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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 m
by 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 agoA 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 agoI'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 agoI love this sleepover idea! Will have to try it out maybe tonight
- mirimir 6y agoI 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.
- simonh 6y agoQuite right, but living in any community involves making compromises along with the benefits. I think the bottom line is community is an achievement that takes effort and compromise to attain.
- bananaface 6y agoOnly on Hacker News would someone post a response this patronising and argumentative. I think the point he made was fine, and I'm way glad to have heard his story. It was lovely.
- drukenemo 6y agoI disagree and I think the comment is valid. I know many cases in which children and parents are not close emotionally or physically (live away). As they say, your mileage may vary.
- Apocryphon 6y agoIt might be logically valid, but it's pretty emotionally tone-deaf to blithely dismiss a long heartfelt personal account by saying "Survivor bias. Caveat emptor." Read the room, as they say.
- ACow_Adonis 6y agoOK, but it's also hacker news. If we just want positive anecdotes and feel-good inspirational stories that don't get debated, and which don't fully address the point or get to the heart of the matter, we could go to a Tony Robbins seminar, and I say this as a both a dad and as someone who doesn't want to go to a Tony Robbins seminar. Honestly, I appreciate the point counter point.
- bananaface 6y agoTony Robbins is bad because he's a huckster, not because his genre is inspiration.
- Apocryphon 6y agoTrue, but as someone who has seen many a HN discussion that lacks any sort of empathy or comprehension of social norms or conventions, I cannot help but to advocate for emotional literacy and for the understanding of emotional appeal. Perhaps some of the tech companies and platforms we are seeing face so many problems right now could benefit from emotional literacy. Too much head and not enough heart, one could say.
- freetanga 6y agoI think the correlation between what you put in and what you get out is much higher. I had to give up a number of hobbies and intelectual pursuits in order to be there for my kids. Building a caring, trust-based long term relationship is hard work - sharing the same blood and providing a roof and a meal is not enough, which sadly is many people’s definition of parenting. I know I am giving up things. I know there is no sure-fire bet that I will get “returns”, but I love my kids and knowing you can love someone so much is a gift by itself, IMHO.
- silveroriole 6y agoIt sucks knowing that you’re the reason your parents gave up hobbies, dreams, money, travel etc that they could otherwise have had. I know, like you, parents usually think it’s worth it but it’s not nice to think that my mom would probably have been a more fun, interesting person if I didn’t exist. The admittance that your life has to change and you have to give things up so that another human can do maybe things instead... it feels like such a pointless cycle.
- moises_silva 6y agoI'm not sure why there's this insistence that 'giving up' time spent on hobbies makes you less interesting or less fun. You can have some hobbies, learn new things, etc; while being a parent. Sure you don't have as much time to do it, but having kids can also make you learn things and get perspective you wouldn't otherwise. Also, worth remembering the alternative to such a "pointless cycle" is a pointless short existence and then human life would be over. Sure, you can argue that's a good thing for earth, but even life on earth is pointless in the grand scheme of things if you're going to use that line of reasoning.
- ido 6y agoIn the long enough term everything is pointless - the meaning comes from what we give meaning to (which can include raising a family).
- ido 6y ago
- 0xfaded 6y agoThe person I knew who had the most people visit in his old age was as far as I know childless. Through a chance encounter he welcomed me to San Fransisco when I moved there. Everytime I'd visit he'd seem to have a new guest over, but most of them he had known for many years.
- edanm 6y agoLuckily, the success rate with children is much higher than startups. (I think? and hope? Don't actually have data on this.)
- sweeneyrod 6y agoAnd you don't need VC funding.
- jeffrallen 6y agoUntil they get to college...
- skywal_l 6y agoWell, in most countries, you get external funding from childless people which are paying higher taxes... If people were to pay entirely for the education and health of their offsprings, they would be way less babies in the developed world. And I don't even mention externalities. A human being in a developed country has a big impact on the environment, if people had to pay for it, having a child would out of reach of most.
- codegrappler 6y agoWhich is partly true. Those children will also grow up and pay taxes and contribute to companies which in turn fund the retirement accounts of the elderly community.
- skywal_l 6y agoSo an investment. But an investment is also a cost that you might not be able to afford upfront.
- Aeolun 6y ago> having a child would out of reach of most I think that just means more children get less fulfilling lives. At least that seems to be the case in countries where children are not subsidised.
- xwdv 6y agoBut it seems to me like if you do not have children all the effort you would have spent raising them must be spent in cultivating social relationships throughout your life instead, otherwise you do not reap the benefits of child free life and will be alone and lonely in old age. So either way, there’s going to be work if you do not want to be alone. The worst is when you put in the work and end up alone anyway. No one calls, no one cares, a life wasted on something that was ultimately meaningless. You could have done other things that brought you intrinsic joy.
- minerjoe 6y agoBe the change you wish to be in the world. How many of y'all are visiting elederly and helping them now? If you never help the elderly now, how can you expect anything else than lonliness when you are in their place? One of the most tragic results of the "modern" American life is that we throw away are elderly as obsolete while any other sane societies treates them as the holders of wisdom.
- xwdv 6y agoThat’s why we are obsessed with anti-aging, to avoid being seen as elderly, to avoid being treated as one.
- scottLobster 6y agoTo be fair an excessive amount of power given to the elderly in the Spartan legal system also contributed to their slow decline in power as those who benefited from the status quo continuously stifled any attempts at adaptation or reform. Only a tiny minority of elders have any wisdom worth purveying in my experience. Most are as mediocre at 70 as they were at 25, and can't tell you anything except how to be as mediocre as they are. An even larger fraction actually are obsolete and haven't kept up to date with the latest cultural changes or technology. I'll take advice from the 70+ year old who's still working and staying abreast of their field/maintaining good relationships with friends and family, or the 70+ year old who did something great once upon a time (and I'll limit the advice I take to said great thing and related subjects). The retiree who worked a mid-level factory job, begrudgingly learned how to check their email and largely lives alone/with their spouse in a rancher with Christian TV playing 24/7 who rants about whatever Sean Hannity said (a direct description of some of my relatives) probably less juice in the squeeze there from a wisdom perspective.
- samdixon 6y agoWhile I don't have the data to support it, I would imagine the chance of success raising a child versus the chance of a success with a startup are in favor of the former.
- nluux 6y agoThis claim falsely assumes childless people will have successfully developed enough intimate and reliable relationships by the time they are on their deathbed.Research shows establishing “fictive kin” at any age is challenging and nearly impossible when the elderly show signs of dementia or Alzheimer's.
- nickbauman 6y agoI read somewhere, (I think it was USA Today, no less) that almost half adult children in the US have no meaningful contact with their parents. Many of them have parents who do not even know where their children live.
- xornox 6y agoAnd that was a pure personal viewpoint. Consequences of children for society and whole planet were not analysed at all.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]