He will wipe
| away ever tear from every eye. If they were in Christ, we
| didn't lose any loved ones cuz we'll see them again. Even
| those who sadly weren't born. :)
| hiatus wrote:
| You haven't addressed the secondary point I was making:
| what does an innocent child have to repent for? What is the
| purpose of their gruesome death? If it is for the benefit
| of others, that means some of us are just pawns for the
| lessons of others. The alternative is that some kids just
| die through no fault of their own and for no reason at all
| (which leads to the question: why would an all-knowing,
| loving god allow that?). Of course, this all ignores the
| suffering of other life like chickens that through no fault
| of their own born and die in the same cage without ever
| seeing the sun.
|
| > Suffering is God's wrath on sin, often through our own
| decisions but not always. He wants people to repent
| whereupon they will eventually see a world restored.
|
| So a toddler abducted and murdered suffered to repent for
| what? To teach the parents a lesson? To bring the parents
| closer to Christ? I have asked this question to many
| religious teachers and all had answers similar to yours (or
| hid behind things like "they weren't baptized") and none
| addressed the core that real, innocent people die horrible
| deaths from time to time through no fault of their own.
| Others may learn and grow from the experience but what
| about the innocent person that died?
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| To understand this, you have to start with four
| components: God's sovereignty; human's autonomy with
| consequences; individual vs group effects; all sin (evil)
| must be punished.
|
| God is sovereign which means He can do what He pleases.
| He created us to worship Him and love each other. He's
| also painting a story of humanity that shows who He is
| (all attributes), who we are, and how that interacts. We
| are all part of the story He is telling whether we want
| to be or not. Christ dying for unworthy, unrepentant
| people to redeem and adopt them as His children is the
| climax of His love story.
|
| God making us in His image means He makes us autonomous:
| free agents able to choose good or evil. He also allows
| the consequences of both. On an eternal level, choosing
| Christ leads to life while betraying a perfect,
| everlasting God leads to eternal punishment. On earthly
| level, our choices impact us, our families, and our
| societies. God lets most play out with minimal
| intervention. If His children ask Him (pray), He
| sometimes intervenes on those same levels to help them.
|
| We're also in it together. God judges our actions as
| individuals, families, nations, and even humanity as a
| whole. He blesses obedience and curses disobedience which
| includes, per Deuteronomy 27-30, both fertility rates and
| our health.
|
| We also see most harms are directly tied to selfish,
| sinful behavior of humans (consequences of choices). His
| wrath is often letting our choices hurt us so we or
| others will learn from it. Ex: My PTSD was caused by
| others' sins but my liver problems came from mine. Many
| health problems are caused by our diets, how we process
| food, and stressful choices. Our public policies,
| including financial investments, can help or hurt people.
| Individually and nationally, we can intervene (or not) to
| help the helpless or restrain evil. Choices ->
| consequences.
|
| That all of humanity rebels against God, even daily
| choosing evil, requires a holy God to respond to that.
| Genesis 3 and 4 said He cursed the Earth with hard labor,
| childbearing pain, and death itself. People didn't
| repent. So, that form of His wrath continues as both
| justice and tough love to inspire repentance.
|
| That's why children die. They die because everyone
| opposes God to a degree which forgoes protections, like
| against natural causes, that are conditional on
| collective obedience. They die because we poison our
| environment, our bodies, and so on. They die when people
| neglect them or kill them, inside and outside the womb.
| We're tested where some have conditions that can be
| treated but we're too selfish to allocate the resources
| that way. Then, people mistreat them as adults, too.
|
| So, the combo is the moral law of God that
| rewards/punishes choices, free will means we can earn
| justice for evil choices, that our choices affect other
| people, and a holy God always punishes sin somehow. That
| creates all suffering on the Earth. People also stay evil
| even when we tell them that which justifies God's wrath
| even more.
|
| Yet, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so
| that whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have
| eternal life. Whoever confessed Jesus is Lord will be
| saved. He'll help them transform, too. Repent and choose
| life. That He offers these things to wicked people, even
| guaranteeing their salvation by Jesus' own blood, is the
| Good News.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > That He offers these things to wicked people, even
| guaranteeing their salvation by Jesus' own blood, is the
| Good News.
|
| Is it? The fact you can do unlimited evil and be just
| fine as long as you lick the right boots sounds pretty
| horrible.
|
| All in all, from your description the god is a pretty
| despicable being.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| When you do wrong, and realize it, do you hope for mercy?
| Do you want mercy for the evils you've committed to this
| second?
|
| If you have kids, and they make bad choices, do you want
| them to be in prison forever or reform into a better
| life?
|
| Does someone who sees the best in someone and love them
| want to hurt them? Or do just enough damage to teach the
| lesson while getting back into a positive relationship
| with them?
|
| While Hell is for being God's enemy, do you think a
| person who commits finite sins against other people whose
| damage does away after death should receive infinite
| punishment? Or should the punishment be related to the
| damage done? And should they ever receive mercy in
| sentencing if truly repentant?
|
| God is justice but He is love. He does both. His Word
| says "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked but
| would rather they turn and live." His love outweighs His
| justice if people truly repent.
|
| There's also eternity to think about. Even the worst
| things here are barely a blink of an eye in eternity. I'd
| rather the people who abused me, of which there were
| many, not burn alive in a lake of fire forever and ever.
| I was spared for my sins and I'd like them to be.
|
| People who come to Christ are transformed into new people
| who often don't think in the worst ways they used to.
| People in my life now barely believe my testimony saying
| I could never be that person. Yet, they've seen others
| transformed, too. God will finish it later by removing
| our sinful nature entirely as a gift for loyalty.
|
| Punishing the repentant person, who is a new creation,
| would be more like punishing a person who didn't commit
| the crime. That they've walked away from sins that now
| disgust them is good enough for me. I'd rather see the
| character of Christ expressed through them. I want to see
| the good works God prepared beforehand when He
| predistined them to be redeemed. I also love hearing the
| testimonies of what they were and what God is doing now.
| hooverd wrote:
| As someone who used to work with a children's hospital (on the
| EMR site but still) I wish we could find and kill the asshole
| who decided a myriad of childhood cancers was in their grand
| plan.
| lwhalen wrote:
| I would never subject a tiny innocent mind to the unabashed
| brainwashing and shame-factory that passes as 'religion' these
| days.
