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Of kids I've always thought "maybe one day". I can see how it'd be a tough, but extremely rewarding and meaningful endeavor. But reading this article made me

Of kids I've always thought "maybe one day". I can see how it'd be a tough, but extremely rewarding and meaningful endeavor. But reading this article made me think for the first time "actually, I think I don't want kids." So many "mental CPU cycles" spent learning about pregnancy, babies, why they cry, how to care for them. It just doesn't appeal to me at all - I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time on the topics that legitimately interest me - stuff like space, technology, fiction, stocks, politics, philosophy, hobbies. (I realize how much this comes off as a young white tech nerd... But that's exactly what I am!) And all this just of the knowledge gathering. We haven't even touched on the truly hard part - executing it! I guess this article made raising a kid real in a way that none other have before. Took the high ideal of "raising a family" and shined light on all the tough, hard realities. Of course this is all from my current perspective. I'm sure it all totally changes in ways I just can't conceive when it's your own kid. Open to any insights from others who may have been here before!

EGreg 5y ago
Or just earn a ton of money and outsource much of it to professional nannies?
draw_down 5y ago
01100011 5y ago
For most of history having children wasn't much of a choice. It just happened and you dealt with it. Now we have the opportunity to think about it and choose. Having kids almost never makes sense though. You are never "ready". If you think about it much, you're much less likely to choose to do it.
basisword 5y ago
Your opinion may shift naturally. I’ve started noticing as I get older that, despite my career, social life, finances etc being better than some close friends with kids - they are much happier. Even the people who’ve struggled financially because of it. The joy of a child, the constant challenge of raising it, and the constant change as it grows, seem to provide much more happiness than I can get from doing the “new cool thing” in the city or travelling or anything else. It also depends how early you are in your career but most people end up doing relatively meaningless work and having a kid will provide incredible meaning to your life comparatively. Finally, if you choose not to have kids your limiting your pool of potential partners and for most people being single forever is lonely. This doesn’t apply to everyone. There are exceptions. And maybe I’m wrong and my opinion will shift again as I age further but I think as you see peers have children and the meaning it brings to their lives your opinion will change.
- theGeatZhopa 5y ago
  Totally agree. I think the shift came for me cause of feeling lonely and wanting someone to be happy when I open a door. A dog or something. At some point I realized, having a relationship with a woman can truly be deep and a kid is a kings crown. This is called growing up I think :)
- MrsPeaches 5y ago
  > The joy of a child This is such a cliche that it almost meaningless but the JOY of a child is just insane. To have some around who is almost always happy to see you (and super pissed when you go away), initially at least, is just wonderful to be around. To me at least parenting is one of the most complete human experiences. It's joyous and terrifying, exciting and mundane, just all of the things at once. It's not for everyone sure but one thing I would say is that it's much easier to describe how hard it is, than it is to describe how amazing it is. Everyone understand that having to wipe someone else's ass for years isn't fun (tho it's not actually that bad) but it's difficult to put into words just how much joy there is.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    > the JOY of a child is just insane It really is, and you just cannot understand it until you become a parent yourself. I used to roll my eyes when friends said that, but it's true. This'll probably sound really cheesy, but sometimes I look at my kids and it feels like my heart will burst with the love I feel for them.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      Parent here, with teenagers. I wouldn't say it's impossible to understand. Imagine having a dog or other pet that you love ridiculously. Then one day the pet starts talking, reading, doing math homework instead of chewing your shoes as often. It's a wild ride.
      - GordonS 5y ago
        Before becoming a parent we had a much-loved cat, but, for me at least, the experience isn't remotely comparable. A talking cat sounds cool though :)
boffinism 5y ago
