5 ms·

Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. Wh

Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A wide range of celebrities spend their days posting about how amazing it is to be without children. I accept that there are some parents out there who regret their decision, but research shows them to be a vanishingly small minority. The VAST majority of parents report greater meaning, more love, personal growth, enjoyment, fulfillment, etc. Something has become quite sick in modern society when we provide such an imbalanced and untrue message to young people.

afc 2mo ago
Interesting perspective. Your first paragraph also describes my experience, perfectly. However, even though I also think nothing comes even close to parenthood for me, my perspective is that society strongly encourages —I'd even say strongly pressures— people to have kids, to feel that if you don't, it's almost like something is wrong with you. Maybe we're just different generations? :-)
- kakacik 2mo ago
  No modern western society does that, for quite some time. Maybe specific people around you behave so, but society as a whole? Nah
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
  I think it's social pressure in some cultures, but even in those (sub)cultures which don't have the explicit pressure to have kids, people have a drive to procreate. I cannot tell you how many couples I know who decided they would not have kids, or would only have one, and at a certain point one partner (usually a woman in their late 30s or early 40s if I am being honest) decided this was the most important thing and no amount of money or career setbacks or relationship turmoil wouldn stand in the way.
  - pbronez 2mo ago
    Yeah that biological clock had a surprisingly loud alarm!
  - Der_Einzige 2mo ago
    Sadly for many of these women the clock hit too late. They call it "geriatric pregnancy" if it's after 35 for a reason.
    - thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
      Yup. Several of these people I know left it too late and went through a lot with IVF or adoption of just not having the kids they wanted.
- JKCalhoun 2mo ago
  I never felt that pressure to have kids. In fact, even though I waited until I was in my mid 30's, I was the first in my social circle to have kids (I guess I hung around with younger people?). I knew since I was a kid myself that I wanted to someday be a father. If society pushed me, it would have been when I was still in elementary school. After I had kids though… It was strange to scroll through coworkers social media feeds and see the same photos of groups of 30-somethings holding up wine glasses while the waiter (I assume) takes their photo at some fancy restaurant in the Bay Area. It all seemed so… hedonistic? Or maybe just kind of empty. Becoming a father gave me purpose that was (finally) not about me any longer. And now, the nest empty, I still am unable to go back to that person I was before. (Whoever that was.)
  - Gareth321 2mo ago
    It really does put the partying in perspective, doesn't it? It helps focus what really matters, and it's usually not alcohol and fancy dinners.
    - mettamage 2mo ago
      Unless you meet your SO drunk at a party ;-)
  - throwfaraway4 2mo ago
    I live in a neighborhood of older retired folks and I get this vibe from them as well when walking my younger kids. Their faces light up with joy. Just another season in life I suppose. Let's enjoy it while we can.
- graemep 2mo ago
  Different generations, different places, exactly where you are in your society, religious influences, your immediate social circle, how much time you spend on social media.... Certainly in the UK there is a group of people who have become very negative about having kids, partly because they are scared of the expense, and partly because society makes it look so hard, and partly because they genuinely have less support.
  - spidercat 2mo ago
    Pregnancy is also a really scary prospect for a lot of people (myself included), and there doesn't seem to be much work done in trying to make it, well, less shitty of an experience. "It's just how it is," but... is it really? Does it really need to be so bad? Not to mention that "it takes a village", but in many places the village has been basically stolen from us.
    - graemep 2mo ago
      Pregnancy is never going to be easy (and its one part of parenting I am glad I did not have to do!) but it can definitely be made easier and more pleasant. it varies a lot though. We were quite lucky in many ways. However, why is pregnancy scarier than it used to be when it is safer than it has ever been? It seems to be more scary in developed countries than in poor ones too. I wonder whether the loss of the "village" might be part of the reason for this. it certainly is for a lot of other things around having kids.
      - spidercat 2mo ago
