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Oh, where to start? Having a baby entirely eliminates your life and replaces it with a different one. And you can't undo it. You cannot spend all your time o

by Vivtek 16y ago

Oh, where to start? Having a baby entirely eliminates your life and replaces it with a different one. And you can't undo it. You cannot spend all your time on a project now - you have to change your priorities. This is not an option, and unfortunately it's not something that happens magically by itself, either. Like maintaining a marriage, it's something you choose to do because not to do so is unthinkable. The payoff will come a decade from now - or two, and it will consist of knowing (1) you made a good human being, and (2) you yourself are so much more mature and focused that the rest of your life will go much better. Just as long as you choose to have the right outcome - because #2 can also consist of your being a broken, bitter person who feels they trashed their life. There is nothing like parenting. It's the headiest mixture of ebullient joy and sheer terror that's ever existed. My kids are 16 and 11, they're both smarter and more capable than all the rest of humanity combined, and all in all I think we've succeeded - but it hasn't been at all easy. Would I undo it, given a time machine? No. I was a callow idiot until I had kids. Now I'm a more seasoned idiot, but I have a lot more gumption to do something that might fail. Because having kids guarantees one thing - you're going to fail. At lots of different things. And then you're going to keep right on going, past the failure, and make the best of things, because you have no choice at all. Ultimately, it hardens you to risk. I have to recommend it.

rahoulb 16y ago
Agreed - you sacrifice who you are/were but become a better person for it. (I've got 2 girls - 6 and 16).
donohoe 16y ago
Agreed. There is no way I could explain to my past-self how parenting would change my life. In fact if I did a good job of explaining it then I would have been terrified of becoming a parent ('what do you mean I can't go to a bar any night of the week till 5am!?'). However there is nothing to be afraid of. Priorities shift. Things that were important to you beforehand, things you thought defined your sense of self, or you couldn't live without - no longer matter as much. You find a new focus, a new center. Until that point you're still the center of your own universe in a large sense. After a baby is born you're in orbit around that center.
lotharbot 16y ago
> "Having a baby entirely eliminates your life and replaces it with a different one." A good illustration of that: People you've called "mom" and "dad" your whole life now become "grandma" and "grandpa". Your spouse becomes "mama" or "dada". Having a kid changes the way you relate to everybody else in your life. It shifts your focus from how someone relates to you to how they relate to your kid. Similarly, every decision you make is now evaluated in terms of the effects it'll have on your kid, often before you even bother to evaluate how it affects you.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  Oh yeah - and a couple of years from now at day care, you're now "Vivienne's dad". You probably also have a name, but ... nobody knows it. Ha.
barkingcat 16y ago
Failure in (1) means that you made a not so good, or a not so balanced human being. I know parents of my parents' age who ultimately feel that they've failed because their sons and daughters got into drugs and crime, and destroyed the potential of those short lives. Despite trying their hardest, things just didn't work out, and since the children are adults in their own right, the parents can only give love and hope that their children learn to make a life of their own.
davidamcclain 16y ago
>> My kids are 16 and 11, they're both smarter and more capable than all the rest of humanity combined Beautifully said. I envy you your parenthood!
credo 16y ago
>>The payoff will come a decade from now - or two, and it will consist of knowing For me, the payoff was immediate. It is hard to match the experience of holding your newborn baby or young infant in your hands and just looking at the baby or talking to him or her. I also agree with the (message in the) quote above that good parenting will have its own rewards in the future.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  Well - that's true, actually. There are lots and lots of little payoffs along the way. Just having people who literally think you're indestructible and all-capable will do wonders for your ego even if you know they're wrong. (My son is still a little shocked when he finds something I didn't know.) I have to say, though, leaving the hospital with our first one, honestly - my first thought was: "Holy crap, they're actually letting us leave? Without a license or something? I don't know the first thing about parenting!!" And I sure didn't. But I learned. One thing I can't recommend enough, though, to anybody with kids - take all the time off everything else you possibly can. Spend that quality time with them. You get one chance to get their entire life right, and it's really pretty easy - just ignore everything else, even if just a little while every week. (That's a joke - it's never easy. You just had a baby. Suddenly there are all kinds of expenses you never even imagined, and you know that sooner or later, they're going to need braces and a college education.... You've never needed money so bad!) But seriously - establish a good personal relationship while they still think you're omnipotent, and you will thank your past self a million times about fifteen years down the road.
mikegreenberg 16y ago
Your essay made me consider a very interesting aspect to parenting: Starting a family is the ultimate entrepreneurial endeavor. It's arguably the only business where the potential gains and risks are unmeasurable.
- gbog 16y ago
  I have a one year old kid, he is learning to walk, so funny. With a baby you learn what the meaning of "responsibility", and you see a human being (the only really interesting topic) evolving, building it's self. You also get nightmares in the first days. Do one get nightmares when founding a start-up?