(Context: Am dad. Love kids. Find parenting super tough. No regrets.) How's this for a rule of thumb: if you can be happy without having kids, don't have kids. They're very hard work, expensive, and often bad for your mental health. But, if like a lot of people you know you will always be sad if you don't have kids, have as few as you need to scratch the itch.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I might go the other way: if you can’t be happy without kids, maybe don’t have them. I love my kids, but they’re not some magical antidote to sadness or malaise and trying to raise them while you have underlying issues of your own is likely to be brutal. (Naturally, if you’re “happy except want kids”, this doesn’t apply.) I’m glad I took the time to find out what I wanted to be before that was just “a good dad”. I feel fortunate that I found that out, met my wife, and we were able to have healthy kids at the tail end of our 30s.
  - ericb 5y ago
    > they’re not some magical antidote to sadness or malaise Very True. Although, for loneliness, they might be close for a while. I really feel for folks who were trapped at home alone during the pandemic without kids or family. Especially extroverts. Oof.
mattlondon 5y ago
As I sit here watching my 2 year old try and figure out what the hell a helium balloon is and why does it float when everything else falls, it is quite fun and enjoyable. They surprise you and they give a lot of affection and love back. It is true that you will miss out on "me time" for several years, but that changes eventually. It is not hard work, just relentless at times. For me, I don't think I would ever have been "ready" until it would be too late. The longer you leave things, the less time you have to sort it out. People assume that fertility issues only happen to other people, but there is a surprisingly high number - something like 25% of couples face issues conceiving one way or another. If you don't even start until late 30s or early 40s, you are at the tail-end of fertility (especially for females as there is a finite number of eggs). Sure there is IVF etc but it is not an emotionally simple process.
- Giorgi 5y ago
  This is true especially if you want to watch your child develop into adult AND have grandparents alive AND not to have huge generation gap between you.
  - vintermann 5y ago
    Yes. I love my own father, but being the youngest of parents who started late (by their time's standards!) there's just such a generation gap. He grew up during WW2 in an occupied country, and in the fifties. He is - and always was - mystified by the popularity of most books, films, let alone things like computer games, despite having used computers since the fifties and having been a CS lecturer for his entire working life. I think I have a better understanding of the world my own son grows up in. Not just in the big, generational sense, but in practical ways like remembering a lot about schools, curriculums etc. that is still relevant.
Quiark 5y ago
> I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time on the topics that legitimately interest me oh, this one is kinda easy to prepare for: just forget about having time for this at all in the first couple of months. First 3 months you're not doing anything but caring for the baby, deal with that. Well, ok, you may have time to watch youtube or other videos while feeding or so. Around 1 year old, the kid can become real fun though.
- learc83 5y ago
  It’s not really that bad for every baby. I have a 4 month old, and I’ve managed to get a few chapters of a technical book I’m writing and illustrating done during the last month on paternity leave. After a month or so he started mostly sleeping at night with 2 or 3 feedings needed. Then during the day he started napping for 1-2 hour stretches.
  - mastersummoner 5y ago
    Just want to add: you're lucky to have four months paternity, at least if you're in the US. Many companies provide far, far less, if any at all.
    - learc83 5y ago
      Sorry I wasn’t clear. I got 6 weeks of paternity leave. I just didn’t take it until my wife finished her 12 weeks of (unpaid) maternity leave. Still super lucky to have that!
seniorivn 5y ago
Don't forget that children are a natural investment, you raise a big family and it will take care of you in the long run
- scgtrp 5y ago
  Ugh. No. Don't have children with the expectation that they'll take care of you. You don't get to decide other people's life goals for them.
jb1991 5y ago
You may think of it as a cognitive CPU cycle now, but when you’re actually a parent that’s not the experience at all. A lot of it just falls back on instinct right away, you use skills you didn’t even know you had, and before being put into that experience it probably seems like a steep learning curve, but the actual experience of living through it is different.
natnatenathan 5y ago
What the other folks on this thread have said about the magic of kids is absolutely right. I’ll add a few things, when you have young kids (especially more than one for the first 5 years or so) it is difficult to have hobbies (and be a good partner/dad) because the kids can be all consuming. This transition can be hard. But, I have never grown so much as a person, or found so much meaning and joy from anything else I have ever done in my life.
