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"We should be more honest about the real tradeoffs between endless wanderlust/adventure-seeking and putting down real roots. The things that make for a great in

"We should be more honest about the real tradeoffs between endless wanderlust/adventure-seeking and putting down real roots. The things that make for a great instagram feed or Bumble profile are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." (Friend's comment on article) Polly's reply is so shameless (including promoting her own book in the reply) that it's incredible just how badly it missed the point. > If you want to build a life with a partner, and have a more satisfying career, and maybe have children, you need to treat yourself like a treasured child starting today. If you had a daughter who was 35 years old and felt like all of her traveling and moving was a giant mistake that embodied everything BAD and shortsighted about her, what would you tell her? You’d tell her she was wrong. You’d say, “Your life is just beginning!” This doesn't help the author and it doesn't help onlookers, either. There is a time window on opportunity. There are serious tradeoffs that need to be pondered when you reach adulthood, and almost none of them are helped with a "you deserve it!" attitude. And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, like your children will.

Tade0 8y ago
Frankly I stopped reading the moment the book was mentioned. It feels off and insincere.
- kempbellt 8y ago
  I would think the same thing, if the book wasn't relevant to the topic being discussed. Providing a sincere response, and self-promoting are not mutually exclusive. It's more like "Hey! I wrote a book on this exact issue. I really hope it helps"
  - barberousse 8y ago
    > It's more like "Hey! I wrote a book on this exact issue. I really hope it helps" Except that's your notion and not what Polly was doing with their book mention in the article. There it served as a way to kinda say, "Hey, I also share some insecurity issues with you, caused this by book I'm touring on right now, and oh, here's the link to it". There was no other nudging of Haunted to read the book.
  - danso 8y ago
    The book is relevant to the topic being discussed, because the author talks about it to describe how she herself -- purportedly a successful published author -- has to fight off feeling inadequate, even though she's being paid by her publisher to travel cross-country to promote her book. Take out the mention that she's on book tour, and you no longer have a frame of reference about her self-shame.
- hateful 8y ago
  I did the same thing. In my mind I went "oh, there it is" and closed the tab. That's a shame, since the first half was quite harrowing.
  - 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
    First part was probably embellished anyways. Anyone can make up a two part sob story style q&a for promotional purposes.
- bartcobain 8y ago
  From the promotion part, it just got obnoxious, egocentric and insincere.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  Yes, to be honest, it feels like it caught the author of the reply off guard and downed him/her into a existential crisis, and to fend that demon off - the protection spell of success, the mantra of self-promotion was cast. Two lonely people meet in the public plaza, one walks home without its facade. But at least she is not as lonely as before. As lonely as the shining success story on the soap box. That pride in whatever-you-are-preach is so generic, so rehearsed, im sure, the author could have thrown this to a AA meeting or a junkie with the monkey on its back, without flinching.
- jimijazz 8y ago
  I can totally understand this, and it seems that a lot of the blog posts that make it to the top of HN are in some way self promoting the writer's work (be it music, IT consulting, their web-product, their music, etc). I guess it is a hard balance to strike between self-promotion and good content. Perhaps if the writer could be more open about the promotion stuff in the beginning of the article it wouldn't feel insincere.
mc32 8y ago
I’m reminded of a story an English tracher once related to us. A friend of the group decided to go off and teach English in Spain, had lots of fun and few worries, life was wonderful and friends back home felt “jealous”. But this person returned one day, many years later with little in the sense of career accomplishment and security (dunno what prompted the move back, age, money, career, crisis?). Moral was when they got back they realized all that “fun” time accomplished little but transitory happiness. They came back asking friends for job favors and so on.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  'little but transitory happiness' There are many people in the world who will never know happiness. Life itself is transitory, 'accomplishment' is not a substitute for it, 'security' is a dream. Old men may say 'Youth is wasted on the young'; I say bravo to the young who drink life to the lees. When you sell today, can you be so sure of tomorrow?
  - mc32 8y ago
    I guess thr issue with this person (and many others) is that they didn’t have a network, experience, etc., to fall back on in order to take steps to get back on track. Basically they would have to start from scratch. Teaching ESL in some far away place doesn’t buy you much either here or even there (unless you wanna continue in a dead-end job). Also, ESL teachers tend to be young. Older ones are rare and kids don’t prefer them-they like hip “older kids” to “teach them” not “dad”.
  - wwweston 8y ago
    I think it's fair to say both viewpoints have merit. Building for the future allows one to accumulate resources and deploy them for meaningful goals, and is prone to a failure mode where one forgets how to be alive, or what is meaningful, trades away special capacity for enjoyment youth brings, and gambles against life ceasing before the building is done. Living for the moment leaves more room for present joys... and has a failure mode where one becomes unprepared for likely futures and arrives there to find the moment miserable. Does a wise person minimax, or do they balance? Does wisdom figure in, or do people simply externalize a neurological temperament?
throwanem 8y ago
Conceding your every point for the sake of argument: what use is any of that to 'Haunted' right now? It's hardly going to come as a surprise that adult life involves tradeoffs; she's speaking from a place where she has belatedly recognized that fact, and feels as if she's made every one of them wrongly. If the purpose is to help 'Haunted' - or those reading along who find 'Haunted' painfully relatable - make more of the years ahead of her than she has of those behind, where do you see this sort of thing making success in that purpose more likely?
- SCAQTony 8y ago
