5 ms·

Tell that to my very burnt out parent friends! YMMV

by levesque 5y ago

osullip 5y ago
Tell that to people who won't/don't have kids
NateEag 5y ago
"Burnt-out" != "boring".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
quirino 5y ago
The point of parent comment is that the consequences of having kids are not what they seem from the outside. Maybe your parent friends' experiences are vastly different from how you perceive them (or how they express them).
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I said it was interesting, not-boring, and introducing me to more new people than I’ve met since college. I didn’t say it was always easy, but that’s fine by me because it’s not actually soul-crushingly difficult (again, another misconception popular among young people without kids that turned out to be wrong). The older I get, the more I realize that my friends who optimize for minimal effort (no kids, reluctant to leave the house, picky about what they attend) are gradually sliding into very boring and unfulfilled existences.
- Elte 5y ago
  I may be like one of your boring unfulfilled friends, except I have a single hobby that makes me feel a sense of purpose, whereas very few other things in my life ever really have. On a rational level, it seems to me that having kids will add a sense of purpose to my life, given how many people share this perspective. At the same time, thinking about the time and effort I will be forced to take away from the thing that keeps me sane fills me with dread. It's not like there's a way back.
  - HFguy 5y ago
    What is the hobby?
    - Elte 5y ago
      (Sorry for the late reply - while I appreciate no notifications from HN it also means I tend to just forget about it). The hobby is sports. I'm relatively gifted as a "hybrid" athlete, if I work hard at it I can get podium finishes at OCR / Hyrox type events. I'd still do it without that though, it produces an emotional state that, while not taking away the rational thought that there's ultimately not much purpose to anything that I do, makes me not really care about that at all. Makes things make sense even when they don't. However, the fact that it (a) combines really poorly with a lack of sleep and (b) has an expiration date (athletic ability is of course age bound) do contribute to the sense of dread.
      - Volrath89 5y ago
        Yes I was going to mention just that. Having children will make your life purposeful probably forever? While your hobby has an expiration date and you'll still have many years left. But now that I think about it, it's the same with children. When a 30 year old parent hits the 50 year old mark his children would likely be already left from home. So it's almost the same, still many years left. PD: No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I'd have forgotten to check your response if I hadn't manually be looking for something in my own comments' history
        Elte 4y ago
        > No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I think by and large it's a good thing, but in certain cases "nothing will happen" isn't the outcome I'm looking for ;).
  - Volrath89 5y ago
    What hobby?
willcipriano 5y ago
What they are really saying is "It was fun (going to the bar/playing video games/whatever) with you when we were young, but I'm not young anymore and have a family to spend time with, I wish you had one too so I could invite you to family oriented activities." but knowing that you won't understand they say they are too busy and tired.
- deberon 5y ago
  I still like to do all those things as a parent! But I AM too busy and tired to do it impromptu.
- yoyohello13 5y ago
  You can invite people without kids to family oriented activities too. Maybe they would enjoy just hanging out with people.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    It really depends on the friend I suppose, I wasn't in a place to do all that many family friendly things before having kids personally.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  It can also just be an excuse and they don't want to hang out with you. The reason I started thinking about having a family is that I was done with partying. The idea of going out for drinks doesn't sound too appealing, but it's the popular thing to say
whistlerbrk 5y ago
Think it depends on the age of the children, right? Do you parents have very young children? Things get better once they are 5-6
- v-erne 5y ago
  Thats true, when both my children passed that bar (younger is just over 5 and older is 9) a lot of things got much better. But do not kid yourself (pun intended) if you are not sociopath You will feel that You need to care for them for the rest of your life and that always will be a blessing and burden at the same time. And the proportion may not be in your favour (my almost 40 years old brother is still living with my parents and havent had job for years).
100011_100001 5y ago
I have four children. I'm not going to claim that sometimes kids are not frustrating. However every time I see parents being burnt out I see one of two scenarios. Scenario 1: The over-achiever parent I see this frequently, a parent that wants to be a super parent. This manifests in a bunch of different ways, but usually it's enrolling their kids to 15 different activities essentially running all over the place being glorified taxis for their kids. Then their kids don't know how to function if there is nothing to do. Scenario 2: The I'm missing our parent Parents that either had kids too early, or not by choice. They feel like they missed out, so they lament about all the fun they didn't have. This is a weird form of resistance to reality. What usually happens is that they will get a divorce, to somehow escape their children. I am 40, so I see it with people my age, they divorce, see their kids 2-4 times a week and do crazy stuff to somehow recapture their youth. In my opinion it's about keeping a good balance. If you never make time for yourself that's a mistake. If you put the bar too high as a parent you are bound to miss. The simplest approach is to carve out some time to yourself, balancing things out with your significant other. Enrolling your kids in 1-2 activities out of school and recognizing that not every single minute of a day needs to be hyper-optimized.
- gfxgirl 5y ago
  It can help to have family close. Growing up my parents often gave us to our grandparents for the weekend (one a month?). Both grandparents lived within 1hr. So, my parent were able to take some weekends for themselves. Also babysitters for a night out and they both had siblings with kids they could leave us with. I know plenty of people who don't have this kind of support group and/or are unwilling to use sitters in any form.
  - lfowles 5y ago
    Definitely. I'm incredibly burnt out after being a stay at home dad for the past year, with the pandemic cautions a lot of support structures disappeared or became unreliable (older family watching the baby, finding a reliable babysitter or daycare, etc). I essentially forgot about everything extraneous in my life so I wouldn't be frustrated that I didn't have time or energy to do it anymore. Without a doubt, I'm more boring than I used to be. Part of this is just having a kid under 5 apparently, but I can't imagine being able to survive with more than one, much less retain a creative pursuit.
jasper_fitussi 5y ago
Yep, also the introverted ones, with introverted kids.