| mistermann wrote:
| There is substantial irony in your comment fyi.
| lwhalen wrote:
| do tell?
| mistermann wrote:
| One of the most popular criticisms of religion is that it
| is faith-based, but almost always overlooked is that all
| metaphysical frameworks are faith-based, including yours
| which caused you to believe that you possess knowledge,
| when what you actually have is belief.
|
| Luckily, this can be easily dismissed with some pre-
| existing memes. Almost nothing can break a metaphysical
| framework once it takes root in the mind, in my
| experience anyways (a little irony on my behalf to make
| things kinda even, and foster inter-religious harmony) :)
| lwhalen wrote:
| The vast majority of my belief system is or can trivially
| be peer-reviewed and reproduced. I'm sure I've got SOME
| illogical or untested/untestable beliefs rattling around
| in there somewhere, but it's far less egregious than
| "sky-daddy says I should love, honor, and obey him - and
| most crucially give him MONEY as the almighty is somehow
| perpetually short on cash - so I can be saved".
|
| Wait, what am I going to be saved from, you say? Oh, what
| sky-daddy will do to me if I DON'T love, honor, obey, and
| tithe him, etc.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Wait, what am I going to be saved from, you say? Oh,
| what sky-daddy will do to me if I DON'T love, honor,
| obey, and tithe him, etc.
|
| You need to take a look at the HN guidelines because you
| have very clearly not read them.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mistermann wrote:
| I am perfectly fine with it.
|
| The HN (and other "intellectual" online spaces)
| guidelines are a big part of The Problem.
| anon291 wrote:
| Sky daddy won't do anything to you.
|
| Sky daddy offers ready forgiveness unlike the new secular
| regime.
| mistermann wrote:
| > The vast majority of my belief system is or can
| trivially be peer-reviewed and reproduced.
|
| Not possible for you to know (more Faith...watch out for
| misdirection though).
|
| > but it's far less egregious than "sky-daddy says I
| should love, honor, and obey him - and most crucially
| give him MONEY as the almighty is somehow perpetually
| short on cash - so I can be saved".
|
| I will resist the urge to make up something about Your
| Kind and represent it as True.
|
| > Wait, what am I going to be saved from, you say?
|
| How about: _yourselves_?
| lwhalen wrote:
| You are backing into a very common fallacy, Pascal's
| Wager. "If not the christian god, why not the flying
| spaghetti monster" is what this usually boils down to.
| Anything that is presented without evidence, can be
| dismissed without evidence.
| anon291 wrote:
| There are many critiques
| aliasxneo wrote:
| I was gonna say you must be new to HN, but it appears you're
| not. I assumed the anti-Christian sentiment had finally driven
| most Christians away from here.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| I've been here for a bit and I'm a Christian. Pain and
| suffering are difficult to rationalize with the whole "God
| only gives you want you can handle stuff." It's not
| comforting. Bad things happen to Christians all the time. I
| try to ease suffering no matter who it happens to. It does
| help me to remember that Jesus suffered too.
|
| I'd say more but my son is saying "play with me" over and
| over. Take care ya'll.
| anonu wrote:
| I think your comment is additive to the conversation, despite
| it not agreeing with the core HN cohort. Not worth downvoting
| IMO.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| If you want to prosetylize, go hand out flyers in a shopping
| mall or whatever...
| nazghoul wrote:
| Good read. I really liked the line about soliciting advice from
| second time parents.
|
| Also: "We all came out like this. This is how it has always
| happened. Insane."
|
| ... I was a C-section :P
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Well, there are Persian texts talking about c-sections more
| than 3 millenia old. So I guess if you adjust your timeline you
| can argue C-sections are also "how it has always happened" for
| some of us.
| flpm wrote:
| As a second time parent, looking back now, that is such a good
| advice. On the first play-through we second guessed ourselves
| so much. On the second time, we knew where all the good loot
| was hidden. :) we felt so much more in control. The truth is
| that a lot of details first-time parents try to control don't
| really matter that much or cannot really be controlled.
| xandrius wrote:
| What are these details? I'm curious to know what to focus on
| and what not to.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Sometimes when they have a temper tantrum (at home) it's ok
| to let them scream for 5 minutes. Usually when they realize
| you don't care they start to calm down.
|
| Letting a baby fuss in their crib for 5-10 minutes won't
| kill them if you need to take a shit.
|
| Start feeding them more than just milk/formula at 6-8
| months.
|
| They're going to fall and hurt themselves a lot, kids
| bounce.
|
| Kids feel your energy and reflect it like a mirror, and
| they hear fucking EVERYTHING you say when when you don't
| see them.
|
| Saying "no" is a good thing, kids actually crave structure,
| and rules create structure. And tantrums, see first point.
|
| Always, always, always follow through. If you say "throw
| that again and I'm taking it" and you don't take it, you're
| setting yourself up for more testing of boundaries. Also,
| don't make a threat you don't mean.
|
| I could probably write a book, if this was helpful I can
| keep going.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > Start feeding them more than just milk/formula at 6-8
| months.
|
| This feels out of place. What did you do the first time?
| dgfitz wrote:
| Like, baby oatmeal mixed with breast milk. Then scrambled
| eggs, soft foods.
| papa-whisky wrote:
| My wife and I found this super helpful for introducing
| foods: https://solidstarts.com/ (no affiliation)
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Pet peeve: parents you meet in passing warning me that
| $THEIR_KIDS_AGE is actually the hardest age to parent after
| asking how old my son is. :)
|
| Nobody said it was going to be easy. They're just venting after
| all. I just smile and nod.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I always tell my spouse: "the easiest day we had with the
| kids was yesterday" and they're 2, 4, and 10.
| dannyfreeman wrote:
| What a beautiful post. I've always had a difficult time
| explaining how having a child has fundamentally changed who I am
| to people who don't have kids. This captures some of that well.
| Thank you for sharing!!