moron4hire 5y ago
It's not actually that hard. It's time consuming and it can be all consuming if you let it. Or you can start cutting things out of your life that don't really matter. Having kids showed me how much of my life I was wasting.
j45 5y ago
Nothing gets easier as you get older, kids or not. You just get better. This is true for entrepreneurship, and kids. Kids are the closest thing to experiencing actual magic. It’s the most stupefying technology you get to witness every day. Everything I write here won’t explain this but I’ll try anyways. Late nights, pushing, juggling, constantly learning is something entrepreneurs do and transfers well.. but maybe not as common as it should be. Learning how to learn is a highly transferable skill. There’s also not knowing what you don’t know until you get into it. I’m a first time dad to twins. It was like waking up a part of myself when I didn’t know I was asleep. It’s hard to wake up someone who doesn’t know they’re asleep. There are some interesting biological changes that open up in your brain, energy and other things after having kids, not just for the mother but the partner too. Fun research and reading for your interests, but it literally activates more of your brain. I see a new world of more opportunities and understand people better than ever have. Super helpful in building product. I had no idea what the experience of many people are and it helped me simplify even more what I build. To my earlier self I’d say.. Kids were not as much of a shock because of the fun stretches of startups I’ve been through, and all the interests I’ve been through in the past. Having kids helps cut off any unnecessary entanglements, especially ones we’re not aware of. Theres a chance to finally prioritize better than ever. The decisions make themselves, it’s a super power. There’s a chance to become a morning person to have even more time. There’s a chance to think about problems away from a keyboard that has build up the mental muscles again. There might not be a better motivator and creator of discipline than having kids. Instead of scrolling motivational insta. It’s true it can be hard work. 1 kid is nothing compared to having twins. I could do 1 kid in my sleep alone, but it’s only because I had to expand to the demands of twins. That’s what parenting does for some, increases their capacity. Yes there can be late nights if you choose not to learn and put in routines. There’s a chance of realizing what kind of memory you will be for your kids might be more important than you ever thought. The mental cpu cycles aren’t that bad. There’s pretty good books and apps now (wonder weeks is one) that keeps things on the radar. Knowing your kid is going to have a growth week before they do is so helpful. You don’t feel as helpless. My wife and I weren’t sure if kids would be in the cards for us, between life, work, our interests. We did pretty much everything we wanted including sleeping in until we got bored of it. We said to ourselves if we’re not 1 million percent sure we don’t want kids we should leave the door open or try for a family to be sure. There are some health issues before we began that were discovered that likely saved my wife’s life. Life seems so random, and then not it seems sometimes Rather than have a fixed mindset in our 20s of having kids or not and hanging onto it for dear life we tried to stay open to possibility. I really recommend it. It turned out we’re not the same people in our 20s that we are in our 30s. Knowing is delusion sometimes, yet it’s all we seek. You can change and grow - many things you believe turn out to be a bookmark to go open up again and update. It’s everything.
notenoughhorses 5y ago
I’m not a “kid” person, basically never held a baby before we had our first this August. As the child bearing person in this equation, I also did the most research on pregnancy, birth, subsequent baby stuff. (My partner did do some reading too, but not the same extent of feeling like he needed to figure it all out.) One thing that’s interesting is that in many ways, even the pair of us who knew nothing about babies have pretty good instincts for what they need. We got some help from a post partum doula to show us baby care, since we figured you can’t learn all that from reading. We did read some books. I tried to stay away from articles because they are incentivized to act like there’s conflict or “new” stuff to talk about to keep engaging readers. The most useful resource has been a private Reddit forum of other people who had babies the same month, so we can compare what’s worked for lots of people, what popular info seems totally wrong to lots of us, etc. Kids aren’t easy, but they are not hard the same way our knowledge-worker jobs are to learn.
bredren 5y ago