  "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." — Jean Paul Sartre, (French existentialist)
  - throwanem 8y ago
    'Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.' — apocryphally also Sartre, but really who cares? Wisdom is wisdom. To your quote: responsibility, sure, but its corollary is authority, and they exist together in precisely identical degree. Just as we bear the burden, if it is one, of the stories we write of our lives - we do nonetheless retain the ability to write whatever stories of ourselves we choose. Sartre may consider that a condemnation. I can imagine no more liberating conception of life.
- yters 8y ago
  Perhaps advising other young women from her own experience? Then those years will not have been wasted. On the other hand, if no one learns from her mistake and makes the exact same mistake, then her years will have been wasted.
  - throwanem 8y ago
    Certainly. But I am specifically asking 'simonsarris just whom it is he thinks he's helping here, and how, and why.
warent 8y ago
"The things that make for a great instagram feed or Bumble profile are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." Maybe it depends on the mindset and intent. After all, what is truly permanent in this life? If you approach traveling as a practice of impermanence and presence, then it can be a very broadening, empowering experience. Traveling can be an excellent lesson on the transient nature of life. Any one of us can lose everything in a moment without warning, no matter how well established or solid your home is. So from that perspective there actually is no trade-off because it's all the same.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
phyller 8y ago
Agreed, sounds like the advice is to put your fingers in your ears, and sing as loudly as you can to drown out the doubts and questions, instead of solving them. Saying that no, the life path you are on is great, stop doubting yourself, keep doing it. If you refuse to acknowledge you've made any mistakes you don't have to deal with reality. Some things take time and sacrifice to build. Family, friends, community. Most of us really need these things, but there is an opportunity cost to pay to get them. Sometimes we have all of it dumped in our lap and we take it for granted until it's gone. If you are willing to pay the price in time, effort, and emotion, you can rebuild it, but no guarantees.
jakobegger 8y ago
Polly tries to pick up the author and tell her everything will turn out fine, she just needs to relax a little. You're telling the author they indeed wasted their time and it's too late and it's their own damn fault. You're just being honest. I prefer Polly's advise.
gowld 8y ago
I don't see what's wrong with the quoted reply. Why is it so wrong to not settle down before 35? I have friends who were settled down, had kids, and divorced by 35; should we seek to emulate their experience over being single at 35? Of course not. Nor do I see what's wrong with responding to a question with a relevant and timely personal anecdote. > And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, Apple outlived Steve Jobs. Hamlet outlived Shakespeare. And anyway, why is it anyone's obligation to create something that outlives them. That's hubris.
- hayd 8y ago
  > to create something that outlives them It's part of the human condition.
- watwut 8y ago
  It is wrong, because it does not help with loneliness nor with feeling like your existence is pointless. It amounts to demand to not talk about it openly, because it would be not nice (or rude) to tell someone else that she/he is lonely etc.
- KSteffensen 8y ago
  No one is obliged to, but many people feel the need to build or contribute to something that will outlive them. That's not hubris, it's very human.
- paavoova 8y ago
  Arguably, the sole purpose of life is to procreate. You can live a purely unfulfilled life and die the most miserable wretch possible, but if your children have children, and their children do as well, and so on, it doesn't matter - genetics doesn't care (barring some kind of recessive hereditary illness responsible for this original misery). And perhaps this is why so many people get divorced, and even why there are so many bastard children and deadbeat fathers/parents: in some inherent way, such people have already fulfilled some unnamed biological goal and have no real incentive to pursue it further. Because a family, being a committed parent, is a societal abstraction that many need not bother with. Certainly you can see this in other animal species.
leroy_masochist 8y ago
I think that you and Polly are both correct in different ways. Your points on the time window of opportunity and the basic nature of tradeoffs is well-put and correct, and is the better advice to give younger people in the context of hearing this woman's story and reflecting on what the lessons are for them. I think Polly's advice is way more helpful for the actual woman who wrote the letter, though. Also the book plug was ham-handed, you're right.
hayd 8y ago
"treat yourself like a treasured child" isn't going to help with anyone's concerns or goals. It's vacuous. Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"... It's imperative to discuss with your partner your relationship requirements early, otherwise they're unlikely to meet them. If they don't coincide, either make peace or find someone else. We're not boomers, this generation will rely on their children much more than their parents generation needed to rely on them. Those without children are going to have a much harder time into "retirement", especially if they're living paycheck-to-paycheck.
- naravara 8y ago
  >Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"... I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time. I certainly would like to be hale and hearty enough to see my kids graduate college and be able to travel to visit my grandkids, for instance. Producing loin-fruit isn't the end-goal unless you have some kind of royal titles to pass on. For most of us it's just about raising a family.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    > I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time. I used to work with a woman who was 47 at the time, in a long-term committed relationship, and still pre-menopausal. She told me once that she and her partner have discussed the idea of having kids before she hits menopause, and they both ended up agreeing that it would be a bad idea because by the time the kids turn 18, she'll be 65 (and I don't know his age, but I met him a couple of times, and he looks to be around her age), and they wouldn't want any kids to have do deal with elderly parents at such a young age.
- kirsebaer 8y ago
  Are you actually expecting your kids to take care of you when you are a broke retiree?
rayiner 8y ago