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| It's difficult to relate even to parents. But some days
| honestly feel like Christmas did when I was a kid, with all the
| potentiality. And the bad days have a sense of endless
| responsibility that can feel overwhelming.
|
| My life in my 20s had too little meaning. Now, in my 40s,
| sometimes it feels like too much. I much prefer it to how it
| used to be, though.
| mpbart wrote:
| As a fellow first-time parent with a 1 month old at home this
| captured a lot of feelings that I've experienced recently. Thanks
| for taking the time to write such a thoughtful article
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the
| number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at
| all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and
| fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these
| stories.
| tafka wrote:
| No. I for one am probably heading down the divorce path that
| the article speaks of (14mo child)
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| If you can hold out for another 18 months, it'll get much
| better.
|
| In the meantime, if your means allow it, nannies and au pairs
| can be a _huge_ help. I 'd even advise you to hire a full-
| timer. (You might even want to consider moving to a country
| where this is cheaper and more easily possible.) There ought
| to be no shame in it.
| thuanao wrote:
| I don't know your situation but for me everything changed
| once my child could speak and started going to preschool (so
| I got a break). The fall-in-love-with-child phenomenon didn't
| happen to me until my child was around 3-1/2
| orzig wrote:
| There are ways to throw money at the stress you are feeling,
| which will still be cheaper than divorce. Children can get
| much easier as they mature, which might give you space to
| work through your marriage even if it feels impossible now.
|
| I was deeply burned out at the 14 mark with my first child. I
| did lots of things since then and am much better even after
| more children.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| It's certainly not.
|
| To speak plainly, I wasn't terribly interested in my son until
| he turned 3 years old. Then he started talking, started
| developing a personality with interests of his own, and
| fatherhood then became much more interesting. But I was
| intentionally quite uninvolved in those very early years. I
| don't regret this, don't see how else it could have been, and
| indeed I feel that some degree of fatherly aloofness towards
| infants is natural.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| That's really interesting to read. I'm a man who has
| absolutely zero interest in interacting with babies and
| infants, but kids who can talk and ask questions can be
| pretty funny and cute even. My wife doesn't understand this
| at all.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I was the same way before having my own children. Then a
| switch flipped.
| ariwilson wrote:
| I feel sorry for the mother or whoever was taking care of
| your child for the first 3 years.
|
| Someone has to guide the small children towards being
| functional human beings and it's a lot of work. I found they
| have interesting personalities and ways of expressing
| themselves by 1 at the latest.
| 627467 wrote:
| One does the best one can. But I guess "intentionally
| detaching" doesn't convey the best.
|
| Even ignoring the extra work for the mother or whoever is
| actually providing the care, this conscious decision is not
| cost free for the future of the relationship with the
| child. It makes it harder to straighten the ship later.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > this conscious decision is not cost free for the future
| of the relationship with the child
|
| Same for the relationship with the wife, they remember.
| apwell23 wrote:
| I wasn't too interested in my son till 1 yr old but I did
| all the housework ( cooking, cleaning, laundry), taking my
| son to all doctors appointments, taking him with me to
| grocery shopping, outdoor walks and to the park.
| causal wrote:
| > some degree of fatherly aloofness towards infants is
| natural.
|
| That may have been your experience, but I would push back
| hard against generalizing that notion.
|
| For my first child, we bottle-fed formula, and I was very
| involved in her routine: night feedings, diaper changes,
| counting days since the last poop, all of it. I felt very
| invested in every tiny milestone. It was a lot of problem
| solving, and I was very invested in her progress.
|
| For my second child, because my wife breast-fed that time, I
| felt a little bit more like an outsider. I jumped in to help
| where I could, but it took longer for me to feel the same
| kind of connection. I also got much less paternity leave the
| second time around, which is likely the bigger factor.
|
| All that to say, I think there are a lot of environmental
| factors that can play into infant attachment. No one should
| feel guilty for not having attachment right away, but it
| should still be pursued.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| >I feel that some degree of fatherly aloofness towards
| infants is natural.
|
| Sounds like you are trying to justify your feelings of
| aloofness by generalisating those feelings.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Handle checks out.
|
| When the mother breastfeeds, and dad just fills in around
| the cracks without directly "providing care" beyond holding
| the kiddo and changing diapers, how can they be judged for
| feeling aloof? When are they bonding?
|
| You should consider softening your tone, being a dad is
| fucking hard.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > When are they bonding?
|
| All that time in between the breastfeeding? Somehow, this
| question does not compute for me (as a father of a
| breast-fed 8-month-old baby).
| rybosome wrote:
| I'm not going to shame you for your parental experience, but
| it does not mirror mine as a father.
|
| When my daughter was born I was crying with joy. And while
| her infancy was enormously challenging, especially as she was
| born right when COVID lockdowns began (which prevented ANY
| assistance), I was immediately and profoundly in love with
| her.
|
| It was very important to me to be extremely engaged when she
| was an infant. I wanted to - and did - earn her trust as a
| caretaker and source of comfort. And now, as a 4 year old,
| the relationship I have with her is utterly priceless.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You don't see how you could have spent more time with your
| kid for the first 3 years of their life?
|
| It's pretty simple, by doing it.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Took me about 2-3 years to find my groove as a father.
|
| Later I found out that post-partum depression is a real thing
| that fathers can go through. I went through all the stages of
| grief for my old life that I'd grown too attached to. Only when
| I'd gone through that could I actually open up to accept a
| newer, bigger life.
|
| My son is 7 now. I love him dearly and am so grateful that I
| can be a father to him.
| youoy wrote:
| I unexpectedly went through that when my second kid was born.
| I somehow felt that my first kid grew up suddenly and I was
| not able to say goodbye to the little boy that he was while a
| single kid.
| e1g wrote:
| My wife experienced a similar reaction to the second - it's
| obvious in retrospect, but we didn't realize that "one-on-
| one with an infant" is a unique chapter of parenthood that
| happens very quickly and only with the first born.
| orzig wrote:
| I'll throw in another anecdata point (more than one as I have
| multiple children): I found them to be mostly logistical burden
| for the first few months he is writing about, but my love fully
| developed over the years. Don't give up hope if you're not
| feeling it instantly!
| youoy wrote:
| Of course it's not like this for everyone. Even for him it is
| not like this all the time :) but if you listen to the world
| around you there are these bits of beautiful life that appear
| here and there.
|
| He says this at some point:
|
| > That was the second thing Theo taught me. The first thing he
| taught me, at 430am in his first week, when he wouldn't stop
| crying, as a rage started bubbling up in me, was that no amount
| of urging, forcing, or frustration will get this tiny baby to
| do what I want him to do. All I can do is surrender and listen;
| find peace and meet him from a place of equanimity. Then maybe
| I'll have the presence of mind to change the wet diaper that
| was making him cry.