        I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that birth control offers us a choice in the matter. Pregnancy used to be something You Just Did, because, well, most people enjoy having sex, and pregnancy is the intended consequence of unprotected sex. It's scary, it's stressful, it's risky, and it's sometimes even fatal... but it's "part of life". It's how we ended up here, after all. Now we have a choice. Which is GREAT, amazing, even. Absolutely necessary. I'll never argue that anyone's right to choose if they want to be a parent is a bad thing. I wonder if social media is also contributing, with its polarizing nature. It's rare you see any opinions or even anecdotes about pregnancy being "fine" or "whatever". It's always a big deal, and it's always a big deal (horrible) or a big deal (wonderful). There's not a lot of in between. The negative end of the spectrum scares people, while the positive end of the spectrum is met with skepticism since it's too-often (for me at least) correlated with right-wing religious people trying to push women to be what're effectively baby factories, so the "it's the most wonderful experience ever!" just comes off as disingenuous and manipulative. Combined with the fact that women's healthcare is rife with challenges, and women's pain is often dismissed (not looking to start any "gender wars" arguments; just stating things that can be backed up https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10937548/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10937548/), the prospect of becoming pregnant is a scary one, when you have the option to not do that. "What if it's nine months of constant nausea, being bedbound, gaining weight I'll never be able to lose? My body will change, in many ways irreversibly. Will my partner still find me attractive? Will they support me during? Will they support me after? Will I feel supported? Will I feel resentment that they'll be able to enjoy things like alcohol while I'll have to stay completely sober for a very long time? Will I feel resentment if the majority of childcare falls on me, which is statistically actually quite likely? What about my career? Will I regret it? What if my child is born with a disability? What if I'm bad at being a mom? What if I hate it? What if I'm trapped in a life I don't want? What if there's no way out?" Of course, the above thought process could also be one with thoughts like "what if it's wonderful?" but it's a lot easier to worry about the negative, and put weight on the negative, than it is to fantasize and put weight on the positive what-ifs. This is just my perspective, though. Some people love being pregnant and find parenthood really wonderful (or so they tell me about those things), and I love that for them. Truly. I'm just not sure if I have it in me to ever find out what it would be like for me, and I know I'm not alone. Fun Auntie is a better role for me I think. But maybe I would feel differently if pregnancy were easier and a less destructive process on the female body, and there was more social support for parents.
- marknutter 2mo ago
  I think that used to be the case but has dramatically shifted in the opposite direction in recent years.
- spidercat 2mo ago
  Yeah, speaking as a female-bodied person here - undoubtedly a minority on this site - I absolutely feel the pressure to have children in society, pretty much every day. Look at the "birth rate" discourse that's been going on. There's tremendous pressure on women to have more babies. There's also a lot of pendulum-swinging in the opposite direction with your edgy "antinatalists", in some sort of weird "overcorrection" or some such, but ultimately those voices are much louder online than in real life. Fewer people are reproducing, but that doesn't mean the pressures to do so aren't still there. "It's complicated."
  - graemep 2mo ago
    Does the birth rate discourse put pressure on you as an individual? I had expected that to also be more of an online than real life push. There is more pressure on women to have kids than on men. That is not new. What is new is a more negative attitude to children and parenting in society in general. Do you feel there are conflicting pressures now?
    - spidercat 2mo ago
      >Does the birth rate discourse put pressure on you as an individual? Implicitly, I think, yes. It builds on all of the other social pressures, big and small. I'm sure an entire humanities thesis could be written about how it all adds up over time. I wrote another comment elsewhere in the thread talking about polarized opinions broadcasted on social media and how that also adds to the stress of it all. Nobody ever wants to talk about the "it was/is... fine, actually. kind of whatever. not great, but not horrible." possibility of pregnancy (and parenthood). It's always either the most wonderful, miraculous thing ever and you're insane for not wanting it, or it's the most horrible, irreversibly damaging thing ever and you're insane for wanting it. And the thing is... it COULD be any of those outcomes! It could ruin your life. It could also make your life so much more fulfilling. There's simply no way to know for sure what it will be like for you without doing it. It is an enormous gamble, especially when you are the person who has to endure the pregnancy, and it is a gamble that you can't really walk away from. (Of course, you can give a child up for adoption, but there's a lot of social shame involved in that, especially if it is a wanted child that you're quite literally giving up on rearing.)
close04 2mo ago
> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't get this apparent contradiction until it was my turn. I think the people who miss almost all of these "tickboxes" and can somehow link it to the kids become unhappy with parenthood. If they ever feel their personal time, romance, career, success suffered because of the focus on the children, they will end up in the "disappointment" camp. I never personally met anyone who was willing to admit regret of having children but I did meet people who were disappointed and put a veiled blame for their failure on the children.
- Gareth321 2mo ago
  That's great insight. My sister missed some of these milestones and I hear echoes of what you describe in some of our conversations.
- thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
  I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.
  - coffeebeqn 2mo ago
    How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons
    - thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
      One is 6 years, the other is 6 months.
VBprogrammer 2mo ago
As much as I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as DINKs, the feeling of my 7 year old girl sneaking up behind me to give me a cuddle outweighs all of the fast cars and long walks on the beach I personally could ever have.
- coffeebeqn 2mo ago
  Kids love beaches!
  - VBprogrammer 2mo ago
    Alas, they are not so keen on long walks!
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - oblio 2mo ago
      For a few more years.
  - elictronic 2mo ago
    Bearings on a stroller not so much.
    - mcv 2mo ago
      There are toy wagons (Dutch: bolderkar, is "toy wagon" really the correct translation?) that are great fun for transporting kids on a beach.
jraby3 2mo ago
I've thought about this and while I agree with you completely, I think the reason why is not just society at large. Externally what most people see is the time suck, money suck, and frustration with teaching behavior, fixing bad behavior etc. What's so easy to miss is the immense feeling of love, of being needed, of being loved, that words can't describe. I frequently tell people I feel like the grinch after he discovers Xmas - my heart is three times bigger. But you can't really see that it's just a feeling I carry with me.
- sneak 2mo ago
  You don’t need children to have these sorts of feelings, unless you can only get them from some small people who don’t have any choice but to love you.
  - marliechiller 2mo ago
    Do you have children? If no, then how can you make this assertion? If yes, what or who is filling the gap that children fill for you?
    - siren2026 2mo ago
      This is a fallacy. You don't need to live a situation to be able to comment about it. Especially if we try to rationalize the choice. If you talk about "feelings", then fine. But be aware that "feelings" could simply be your hormone levels changing after having kids.
      - Forgeties79 2mo ago
        You don’t need to be a parent to be allowed to comment on or speculate about being a parent, but this is definitely one of those things you can’t guess at or estimate. Until it is your kid in front of you you can’t know what you’ll feel as a parent. Maybe it’s all hormones and monkey brain, but that doesn’t make it any different. Many people do not have that Hollywood Magic moment where “everything changed.” Some of my friends experienced this, some of them did not. None of us experienced what we thought we would.
Forgeties79 2mo ago
> Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world That’s…unhealthy and unusual.
- Gareth321 2mo ago
  I think they were trying to scare us into not having sex. Or at least having protected sex. Either way, they made all the kids watch videos about teen pregnancy and how it would ruin our lives. They also repeated it frequently in sex education. They focused on how terrible it was to have children. The struggles, etc. I suppose it is difficult for teens to understand nuance, but it certainly left a fairly grim impression of parenthood on all of us. Was it different for you?
  - mylies43 2mo ago
    In my experince we got that, but it was all focused on having a kid while being a teenager will ruin your life not that having a kid at all will ruin your life. Which is fair, a teenager having a child is in a lot of ways ending their lifes or making at a minimum way more difficult( if they family support that is, otherwise good luck )
  - Forgeties79 2mo ago
    Oh this is when you were a student? I thought this was as a parent with kids in school. Getting pregnant (especially in the wrong state) in the US as a high schooler can absolutely ruin your life. In some states it can even get you killed due to the legal chaos still happening in hospitals.
globnomulous 2mo ago
> Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A wide range of celebrities spend their days posting about how amazing it is to be without children. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but this isn't at all what I remember. I frankly can't think of a single movie or TV show that paints parenting as bad, let alone the worst thing in the world. I can think of only one celebrity who I can recall extolled his child-free life. That was within the past year-- and I think the guy is a total dipshit man-child. And I have no idea where you grew up, or whether that's actually a factor, but my teachers, when they had kids, seemed like loving parents. When they didn't have kids, I don't think they ever spoke badly or parenting.
mcv 2mo ago
I agree parenthood is underappreciated and undersold. Nothing in life beats seeing kids grow up from helpless infants to well-adjusted, passionate young adults. Lately I frequently find myself wondering if every philosopher who pondered the meaning of life was childless, because it feels to me like the answer must be pretty obvious to any parent.
siren2026 2mo ago
>> Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible Uh? I feel it's the opposite. Society constantly judges people that don't have kids. Having kids has always been the norm. It projects you as a grown up mature adult. In fact I think a ton of people have kids simply because they want to give that image of being a well established mature person.

