20 ms·

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful people I know, and it is comforting to be aware that we will be part of each others' lives forever. I spent a lot of time in assisted living facilities with my mother as her health failed, and I saw a lot of old people in those facilities with no one to visit them. It is comforting to know that I will not spend my final years in loneliness and isolation. Our grandchildren are an unalloyed joy. We have two 3-year-old identical twin grand-daughters, and they are working their way through the nuances and finer points of grammar. It is indescribably adorable to see their efforts at expressing their detailed and elaborate thoughts. My grandsons are seriously into aviation, and I've become the go-to aerodynamics consultant. Our four-year-old asked me with great seriousness, "Grand-dad, why is the horizontal stabilizer always shorter than the wings?" Another time, the family was at the beach. He, his dad, and I were looking out at the ocean. He asked, "What are waves?" Darn good questions! No rose-colored glasses fantasy here: I've found that your children can break your heart and devastate you just as well as bring you unfathomable joy. My daughter (a black-belt IP lawyer now), when she was about four, wandered off in a crowded video game arcade, and we searched through the crowds for her for about ten minutes, with growing panic and horror. We found her and all was fine. Fact is, if you love someone as much as you end up loving your children and grandchildren, their decisions and choices will have profound effects on you. My therapist observes that you are only as happy as your least happy child. So, the decision about whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences. I highly recommend it.