|
| Ask yourself how many times per day do you take a moment to
| surrender and listen... If you do it (even without a kid) you
| will find beauty in every aspect of life. The thing about kids
| is that it can be so overwhelming that they give you no other
| choice. Of course you still have the choice of not doing it,
| and this can make you start building a lot of frustration
| against the kid, your partner, life itself...
| 627467 wrote:
| > is it like this for everyone
|
| The answer is certainly "no". But does it matter? I guess it
| does in this age - after decades of social conditioning that
| parenthood is not much but an individual's lifestyle choice.
|
| All this leading to worsening of social cohesion at all levels,
| inability to think beyond one's lifetime, extreme self-
| absorption, decrease in hope, demographic collapse across the
| world.
|
| Not for nothing humans developed social pressure for
| parenthood: why would most humans willingly choose to give up
| their selfs for others over decades (if not lifetime)? Even
| laws/sanctions don't work if you don't morally know what is the
| right path.
| wat10000 wrote:
| If the survival of the species depends on pressuring people
| to live their lives in a way that many of them don't want,
| then maybe we should just die out.
| 627467 wrote:
| > then maybe we should just die out Have you consider all
| aspects of social conditioning/pressure existed and exist
| to lead you to utter those words?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Yes, every action I take is the sum of all events in my
| past light cone, very profound.
| rayiner wrote:
| We have scientific evidence that parenthood floods your brain
| with all sorts of chemicals, and changes how your brain
| responds to stimuli. It's a deeply rooted biological reflex. It
| may not be true for everyone, but it's true of close to
| everyone.
| snthd wrote:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294566/
|
| >Surveys conducted over the last few years on representative
| samples in the US and Germany suggest that the percentage of
| parents who regret having children is approximately 17-8%.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| In the study linked it seems that factors like:
|
| - Financial difficulties
|
| - Being a single parent
|
| - Having children with a disability
|
| All seem to vastly influence the result.
| moconnor wrote:
| This was the most accurately description of first-time
| fatherhood I've read. It was a bit light on how debilitating
| constant lack of sleep can be but everything else: yes.
|
| I would strongly encourage all fathers to become as closely
| involved with day-to-day care of their babies as possible.
| Don't wait until they can walk and talk.
| exitb wrote:
| No. And that's a bit of an issue - I've encountered people that
| plan to become parents and their understanding of the process
| is all wrong. Not saying that they'll end up being bad parents
| - most people rise to the occasion, but it feels like society
| tricks people into having kids.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Absolutely. It's pushed from all angles: you may not think
| you want kids, but it'll be amazing. Once you do it you'll
| have no regrets. You'll never experience joy like the joy
| that they bring.
|
| And that's actually true for a lot of people. But not
| everyone. And there's zero support for trying to figure it
| out and come to an informed decision before you dive in, and
| even less for concluding that actually you don't think it'll
| be that great for you and you're not going to do it.
| wat10000 wrote:
| You'll certainly never find me stating my true feelings on the
| matter, outside of internet anonymity or a HIPAA-protected
| environment.
| thefz wrote:
| Better not being much into kids and being free to not have any
| than being forced to and hating them for the rest of their
| lives. Spoken as someone who grew very close to such scenario
| (the second).
| munksbeer wrote:
| No, it certainly isn't. But it is a social sin to admit
| otherwise.
|
| For me, it led to depression, therapy and medication. The first
| time in my life I'd experienced actual clinical depression. We
| do have a particularly challenging situation though. I'm always
| tired, ill, stressed, eat unhealthy, don't exercise enough.
| Being a parent is all consuming.
|
| It has been getting easier as they get a bit older, and I love
| my children in all the ways a typical father does. I'd
| literally die for them. But a lot of the time I just do not
| enjoy it.
| camgunz wrote:
| My partner and I have two kids (21 months and 5 weeks) and we
| _absolutely hate_ the caretaking phase... which lasts a year?
| Our oldest can be pretty hilarious now so she 's net worth
| it, but it was a journey of misery to get here, and the
| reason we dove right back into the icy pond of abject
| awfulness is that we just wanted to get it over with ASAP.
|
| Why is it so torturous? For me, I'm a software engineer, and
| I became one because I'm obsessive. I like to think about a
| thing all day every day. The most I get now is maybe three 90
| minute chunks a day, _maybe_ a couple three hour chunks a
| week. If you 're not like this you won't understand how it
| feels, but if you are, you'll know what I mean when I say
| learning to live without this kind of thing (I guess the term
| is need for cognition?) has made me into a completely
| different person.
|
| It does get better though! We do daycare so when they're old
| enough I get a regular work schedule back. Definitely no
| nights or weekends though; those days are gone for the
| foreseeable future. But, like you, I'd do anything for them
| and I don't regret it. It's just hard to overstate how huge
| the change is--you legitimately are forced to become a
| different person (or, I guess, you can choose to not be a
| very good parent, idk)
| munksbeer wrote:
| My children are older - five and three - so I've passed the
| early care taking phase. We suspect our eldest has mild
| autism or some form of adhd and sensory processing issues.
| He is the sweetest little boy at times, I love him so much,
| but he is incredibly challenging. The entire five years
| have been hard, hard work and we're constantly on edge and
| having to help him cope with the world. The youngest is a
| bit more typical, but also extremely high energy. It's just
| physically and mentally exhausting.
|
| But yes, it is becoming a bit easier. And as it becomes
| easier, I actually relax a bit more too and my mood
| lightens, which makes the meltdowns a bit easier to handle.
| mberning wrote:
| I absolutely do not share my true feelings about fatherhood.
| They would not be viewed kindly or understood by most. Also,
| how I feel about things does not matter, at all. My obligation
| is the same regardless of how I feel. So I do my best to adjust
| my attitude and soldier on. This is just one of the many
| alienating and lonely aspects of fatherhood.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Not for me.
|
| Don't get me wrong I couldn't imagine life without them, don't
| regret them, and I care for their well being deeply, but it
| certainly was not (and still is not at 5 and 3 years old) this
| overpowering feeling of love.
| RunSet wrote:
| Counterpoint:
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36057840/
| causal wrote:
| This is not a counterpoint.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I definitely feel a lot dumber compared to ~8 years and three
| kids ago. Lack of sleep, lack of agency, continuous need for
| some background level of vigilance...
| causal wrote:
| Oh I'm not arguing that the study is flawed, I'm saying
| it's not applicable to the point of the post
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Haha I even think I love cleaning up their puke _because_
| the constant stressors made me dumber.