I agree that this is bad advice. I'm 35. I've got a wife, two kids, and a weird house with tons of maintenance projects. My parents live five minutes away, and I spend most weekends at Home Depot or hanging out in my parents' living room with the kids. I work too much and don't sleep enough. And I'm blissfully happy. I say this is bad advice not because I think what makes me happy will make everyone happy. I know lots of people would find a life with kids in the suburbs stifling. But the "treasured child" type of advice makes the same mistake in the opposite direction. Our culture glamorizes a life of travel and adventure and experiences, but I think it dramatically underestimate the percentage of the population who find such a life unfulfilling and would be more fulfilled with roots and neighbors and a sense of place. "What would you tell your kid?" My dad traveled the world, visiting dozens of countries helping bring health care to the developing world. He told me that the most fulfilling thing he did in his life was raise two kids. That's very uncool to say these days. But kids are always best served by honesty. They will find fulfilling whatever it is that they find fulfilling. Maybe they'll live a life of experience and die happy. Or maybe the best thing they will ever do will be to make you grandkids. But you're not helping them figure things out by trying to sell them an aspirational version of reality.
- ppeetteerr 8y ago
  What if those who travel and live a nomad life aught not have kids?
  - steve-benjamins 8y ago
    He literally said "I know lots of people would find a life with kids in the suburbs stifling."
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - bartcobain 8y ago
    I guess the point, in general, is not to follow somebody else's story or the story that society narrates to most. The point of life is to go with your true will, whatever that is. For the comment above, it seems like he is blissfully happy because he has funded and followed is true will(as personal and empiric as it is). In the case of the author in the article, seems like root is the unsatisfied purpose in her life. The depression for the past, the anxiety about the future doesn't help with the present and like a snowball, it just gets worse with time.
danso 8y ago
I think it's worth quoting the author's book promotion in context (underscores added to show the size of the link): > Let me be more concrete: Promoting a book — which is what I’ve been doing since __my new book__ came out last month — is fun and exciting. You get to travel and meet new people. But there are aspects of it that feel a little corrosive. Too much focus on the self, on presentation, on sales numbers, on whether or not your work matters. The columnist is doing the relatively rare thing of going beyond vague platitudes (It’s not easy for anyone, no matter how many deep roots they might’ve nurtured.) and referencing her specific personal circumstance: that even as a touring author -- they kind of life every aspiring writer would kill for -- she has a constant fight against doubt and shame. Because she doesn't elaborate on what her book is about, nor mentions it again, I had to click through to find out -- a compilation of her "Ask Polly" columns, specifically on the topic of self-improvement. Polly's entire response, according to `wc`, is 2,337 words -- 1,700 of those words come after the link to her book. Sure, I can agree that she should've taken the time to link to her publisher page, instead of the Amazon link she seems to have bookmarked for sharing. But if she's trying to be honest about her life situation, how is she not supposed to mention being on promotional tour? That's what a writer's life is consumed by after publication: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/the-modern-face-of-book-tours/407641/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/th...
mmczaplinski 8y ago
Obviously, there is a tradeoff between the two ends of the spectrum that you've labelled travel and careerism... Here is another tradeoff for you to consider: One between telling an inspiring lie in order to pick someone up and being brutally honest about their life choices. If your "advice" is "you missed your chance, you're screwed", then that does not help anyone else either. Advice is as much about inspiring confidence and fostering a change in perspective as it is about dealing with the hard truths.
nostrademons 8y ago
"Polly's reply is so shameless (including promoting her own book in the reply) that it's incredible just how badly it missed the point." I think that was the point, given that the whole article was about letting go of shame. Making a subtly different point - "...are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." Who's to say what "live well" actually means? I mean, you & your friend may have an idea about what it looks like, and I may have an idea about what it looks like, and chances are they might even align. But that doesn't mean that every person needs the husband and kids and career success and creative accomplishments in that image. There's a strong revealed-preference argument that the original letter-writer wasn't actually into that; she should own those choices rather than assume her life needs to look like everyone else's life.
almost_usual 8y ago
> And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, like your children will. Earth is changing rapidly, I don't think it's a bad idea to travel and experience certain facets of life before they're extinct. Places or things you want to see in the future may not exist by then.
- simonh 8y ago
  But what is the long term value of seeing places and things, if the person experiencing them expires leaving nothing behind? I went on some great adventures as a young man, backpacking round the Middle East and later in a job that involved a lot of world travel. I always thought I'd do more of those things, and while I have enjoyed family life I felt I lost something when I settled down and had kids and a career. However, now that my kids are teenagers I can share my experiences of the world with them. We've been on some great holidays together, and have more planned. Those old adventures now have value, because they made me the person I am today and I can share that and leverage it in how I bring up my own children and shape their introduction to the world. Those experiences and the stories I have to tell and lessons I learned have acquired a new value, beyond merely myself.
stevew20 8y ago
I agree. This response is the author not knowing what to say, so employing all of her skills from her liberals arts degree to write a fluffy, "really positive response" that will make her readers feel warm and gooey. The actual advice is krok, and harmful to the OP, but I imagine it's creating lots of good feels and glassy eyes along her readership. This is why assholes are important in life. They don't care about how you feel enough to lie to you, this their advice is nearly always better than coming from "nice people".