philshem 6y ago
Thank you for sharing. I'd like to add my experience that being a parent has made me a better child.
- godfreyantonell 6y ago
  Definitely my experience as well.
globular-toast 6y ago
A lot of those people alone in care homes have children. They just don't care. You can never know what the future holds so make reasonable plans but above all just enjoy your life and make yourself useful while you can. You have a therapist so you're not really selling the whole child lifestyle to me.
- novia 6y ago
  Therapy ≠ dysfunction
  - freetanga 6y ago
    Shh, you don’t tell that to people scared of assuming their own weaknesses...
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  This is true. A lot of folks are disgustingly bad at parenting and then expect eternal love. It does not work like that.
- asiachick 6y ago
  Only tangentially related but, speaking of taking care of people in their old age, my mother is taking care of my step father and she's clearly not happy about it. She's only got one life to live and she's stuck staying at home with him until he dies or at least that's seems to be how she feels. Maybe to be put it another way she can't get herself to check him into an old folks home and effectively leave him so she can enjoy the last few years of her own life while she's still able to. She's healthy enough she could travel and do things that she want's but feels she has to stay put until he passes. That could be tomorrow or 5 years from now. 8 years ago they said he had 3 years to live. That doesn't mean she doesn't love him but she does feel somewhat trapped. I suppose my sister and I could help her and volunteer to watch over him for a week or two at a time though neither of us have jobs that would let us do that. But also, she married this man after we were both adults so while we like him as a person we feel no obligation like we might if he was our father or even the step father that raised us. Instead to us he's basically our mom's boyfriend. It does make me think what I would do if I was him. Would I be self aware enough to check myself into an old folks home to let my wife or kids not have to take care of me? I believe I'd personally feel horrible by restricting the life of my loved ones. I'm sure I'd also feel horrible if they all abandoned me. I don't know which is worse. My currently healthy self wants to believe I'd value their freedom over my needs but my, future "old and needs constant care" self will probably feel different.
nostromo 6y ago
This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys of success. It’s absolutely correct, but it’s also just one data point. Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I’m not sure it’s a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be lonely in old age, because it need not be true.
- mlyle 6y ago
  A different view from one engaged in parenting 3 boys (11, 9, 6): Having kids is very little fun. It is work. But helping new people to be the best people they can be is fulfilling, joyful work. We're having one of our roughly weekly sleepovers tonight where we all spread out cots on the family room floor. (Everyone falls asleep before me, and so sometimes I make my way online). I like this time because we have a long talk about the world as they get sleepy and settled. Now I hear all these people I deeply love breathe and shift and sleep and feel contentment. Tomorrow there will be problems to solve. As they grow older, the problems become less frequent... and more complicated. I sure hope they continue to be a big part of my life in their adulthood, but that's not exactly why one does it.
  - aurbano 6y ago
    I'm half way through "The Course of Love" by Alain de Botton and I think it's an amazing read for anyone with children, or thinking about having them (coming from someone yet to have them!)
  - voicedYoda 6y ago
    I love this sleepover idea! Will have to try it out maybe tonight
- mirimir 6y ago
  I have another data point. A dear friend died last month, after about two weeks in hospice. She had no children, but she did live in a large cohousing community. We did our best to manage visitors, but sometimes there were 5-10 people waiting to spend time with her. Which stressed the staff, and annoyed other residents. So anyway, children aren't the only path.
watwut 6y ago
Hacker news section however is not rational nor logical whenever topic of relationships comes out.
- mettamage 6y ago
  I've seen this weird thing with some people who state they are logical and then suddenly when it is about relationships they become illogical as hell. I'm not saying I'm logical in this regard, but I find it easy to notice in others. I simply look for a clearly wrong assumption they have (look up the 10 cognitive distortions [1]). See which one they have, propose a way to test the assumption and potential pitfalls (most of the time fear) and then tell them to test it. The answer won't be a "no". In my experience the answer will be something like "but that's just clearly nonsense." I've noticed that they do this without any data, it's purely based on thoughts based from their teenage years and they simply don't realize it. It's hard to be rational on all topics. As we haven't learned to be rational/logical on all topics and I do think that, to some extent, our knowledge doesn't easily spill over into other topics (Antonio's Damasio hypothesis that has a neurological basis is a pretty interesting example of that [2]). [1] https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-cognitive-distortions-identified-in-cbt-22412 https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-cognitive-distortions-ident... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis
  - kitd 6y ago
    Tbh, the topic of having kids is probably the least likely to involve reason anyway, other than for those who enjoy economic modelling. Having kids is probably the most emotionally-directed impulse we have, given its DNA-rooted origin.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I'm not sure having children so you won't be lonely in old age is a good thing.
- Insanity 6y ago
  It also assumes a good relationship with your children which may not always be the case. Or that your children live (relatively) close to you.
  - ido 6y ago
    As a parent the quality of your relationship with your children is something you can very much influence (though you should probably start when they are still kids).
- rickdangerous1 6y ago
  Well, you're going against the forces of history itself, when say such things. People have been thinking along these lines forever.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Part of the beauty of being human is the capacity to not do things just because our forebears did them too.
    - kunai 6y ago
      Someone once told me that tradition just consists of the personality quirks of our ancestors. I don't necessarily agree with it in the majority of instances but it was eye-opening. The line between tradition/superstition is thin.
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Going against the forces of history itself is grand.
    - 6y ago
onion2k 6y ago
This isn't an uncommon point of view, and that's unfortunate. It's incredibly sad to hear people fearful of loneliness in old age, and even sadder to see people decide the solution is to oblige their children to spend time with them rather than seek meaningful cross-generational friendships with people who want to spend time with you. This is a genuine problem, and one that maybe tech could actually partially solve by bring adults of different ages together in ways that build friendships rather than accepting the only way to not be lonely is to rely on your family.
- ido 6y ago
  If this is all you've taken from the above than we've read 2 very different comments. The point about lonely old people is only 1 (and i would say not the most significant) point in the argument. I have a wife and 2 (small) children. There is nobody in the world I love more than my family - it used to be only my wife previously and now grew from 1 person to 3. This has such a profound effect on my happiness now (in my 30s) that even if I die suddenly at age 55 (long before becoming a lonely old man) it would still have been worth it. Yes you should also have friends & if they are of various ages that's even better. You dont need tech to do that either, although it is probably difficult if you live somewhere far from other people (and some developments like fenced off suburbs with no city centers make that harder still). But that is independent of the argument if you should or should not also have kids. You can have kids and friends!