Tell that to my very burnt out parent friends! YMMV

osullip 5y ago

Tell that to people who won't/don't have kids

NateEag 5y ago

"Burnt-out" != "boring".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

quirino 5y ago

The point of parent comment is that the consequences of having kids are not what they seem from the outside. Maybe your parent friends' experiences are vastly different from how you perceive them (or how they express them).

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

I said it was interesting, not-boring, and introducing me to more new people than I’ve met since college. I didn’t say it was always easy, but that’s fine by me because it’s not actually soul-crushingly difficult (again, another misconception popular among young people without kids that turned out to be wrong). The older I get, the more I realize that my friends who optimize for minimal effort (no kids, reluctant to leave the house, picky about what they attend) are gradually sliding into very boring and unfulfilled existences.

Elte 5y ago
I may be like one of your boring unfulfilled friends, except I have a single hobby that makes me feel a sense of purpose, whereas very few other things in my life ever really have. On a rational level, it seems to me that having kids will add a sense of purpose to my life, given how many people share this perspective. At the same time, thinking about the time and effort I will be forced to take away from the thing that keeps me sane fills me with dread. It's not like there's a way back.
- HFguy 5y ago
  What is the hobby?
  - Elte 5y ago
    (Sorry for the late reply - while I appreciate no notifications from HN it also means I tend to just forget about it). The hobby is sports. I'm relatively gifted as a "hybrid" athlete, if I work hard at it I can get podium finishes at OCR / Hyrox type events. I'd still do it without that though, it produces an emotional state that, while not taking away the rational thought that there's ultimately not much purpose to anything that I do, makes me not really care about that at all. Makes things make sense even when they don't. However, the fact that it (a) combines really poorly with a lack of sleep and (b) has an expiration date (athletic ability is of course age bound) do contribute to the sense of dread.
    - Volrath89 5y ago
      Yes I was going to mention just that. Having children will make your life purposeful probably forever? While your hobby has an expiration date and you'll still have many years left. But now that I think about it, it's the same with children. When a 30 year old parent hits the 50 year old mark his children would likely be already left from home. So it's almost the same, still many years left. PD: No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I'd have forgotten to check your response if I hadn't manually be looking for something in my own comments' history
      - Elte 4y ago
        > No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I think by and large it's a good thing, but in certain cases "nothing will happen" isn't the outcome I'm looking for ;).
- Volrath89 5y ago
  What hobby?

willcipriano 5y ago

What they are really saying is "It was fun (going to the bar/playing video games/whatever) with you when we were young, but I'm not young anymore and have a family to spend time with, I wish you had one too so I could invite you to family oriented activities." but knowing that you won't understand they say they are too busy and tired.

deberon 5y ago
I still like to do all those things as a parent! But I AM too busy and tired to do it impromptu.
yoyohello13 5y ago
You can invite people without kids to family oriented activities too. Maybe they would enjoy just hanging out with people.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  It really depends on the friend I suppose, I wasn't in a place to do all that many family friendly things before having kids personally.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
It can also just be an excuse and they don't want to hang out with you. The reason I started thinking about having a family is that I was done with partying. The idea of going out for drinks doesn't sound too appealing, but it's the popular thing to say

whistlerbrk 5y ago

Think it depends on the age of the children, right? Do you parents have very young children? Things get better once they are 5-6

v-erne 5y ago
Thats true, when both my children passed that bar (younger is just over 5 and older is 9) a lot of things got much better. But do not kid yourself (pun intended) if you are not sociopath You will feel that You need to care for them for the rest of your life and that always will be a blessing and burden at the same time. And the proportion may not be in your favour (my almost 40 years old brother is still living with my parents and havent had job for years).

100011_100001 5y ago

I have four children. I'm not going to claim that sometimes kids are not frustrating. However every time I see parents being burnt out I see one of two scenarios. Scenario 1: The over-achiever parent I see this frequently, a parent that wants to be a super parent. This manifests in a bunch of different ways, but usually it's enrolling their kids to 15 different activities essentially running all over the place being glorified taxis for their kids. Then their kids don't know how to function if there is nothing to do. Scenario 2: The I'm missing our parent Parents that either had kids too early, or not by choice. They feel like they missed out, so they lament about all the fun they didn't have. This is a weird form of resistance to reality. What usually happens is that they will get a divorce, to somehow escape their children. I am 40, so I see it with people my age, they divorce, see their kids 2-4 times a week and do crazy stuff to somehow recapture their youth. In my opinion it's about keeping a good balance. If you never make time for yourself that's a mistake. If you put the bar too high as a parent you are bound to miss. The simplest approach is to carve out some time to yourself, balancing things out with your significant other. Enrolling your kids in 1-2 activities out of school and recognizing that not every single minute of a day needs to be hyper-optimized.

gfxgirl 5y ago
It can help to have family close. Growing up my parents often gave us to our grandparents for the weekend (one a month?). Both grandparents lived within 1hr. So, my parent were able to take some weekends for themselves. Also babysitters for a night out and they both had siblings with kids they could leave us with. I know plenty of people who don't have this kind of support group and/or are unwilling to use sitters in any form.
- lfowles 5y ago
  Definitely. I'm incredibly burnt out after being a stay at home dad for the past year, with the pandemic cautions a lot of support structures disappeared or became unreliable (older family watching the baby, finding a reliable babysitter or daycare, etc). I essentially forgot about everything extraneous in my life so I wouldn't be frustrated that I didn't have time or energy to do it anymore. Without a doubt, I'm more boring than I used to be. Part of this is just having a kid under 5 apparently, but I can't imagine being able to survive with more than one, much less retain a creative pursuit.

jasper_fitussi 5y ago

Yep, also the introverted ones, with introverted kids.