| jebarker wrote:
| Having a kid may have dinged my raw intelligence but the
| forced ruthless prioritization of what I do and what I
| value doing has actually made me more competent at home and
| work
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Agreed 100%, my bullshit tolerance has gone to zero. You
| want to bikeshed this backlog shit we'll probably never
| get around to doing? Without me yo, I'm out.
| erulabs wrote:
| Nice post, new babies are really magical. There are so many more
| transformations coming! Now that I have two, one of them coming
| up on age 4, so many new things make sense. You don't immediately
| get the sense of the father/son discipline dynamic when they're
| infants. You watch someone go from "perfect" to perfectly human.
| A little angel to a little man. The first time your child hurts
| someone: that's when fatherhood shifts into gear.
|
| > And after a few minutes passed I started to...think
|
| Gosh I miss the first-baby newborn phase! Thinking time is
| dramatically cut in little-kid phase; but hey, tricycles and
| legos and Playdough!
|
| You're in it now friend! Keep writing and hang in there, it's a
| life-long occupation!
| binary132 wrote:
| Fatherhood transforms men. Becoming a father was by far the most
| transformative event of my entire life so far. This is the common
| refrain I've heard. Of course, you also have to live up to the
| vocation.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Divorce, child support, alimony, and two weekends of time with
| your kids per month (what the majority of men end up with), can
| also be transformative!
|
| If anyone reading this is thinking about having kids, be really
| careful who you have them with.
| utopicwork wrote:
| Yeah, especially don't have them with this guy he's on some
| mra nonsense.
| borski wrote:
| It is obviously extremely important who you choose to have
| children with. I completely agree. If I'd had kids in my 20s
| with my ex, I would have ended up with regrets for the rest
| of my life (not the kids, but my choice of with whom to have
| them).
|
| If I have kids now, there's no chance I'd have regrets. It's
| a very different timeline in my life, being in a non-abusive
| relationship after 8 years of being in one and lots of
| therapy.
|
| And yes, men can be in abusive relationships with women too.
| jajko wrote:
| I've been in such relationship once, albeit only few
| months. Took me few years to recover fully but it was a
| lifelong wakeup lesson and I started properly looking into
| psychology. Afterwards, no mysteries in the opposite camp
| anymore and straight to my wife now.
|
| How to handle various relationships and personalities
| should be mandatory psychology 101 somewhere around
| beginning of high school. It would make whole mankind
| behave a bit better overall, no doubt there.
|
| The problem with your comment is, kids are by far the
| biggest stressor in marriages. Wonderfully working, fully
| matching couples are pushed sometimes to their limits and
| beautiful relationships become just surviving hardships
| next to each other. You can't fully know how the opposite
| will handle this, even under good circumstances, god forbid
| something ain't right (like post natal health issues in kid
| or mother), even when trying to use psychology a bit.
| Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails in myriad ways. You
| could have felt your ex was the one for life while pro
| creating, thats happening during (brutally) easy times.
| borski wrote:
| You're right; I can't predict the future.
|
| But I have experience having gone through extremely
| difficult things with my wife; both of our dads were
| diagnosed with cancer this year, months apart. Our
| relationship started only a year before a pandemic. I
| went through a serious depressive phase. She was
| diagnosed with and has been (successfully) working
| through dealing with her C(omplex)-PTSD. I discovered I
| had ADHD, and have had it since I was a kid, and have
| gone through that self-discovery process.
|
| Basically, you're completely correct, but we've also
| discussed the fact that most partners do forget about one
| another when kids enter the picture, and we have promised
| not to; and to check in with each other constantly, as
| the risk of postpartum runs in her family (if that's even
| a thing, and it isn't just people in general).
|
| It may help that she has been through many, many years of
| therapy on her own, and is also studying to get her
| masters in psychology to become an LPCC/LMFT.
|
| She's the strongest and most impressive person I've ever
| met. And I've met a lot of strong and impressive people.
|
| So while the chance we end up hating each other isn't
| zero, I'm pretty sure it's as damn low as it can be, and
| I'm pretty fine with that as life decisions go. :)
| parpfish wrote:
| Reading this just re-confirmed to me that I'm not cut out for
| parenting. I'm glad he's digging it, but my reaction to all of
| the little miracles he described was either rolling my eyes or
| thinking "that sounds terrible".
| youoy wrote:
| I love this one:
|
| > My mother came in with a great tip: when in doubt, ask second
| time parents, not other first timers.
|
| So true in so many levels.
| hammock wrote:
| And yet we elect, and look up to so many childless role models
| kazinator wrote:
| Even if the other first timer is years ahead of you in
| parenting because they have an older child, whereas you have a
| newborn, they just don't remember the newborn stage anymore,
| and only went through it once. It is all a distant blur to
| them.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a
| different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely
| was and is for me.
|
| At the same time I do think articles like this should be
| countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed
| with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my
| children being born the primary emotions I could point to were
| dread and anxiety.
|
| The sudden overwhelming obligation to provide care, comfort and
| security for such a vulnerable human for decades encompasses your
| being.
|
| One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and
| sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no
| "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an
| astronomical expense -- every single element of life is
| dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing
| crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often
| entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks.
|
| And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury, the social norms
| for what a parent needs to do to be proper climb ever higher.
| apwell23 wrote:
| > One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and
| sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have
| no "village", so to speak.
|
| It probably true but even the well of who can afford to buy the
| village aren't having kids.
|
| I think it has more to do with
|
| 1. cultural acceptance and lack of strict cultural pressure to
| have kids. Its unimaginable in India to not have kids by
| choice. Its not a choice at all unless you want to be pariah.
|
| 2. Availability of affordable widespread recreation that will
| keep you occupied. Affordability of lots of on demand TV,
| dining out, live music, internet, hobbies, travel ect.
| jebarker wrote:
| I also think we've become more self-obsessed and the idea
| that we might need to sacrifice time spent on ourselves
| scares us.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I'm 40, rich, coupled, live next door to my parents and close
| to my inlaws, have plenty of free time. I have no kids and no
| desire to have kids. My girlfriend is the same and plenty of
| our friends too.
|
| I'm very happy for people who have children and love them to
| bits, but many of just don't want to.