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    I think you should definitely have friends, with or without kids. But from I see around me, I get the impression that having friends is difficult. Even more so when people have to juggle kids and a career. There's a certain isolation that seems to set in. I'm sure a lot of people don't have the kids with the purpose of not being alone in old age. But I also get that there's some kind of "soft expectation", for lack of a better term, that your "family" will kind of stick around, especially when you're alone because raising said family more or less led to a falling out with old friends. There's also the factor that when people get old, their own friends may have gotten old and died. Where I live I don't see many "intergenerational friendships". Granted, I'm not a very social person so I don't really seek the society of others, but from what I see around me people tend to hang out with people of roughly the same age. There also seem to be a lot of loose friendships, in that people would get together more or less often, have a good time &c, but those are not relationships one would be able to depend on in case of a problem. I think your point about fenced-off suburbs is quite important though. I figure that once people get older, it's much easier for them to try to hang out with other people if they all live more or less close-by. Such as joining some kind of club. Even if it won't become some very close friendship, at least they're less likely to feel as lonely as people in the suburbs.
cconcepts 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. Reminded me of this: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” CS Lewis
steve_adams_86 6y ago
There’s not much as (or more) engaging, provocative, and gratifying as my children asking those questions. Knowing they’re experiencing wonder. Knowing they look at the world and have questions like I did and still do. Why these things matter, what any of it means, that doesn’t need to matter really. I just love knowing that they have the same curiosity and wonder that has given me so much happiness for decades. It’s incredible how relevant and hard to answer some of the early questions are. What are waves? How do objects maintain flight? It’s not just that, but the nature of the questions. They know what waves and wings are, but they want to know things about them. That’s kind of the pinnacle of human intelligence right there. The ability to care to, and then to ask, such interesting and important questions. There would be no progress without wondering about things that matter, or things with significant answers anyway. I’d have a lot less grey hair if it weren’t for my kids but things like this are what made my life matter. I love this about kids, and I enjoyed your comment.
mahaganapati 6y ago
> The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. Have we been reading the same version of Hacker News?
zeepzeep 6y ago
> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.
- lqet 6y ago
  > I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. I have posted the following a few years ago: > My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear annihilation in the next 10 years. I am glad they did. Today, as a father, I would add: as a potential parent, you are in no position to decide that your future children, grandchildren or great^x-grandchildren won't be glad to be alive. You don't know them, and most importantly you do not know and you cannot know about their world. In my opinion, this argument is nothing more but a convenient excuse to avoid the stress of bringing up kids. It is a valid reason to not want any kids because of the stress, but please don't rationalize yourself into peace of conscience by assuming that you can look into the future.
  - zeepzeep 6y ago
    > assuming that you can look into the future. That's why I said "even the current world isn't".
    - lqet 6y ago
      But you don't bring kids into this world. You bring them into the world of the future, even if this future is only 9 months away.
    - ddorian43 6y ago
      Do you want to live in this world ?
wiz21c 6y ago
>>> we searched through the crowds for her for about ten minutes, with growing panic and horror In comparable circumstances, it took me half that time to grow panic :-)
digitalcraft 6y ago
"What are waves?" pleasantly surreal
greggman3 6y ago
I'm generally on your end of the spectrum with regards to children and I always hoped to have some. But, I've met plenty of people who absolutely detests their parents and visa versa, their parents detest them and they are mean and rotten to each other. So YMMV as far as the entire topic goes.
CalRobert 6y ago
Thank you for sharing this. I hope my children bring their grandparents as much joy as you do. Speaking of this - "tends to be factual, rational, and logical." - do you worry much about what the world will look like when your grandchildren are middle aged? I spent probably too much time concerned with rising authoritarianism, climate breakdown, shortages of food and water resulting from same, and their resulting wars, and it brings a tinge of panic to my thoughts on their future. I certainly stress out about this far, far more than before I was a parent. I don't really know how best to address it, aside from trying to live in a way resilient to those things, and am curious how you think about this things given the obvious joy in your post (and again, thank you for sharing this; it brought joy to my own day).
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
  I think about this question often as I now have a 2yo and 4yo. It used to stress me out, but now I realize that no matter how bad it gets, it will almost certainly be better than anything any human had to deal with in pre-modern civilization. Even with all the possible negative things coming, the tools we have acquired as a species would be incomprehensible to anyone say pre-5000 years ago. We are alive such a short blip of geological time and tend to get lost in the brief frames. The ability to bring a life into this world, even if it's harder than we have it right now, is still giving someone an opportunity to learn and experience things beyond wonder. Our technology is sufficiently advanced to be magic to anyone who died like pre-1990. Yes we have challenges ahead, yes a bunch of people will die and be displaced and people will be scared and think it's the end, but even if the population shrinks to 1 billion people the human spirit will endure and figure it out. Personally, I'd much rather experience life than none at all--even if it wasn't at the top of existence.
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    I like this perspective! In the end my wife and I ultimately said "well either civilisation persists OK-ish and we'll regret not having kids, or this is it and in the grand scheme of things what does it matter if they go down swinging?" So far, I am glad we had them.
whinybastard 6y ago
This is a great take, but also one that will change rapidly as the US is reaching Europe- and japan levels of aging. After precipitous falls in birth rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to expect that children will be taking care of elderly parents, especially for a long and protracted "third age". This is a default expectation in the current generations but i think younger people have different expectations for themselves and their children's lives. This presents an opportunity where technology can make (and is making) a difference. It is also the reason why we want Longevity biotech to make our healthspan equal to our lifespans. We are already seeing the need of this during the COVID shutdowns
a_imho 6y ago
There was this post not too long ago by lordleft which I thought was really beautiful and resonated with me. The decision to have kids is a lot like the decision to continue living. There is no logical basis for it. Or rather, any latticework of logic you erect to justify this choice is based on a foundation that has nothing to do with reason. It is an emotional and spiritual desire to live and love, and give more life and more love to the world. That's why I when see people engage in complex rational calculations about the utility a child may or may not bring into their life, I feel like they are missing the point. Of course people ought to be thoughtful about the decision to have children. And there are very good reasons to abstain. But in a sense they are not grasping that having children is a profound act of hope. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21790570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21790570