I was on an eight year run at Burning Man. Have the cool cat, sold a SaaS I built, could do and just about did anything. Had our first born this past June, I see now how much more there can be. I still do much of what I did before (BRC excepted). But there’s more gravity to my existence. PG has an essay that describes having kids that you should read. It may not make an impact but perhaps it will join the chorus of replies here. I’d say stay open to the possibility. Yes, you learn a lot. But if you enjoy knowledge, skill building and life experiences, having a kid is just as fascinating as any of that other stuff. And your life gets wider and deeper.
analog31 5y ago
In my view, it's a kind of mental paradigm shift. Before you have your own kids, they're an abstraction. Afterwards, they're people, and in fact they're your family. I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved. For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable. Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)
anonu 5y ago
HN people are overachievers... So invariably your approach to child rearing is going to be reading a lot and being informed. It's helpful to do so to know what's coming. But in reality you don't need to. A lot of learning will be on the job. Yes, your free time disappears completely. But there is an upside. Watching a human being grow and learn is fascinating. Plus that human is a part of you in a sense. That is also beautiful and hard to describe in words.
cocothem 5y ago
People change and you may evolve your views. I know I have, esp when facing my own mortality. Turning back the time not possible, which makes such decisions very consequential.
hipshaker 5y ago
Concieved first kid at 43. Kid is now 14 months and I am 44. Sometimes I do feel I should’ve shaved off a year or two, just because of general energy level and wanting to have a long life with my child. With that said, I am also glad I waited. Besides above, it’s the right time in my life for me. I actually never thought it would happen, but as I got older A feeling slowly crept up on me. Dying without leaving anything important behind. What is life, if not to pass it on. You may be weird. That’s ok. Live that life. You may not be weird. Ok too. But you will become weirder by choosing not to have children. Don’t take my word for it. The people you know over 40-45, are there more with than without children? Those without, do they seem a bit off the beaten path? Not implying they can’t be happy, I’m not correlating. Having a kid is hard. Stupid hard. Lot’s of responsibility and you can wave bye-bye to oh so many things you are used to. But by some magic, even after hours of crying, being fussy and the biggest pain in the ass, a little laugh and a 5 second smile can erase all the days hardships. This is HN, so lots of logic, rationality and reasoning. But with i child, magic does exist. Leave the world alone as you entered it, and everything you accumulated through life will be lost… like tears in rain.
- ix101 5y ago
  The flip side though is that you are likely to feel more pressure to accumulate enough wealth in order to leave something behind for your children. Personally I have to shake off this instinct that I should take the more stable career choice rather than the interesting one.
  - hipshaker 5y ago
    That’s probably both a cultural (especially if you are from the US - which I am not) and personal “issue”. I actually do feel like that sometimes though. Not in the sense that I need to leave a big inheritance. Just make enought o help my kids out when they need it, as my parents helped me. But in the end, the only thing you need to leave behind, is love. That’s the pressure I think one should feel. No child needed money more than a loving parent who was attentive and a caring presence. Sure, if you can be that and leave some $$ after you pass, good on you. But money comes at a price, and only lottery winners get that ride for free.
jsilence 5y ago
Trying to expain the joy of children is like recommending to read a book about the joy of swimming. You simply have to make the experience to understand. For long periods of my life I felt detached from the world and from myself. With our two children I feel a deep and satisfying attachment unlike any other feeling. Reading a lot about puppies in the comments. Would sacrifice our beloved cat without blinking for our children if it were neccessary. Sorry Merlin, you are not only not in the same league, you are not in the same universe. The whole thing about loosing your freedom when having kids is taking it the wrong way. Your life is not about your ego any more, not about your comforts, your desires. Its about your child. You become the path and the foundation. There is something deeply satisfying being there for them.
mgarfias 5y ago
I dunno man, it was all pretty natural for me. My first wife, not so much. Her only real solution was to stuff a boob in my oldests mouth. My 2nd wife, with my youngest is also a natural, and my youngest was pretty easy. Until he wesponized the high chair to do things like get into the chocolate (was hilarious when he got a block of unsweetened baking chocolate).

