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The Existential Relief of Having Children
- chaps 3y agoLet’s switch tracks for a second. Have you ever noticed how at a job, not having enough work produces a different (and usually worse) state of misery than having too much? Join a non-profit and a lot of these problems go away :)
- Terr_ 3y agoIn my youth, I found summer vacation distressingly undirected (though part of that was living overseas with a language barrier) and even benign periods of unemployment have had a similar impression.
- huytersd 3y ago[flagged]
- Supermancho 3y agoAfter WFH became normalized, the "existential anxiety" dropped away. My mental state is different and I'm happier. I can work-crunch better, but I don't feel bad sitting in an office wasting my life. I'm at home, where I'm happy to sit around and tinker with what I enjoy.
- colineartheta 3y agoThis comes across as a really aggressive comment for no real reason. A lot of people find too much free time distressing. Even with a lot of projects to pursue, or come up with, it can be difficult to focus on any particular one for the simple fact that the mind can be preoccupied with the constant weighing of opportunity costs, and become stagnant (only now with even more anxiety about opportunity being wasted). Sometimes people reveal things about themselves because they’re looking for the validation only others commiserating can bring. Unfortunately this often invites needless criticism.
- huytersd 3y agoFinding free time undirected by an authority figure as distressing, should in my opinion should be seen as a mental health failure. It is however beneficial to our society, so generally encouraged.
- switchbak 3y agoIt would be great if everyone could be as comfortable with idle time as you are, but Jesus, why be such a prick about it?
- huytersd 3y agoBecause that mindset has far reaching consequences in society. It’s worth bringing up.
- chaps 3y agoFriend, there are better ways to say what you're attempting to say without coming off as an overwhelmingly insufferable douche. I think, at least, since hell, I honestly can't even tell what your point is because instead of focusing on clarity, you've instead focused on being mean for the sake of being mean.
- yawpitch 3y agoDirecting the words “aren’t you ashamed” at any human being for any reason at all that doesn’t involve them having been observed committing what could reasonably be seen as an actual moral crime is proof of a lack of empathy. Congratulations on being a functioning psychopath… a substantial percentage of self-starters are. There’s nothing remotely shameful about desiring to have a purpose and a task to which you are, either by self or by other, employed… the only thing that can be shameful is what task you’re set to and how and why you’re set to it. Give me a worker bee laboring every day to feed others over a “self-made” go-getter laboring to own a gold toilet.
- huytersd 3y agoIt is a bit of a moral crime in my opinion. Pining for an authority to give you purpose and direction is rather damning as an individual or at the very least reveals something about yourself that isn’t respectable.
- oven9342 3y ago>in order to arouse crying and tears, concentrate your attention in yourself. J. Cortázar
- monero-xmr 3y agoMy aunt’s deathbed regret at 61 from cancer - “I wish I had kids.” If you aren’t mentally deranged or have a genetic disease you may pass on, it really is a mistake to skip having kids. Everyone I know with kids in their 40s and 50s is content. Everyone without are getting ever more extreme hobbies, like creating huge professional-esque home breweries or starting to BASE jump.
- georgebcrawford 3y ago> If you aren’t mentally deranged or have a genetic disease you may pass on, it really is a mistake to skip having kids. Jog on mate. There's a difference between "you won't regret them" and "it really is a mistake to skip having kids." I know loads of older people without kids. Would their lives have had more meaning and fulfillment if they had them? Maybe, probably. But they are happy and content, living lives of meaning. As for your hobbies comment...seriously?
- yawpitch 3y agoNot everyone who “skips” having kids is doing so because of mental derangement (not usually genetic), a genetic disease (be careful with eugenics, it tends to bite), or any kind of mistake. Most people I know in their 40s and 50s who don’t have kids desperately wanted them but for one reason or another couldn’t have them, while most of those who actually chose not to had good, well-reasoned motivations and made the correct choice for them. Spend enough years struggling to find a decent partner and then IFF you eventually do even more years struggling through the inhumane process that is IVF and you’ll also have your aunt’s regret, but not have made any mistakes along the way.
- in_a_society 3y agoI suspect that parent comment is not referring to the same kinds of people you are. I can relate because I know several people who flippantly dismissed family formation as not for them and now that it's too late they admit it consumes them like a fire on a daily basis.
- 3y ago
- aapoalas 3y agoA philosopher friend of mine pointed this exact thing: After having children he stopped pondering about the big existential questions. Paraphrasing his words: "You neither have the time nor the need to think of the meaning of it all: Children give meaning to everything ."
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoIt just always seemed like a curse to me to only be able to ponder such a very very short small & local set of considerations. I think it's amazing that our species can take such grander views. Having children seems to truncate that perspective enormously. Still want kids, still excited for this future. But man, I think most kids would have much better lives & grow up to be better more interesting people if the parents & adults didn't have to make such enormous sacrifices, if there was some spare capacity left over. And I think capitalism & the world we live in today is especially draining & enmiserating in this way.