- kinderrationale 6y ago
  But you do not increase the net love of the world. That’s wrong. It’s an emotional decision to be selfish and self-serving and do something that you want to do regardless of whether that child wants to exist. Nothing more. To create life is to create death and so at best neutral but not knowing the quality of that life or that death poses a serious risk that a decision to have children increases the net suffering of the world not love.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    Just because you can not be absolutely certain doesn't mean it's a coin toss with both options being equally reasonable. If someone wants to stop existing, they have the power to make that happen, while the converse is not true, thus choosing to assume someone wants to exist is safer. The overwhelming majority of people want to exist and the few who don't tend to be in situations where it easily could have been foreseen that life would be problematic; if you've lived a mostly happy life for a few decades, odds are pretty good that your offspring will do the same, thus statistically choosing to bring someone into the world is far more likely to be what they want. But going further, the idea that death negates the benefits of life is absurd. If you read a book and are sad when it ends, that means it was a good book, and you are better off for having experienced it. The ending does not annihilate the story, it completes it. And if the story should have some bad writing in it, that may be undesireable, but all the good writing is still there to be enjoyed. No matter how bad life seems to get, the good moments still happened and they can never be taken away from you. Sure we'd all like to avoid unnecessary suffering and postpone death for as long as possible, but only because we would rather fill that time with the joys of life - if you had to choose between experiencing extreme pain periodically or spending the rest of your life in an inescapable coma, you'd certainly choose the former. Non-existance is not a pleasant alternative to life, it is a fate at least as bad as death, if there is any distinction at all.
xattt 6y ago
I have to add on the loneliness piece. I worked/work in long-term and medical/surgical settings. The number of people who have health problems that are exacerbated by their lack of social connection is staggering. There is also a second nuance where those who follow similar health patterns of the former had immediate family that were “functionally absent” for a large portion of their life (primarily mental health or result of psychosocial trauma). There is also survivorship bias here too, in that I treat patients because they are sick and I don’t get to see the “lonely” individuals who function well in the community. My decade of experience as a registered nurse made me fear in spending my twilight years only to be “beloved by my nieces and nephews”.
ryder9 6y ago
>The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. lmfao
scottoreily 6y ago
What an incredible amount of privilege you got there
seddin 6y ago
How young were you when you got married and when you started having kids?
fullstop 6y ago
I have two daughters, in their teens, and both have said that they are not interested in having children. I'm glad that they are giving both thought and pause here, but I'm also secretly hoping that they change their minds when the time is right for them. I'd be happy with and without grandchildren, but it would be incredible to be able to give all of the love that I can when I am retired, when I have less going on in my life and the time to do so.
- jaspax 6y ago
  FWIW, teenagers are unlikely to have a solid grasp of what their actual future choices will be. I know multiple people from high school or college who originally expressed a desire to never has kids, but are now delighted to have them.
  - bing_dai 6y ago
    On the other hand: there must be people who decided they wanted children in high school, but later regret it. I find it unfair that the society often consider people being "too young; may change mind later" when they say they do not want children; but we don't apply the same standards to young people who want children.
- bing_dai 6y ago
  May I suggest you consider fostering a child? Or spending more time as an educator of some sort (through teaching, mentoring, etc.)? There are definitely ways for you to give love to a younger generation that does not involve your daughters decision to have children or not.
  - fullstop 6y ago
    Yes, I've certainly considered it.. but I still have some time there. My oldest is only 16, and her decisions now are certainly not indelible.
EntitledParent 6y ago
> I highly recommend it. So do most parents. Why? Misery loves company. The entitlement of parents knows no bounds. Have kids to make yourself happy. Have kids to experience true joy. Have kids to take care of you when you’re old. Have kids to know real love.
iJohnDoe 6y ago
Thanks for your great comment. Not sure why people are only focusing on the final years of loneliness part. It was only one part and to me it was clear that you love spending time with all of your family and look forward to every second you have with them.
noarchy 6y ago
>The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. To a fault, perhaps. Humour is frowned upon, while overly pedantic comments are upvoted. Far too many comments uphold the stereotypes about engineers. I wouldn't expect a standard conversation about children to be possible here, both for good and bad.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
> My therapist observes that you are only as happy as your least happy child. I am not a parent (yet?), but this sounds very true based on what my parents always told me. By the way, thanks for your comment. It might not be "in line" with other comments, but I found it genuine and heartfelt. And it enriched me.
Diederich 6y ago
This is altogether lovely, thank you. What follows isn't as much of a direct reply just some thoughts motivated by your post. My wife and I met when we were in our 30s, neither of us having ever been in a serious relationship, and both of us having given up ever being married, not to mention having kids. We're both fairly clear-eyed and long-term environmentalist types, and we know how big an impact every person brought into the western world has. We decided to have a single birth child, and then adopt a second. We had our son, who turns 18 in a couple of months, though various circumstances caused us to not adopt. Our wonderful son is on the autistic spectrum; he's nearly six feet, two inches tall, with a beautiful, kind spirit, but his emotional and intellectual development is several years behind. We never made the mistake of piling up expectations on or toward him. We're fine with the strong possibility that he will likely never materially achieve in ways similar to his parents. He is loved and he loves us. My wife and I have, on average, another 30 years in this life. If our son is living with us for the next 30 years, that's fine. It would be our honor. He continues to grow and mature; there's at least a good chance that he could end up moving out and going his own way in some number of years. That would also make us very happy.
wellpast 6y ago
I didn’t want children but my now-wife was persistent. We even separated for a year because I didn’t want children. The only way I was able to have my so far two children was by pretending it wasn’t a choice of mine — and now of course I have zero regrets. The idea that we can “choose” to have kids is somewhat ridiculous I think. (I realize this is counterintuitive.) But there is no calculus at all that can incorporate any meaningful “data” into that decision. If you don’t believe me consider that I didn’t want kids but just went through having them and my joy at this happening to me could not have been understood by any upfront rational thinking. There is no free will in this domain.