Tade0 8y ago

Frankly I stopped reading the moment the book was mentioned. It feels off and insincere.

kempbellt 8y ago
I would think the same thing, if the book wasn't relevant to the topic being discussed. Providing a sincere response, and self-promoting are not mutually exclusive. It's more like "Hey! I wrote a book on this exact issue. I really hope it helps"
- barberousse 8y ago
  > It's more like "Hey! I wrote a book on this exact issue. I really hope it helps" Except that's your notion and not what Polly was doing with their book mention in the article. There it served as a way to kinda say, "Hey, I also share some insecurity issues with you, caused this by book I'm touring on right now, and oh, here's the link to it". There was no other nudging of Haunted to read the book.
- danso 8y ago
  The book is relevant to the topic being discussed, because the author talks about it to describe how she herself -- purportedly a successful published author -- has to fight off feeling inadequate, even though she's being paid by her publisher to travel cross-country to promote her book. Take out the mention that she's on book tour, and you no longer have a frame of reference about her self-shame.
hateful 8y ago
I did the same thing. In my mind I went "oh, there it is" and closed the tab. That's a shame, since the first half was quite harrowing.
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
  First part was probably embellished anyways. Anyone can make up a two part sob story style q&a for promotional purposes.
bartcobain 8y ago
From the promotion part, it just got obnoxious, egocentric and insincere.
Pica_soO 8y ago
Yes, to be honest, it feels like it caught the author of the reply off guard and downed him/her into a existential crisis, and to fend that demon off - the protection spell of success, the mantra of self-promotion was cast. Two lonely people meet in the public plaza, one walks home without its facade. But at least she is not as lonely as before. As lonely as the shining success story on the soap box. That pride in whatever-you-are-preach is so generic, so rehearsed, im sure, the author could have thrown this to a AA meeting or a junkie with the monkey on its back, without flinching.
jimijazz 8y ago
I can totally understand this, and it seems that a lot of the blog posts that make it to the top of HN are in some way self promoting the writer's work (be it music, IT consulting, their web-product, their music, etc). I guess it is a hard balance to strike between self-promotion and good content. Perhaps if the writer could be more open about the promotion stuff in the beginning of the article it wouldn't feel insincere.