- golol 3y ago> And I think capitalism & the world we live in today is especially draining & enmiserating in this way. When was it bețter exactly?
- nprateem 3y agoWhen child-rearing was a communal activity supported by friends and extended family.
- laborcontract 3y agoYou need to have a lot of kids for that to happen.
- ssnri 3y agoUnpopular opinion: parents get tax breaks, extra paid time off, and plenty of social leeway for blocking sidewalks with strollers / crying babies on planes, etc. Please don’t ask for more. We who don’t have kids have our own problems. As George Carlin put it: “speaking as a mother, …”
- 000ooo000 3y agoThis felt very relevant to me, i.e. the perspectives on existential anxiety and relationship with work. Our first is a week 'overdue' today and as someone who deliberated for years over whether having a child was 'right', I have no regret and I can't wait. The parts about purpose, difficulty in regretting certainly feel true. But all that may be the monkey brain chemicals racing around so hopefully this comment doesn't age poorly.
- BigParm 3y ago[dead]
- canistel 3y agoThe caption below the cartoon got me thinking... Intense craving for sugar, is a harmless and potentially beneficial adaptation for a human hunter-gatherer. This however, can be quite harmful for a city-dweller, and forces him to incessantly keep a watch over his impulses and frequently keep applying breaks. Is there an accepted or popular term for such adaptations which eventually turned into maladaptations as we civilised ourselves?
- card_zero 3y agoYes, these maladaptations are called "maladaptations". :)
- riverdweller 3y agoIt’s not elegant, but the term is evolutionary mismatch.
- whyage 3y agoGood approach, but it's time-bound. How do you find meaning after your kids leave the nest?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- irrational 3y agoI don't have any experience in this area, but maybe grandchildren?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoAs long as you find meaning from conditional existence, it will disappear. That’s why religions appeared, to have timeless meaning, and values. But we threw them out as superstitious, not understanding their purpose
- ssnri 3y agoPerfect solution: have 10 kids and go to church every day. Or get a hobby. Up to you
- anonzzzies 3y agoBut they way you say it sounds like they were invented with a purpose, which means you can replace them with another purpose; apparently short term thinking is worth writing articles about. So kids is one for a bit of your life; you can, like some guys (unfair but guys can) I know, just go to a new 20something girl every 15 years to make a new nest. Or you can find a purpose for your life, be it writing software, books, music, studying math, physics etc which your life ends up too short for and which will engulf you for however long it maybe with always having too little time while needing almost no money or other external stimuli. Wouldn’t that be better. Indeed it is.
- 3y ago
- 55555 3y agoI (childless) thought this article was fantastic and convincing and then at the end the author reveals that she doesn’t have kids and then interviews a few of her friends who are parents and they are way less romantic about the whole thing. Certainly some of the hesitation people have about having children simply comes from the many parents who don’t make it sound great. I honestly think it’d be great to have a study that interviews parents but segments them by income. So we can see how much of the struggle is actually caused by not being able to pay for daycare or a maid etc.
- blast 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmq0udSUuxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmq0udSUuxc
- penguin_booze 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n32YMFjMZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n32YMFjMZFc
- tiahura 3y agoI get that people can debate the existential satisfaction of having kids, however what doesn’t seem debatable is the “next level” personal development that occurs by having kids. The first six months of parenthood broadens perspectives and instills more wisdom than 60 years of having pets, or volunteering at X, or traveling, or any other activity offered as an alternative.
- anonzzzies 3y ago> or any other activity offered as an alternative. … in your opinion as a wiser person I guess. Most parents I know are considerable less ‘wise’ than the not parents: the latter group had ~20 years more of travel, diverse life, study etc. Most early parents, 6-8 years into their first (with maybe a 2nd or more there) sound lobotomised when I get to speak with them. It gets better later on, but wisdom, I think not.
- john61 3y agoI doubt that having children answers the big existential questions anymore, if the planet is probably going on fire during the lifetime of the next generation.
- bowsamic 3y agoThat’s a good point and is a reason why I think it’s no longer true. Is the suggestion that when I have children I will not worry about their fate? I’m existentially worried about my own fate due to climate change (will economy explode in 20 or 40 years?) This, along with the stress of no family support and wife working, is the main pressure to not have kids for me
- doublepg23 3y agoWhat would've happened to humanity if we had that same outlook during every hardship that faced them?
- chowells 3y agoWhy is humanity important?
- anonzzzies 3y agoIt’s a question I would like to ask Musk; some of his words and actions say humanity is the most important thing there is and the rest that comes out of him say he doesn’t actually care. I wonder which it is. But humanity is a blib on a tiny ball. Easily missed (well, incredibly hard to spot) in our own quadrant of the galaxy.