philshem 6y ago

Thank you for sharing. I'd like to add my experience that being a parent has made me a better child.

godfreyantonell 6y ago
Definitely my experience as well.

globular-toast 6y ago

A lot of those people alone in care homes have children. They just don't care. You can never know what the future holds so make reasonable plans but above all just enjoy your life and make yourself useful while you can. You have a therapist so you're not really selling the whole child lifestyle to me.

novia 6y ago
Therapy ≠ dysfunction
- freetanga 6y ago
  Shh, you don’t tell that to people scared of assuming their own weaknesses...
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
This is true. A lot of folks are disgustingly bad at parenting and then expect eternal love. It does not work like that.
asiachick 6y ago
Only tangentially related but, speaking of taking care of people in their old age, my mother is taking care of my step father and she's clearly not happy about it. She's only got one life to live and she's stuck staying at home with him until he dies or at least that's seems to be how she feels. Maybe to be put it another way she can't get herself to check him into an old folks home and effectively leave him so she can enjoy the last few years of her own life while she's still able to. She's healthy enough she could travel and do things that she want's but feels she has to stay put until he passes. That could be tomorrow or 5 years from now. 8 years ago they said he had 3 years to live. That doesn't mean she doesn't love him but she does feel somewhat trapped. I suppose my sister and I could help her and volunteer to watch over him for a week or two at a time though neither of us have jobs that would let us do that. But also, she married this man after we were both adults so while we like him as a person we feel no obligation like we might if he was our father or even the step father that raised us. Instead to us he's basically our mom's boyfriend. It does make me think what I would do if I was him. Would I be self aware enough to check myself into an old folks home to let my wife or kids not have to take care of me? I believe I'd personally feel horrible by restricting the life of my loved ones. I'm sure I'd also feel horrible if they all abandoned me. I don't know which is worse. My currently healthy self wants to believe I'd value their freedom over my needs but my, future "old and needs constant care" self will probably feel different.

nostromo 6y ago

This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys of success. It’s absolutely correct, but it’s also just one data point. Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I’m not sure it’s a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be lonely in old age, because it need not be true.

mlyle 6y ago
A different view from one engaged in parenting 3 boys (11, 9, 6): Having kids is very little fun. It is work. But helping new people to be the best people they can be is fulfilling, joyful work. We're having one of our roughly weekly sleepovers tonight where we all spread out cots on the family room floor. (Everyone falls asleep before me, and so sometimes I make my way online). I like this time because we have a long talk about the world as they get sleepy and settled. Now I hear all these people I deeply love breathe and shift and sleep and feel contentment. Tomorrow there will be problems to solve. As they grow older, the problems become less frequent... and more complicated. I sure hope they continue to be a big part of my life in their adulthood, but that's not exactly why one does it.
- aurbano 6y ago
  I'm half way through "The Course of Love" by Alain de Botton and I think it's an amazing read for anyone with children, or thinking about having them (coming from someone yet to have them!)
- voicedYoda 6y ago
  I love this sleepover idea! Will have to try it out maybe tonight
mirimir 6y ago
I have another data point. A dear friend died last month, after about two weeks in hospice. She had no children, but she did live in a large cohousing community. We did our best to manage visitors, but sometimes there were 5-10 people waiting to spend time with her. Which stressed the staff, and annoyed other residents. So anyway, children aren't the only path.

watwut 6y ago

Hacker news section however is not rational nor logical whenever topic of relationships comes out.

mettamage 6y ago
I've seen this weird thing with some people who state they are logical and then suddenly when it is about relationships they become illogical as hell. I'm not saying I'm logical in this regard, but I find it easy to notice in others. I simply look for a clearly wrong assumption they have (look up the 10 cognitive distortions [1]). See which one they have, propose a way to test the assumption and potential pitfalls (most of the time fear) and then tell them to test it. The answer won't be a "no". In my experience the answer will be something like "but that's just clearly nonsense." I've noticed that they do this without any data, it's purely based on thoughts based from their teenage years and they simply don't realize it. It's hard to be rational on all topics. As we haven't learned to be rational/logical on all topics and I do think that, to some extent, our knowledge doesn't easily spill over into other topics (Antonio's Damasio hypothesis that has a neurological basis is a pretty interesting example of that [2]). [1] https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-cognitive-distortions-identified-in-cbt-22412 https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-cognitive-distortions-ident... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis
- kitd 6y ago
  Tbh, the topic of having kids is probably the least likely to involve reason anyway, other than for those who enjoy economic modelling. Having kids is probably the most emotionally-directed impulse we have, given its DNA-rooted origin.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I'm not sure having children so you won't be lonely in old age is a good thing.