afc 2mo ago

Interesting perspective. Your first paragraph also describes my experience, perfectly. However, even though I also think nothing comes even close to parenthood for me, my perspective is that society strongly encourages —I'd even say strongly pressures— people to have kids, to feel that if you don't, it's almost like something is wrong with you. Maybe we're just different generations? :-)

kakacik 2mo ago
No modern western society does that, for quite some time. Maybe specific people around you behave so, but society as a whole? Nah
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
I think it's social pressure in some cultures, but even in those (sub)cultures which don't have the explicit pressure to have kids, people have a drive to procreate. I cannot tell you how many couples I know who decided they would not have kids, or would only have one, and at a certain point one partner (usually a woman in their late 30s or early 40s if I am being honest) decided this was the most important thing and no amount of money or career setbacks or relationship turmoil wouldn stand in the way.
- pbronez 2mo ago
  Yeah that biological clock had a surprisingly loud alarm!
- Der_Einzige 2mo ago
  Sadly for many of these women the clock hit too late. They call it "geriatric pregnancy" if it's after 35 for a reason.
  - thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
    Yup. Several of these people I know left it too late and went through a lot with IVF or adoption of just not having the kids they wanted.
JKCalhoun 2mo ago
I never felt that pressure to have kids. In fact, even though I waited until I was in my mid 30's, I was the first in my social circle to have kids (I guess I hung around with younger people?). I knew since I was a kid myself that I wanted to someday be a father. If society pushed me, it would have been when I was still in elementary school. After I had kids though… It was strange to scroll through coworkers social media feeds and see the same photos of groups of 30-somethings holding up wine glasses while the waiter (I assume) takes their photo at some fancy restaurant in the Bay Area. It all seemed so… hedonistic? Or maybe just kind of empty. Becoming a father gave me purpose that was (finally) not about me any longer. And now, the nest empty, I still am unable to go back to that person I was before. (Whoever that was.)
- Gareth321 2mo ago
  It really does put the partying in perspective, doesn't it? It helps focus what really matters, and it's usually not alcohol and fancy dinners.
  - mettamage 2mo ago
    Unless you meet your SO drunk at a party ;-)
- throwfaraway4 2mo ago
  I live in a neighborhood of older retired folks and I get this vibe from them as well when walking my younger kids. Their faces light up with joy. Just another season in life I suppose. Let's enjoy it while we can.
graemep 2mo ago
Different generations, different places, exactly where you are in your society, religious influences, your immediate social circle, how much time you spend on social media.... Certainly in the UK there is a group of people who have become very negative about having kids, partly because they are scared of the expense, and partly because society makes it look so hard, and partly because they genuinely have less support.
- spidercat 2mo ago
  Pregnancy is also a really scary prospect for a lot of people (myself included), and there doesn't seem to be much work done in trying to make it, well, less shitty of an experience. "It's just how it is," but... is it really? Does it really need to be so bad? Not to mention that "it takes a village", but in many places the village has been basically stolen from us.
  - graemep 2mo ago
    Pregnancy is never going to be easy (and its one part of parenting I am glad I did not have to do!) but it can definitely be made easier and more pleasant. it varies a lot though. We were quite lucky in many ways. However, why is pregnancy scarier than it used to be when it is safer than it has ever been? It seems to be more scary in developed countries than in poor ones too. I wonder whether the loss of the "village" might be part of the reason for this. it certainly is for a lot of other things around having kids.
    - spidercat 2mo ago