- card_zero 3y agoSize is irrelevant, a cow is much larger than you, but you are important.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
- carrolldunham 3y agoOf course the removal of the curse of existential freedom is the reason for having children. Whether people consciously reason it out or not, it's agony wondering whether every decision is part of 'the right thing', and pure relief when a constraint descends of there being only one thing to do, which is imperative. 'You have to' frees you from the indulgent loneliness of 'You wanted to'. But neither the article or anyone here has stopped to consider whether it's ethical or defensible to bring beings into the world, to suffer, for the sake of easing your confusion and boredom. To me, it's not. Taking on a responsibility is one thing. Creating the problem that you then take responsibility for (your child's need of care), is neutral at best and, arguably, crooked.
- dustincoates 3y ago> American parents really get up in arms about this stuff, which is something I’ve learned firsthand over the past few years. (I’ve also learned to recognize when they don’t want to hear my counterargument.) But the fact of the matter is, babies throughout history have slept—and in many places today, still sleep—in the same “bed” as their parents. Various positions of sleeping (back, side, stomach) are also common across cultures and time. At the risk of being one of those parents who don't want to hear a counterargument… Sure, this is all true, but the author's argument is unsatisfying. We've done lots of things throughout history that have since been proven unsafe. Putting babies on their back to sleep is correlated with a 50% reduction in SIDS deaths. I don't think you can handwave that away with "we used to do it differently" or "non-American cultures do it differently."
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoSid deaths are 1 in 10.000; there is some indication that not sleeping on the stomach make it 1 to 20.000. But the numbers are too low, and classifying and reporting true causes is hard
- laborcontract 3y agoSo much to unpack here but as a parent that just got my kid over the worried about sids stage, it’s easily the most overrated worry once you unpack things and figure out what’s generally going on. Most important piece of the discussion is that most parents conflate suffocation with SIDS. They are totally different things. Suffocation risks can be mitigated. Avoid sleeping with little ones on the couch, don’t put too many blankets in a crib, etc etc. Actual SIDS is a real thing, and it’s not certain that SIDS risks can actually be mitigated. Theres a genetic factor, birth related factors, and smoking factors. The SIDS survey is wholly unsatisfying because it doesn’t control for stuff like loose blankets in cribs.
- dustincoates 3y agoSo my critique here isn't whether back sleeping is necessary or co-sleeping should be avoided. I have my own thoughts on those, but I'm also aware that you have to balance risks. My critique is that the appeal to tradition and the appeal to, I don't know what to call it, "not American" by someone who isn't trained in this area is not the right approach for making that calculation.
- anonzzzies 3y agoIt’s indeed such an (seemingly) easy fix ; marriage not good; get kids, bored with life; kids, seeking meaning: kids. I had friends and family do it for some or all of these reasons and indeed, at the start it helped somewhat; there was pink cloud. In the end it didn’t help and there was no meaning; divorce, depression (including suicide as there indeed was no meaning it turned out) and boredom moved back in after the kids left the house. There is no meaning, the universe doesn’t care; kids is the same as whatever else you can occupy yourself with that makes yourself feel worthy, making babies is just easier for most and it’s a ‘together activity’ that takes 25-30% of your life.
- switchbak 3y agoI think this might be the most cynical thing I’ve read on the Internet. Congrats.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoSpeaking as someone who's from a tight clique of former children of loveless homes, there's a truth I'd like to tattoo on the forehead of every baby-crazed[1] young couple: No One Asks To Be Born. It's on you. It's all on you. You're making the bet: half your life in exchange for throwing your genetics into the future. There's no waiting room of cherubs waiting at the vag-shaped gate for a turn on the old jumping dirt, no Sky Dad giving you gold stars for every set of fresh genitals vomited forth onto the world. But if you just end up making 60+ more years of misery for another lifeform, what in the living hell are you thinking? Ok, alright, this is now the official "Bleak Subthread". Happy Subthreads, please continue on aisles 3 through 62. [1] Or think they're baby crazed. Social expectations + hormones are powerful medicine. The problem is that - in America, anyway - the "social" part of that equation is fucked, nine ways to Sunday, and if you buy in without doing brain stuff, you'll be fucked, too.
- RestlessMind 3y ago> There is no meaning, the universe doesn’t care; I just commented this elsewhere on this page - the only purpose of life is survival of one's genes. Those who care about that will have a higher likelihood of their genes surviving. Those who do not care (like you?) will have a lower likelihood. Rules of nature are pretty simple and amazing.
- metalrain 3y agoWhen I was younger I used to think I need to have children in order to understand parents and belong socially when almost everyone else has had children. I think there is some truth to that, parents don't become non-parents even after their children are adults, but I think not having the same parenthood experience can be also a good thing. People don't just befriend people who are exactly like them.
- causasui 3y agoPeople will say they've had children to quell existential dread _and_ also claim having children is an unselfish act all in the same breath.
- phmqk76 3y agoSo?