| borski wrote:
| And there isn't anything wrong with that at all. Kids are, in
| my opinion, literally the only life choice you can't walk
| away from having made. That is extremely high stakes, and not
| everyone has the appetite for it or desire to engage in it.
|
| That doesn't make anyone who has kids or wants to have kids
| better or worse. Plenty of people have kids and should not
| have, and they end up neglecting their kids or abusing them.
|
| Have kids if you want to. Don't if you don't. Just realize
| that if you wait too long to make a choice, those options
| become much more limited and lean much more toward not having
| them. And if you make the choice without thinking, you're
| just gambling, but you're gambling with someone's life, not
| to mention your own.
|
| If it sounds scary... good. That means you're thinking about
| it. You just have to decide if you want to do this
| particularly scary thing, and if the potential reward
| outweighs the risk.
|
| And, I think it's important to be okay with that choice
| changing in either direction. My wife didn't want kids, and
| that opinion has changed, through no pushing of my own.
|
| (The proverbial you, not you specifically, since it sounds
| like you've decided)
| selectodude wrote:
| > One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and
| sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have
| no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an
| astronomical expense -- every single element of life is
| dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing
| crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often
| entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks.
|
| It's the opportunity cost of having children. When you're poor,
| it's not changing what you can do with your life. You were
| never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you're wealthy,
| you can afford to bring them with you, or better, pay somebody
| to watch them while you're gone. The well-off middle class
| needs to weigh completely changing their lives.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > When you're poor, it's not changing what you can do with
| your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on
| vacation.
|
| When you're poor and child-less, you can still sleep in on
| weekends, watch Netflix/game all day/night or whatever other
| (cheap) hobby you have. It's even possible to do a decent
| amount of travelling on a very tight budget these days (low-
| cost airlines, couchsurfing...). All things considered, today
| is not a bad time to be a poor person in terms of being able
| to have fun.
|
| I think even for middle class, the main cost is actually the
| time rather than the monetary cost.
|
| But I do agree that opportunity cost is the right framing.
| stared wrote:
| And it is reflected in numbers. The fertility rate has a non-
| monotonous relationship with income. It is the middle-income
| fertility that plummets.
|
| https://x.com/theHauer/status/1222514313723875332/photo/1
|
| From "Population Pyramids Yield Accurate Estimates of Total
| Fertility Rates", https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s135
| 24-019-00842-x?sh...
| 627467 wrote:
| And you don't think the destruction of the village and sharp
| decline in birth rate feed of each other? Individuals have
| outsourced so much to abstract "institutions" that they can't
| see alternatives whatever precarious and worsening services
| these institutions provide.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move
| up and down the social ladder.
|
| Basically it's not really like the whole village raised your
| kid before, that's more of a romanticized version. What
| happened was that your extended family helped because you
| lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your
| sister in law watches them along with your mother while you
| work. Where do you work? Well that's wherever your family
| works. If you are born into a farm, you are a farmer. If your
| family is blacksmiths, you'll be a smith. Or a dung sifter,
| etc. If you can't do it, maybe your farmer family sends you
| to apprentice with the local smith. But you rarely get a
| choice in what you do, where you live, etc.
|
| Moreover, if you don't like your family/they don't like you:
| tough. You might hate your sister in law but who else will
| watch your kid while you sift dung?
|
| What has changed is that we have the free market. Your can
| move out, have your own career and _hire_ someone to care for
| your kids while you work. You no longer have access to "free"
| childcare but you have access to the job market instead. Want
| to leave the farm and move to the big city to become a
| jewelry maker? Go for it. But you won't have much support to
| start a family. You are paying for free choice.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "The village" isn't limited to some pioneer dung sifter
| living seven generations to a hovel. Also absolutely
| bizarre how so many people so desperately want to make this
| an economic thing.
|
| The village referred to the notion that children were
| viewed as important to the whole. The whole country, the
| whole province, the whole village, the whole neighbourhood,
| the whole family. Everyone cared about and contributed to
| the raising of children. In my childhood -- and at this
| point the village was already declining -- I had a number
| of friend families that were like second, third and fourth
| families where I could stayover for dinner whenever I
| wanted, they watched out for me, etc. There were many times
| where I spent nights at aunts with my cousins, or at
| grandparents.
|
| Culturally this is _far_ less common. We all move hundreds
| of kilometers apart. Sometimes for careers, more often
| because you 're a loser if you stay near where you grew up.
| Many/most younger people have little relation with cousins
| or aunts or uncles. Grandparents now move to Arizona and
| ask for pictures occasionally. People have an antagonistic
| attitude towards other people's kids as a selfish trifle
| that are just a nuisance for everyone else.
|
| No, hiring a nanny isn't equivalent and doesn't invalidate
| this.
| jajko wrote:
| Yes these were things we lost, but 'we' as in anytime in
| past 500 years. You just experienced it yourself for your
| line.
|
| What was gained is meaningless to some, and next to
| everything to others. I don't fucking ever have to deal
| with anybody's crap I don't want to. It feels amazing,
| simple yet right way to live a life. How shitty my life
| would be if I had to accept and constantly tolerate
| people in family circle that for example aren't good
| people, moral ones or just an emotional vampire. Or
| brutally incompatible with me in any other way. I see it
| in peers sucking it up over and over, oh boy do they hate
| relative X from their or spouse's family tree, yet since
| they live nearby frequent meetings are unavoidable. For
| some blood is sacred and above else, I don't see it that
| way if relationships are not at least a bit mutually
| beneficial.
|
| Freedom, man, to do what you want with your life, that's
| a wonderful thing. Freedom to form new bonds with
| literally anybody in this world, as you please. Great
| friendships trump most of blood relationships, all if you
| want. Also, people change over time and common ground is
| getting usually smaller and smaller every year. I'd
| gladly give it to my kids over some tighter knit family
| ties with people of variable quality with highly
| questionable views on life, who raised their own kids
| only so-so and it shows later on.
|
| Just to be clear - I've experienced most if not all you
| wrote. It was good. All non-good easily trumps it so thus
| my opinion on the matters. My kids are growing in very
| different world than I grew up in, that one is long gone.
| I look at it as a package with + and -, liking current
| package more.
| adolph wrote:
| > No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to
| move up and down the social ladder.
|
| Wait until people realize the ladder is a treadmill and any
| movement is an illusion of entropy.
|
| Every wave of humanity is like an ocean's endless beating
| against a beach.