EGreg 5y ago

Or just earn a ton of money and outsource much of it to professional nannies?

draw_down 5y ago

01100011 5y ago

For most of history having children wasn't much of a choice. It just happened and you dealt with it. Now we have the opportunity to think about it and choose. Having kids almost never makes sense though. You are never "ready". If you think about it much, you're much less likely to choose to do it.

basisword 5y ago

Your opinion may shift naturally. I’ve started noticing as I get older that, despite my career, social life, finances etc being better than some close friends with kids - they are much happier. Even the people who’ve struggled financially because of it. The joy of a child, the constant challenge of raising it, and the constant change as it grows, seem to provide much more happiness than I can get from doing the “new cool thing” in the city or travelling or anything else. It also depends how early you are in your career but most people end up doing relatively meaningless work and having a kid will provide incredible meaning to your life comparatively. Finally, if you choose not to have kids your limiting your pool of potential partners and for most people being single forever is lonely. This doesn’t apply to everyone. There are exceptions. And maybe I’m wrong and my opinion will shift again as I age further but I think as you see peers have children and the meaning it brings to their lives your opinion will change.

theGeatZhopa 5y ago
Totally agree. I think the shift came for me cause of feeling lonely and wanting someone to be happy when I open a door. A dog or something. At some point I realized, having a relationship with a woman can truly be deep and a kid is a kings crown. This is called growing up I think :)
MrsPeaches 5y ago
> The joy of a child This is such a cliche that it almost meaningless but the JOY of a child is just insane. To have some around who is almost always happy to see you (and super pissed when you go away), initially at least, is just wonderful to be around. To me at least parenting is one of the most complete human experiences. It's joyous and terrifying, exciting and mundane, just all of the things at once. It's not for everyone sure but one thing I would say is that it's much easier to describe how hard it is, than it is to describe how amazing it is. Everyone understand that having to wipe someone else's ass for years isn't fun (tho it's not actually that bad) but it's difficult to put into words just how much joy there is.
- GordonS 5y ago
  > the JOY of a child is just insane It really is, and you just cannot understand it until you become a parent yourself. I used to roll my eyes when friends said that, but it's true. This'll probably sound really cheesy, but sometimes I look at my kids and it feels like my heart will burst with the love I feel for them.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Parent here, with teenagers. I wouldn't say it's impossible to understand. Imagine having a dog or other pet that you love ridiculously. Then one day the pet starts talking, reading, doing math homework instead of chewing your shoes as often. It's a wild ride.
    - GordonS 5y ago
      Before becoming a parent we had a much-loved cat, but, for me at least, the experience isn't remotely comparable. A talking cat sounds cool though :)

boffinism 5y ago

(Context: Am dad. Love kids. Find parenting super tough. No regrets.) How's this for a rule of thumb: if you can be happy without having kids, don't have kids. They're very hard work, expensive, and often bad for your mental health. But, if like a lot of people you know you will always be sad if you don't have kids, have as few as you need to scratch the itch.

sokoloff 5y ago
I might go the other way: if you can’t be happy without kids, maybe don’t have them. I love my kids, but they’re not some magical antidote to sadness or malaise and trying to raise them while you have underlying issues of your own is likely to be brutal. (Naturally, if you’re “happy except want kids”, this doesn’t apply.) I’m glad I took the time to find out what I wanted to be before that was just “a good dad”. I feel fortunate that I found that out, met my wife, and we were able to have healthy kids at the tail end of our 30s.
- ericb 5y ago
  > they’re not some magical antidote to sadness or malaise Very True. Although, for loneliness, they might be close for a while. I really feel for folks who were trapped at home alone during the pandemic without kids or family. Especially extroverts. Oof.

mattlondon 5y ago

As I sit here watching my 2 year old try and figure out what the hell a helium balloon is and why does it float when everything else falls, it is quite fun and enjoyable. They surprise you and they give a lot of affection and love back. It is true that you will miss out on "me time" for several years, but that changes eventually. It is not hard work, just relentless at times. For me, I don't think I would ever have been "ready" until it would be too late. The longer you leave things, the less time you have to sort it out. People assume that fertility issues only happen to other people, but there is a surprisingly high number - something like 25% of couples face issues conceiving one way or another. If you don't even start until late 30s or early 40s, you are at the tail-end of fertility (especially for females as there is a finite number of eggs). Sure there is IVF etc but it is not an emotionally simple process.

Giorgi 5y ago
This is true especially if you want to watch your child develop into adult AND have grandparents alive AND not to have huge generation gap between you.
- vintermann 5y ago
  Yes. I love my own father, but being the youngest of parents who started late (by their time's standards!) there's just such a generation gap. He grew up during WW2 in an occupied country, and in the fifties. He is - and always was - mystified by the popularity of most books, films, let alone things like computer games, despite having used computers since the fifties and having been a CS lecturer for his entire working life. I think I have a better understanding of the world my own son grows up in. Not just in the big, generational sense, but in practical ways like remembering a lot about schools, curriculums etc. that is still relevant.

Quiark 5y ago

> I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time on the topics that legitimately interest me oh, this one is kinda easy to prepare for: just forget about having time for this at all in the first couple of months. First 3 months you're not doing anything but caring for the baby, deal with that. Well, ok, you may have time to watch youtube or other videos while feeding or so. Around 1 year old, the kid can become real fun though.

learc83 5y ago
It’s not really that bad for every baby. I have a 4 month old, and I’ve managed to get a few chapters of a technical book I’m writing and illustrating done during the last month on paternity leave. After a month or so he started mostly sleeping at night with 2 or 3 feedings needed. Then during the day he started napping for 1-2 hour stretches.
- mastersummoner 5y ago
  Just want to add: you're lucky to have four months paternity, at least if you're in the US. Many companies provide far, far less, if any at all.
  - learc83 5y ago
    Sorry I wasn’t clear. I got 6 weeks of paternity leave. I just didn’t take it until my wife finished her 12 weeks of (unpaid) maternity leave. Still super lucky to have that!