mc32 8y ago

I’m reminded of a story an English tracher once related to us. A friend of the group decided to go off and teach English in Spain, had lots of fun and few worries, life was wonderful and friends back home felt “jealous”. But this person returned one day, many years later with little in the sense of career accomplishment and security (dunno what prompted the move back, age, money, career, crisis?). Moral was when they got back they realized all that “fun” time accomplished little but transitory happiness. They came back asking friends for job favors and so on.

8bitsrule 8y ago
'little but transitory happiness' There are many people in the world who will never know happiness. Life itself is transitory, 'accomplishment' is not a substitute for it, 'security' is a dream. Old men may say 'Youth is wasted on the young'; I say bravo to the young who drink life to the lees. When you sell today, can you be so sure of tomorrow?
- mc32 8y ago
  I guess thr issue with this person (and many others) is that they didn’t have a network, experience, etc., to fall back on in order to take steps to get back on track. Basically they would have to start from scratch. Teaching ESL in some far away place doesn’t buy you much either here or even there (unless you wanna continue in a dead-end job). Also, ESL teachers tend to be young. Older ones are rare and kids don’t prefer them-they like hip “older kids” to “teach them” not “dad”.
- wwweston 8y ago
  I think it's fair to say both viewpoints have merit. Building for the future allows one to accumulate resources and deploy them for meaningful goals, and is prone to a failure mode where one forgets how to be alive, or what is meaningful, trades away special capacity for enjoyment youth brings, and gambles against life ceasing before the building is done. Living for the moment leaves more room for present joys... and has a failure mode where one becomes unprepared for likely futures and arrives there to find the moment miserable. Does a wise person minimax, or do they balance? Does wisdom figure in, or do people simply externalize a neurological temperament?

throwanem 8y ago

Conceding your every point for the sake of argument: what use is any of that to 'Haunted' right now? It's hardly going to come as a surprise that adult life involves tradeoffs; she's speaking from a place where she has belatedly recognized that fact, and feels as if she's made every one of them wrongly. If the purpose is to help 'Haunted' - or those reading along who find 'Haunted' painfully relatable - make more of the years ahead of her than she has of those behind, where do you see this sort of thing making success in that purpose more likely?

SCAQTony 8y ago
"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." — Jean Paul Sartre, (French existentialist)
- throwanem 8y ago
  'Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.' — apocryphally also Sartre, but really who cares? Wisdom is wisdom. To your quote: responsibility, sure, but its corollary is authority, and they exist together in precisely identical degree. Just as we bear the burden, if it is one, of the stories we write of our lives - we do nonetheless retain the ability to write whatever stories of ourselves we choose. Sartre may consider that a condemnation. I can imagine no more liberating conception of life.
yters 8y ago
Perhaps advising other young women from her own experience? Then those years will not have been wasted. On the other hand, if no one learns from her mistake and makes the exact same mistake, then her years will have been wasted.
- throwanem 8y ago
  Certainly. But I am specifically asking 'simonsarris just whom it is he thinks he's helping here, and how, and why.

warent 8y ago

"The things that make for a great instagram feed or Bumble profile are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." Maybe it depends on the mindset and intent. After all, what is truly permanent in this life? If you approach traveling as a practice of impermanence and presence, then it can be a very broadening, empowering experience. Traveling can be an excellent lesson on the transient nature of life. Any one of us can lose everything in a moment without warning, no matter how well established or solid your home is. So from that perspective there actually is no trade-off because it's all the same.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

phyller 8y ago

Agreed, sounds like the advice is to put your fingers in your ears, and sing as loudly as you can to drown out the doubts and questions, instead of solving them. Saying that no, the life path you are on is great, stop doubting yourself, keep doing it. If you refuse to acknowledge you've made any mistakes you don't have to deal with reality. Some things take time and sacrifice to build. Family, friends, community. Most of us really need these things, but there is an opportunity cost to pay to get them. Sometimes we have all of it dumped in our lap and we take it for granted until it's gone. If you are willing to pay the price in time, effort, and emotion, you can rebuild it, but no guarantees.