| anon291 wrote:
| Simply not true. My grandparents moved from India to watch
| us. They didn't have to. They did live with us for a while
| but in my parents house
|
| In no way did we live with them. They lived with us.
|
| Ultimately this is cultural. JD Vance talks about this when
| it comes to his mother in law who did the same thing.
|
| Cultures that value kids will have more. My parents did the
| same for us
| anon291 wrote:
| Part of the problem is that preferring family today is seen
| as nepotistic.
|
| Witness the widespread shock that Joe Biden pardoned his son.
| llm_trw wrote:
| The shock is because he said multiple times he wouldn't do
| it.
|
| You can't do better than the daily show coverage of it:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BcIHPMAHw
| anon291 wrote:
| No I agree. But you shouldn't be shocked. Obviously he
| was going to
| wooque wrote:
| Birth rates plummeted even in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are
| polar opposite of the West, so I'd say loss of "village" is
| tiny part of the problem.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| It's possible for different influences to play a part in
| different countries and cultures. Further, there is a
| remarkable scale difference.
|
| The high survivability of children now means that having
| large numbers of children dropped everywhere. You don't need
| to have "extras". The problem is when the number drops too
| much. It did in Iran due to literal government influence, and
| is quickly turning back to replacement level. Saudi Arabia is
| above replacement level.
|
| That is very different than Canada (1.33) or South Korea
| (0.88), or Switzerland (1.39). The scale is dramatically
| different.
| whycome wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd consider Iran or Saudi Arabia as polar
| opposites to the west. Or at least not in the aspects related
| to kids.
| DAGdug wrote:
| " And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury" I never quite
| understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to
| benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it's
| selfish to have kids?
| nosefurhairdo wrote:
| Many people think overpopulation is a legitimate concern. I
| suspect the argument would be "who cares about social
| security if we kill the planet" (or something along those
| lines).
|
| Not my view, just suggesting who might believe the "children
| as selfish luxury" line.
| thefz wrote:
| Social security is well failed in my country, we are paying
| both for the retirees and for our future selves. So if
| tomorrow ends up like children of men, sure, no problem.
| anon291 wrote:
| We don't have a village because no one has kids. The parents I
| know who are best supported are ones who have tons of siblings.
| WalterBright wrote:
| True. Those with large numbers of kids tend to have a family
| network of mutual support.
| anon291 wrote:
| My parents had less kids due to circumstances (age +
| immigration). But they had so many siblings that they had
| so much help compared to my brother and I.
|
| Luckily we both have three and we at least want more (they
| might be aging out... Maybe they'll have one more).
|
| Kids are so much fine and they love each other too. It's
| amazing
| llm_trw wrote:
| Do you think this could be because you have so many children?
|
| Anecdotally the more kids in a family the more neglected the
| child. I can't imagine having more than one child a decade and
| raising them well.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I was one of 5. I was not neglected. I am a horrible person,
| though, so there's that.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Your parents by definition will only be able to spend 20%
| of the time on you that they could on a single child if
| they didn't neglect the others.
|
| Seeing children with multiple siblings with less than 8
| year difference between them vs single children is shocking
| just how differently kids are treated.
|
| This is the most accurate but least factual description of
| what it looks like from the outside when a family keeps
| adding kids as fast as they can
| https://malcolminthemiddle.fandom.com/wiki/Flashback
| beachtaxidriver wrote:
| I see your point. But I think you may be taking it to
| extremes.
|
| A parent can snuggle multiple kids at once, read to
| multiple kids at once, take multiple kids to the zoo at
| once, etc.
|
| Moreover siblings have their own rich relationships.
|
| Having closely spaced siblings is pretty normal.
| llm_trw wrote:
| In the west in the year of our lord 1955.
|
| And in the year of our lord 2025 it's normal not to have
| kids in the west.
|
| In most of the rest of the world neither of those things
| were normal.
|
| Which is the point.
|
| The west is weird when it comes to raising children and
| has been uniquely bad at it for over 80 years which
| happens to be living memory for pretty much everyone on
| here.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 80 years? Things started to go awry around 1970. That's
| when the Boy Scouts stopped treating scouts like young
| adults and instead began treating them like delicate
| flowers.
|
| You can see the change in the Boy Scout manual.
| llm_trw wrote:
| The great depression destroyed the social fabric of the
| us more thoroughly than did the civil war. The 1950s
| weren't normal, they were the result of a generations
| want for stability and domesticity when they had no idea
| what either looked like. For one thing the end of
| generational households to be replaced by nuclear family
| households was seen by the people at the time as worse
| than single parent households are today and with good
| reason.
|
| That the majority of conservatives today pine for the 50s
| us that we not only lost the ability to have a stable
| society but even the memory of what one should look like.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Your parents by definition will only be able to spend
| 20% of the time on you that they could on a single child
| if they didn't neglect the others.
|
| Parents can spend time with their children as a group.
| Parents with lots of kids have the kids do the chores.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I would argue that your position is the "perfectionist
| parenting" nonsense that many have used to avoid having
| children.
|
| Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the
| current generation are the most psychologically healthy
| individuals the world has seen? Do you think they're the
| most loved or coddled? The most educated? Your anecdote
| is actually kind of hilarious in context.
|
| The idea that 2 children splits the love or attention is
| absolutely _insane_.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the
| current generation are the most psychologically healthy
| individuals the world has seen?
|
| https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/siblings.html
|
| 80% of kids under 18 have siblings in the USA today.
|
| >The idea that 2 children splits the love is absolutely
| insane.
|
| It's also what's blindingly obvious when you spend more
| than 5 minutes in a playground with single kids and
| multiple kids.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >80% of kids under 18 have siblings in the USA today.
|
| I wasn't claiming that all or most kids are single
| children. I was observing that by your philosophy those
| single children would somehow have the best outcomes (in
| a multivariate manner). I don't think that's the case.
|
| >It's also what's blindingly obvious
|
| Sure.
| anon291 wrote:
| Yes the single child is usually unsociable and verging on
| narcissistic.
|
| Your issue here is that you have labeled the single kids
| life as good and the multi sibling family as bad .
|
| It used to be the opposite. People would pity a single
| child.
| testval123 wrote:
| There is IMMENSE value in having siblings, particularly later
| in life when you yourself have kids. Especially if they are
| in the same city.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| I feel having no sibling of the opposite sex as a great
| loss to myself, and to my parents. It seems to me a
| grievous deficiency in one's life-experience.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I think you horribly misread my post. Do you think I am
| saying I don't love my children? I love them absolutely. The
| last word in the universe that applies to them is
| "neglected". They want for nothing.
