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I'm much the same, in a DINK situation and going hard at life experiences but everyone our age has had children and their lives revolve around looking after the

I'm much the same, in a DINK situation and going hard at life experiences but everyone our age has had children and their lives revolve around looking after them. It's just not very interesting, and nobody has time for fun outside of that. One of my best friends (female) was in the Royal Marines, travelled to Antarctica etc when she was a late teenager/early 20s but now all she does is bring up her children, visit the grandparents and run a small dog training business as a side hustle. I find it intriguing that this is what people want.

majikaja 4y ago
Perhaps dropping to a single income would make kids a more tolerable experience.
- bennyelv 4y ago
  Assuming you mean that your expectations grow and shrink with your means: The person in question is married, husband makes a solid wage, and she would be doing exactly the same if it wasn't for children. It was a conscious decision/plan to do the kids thing. I wouldn't focus on this specific example however, that wasn't my intention. My point is that people give up so much in order to raise children. One of the major reasons why people of child rearing age aren't going to parties and having as much fun as they used to is because they're now raising children, so they can't. They don't have as wide a range of interesting things going on in their lives because raising children is an all or nothing type of affair.
  - lotsoweiners 4y ago
    This is something you may not understand because you don’t have kids but for my wife and I the kids are the reward. We partied hard (too hard), traveled to other countries, etc but after having kids we realized that stuff was pointless and we don’t miss it at all unless we can do it with our kids. I’m in my 40s and have plenty of friends who are single or married with no kids and if I had to pick who I know seems the most dissatisfied with life or who are the grumpiest about things out of their control, it would the people from this group.
    - bennyelv 4y ago
      I get that too - I know plenty of people who are very happy about their choice to have kids, despite the lack of what they used to call fun since having them. I understand that having dependents give you purpose, and that purpose is (for whatever reason) something that us humans need to be happy. What I don’t agree with is that you can’t find purpose without having kids that gives you the same satisfaction. If the problem being solved is that in the philosophical sense life is pointless, then your children’s life is as pointless as yours and having children therefore cannot create purpose for that life. If “purpose” can be reduced to “something challenging that you care deeply about and dedicate your life to” then there are things other than children that can create it. For example the quest to perfect a skill (perhaps in sport, or in art, etc). What matters is that you care about it and it is challenging enough to create failure and the satisfaction of overcoming failure. Travelling and partying are not things that meet that criteria (what difficulty is there to overcome? How do you know if you’ve succeeded?), so on their own they are not a purpose. Those are my thoughts on it anyway, I know everyone has different feelings about this.

majikaja 4y ago

Perhaps dropping to a single income would make kids a more tolerable experience.

bennyelv 4y ago
Assuming you mean that your expectations grow and shrink with your means: The person in question is married, husband makes a solid wage, and she would be doing exactly the same if it wasn't for children. It was a conscious decision/plan to do the kids thing. I wouldn't focus on this specific example however, that wasn't my intention. My point is that people give up so much in order to raise children. One of the major reasons why people of child rearing age aren't going to parties and having as much fun as they used to is because they're now raising children, so they can't. They don't have as wide a range of interesting things going on in their lives because raising children is an all or nothing type of affair.
- lotsoweiners 4y ago
  This is something you may not understand because you don’t have kids but for my wife and I the kids are the reward. We partied hard (too hard), traveled to other countries, etc but after having kids we realized that stuff was pointless and we don’t miss it at all unless we can do it with our kids. I’m in my 40s and have plenty of friends who are single or married with no kids and if I had to pick who I know seems the most dissatisfied with life or who are the grumpiest about things out of their control, it would the people from this group.
  - bennyelv 4y ago
    I get that too - I know plenty of people who are very happy about their choice to have kids, despite the lack of what they used to call fun since having them. I understand that having dependents give you purpose, and that purpose is (for whatever reason) something that us humans need to be happy. What I don’t agree with is that you can’t find purpose without having kids that gives you the same satisfaction. If the problem being solved is that in the philosophical sense life is pointless, then your children’s life is as pointless as yours and having children therefore cannot create purpose for that life. If “purpose” can be reduced to “something challenging that you care deeply about and dedicate your life to” then there are things other than children that can create it. For example the quest to perfect a skill (perhaps in sport, or in art, etc). What matters is that you care about it and it is challenging enough to create failure and the satisfaction of overcoming failure. Travelling and partying are not things that meet that criteria (what difficulty is there to overcome? How do you know if you’ve succeeded?), so on their own they are not a purpose. Those are my thoughts on it anyway, I know everyone has different feelings about this.