      I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that birth control offers us a choice in the matter. Pregnancy used to be something You Just Did, because, well, most people enjoy having sex, and pregnancy is the intended consequence of unprotected sex. It's scary, it's stressful, it's risky, and it's sometimes even fatal... but it's "part of life". It's how we ended up here, after all. Now we have a choice. Which is GREAT, amazing, even. Absolutely necessary. I'll never argue that anyone's right to choose if they want to be a parent is a bad thing. I wonder if social media is also contributing, with its polarizing nature. It's rare you see any opinions or even anecdotes about pregnancy being "fine" or "whatever". It's always a big deal, and it's always a big deal (horrible) or a big deal (wonderful). There's not a lot of in between. The negative end of the spectrum scares people, while the positive end of the spectrum is met with skepticism since it's too-often (for me at least) correlated with right-wing religious people trying to push women to be what're effectively baby factories, so the "it's the most wonderful experience ever!" just comes off as disingenuous and manipulative. Combined with the fact that women's healthcare is rife with challenges, and women's pain is often dismissed (not looking to start any "gender wars" arguments; just stating things that can be backed up https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10937548/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10937548/), the prospect of becoming pregnant is a scary one, when you have the option to not do that. "What if it's nine months of constant nausea, being bedbound, gaining weight I'll never be able to lose? My body will change, in many ways irreversibly. Will my partner still find me attractive? Will they support me during? Will they support me after? Will I feel supported? Will I feel resentment that they'll be able to enjoy things like alcohol while I'll have to stay completely sober for a very long time? Will I feel resentment if the majority of childcare falls on me, which is statistically actually quite likely? What about my career? Will I regret it? What if my child is born with a disability? What if I'm bad at being a mom? What if I hate it? What if I'm trapped in a life I don't want? What if there's no way out?" Of course, the above thought process could also be one with thoughts like "what if it's wonderful?" but it's a lot easier to worry about the negative, and put weight on the negative, than it is to fantasize and put weight on the positive what-ifs. This is just my perspective, though. Some people love being pregnant and find parenthood really wonderful (or so they tell me about those things), and I love that for them. Truly. I'm just not sure if I have it in me to ever find out what it would be like for me, and I know I'm not alone. Fun Auntie is a better role for me I think. But maybe I would feel differently if pregnancy were easier and a less destructive process on the female body, and there was more social support for parents.
marknutter 2mo ago
I think that used to be the case but has dramatically shifted in the opposite direction in recent years.
spidercat 2mo ago
Yeah, speaking as a female-bodied person here - undoubtedly a minority on this site - I absolutely feel the pressure to have children in society, pretty much every day. Look at the "birth rate" discourse that's been going on. There's tremendous pressure on women to have more babies. There's also a lot of pendulum-swinging in the opposite direction with your edgy "antinatalists", in some sort of weird "overcorrection" or some such, but ultimately those voices are much louder online than in real life. Fewer people are reproducing, but that doesn't mean the pressures to do so aren't still there. "It's complicated."
- graemep 2mo ago
  Does the birth rate discourse put pressure on you as an individual? I had expected that to also be more of an online than real life push. There is more pressure on women to have kids than on men. That is not new. What is new is a more negative attitude to children and parenting in society in general. Do you feel there are conflicting pressures now?
  - spidercat 2mo ago
    >Does the birth rate discourse put pressure on you as an individual? Implicitly, I think, yes. It builds on all of the other social pressures, big and small. I'm sure an entire humanities thesis could be written about how it all adds up over time. I wrote another comment elsewhere in the thread talking about polarized opinions broadcasted on social media and how that also adds to the stress of it all. Nobody ever wants to talk about the "it was/is... fine, actually. kind of whatever. not great, but not horrible." possibility of pregnancy (and parenthood). It's always either the most wonderful, miraculous thing ever and you're insane for not wanting it, or it's the most horrible, irreversibly damaging thing ever and you're insane for wanting it. And the thing is... it COULD be any of those outcomes! It could ruin your life. It could also make your life so much more fulfilling. There's simply no way to know for sure what it will be like for you without doing it. It is an enormous gamble, especially when you are the person who has to endure the pregnancy, and it is a gamble that you can't really walk away from. (Of course, you can give a child up for adoption, but there's a lot of social shame involved in that, especially if it is a wanted child that you're quite literally giving up on rearing.)