|
| Indeed, it's precisely _that_ I care so much that having
| children wasn 't some carefree social media event for me. It
| was an _enormous_ commitment. The biggest commitment a human
| can make, in my judgment, and I was all in.
|
| And as another poster already said, one of the greatest gifts
| a child can have is siblings. This isn't always true and of
| course there are many counterpoints, but siblings are usually
| the closest friends and allies in a hostile world.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Delaying having children until ones' 30s also is a problem.
| After 30, fertility rates decline, and birth defects increase.
| You can't have a lot of children after 30, either.
| baxtr wrote:
| Agree 100%.
|
| People say it's the cost. But what's way worse is the effort
| and time you need to spend for every child.
|
| A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be
| at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly.
|
| A couple can't replace the village unless they have tons of
| money.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I am lucky that I do consulting through my own company,
| setting my own schedule and availability. It would be
| impossible otherwise.
|
| Just as one small example, daycares/schools will call for you
| to pickup your kid -- blowing up your day -- at the slightest
| indication of illness. With four kids going to school, this
| means two to six+ times a month your day is going to be
| completely blown up at any moment. I'm not complaining
| (though when I was a kid if you had a bit of a stomach ache
| you chilled in the nurse's office for a bit and 9 times out
| of 10 go back to class), but the average person cannot
| accommodate this without quickly finding themselves
| unemployed. This is just one of a million cases where two
| working parents and few or no supports leave you in a
| precarious situation.
| baxtr wrote:
| True that things have changed on the child side as well. I
| remember being by myself for long stretches on any day.
|
| Parents today not only have lost the village but are also
| expected to be with their children more.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting
| "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would
| career advice from someone who just landed their first job.
|
| I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more
| importantly, _family life_ , don't really start to emerge until
| after the first few years.
|
| Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal
| Magnificence" of parenting and you'll likely get a hearty
| chuckle out of them.
| jacknews wrote:
| "there's a part of me somewhere else."
|
| This. Although I'm not sure this merits my quote book. I would
| phrase it as "there's a _big_ part of me that 's _someone_ else "
| maybe.
| anonu wrote:
| Ah, the beauty of hormones and how they effect your perception of
| life and love.
|
| My experience resonates with the authors. But certainly the
| experience ranges dramatically for different people under
| different life circumstances.
| hipadev23 wrote:
| why is this flagged? how do we vouch for a submission
| Rendello wrote:
| It appears you can only vouch for [dead] submissions:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
| borski wrote:
| I just sent an email to hn@ycombinator.com in hopes 'dang fixes
| it.
| borski wrote:
| He fixed it, fyi.
| saas_startup wrote:
| There is a high societal expectation that fatherhood (or
| motherhood) should look like the one in this article. Having had
| 2 babies in the last 5 years and observing most of our friends
| going through parenthood in the last 5+ years I think this is a
| very biased view that does not reflect reality.
|
| My sample might be a bit biased as most our friends are PhD
| educated and in Tech or Academia.
|
| My own observations:
|
| - I was not terribly interested in our kids between ages of 0 -
| 2. This does not mean I did not fully participate in their life,
| but this was a muscle I had to exercise. I went to therapy as I
| thought I was somehow broken because thats not how people should
| feel. What I learned is that feelings are much more common than
| it is widely accepted.
|
| - Once they started to speak, ask questions, and being more
| emotionally regulated it became very different. At this point I
| spend more time with my kids than my wife and generally love
| spending time with them, its almost effortless. Explaining
| things, buildings legos, became one of my favourite activities.
|
| - Having daily help (live in nanny, live in grandparents) is an
| enormous help both from kids and relationship perspective. Seems
| like a trivial thing but if you do not have live in help you are
| likely to never be alone again as a couple for more than 24h
| (i.e. you can't go on a short trip).
|
| Observations about my friends:
|
| - Trying for a baby and being unsuccessful for years or going
| through multiple miscarriages can make couples extremely sad. You
| can reduce this risk by trying early.
|
| - If your mental health is not amazing before kids it is likely
| get worse. This is about functional people that have mild mental
| health problems. Two of our friends developed severe mental
| health problems that in one case ended in a divorce and in second
| case multiple years of unemployment (father who was not primary
| care giver). This were generally reasonable people that sought
| mental health help from both therapy and medicine perspective.
|
| - The societal expectations that women should be super excited
| about motherhood is not always true. Within our friends group
| probably 50% women are less involved in raising their kids than
| fathers. Some (reluctantly) admitted that they don't really like
| how motherhood negatively affected their job prospects, bodies
| and mental health.
|
| - If you do happen to get divorce with young kids it is likely
| going to be a life changing event. Situation has to be pretty bad
| to get divorce with young kids so most likely you will be better
| off but from the two cases we have seen this typically means
| severe financial burden and inability to sustain long term
| relationship afterwards. If you are a women and somehow loose
| custody there is also going to be pretty severe societal
| judgement against you even in very progressive locations.
|
| It may sound as a little bit depressing view of parenthood but
| this is more reality check for those reading only the bright
| side. Overall, I am extremely happy we have kids and our
| relationship is stronger than it was before but thats not the
| case for everyone and it required work.
| shakes07 wrote:
| "Finding babies funny is probably a useful survival mechanism for
| an overworked parent."
|
| Currently in week 5 of my own journey with my child, and the
| above is basically how you have to perceive things as you push
| through this early phase. Beautiful read, and looking forward to
| appreciating more as I'm less sleep deprived.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| It's f*cking hard work, for those in any doubt. It's the most
| difficult web server config file you've ever to edit at 4am to
| resolve some production outage, for years, without any hope of
| let up. Is it rewarding, yes, but it's a duty and there's no
| backup or timeout, you get to experience this 24/7 for at least a
| few year while they're young.
| halfcat wrote:
| Accurate. There's this seemingly never ending stream of moments
| of desperation, where there are no good answers.
|
| But also if you asked me, _"what led to most of the goodness in
| your life?"_ , I'd answer:
|
| Moments of desperation
| jonstewart wrote:
| It's surreal, for sure, but I would like the drugs this guy is
| on. I can't wait till they're off to college when I'm 58 and I
| can program full bore again.
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