jakobegger 8y ago

Polly tries to pick up the author and tell her everything will turn out fine, she just needs to relax a little. You're telling the author they indeed wasted their time and it's too late and it's their own damn fault. You're just being honest. I prefer Polly's advise.

gowld 8y ago

I don't see what's wrong with the quoted reply. Why is it so wrong to not settle down before 35? I have friends who were settled down, had kids, and divorced by 35; should we seek to emulate their experience over being single at 35? Of course not. Nor do I see what's wrong with responding to a question with a relevant and timely personal anecdote. > And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, Apple outlived Steve Jobs. Hamlet outlived Shakespeare. And anyway, why is it anyone's obligation to create something that outlives them. That's hubris.

hayd 8y ago
> to create something that outlives them It's part of the human condition.
watwut 8y ago
It is wrong, because it does not help with loneliness nor with feeling like your existence is pointless. It amounts to demand to not talk about it openly, because it would be not nice (or rude) to tell someone else that she/he is lonely etc.
KSteffensen 8y ago
No one is obliged to, but many people feel the need to build or contribute to something that will outlive them. That's not hubris, it's very human.
paavoova 8y ago
Arguably, the sole purpose of life is to procreate. You can live a purely unfulfilled life and die the most miserable wretch possible, but if your children have children, and their children do as well, and so on, it doesn't matter - genetics doesn't care (barring some kind of recessive hereditary illness responsible for this original misery). And perhaps this is why so many people get divorced, and even why there are so many bastard children and deadbeat fathers/parents: in some inherent way, such people have already fulfilled some unnamed biological goal and have no real incentive to pursue it further. Because a family, being a committed parent, is a societal abstraction that many need not bother with. Certainly you can see this in other animal species.

leroy_masochist 8y ago

I think that you and Polly are both correct in different ways. Your points on the time window of opportunity and the basic nature of tradeoffs is well-put and correct, and is the better advice to give younger people in the context of hearing this woman's story and reflecting on what the lessons are for them. I think Polly's advice is way more helpful for the actual woman who wrote the letter, though. Also the book plug was ham-handed, you're right.

hayd 8y ago

"treat yourself like a treasured child" isn't going to help with anyone's concerns or goals. It's vacuous. Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"... It's imperative to discuss with your partner your relationship requirements early, otherwise they're unlikely to meet them. If they don't coincide, either make peace or find someone else. We're not boomers, this generation will rely on their children much more than their parents generation needed to rely on them. Those without children are going to have a much harder time into "retirement", especially if they're living paycheck-to-paycheck.

naravara 8y ago
>Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"... I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time. I certainly would like to be hale and hearty enough to see my kids graduate college and be able to travel to visit my grandkids, for instance. Producing loin-fruit isn't the end-goal unless you have some kind of royal titles to pass on. For most of us it's just about raising a family.
- amyjess 8y ago
  > I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time. I used to work with a woman who was 47 at the time, in a long-term committed relationship, and still pre-menopausal. She told me once that she and her partner have discussed the idea of having kids before she hits menopause, and they both ended up agreeing that it would be a bad idea because by the time the kids turn 18, she'll be 65 (and I don't know his age, but I met him a couple of times, and he looks to be around her age), and they wouldn't want any kids to have do deal with elderly parents at such a young age.
kirsebaer 8y ago
Are you actually expecting your kids to take care of you when you are a broke retiree?

rayiner 8y ago

I agree that this is bad advice. I'm 35. I've got a wife, two kids, and a weird house with tons of maintenance projects. My parents live five minutes away, and I spend most weekends at Home Depot or hanging out in my parents' living room with the kids. I work too much and don't sleep enough. And I'm blissfully happy. I say this is bad advice not because I think what makes me happy will make everyone happy. I know lots of people would find a life with kids in the suburbs stifling. But the "treasured child" type of advice makes the same mistake in the opposite direction. Our culture glamorizes a life of travel and adventure and experiences, but I think it dramatically underestimate the percentage of the population who find such a life unfulfilling and would be more fulfilled with roots and neighbors and a sense of place. "What would you tell your kid?" My dad traveled the world, visiting dozens of countries helping bring health care to the developing world. He told me that the most fulfilling thing he did in his life was raise two kids. That's very uncool to say these days. But kids are always best served by honesty. They will find fulfilling whatever it is that they find fulfilling. Maybe they'll live a life of experience and die happy. Or maybe the best thing they will ever do will be to make you grandkids. But you're not helping them figure things out by trying to sell them an aspirational version of reality.