seniorivn 5y ago

Don't forget that children are a natural investment, you raise a big family and it will take care of you in the long run

scgtrp 5y ago
Ugh. No. Don't have children with the expectation that they'll take care of you. You don't get to decide other people's life goals for them.

jb1991 5y ago

You may think of it as a cognitive CPU cycle now, but when you’re actually a parent that’s not the experience at all. A lot of it just falls back on instinct right away, you use skills you didn’t even know you had, and before being put into that experience it probably seems like a steep learning curve, but the actual experience of living through it is different.

natnatenathan 5y ago

What the other folks on this thread have said about the magic of kids is absolutely right. I’ll add a few things, when you have young kids (especially more than one for the first 5 years or so) it is difficult to have hobbies (and be a good partner/dad) because the kids can be all consuming. This transition can be hard. But, I have never grown so much as a person, or found so much meaning and joy from anything else I have ever done in my life.

moron4hire 5y ago

It's not actually that hard. It's time consuming and it can be all consuming if you let it. Or you can start cutting things out of your life that don't really matter. Having kids showed me how much of my life I was wasting.

j45 5y ago

Nothing gets easier as you get older, kids or not. You just get better. This is true for entrepreneurship, and kids. Kids are the closest thing to experiencing actual magic. It’s the most stupefying technology you get to witness every day. Everything I write here won’t explain this but I’ll try anyways. Late nights, pushing, juggling, constantly learning is something entrepreneurs do and transfers well.. but maybe not as common as it should be. Learning how to learn is a highly transferable skill. There’s also not knowing what you don’t know until you get into it. I’m a first time dad to twins. It was like waking up a part of myself when I didn’t know I was asleep. It’s hard to wake up someone who doesn’t know they’re asleep. There are some interesting biological changes that open up in your brain, energy and other things after having kids, not just for the mother but the partner too. Fun research and reading for your interests, but it literally activates more of your brain. I see a new world of more opportunities and understand people better than ever have. Super helpful in building product. I had no idea what the experience of many people are and it helped me simplify even more what I build. To my earlier self I’d say.. Kids were not as much of a shock because of the fun stretches of startups I’ve been through, and all the interests I’ve been through in the past. Having kids helps cut off any unnecessary entanglements, especially ones we’re not aware of. Theres a chance to finally prioritize better than ever. The decisions make themselves, it’s a super power. There’s a chance to become a morning person to have even more time. There’s a chance to think about problems away from a keyboard that has build up the mental muscles again. There might not be a better motivator and creator of discipline than having kids. Instead of scrolling motivational insta. It’s true it can be hard work. 1 kid is nothing compared to having twins. I could do 1 kid in my sleep alone, but it’s only because I had to expand to the demands of twins. That’s what parenting does for some, increases their capacity. Yes there can be late nights if you choose not to learn and put in routines. There’s a chance of realizing what kind of memory you will be for your kids might be more important than you ever thought. The mental cpu cycles aren’t that bad. There’s pretty good books and apps now (wonder weeks is one) that keeps things on the radar. Knowing your kid is going to have a growth week before they do is so helpful. You don’t feel as helpless. My wife and I weren’t sure if kids would be in the cards for us, between life, work, our interests. We did pretty much everything we wanted including sleeping in until we got bored of it. We said to ourselves if we’re not 1 million percent sure we don’t want kids we should leave the door open or try for a family to be sure. There are some health issues before we began that were discovered that likely saved my wife’s life. Life seems so random, and then not it seems sometimes Rather than have a fixed mindset in our 20s of having kids or not and hanging onto it for dear life we tried to stay open to possibility. I really recommend it. It turned out we’re not the same people in our 20s that we are in our 30s. Knowing is delusion sometimes, yet it’s all we seek. You can change and grow - many things you believe turn out to be a bookmark to go open up again and update. It’s everything.

notenoughhorses 5y ago

I’m not a “kid” person, basically never held a baby before we had our first this August. As the child bearing person in this equation, I also did the most research on pregnancy, birth, subsequent baby stuff. (My partner did do some reading too, but not the same extent of feeling like he needed to figure it all out.) One thing that’s interesting is that in many ways, even the pair of us who knew nothing about babies have pretty good instincts for what they need. We got some help from a post partum doula to show us baby care, since we figured you can’t learn all that from reading. We did read some books. I tried to stay away from articles because they are incentivized to act like there’s conflict or “new” stuff to talk about to keep engaging readers. The most useful resource has been a private Reddit forum of other people who had babies the same month, so we can compare what’s worked for lots of people, what popular info seems totally wrong to lots of us, etc. Kids aren’t easy, but they are not hard the same way our knowledge-worker jobs are to learn.

