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 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.