by Vivtek 16y ago

rahoulb 16y ago

Agreed - you sacrifice who you are/were but become a better person for it. (I've got 2 girls - 6 and 16).

donohoe 16y ago

Agreed. There is no way I could explain to my past-self how parenting would change my life. In fact if I did a good job of explaining it then I would have been terrified of becoming a parent ('what do you mean I can't go to a bar any night of the week till 5am!?'). However there is nothing to be afraid of. Priorities shift. Things that were important to you beforehand, things you thought defined your sense of self, or you couldn't live without - no longer matter as much. You find a new focus, a new center. Until that point you're still the center of your own universe in a large sense. After a baby is born you're in orbit around that center.

lotharbot 16y ago

> "Having a baby entirely eliminates your life and replaces it with a different one." A good illustration of that: People you've called "mom" and "dad" your whole life now become "grandma" and "grandpa". Your spouse becomes "mama" or "dada". Having a kid changes the way you relate to everybody else in your life. It shifts your focus from how someone relates to you to how they relate to your kid. Similarly, every decision you make is now evaluated in terms of the effects it'll have on your kid, often before you even bother to evaluate how it affects you.

Vivtek 16y ago
Oh yeah - and a couple of years from now at day care, you're now "Vivienne's dad". You probably also have a name, but ... nobody knows it. Ha.

barkingcat 16y ago

Failure in (1) means that you made a not so good, or a not so balanced human being. I know parents of my parents' age who ultimately feel that they've failed because their sons and daughters got into drugs and crime, and destroyed the potential of those short lives. Despite trying their hardest, things just didn't work out, and since the children are adults in their own right, the parents can only give love and hope that their children learn to make a life of their own.

davidamcclain 16y ago

>> My kids are 16 and 11, they're both smarter and more capable than all the rest of humanity combined Beautifully said. I envy you your parenthood!

credo 16y ago

>>The payoff will come a decade from now - or two, and it will consist of knowing For me, the payoff was immediate. It is hard to match the experience of holding your newborn baby or young infant in your hands and just looking at the baby or talking to him or her. I also agree with the (message in the) quote above that good parenting will have its own rewards in the future.

Vivtek 16y ago
Well - that's true, actually. There are lots and lots of little payoffs along the way. Just having people who literally think you're indestructible and all-capable will do wonders for your ego even if you know they're wrong. (My son is still a little shocked when he finds something I didn't know.) I have to say, though, leaving the hospital with our first one, honestly - my first thought was: "Holy crap, they're actually letting us leave? Without a license or something? I don't know the first thing about parenting!!" And I sure didn't. But I learned. One thing I can't recommend enough, though, to anybody with kids - take all the time off everything else you possibly can. Spend that quality time with them. You get one chance to get their entire life right, and it's really pretty easy - just ignore everything else, even if just a little while every week. (That's a joke - it's never easy. You just had a baby. Suddenly there are all kinds of expenses you never even imagined, and you know that sooner or later, they're going to need braces and a college education.... You've never needed money so bad!) But seriously - establish a good personal relationship while they still think you're omnipotent, and you will thank your past self a million times about fifteen years down the road.

mikegreenberg 16y ago

Your essay made me consider a very interesting aspect to parenting: Starting a family is the ultimate entrepreneurial endeavor. It's arguably the only business where the potential gains and risks are unmeasurable.

gbog 16y ago
I have a one year old kid, he is learning to walk, so funny. With a baby you learn what the meaning of "responsibility", and you see a human being (the only really interesting topic) evolving, building it's self. You also get nightmares in the first days. Do one get nightmares when founding a start-up?