bredren 5y ago

I was on an eight year run at Burning Man. Have the cool cat, sold a SaaS I built, could do and just about did anything. Had our first born this past June, I see now how much more there can be. I still do much of what I did before (BRC excepted). But there’s more gravity to my existence. PG has an essay that describes having kids that you should read. It may not make an impact but perhaps it will join the chorus of replies here. I’d say stay open to the possibility. Yes, you learn a lot. But if you enjoy knowledge, skill building and life experiences, having a kid is just as fascinating as any of that other stuff. And your life gets wider and deeper.

analog31 5y ago

In my view, it's a kind of mental paradigm shift. Before you have your own kids, they're an abstraction. Afterwards, they're people, and in fact they're your family. I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved. For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable. Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)

anonu 5y ago

HN people are overachievers... So invariably your approach to child rearing is going to be reading a lot and being informed. It's helpful to do so to know what's coming. But in reality you don't need to. A lot of learning will be on the job. Yes, your free time disappears completely. But there is an upside. Watching a human being grow and learn is fascinating. Plus that human is a part of you in a sense. That is also beautiful and hard to describe in words.

cocothem 5y ago

People change and you may evolve your views. I know I have, esp when facing my own mortality. Turning back the time not possible, which makes such decisions very consequential.

hipshaker 5y ago

Concieved first kid at 43. Kid is now 14 months and I am 44. Sometimes I do feel I should’ve shaved off a year or two, just because of general energy level and wanting to have a long life with my child. With that said, I am also glad I waited. Besides above, it’s the right time in my life for me. I actually never thought it would happen, but as I got older A feeling slowly crept up on me. Dying without leaving anything important behind. What is life, if not to pass it on. You may be weird. That’s ok. Live that life. You may not be weird. Ok too. But you will become weirder by choosing not to have children. Don’t take my word for it. The people you know over 40-45, are there more with than without children? Those without, do they seem a bit off the beaten path? Not implying they can’t be happy, I’m not correlating. Having a kid is hard. Stupid hard. Lot’s of responsibility and you can wave bye-bye to oh so many things you are used to. But by some magic, even after hours of crying, being fussy and the biggest pain in the ass, a little laugh and a 5 second smile can erase all the days hardships. This is HN, so lots of logic, rationality and reasoning. But with i child, magic does exist. Leave the world alone as you entered it, and everything you accumulated through life will be lost… like tears in rain.

ix101 5y ago
The flip side though is that you are likely to feel more pressure to accumulate enough wealth in order to leave something behind for your children. Personally I have to shake off this instinct that I should take the more stable career choice rather than the interesting one.
- hipshaker 5y ago
  That’s probably both a cultural (especially if you are from the US - which I am not) and personal “issue”. I actually do feel like that sometimes though. Not in the sense that I need to leave a big inheritance. Just make enought o help my kids out when they need it, as my parents helped me. But in the end, the only thing you need to leave behind, is love. That’s the pressure I think one should feel. No child needed money more than a loving parent who was attentive and a caring presence. Sure, if you can be that and leave some $$ after you pass, good on you. But money comes at a price, and only lottery winners get that ride for free.

jsilence 5y ago

Trying to expain the joy of children is like recommending to read a book about the joy of swimming. You simply have to make the experience to understand. For long periods of my life I felt detached from the world and from myself. With our two children I feel a deep and satisfying attachment unlike any other feeling. Reading a lot about puppies in the comments. Would sacrifice our beloved cat without blinking for our children if it were neccessary. Sorry Merlin, you are not only not in the same league, you are not in the same universe. The whole thing about loosing your freedom when having kids is taking it the wrong way. Your life is not about your ego any more, not about your comforts, your desires. Its about your child. You become the path and the foundation. There is something deeply satisfying being there for them.

mgarfias 5y ago

I dunno man, it was all pretty natural for me. My first wife, not so much. Her only real solution was to stuff a boob in my oldests mouth. My 2nd wife, with my youngest is also a natural, and my youngest was pretty easy. Until he wesponized the high chair to do things like get into the chocolate (was hilarious when he got a block of unsweetened baking chocolate).