Insanity 6y ago
It also assumes a good relationship with your children which may not always be the case. Or that your children live (relatively) close to you.
- ido 6y ago
  As a parent the quality of your relationship with your children is something you can very much influence (though you should probably start when they are still kids).
rickdangerous1 6y ago
Well, you're going against the forces of history itself, when say such things. People have been thinking along these lines forever.
- fastball 6y ago
  Part of the beauty of being human is the capacity to not do things just because our forebears did them too.
  - kunai 6y ago
    Someone once told me that tradition just consists of the personality quirks of our ancestors. I don't necessarily agree with it in the majority of instances but it was eye-opening. The line between tradition/superstition is thin.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Going against the forces of history itself is grand.
  - 6y ago

onion2k 6y ago

This isn't an uncommon point of view, and that's unfortunate. It's incredibly sad to hear people fearful of loneliness in old age, and even sadder to see people decide the solution is to oblige their children to spend time with them rather than seek meaningful cross-generational friendships with people who want to spend time with you. This is a genuine problem, and one that maybe tech could actually partially solve by bring adults of different ages together in ways that build friendships rather than accepting the only way to not be lonely is to rely on your family.

ido 6y ago
If this is all you've taken from the above than we've read 2 very different comments. The point about lonely old people is only 1 (and i would say not the most significant) point in the argument. I have a wife and 2 (small) children. There is nobody in the world I love more than my family - it used to be only my wife previously and now grew from 1 person to 3. This has such a profound effect on my happiness now (in my 30s) that even if I die suddenly at age 55 (long before becoming a lonely old man) it would still have been worth it. Yes you should also have friends & if they are of various ages that's even better. You dont need tech to do that either, although it is probably difficult if you live somewhere far from other people (and some developments like fenced off suburbs with no city centers make that harder still). But that is independent of the argument if you should or should not also have kids. You can have kids and friends!
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  I think you should definitely have friends, with or without kids. But from I see around me, I get the impression that having friends is difficult. Even more so when people have to juggle kids and a career. There's a certain isolation that seems to set in. I'm sure a lot of people don't have the kids with the purpose of not being alone in old age. But I also get that there's some kind of "soft expectation", for lack of a better term, that your "family" will kind of stick around, especially when you're alone because raising said family more or less led to a falling out with old friends. There's also the factor that when people get old, their own friends may have gotten old and died. Where I live I don't see many "intergenerational friendships". Granted, I'm not a very social person so I don't really seek the society of others, but from what I see around me people tend to hang out with people of roughly the same age. There also seem to be a lot of loose friendships, in that people would get together more or less often, have a good time &c, but those are not relationships one would be able to depend on in case of a problem. I think your point about fenced-off suburbs is quite important though. I figure that once people get older, it's much easier for them to try to hang out with other people if they all live more or less close-by. Such as joining some kind of club. Even if it won't become some very close friendship, at least they're less likely to feel as lonely as people in the suburbs.

cconcepts 6y ago

Thanks for sharing. Reminded me of this: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” CS Lewis

steve_adams_86 6y ago

There’s not much as (or more) engaging, provocative, and gratifying as my children asking those questions. Knowing they’re experiencing wonder. Knowing they look at the world and have questions like I did and still do. Why these things matter, what any of it means, that doesn’t need to matter really. I just love knowing that they have the same curiosity and wonder that has given me so much happiness for decades. It’s incredible how relevant and hard to answer some of the early questions are. What are waves? How do objects maintain flight? It’s not just that, but the nature of the questions. They know what waves and wings are, but they want to know things about them. That’s kind of the pinnacle of human intelligence right there. The ability to care to, and then to ask, such interesting and important questions. There would be no progress without wondering about things that matter, or things with significant answers anyway. I’d have a lot less grey hair if it weren’t for my kids but things like this are what made my life matter. I love this about kids, and I enjoyed your comment.

mahaganapati 6y ago

> The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. Have we been reading the same version of Hacker News?

zeepzeep 6y ago

> whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS decision, with life-long consequences It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.

