It does change your life in a lot of ways, and is one of the 'big divisions' in one's lifetime (before/after things like marriage, college, kids, Etc.) What I

It does change your life in a lot of ways, and is one of the 'big divisions' in one's lifetime (before/after things like marriage, college, kids, Etc.) What I like about this essay was Paul's ability to understand that he really didn't understand, on a fundamental level, the point of view of parents before he was one. I think every engineer I have known both before and after they had kids had this same shift of perception. An interesting variant was one of my friends who married a woman who already had kids and grew into the perception over time rather than "all at once" as so many who were present at the birth of their first child do. In discussions here and on other forums it is easy to spot the difference in responses from those who are parents and those who are not. It really is a different way of thinking. My wife stated the obvious to me when I was going on about how amazing this change was. Her comment was "Well maybe if your boobs doubled in size in the 9 months before the birth you would have figured out that things were getting ready for this new state of affairs." Changes in your view on the world are less visible but quite profound.