ppeetteerr 8y ago
What if those who travel and live a nomad life aught not have kids?
- steve-benjamins 8y ago
  He literally said "I know lots of people would find a life with kids in the suburbs stifling."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bartcobain 8y ago
  I guess the point, in general, is not to follow somebody else's story or the story that society narrates to most. The point of life is to go with your true will, whatever that is. For the comment above, it seems like he is blissfully happy because he has funded and followed is true will(as personal and empiric as it is). In the case of the author in the article, seems like root is the unsatisfied purpose in her life. The depression for the past, the anxiety about the future doesn't help with the present and like a snowball, it just gets worse with time.

danso 8y ago

I think it's worth quoting the author's book promotion in context (underscores added to show the size of the link): > Let me be more concrete: Promoting a book — which is what I’ve been doing since __my new book__ came out last month — is fun and exciting. You get to travel and meet new people. But there are aspects of it that feel a little corrosive. Too much focus on the self, on presentation, on sales numbers, on whether or not your work matters. The columnist is doing the relatively rare thing of going beyond vague platitudes (It’s not easy for anyone, no matter how many deep roots they might’ve nurtured.) and referencing her specific personal circumstance: that even as a touring author -- they kind of life every aspiring writer would kill for -- she has a constant fight against doubt and shame. Because she doesn't elaborate on what her book is about, nor mentions it again, I had to click through to find out -- a compilation of her "Ask Polly" columns, specifically on the topic of self-improvement. Polly's entire response, according to `wc`, is 2,337 words -- 1,700 of those words come after the link to her book. Sure, I can agree that she should've taken the time to link to her publisher page, instead of the Amazon link she seems to have bookmarked for sharing. But if she's trying to be honest about her life situation, how is she not supposed to mention being on promotional tour? That's what a writer's life is consumed by after publication: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/the-modern-face-of-book-tours/407641/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/th...

mmczaplinski 8y ago

Obviously, there is a tradeoff between the two ends of the spectrum that you've labelled travel and careerism... Here is another tradeoff for you to consider: One between telling an inspiring lie in order to pick someone up and being brutally honest about their life choices. If your "advice" is "you missed your chance, you're screwed", then that does not help anyone else either. Advice is as much about inspiring confidence and fostering a change in perspective as it is about dealing with the hard truths.

nostrademons 8y ago

"Polly's reply is so shameless (including promoting her own book in the reply) that it's incredible just how badly it missed the point." I think that was the point, given that the whole article was about letting go of shame. Making a subtly different point - "...are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." Who's to say what "live well" actually means? I mean, you & your friend may have an idea about what it looks like, and I may have an idea about what it looks like, and chances are they might even align. But that doesn't mean that every person needs the husband and kids and career success and creative accomplishments in that image. There's a strong revealed-preference argument that the original letter-writer wasn't actually into that; she should own those choices rather than assume her life needs to look like everyone else's life.

almost_usual 8y ago

> And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, like your children will. Earth is changing rapidly, I don't think it's a bad idea to travel and experience certain facets of life before they're extinct. Places or things you want to see in the future may not exist by then.

simonh 8y ago
But what is the long term value of seeing places and things, if the person experiencing them expires leaving nothing behind? I went on some great adventures as a young man, backpacking round the Middle East and later in a job that involved a lot of world travel. I always thought I'd do more of those things, and while I have enjoyed family life I felt I lost something when I settled down and had kids and a career. However, now that my kids are teenagers I can share my experiences of the world with them. We've been on some great holidays together, and have more planned. Those old adventures now have value, because they made me the person I am today and I can share that and leverage it in how I bring up my own children and shape their introduction to the world. Those experiences and the stories I have to tell and lessons I learned have acquired a new value, beyond merely myself.

stevew20 8y ago

I agree. This response is the author not knowing what to say, so employing all of her skills from her liberals arts degree to write a fluffy, "really positive response" that will make her readers feel warm and gooey. The actual advice is krok, and harmful to the OP, but I imagine it's creating lots of good feels and glassy eyes along her readership. This is why assholes are important in life. They don't care about how you feel enough to lie to you, this their advice is nearly always better than coming from "nice people".