lqet 6y ago
> I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. I have posted the following a few years ago: > My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear annihilation in the next 10 years. I am glad they did. Today, as a father, I would add: as a potential parent, you are in no position to decide that your future children, grandchildren or great^x-grandchildren won't be glad to be alive. You don't know them, and most importantly you do not know and you cannot know about their world. In my opinion, this argument is nothing more but a convenient excuse to avoid the stress of bringing up kids. It is a valid reason to not want any kids because of the stress, but please don't rationalize yourself into peace of conscience by assuming that you can look into the future.
- zeepzeep 6y ago
  > assuming that you can look into the future. That's why I said "even the current world isn't".
  - lqet 6y ago
    But you don't bring kids into this world. You bring them into the world of the future, even if this future is only 9 months away.
  - ddorian43 6y ago
    Do you want to live in this world ?

wiz21c 6y ago

>>> we searched through the crowds for her for about ten minutes, with growing panic and horror In comparable circumstances, it took me half that time to grow panic :-)

digitalcraft 6y ago

"What are waves?" pleasantly surreal

greggman3 6y ago

I'm generally on your end of the spectrum with regards to children and I always hoped to have some. But, I've met plenty of people who absolutely detests their parents and visa versa, their parents detest them and they are mean and rotten to each other. So YMMV as far as the entire topic goes.

CalRobert 6y ago

Thank you for sharing this. I hope my children bring their grandparents as much joy as you do. Speaking of this - "tends to be factual, rational, and logical." - do you worry much about what the world will look like when your grandchildren are middle aged? I spent probably too much time concerned with rising authoritarianism, climate breakdown, shortages of food and water resulting from same, and their resulting wars, and it brings a tinge of panic to my thoughts on their future. I certainly stress out about this far, far more than before I was a parent. I don't really know how best to address it, aside from trying to live in a way resilient to those things, and am curious how you think about this things given the obvious joy in your post (and again, thank you for sharing this; it brought joy to my own day).

DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
I think about this question often as I now have a 2yo and 4yo. It used to stress me out, but now I realize that no matter how bad it gets, it will almost certainly be better than anything any human had to deal with in pre-modern civilization. Even with all the possible negative things coming, the tools we have acquired as a species would be incomprehensible to anyone say pre-5000 years ago. We are alive such a short blip of geological time and tend to get lost in the brief frames. The ability to bring a life into this world, even if it's harder than we have it right now, is still giving someone an opportunity to learn and experience things beyond wonder. Our technology is sufficiently advanced to be magic to anyone who died like pre-1990. Yes we have challenges ahead, yes a bunch of people will die and be displaced and people will be scared and think it's the end, but even if the population shrinks to 1 billion people the human spirit will endure and figure it out. Personally, I'd much rather experience life than none at all--even if it wasn't at the top of existence.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  I like this perspective! In the end my wife and I ultimately said "well either civilisation persists OK-ish and we'll regret not having kids, or this is it and in the grand scheme of things what does it matter if they go down swinging?" So far, I am glad we had them.

whinybastard 6y ago

This is a great take, but also one that will change rapidly as the US is reaching Europe- and japan levels of aging. After precipitous falls in birth rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to expect that children will be taking care of elderly parents, especially for a long and protracted "third age". This is a default expectation in the current generations but i think younger people have different expectations for themselves and their children's lives. This presents an opportunity where technology can make (and is making) a difference. It is also the reason why we want Longevity biotech to make our healthspan equal to our lifespans. We are already seeing the need of this during the COVID shutdowns

a_imho 6y ago

There was this post not too long ago by lordleft which I thought was really beautiful and resonated with me. The decision to have kids is a lot like the decision to continue living. There is no logical basis for it. Or rather, any latticework of logic you erect to justify this choice is based on a foundation that has nothing to do with reason. It is an emotional and spiritual desire to live and love, and give more life and more love to the world. That's why I when see people engage in complex rational calculations about the utility a child may or may not bring into their life, I feel like they are missing the point. Of course people ought to be thoughtful about the decision to have children. And there are very good reasons to abstain. But in a sense they are not grasping that having children is a profound act of hope. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21790570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21790570

kinderrationale 6y ago
But you do not increase the net love of the world. That’s wrong. It’s an emotional decision to be selfish and self-serving and do something that you want to do regardless of whether that child wants to exist. Nothing more. To create life is to create death and so at best neutral but not knowing the quality of that life or that death poses a serious risk that a decision to have children increases the net suffering of the world not love.
- jjk166 6y ago
  Just because you can not be absolutely certain doesn't mean it's a coin toss with both options being equally reasonable. If someone wants to stop existing, they have the power to make that happen, while the converse is not true, thus choosing to assume someone wants to exist is safer. The overwhelming majority of people want to exist and the few who don't tend to be in situations where it easily could have been foreseen that life would be problematic; if you've lived a mostly happy life for a few decades, odds are pretty good that your offspring will do the same, thus statistically choosing to bring someone into the world is far more likely to be what they want. But going further, the idea that death negates the benefits of life is absurd. If you read a book and are sad when it ends, that means it was a good book, and you are better off for having experienced it. The ending does not annihilate the story, it completes it. And if the story should have some bad writing in it, that may be undesireable, but all the good writing is still there to be enjoyed. No matter how bad life seems to get, the good moments still happened and they can never be taken away from you. Sure we'd all like to avoid unnecessary suffering and postpone death for as long as possible, but only because we would rather fill that time with the joys of life - if you had to choose between experiencing extreme pain periodically or spending the rest of your life in an inescapable coma, you'd certainly choose the former. Non-existance is not a pleasant alternative to life, it is a fate at least as bad as death, if there is any distinction at all.

xattt 6y ago

I have to add on the loneliness piece. I worked/work in long-term and medical/surgical settings. The number of people who have health problems that are exacerbated by their lack of social connection is staggering. There is also a second nuance where those who follow similar health patterns of the former had immediate family that were “functionally absent” for a large portion of their life (primarily mental health or result of psychosocial trauma). There is also survivorship bias here too, in that I treat patients because they are sick and I don’t get to see the “lonely” individuals who function well in the community. My decade of experience as a registered nurse made me fear in spending my twilight years only to be “beloved by my nieces and nephews”.

ryder9 6y ago

>The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. lmfao

scottoreily 6y ago

What an incredible amount of privilege you got there

seddin 6y ago

How young were you when you got married and when you started having kids?

fullstop 6y ago

I have two daughters, in their teens, and both have said that they are not interested in having children. I'm glad that they are giving both thought and pause here, but I'm also secretly hoping that they change their minds when the time is right for them. I'd be happy with and without grandchildren, but it would be incredible to be able to give all of the love that I can when I am retired, when I have less going on in my life and the time to do so.

jaspax 6y ago
FWIW, teenagers are unlikely to have a solid grasp of what their actual future choices will be. I know multiple people from high school or college who originally expressed a desire to never has kids, but are now delighted to have them.
- bing_dai 6y ago
  On the other hand: there must be people who decided they wanted children in high school, but later regret it. I find it unfair that the society often consider people being "too young; may change mind later" when they say they do not want children; but we don't apply the same standards to young people who want children.
bing_dai 6y ago
May I suggest you consider fostering a child? Or spending more time as an educator of some sort (through teaching, mentoring, etc.)? There are definitely ways for you to give love to a younger generation that does not involve your daughters decision to have children or not.
- fullstop 6y ago
  Yes, I've certainly considered it.. but I still have some time there. My oldest is only 16, and her decisions now are certainly not indelible.

EntitledParent 6y ago

> I highly recommend it. So do most parents. Why? Misery loves company. The entitlement of parents knows no bounds. Have kids to make yourself happy. Have kids to experience true joy. Have kids to take care of you when you’re old. Have kids to know real love.

iJohnDoe 6y ago

Thanks for your great comment. Not sure why people are only focusing on the final years of loneliness part. It was only one part and to me it was clear that you love spending time with all of your family and look forward to every second you have with them.

noarchy 6y ago

>The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. To a fault, perhaps. Humour is frowned upon, while overly pedantic comments are upvoted. Far too many comments uphold the stereotypes about engineers. I wouldn't expect a standard conversation about children to be possible here, both for good and bad.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

> My therapist observes that you are only as happy as your least happy child. I am not a parent (yet?), but this sounds very true based on what my parents always told me. By the way, thanks for your comment. It might not be "in line" with other comments, but I found it genuine and heartfelt. And it enriched me.

Diederich 6y ago

This is altogether lovely, thank you. What follows isn't as much of a direct reply just some thoughts motivated by your post. My wife and I met when we were in our 30s, neither of us having ever been in a serious relationship, and both of us having given up ever being married, not to mention having kids. We're both fairly clear-eyed and long-term environmentalist types, and we know how big an impact every person brought into the western world has. We decided to have a single birth child, and then adopt a second. We had our son, who turns 18 in a couple of months, though various circumstances caused us to not adopt. Our wonderful son is on the autistic spectrum; he's nearly six feet, two inches tall, with a beautiful, kind spirit, but his emotional and intellectual development is several years behind. We never made the mistake of piling up expectations on or toward him. We're fine with the strong possibility that he will likely never materially achieve in ways similar to his parents. He is loved and he loves us. My wife and I have, on average, another 30 years in this life. If our son is living with us for the next 30 years, that's fine. It would be our honor. He continues to grow and mature; there's at least a good chance that he could end up moving out and going his own way in some number of years. That would also make us very happy.

wellpast 6y ago

I didn’t want children but my now-wife was persistent. We even separated for a year because I didn’t want children. The only way I was able to have my so far two children was by pretending it wasn’t a choice of mine — and now of course I have zero regrets. The idea that we can “choose” to have kids is somewhat ridiculous I think. (I realize this is counterintuitive.) But there is no calculus at all that can incorporate any meaningful “data” into that decision. If you don’t believe me consider that I didn’t want kids but just went through having them and my joy at this happening to me could not have been understood by any upfront rational thinking. There is no free will in this domain.