close04 2mo ago

> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood. I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't get this apparent contradiction until it was my turn. I think the people who miss almost all of these "tickboxes" and can somehow link it to the kids become unhappy with parenthood. If they ever feel their personal time, romance, career, success suffered because of the focus on the children, they will end up in the "disappointment" camp. I never personally met anyone who was willing to admit regret of having children but I did meet people who were disappointed and put a veiled blame for their failure on the children.

Gareth321 2mo ago
That's great insight. My sister missed some of these milestones and I hear echoes of what you describe in some of our conversations.
thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.
- coffeebeqn 2mo ago
  How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons
  - thenoblesunfish 2mo ago
    One is 6 years, the other is 6 months.

VBprogrammer 2mo ago

As much as I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as DINKs, the feeling of my 7 year old girl sneaking up behind me to give me a cuddle outweighs all of the fast cars and long walks on the beach I personally could ever have.

coffeebeqn 2mo ago
Kids love beaches!
- VBprogrammer 2mo ago
  Alas, they are not so keen on long walks!
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - oblio 2mo ago
    For a few more years.
- elictronic 2mo ago
  Bearings on a stroller not so much.
  - mcv 2mo ago
    There are toy wagons (Dutch: bolderkar, is "toy wagon" really the correct translation?) that are great fun for transporting kids on a beach.

jraby3 2mo ago

I've thought about this and while I agree with you completely, I think the reason why is not just society at large. Externally what most people see is the time suck, money suck, and frustration with teaching behavior, fixing bad behavior etc. What's so easy to miss is the immense feeling of love, of being needed, of being loved, that words can't describe. I frequently tell people I feel like the grinch after he discovers Xmas - my heart is three times bigger. But you can't really see that it's just a feeling I carry with me.

sneak 2mo ago
You don’t need children to have these sorts of feelings, unless you can only get them from some small people who don’t have any choice but to love you.
- marliechiller 2mo ago
  Do you have children? If no, then how can you make this assertion? If yes, what or who is filling the gap that children fill for you?
  - siren2026 2mo ago
    This is a fallacy. You don't need to live a situation to be able to comment about it. Especially if we try to rationalize the choice. If you talk about "feelings", then fine. But be aware that "feelings" could simply be your hormone levels changing after having kids.
    - Forgeties79 2mo ago
      You don’t need to be a parent to be allowed to comment on or speculate about being a parent, but this is definitely one of those things you can’t guess at or estimate. Until it is your kid in front of you you can’t know what you’ll feel as a parent. Maybe it’s all hormones and monkey brain, but that doesn’t make it any different. Many people do not have that Hollywood Magic moment where “everything changed.” Some of my friends experienced this, some of them did not. None of us experienced what we thought we would.

Forgeties79 2mo ago

> Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world That’s…unhealthy and unusual.

Gareth321 2mo ago
I think they were trying to scare us into not having sex. Or at least having protected sex. Either way, they made all the kids watch videos about teen pregnancy and how it would ruin our lives. They also repeated it frequently in sex education. They focused on how terrible it was to have children. The struggles, etc. I suppose it is difficult for teens to understand nuance, but it certainly left a fairly grim impression of parenthood on all of us. Was it different for you?
- mylies43 2mo ago
  In my experince we got that, but it was all focused on having a kid while being a teenager will ruin your life not that having a kid at all will ruin your life. Which is fair, a teenager having a child is in a lot of ways ending their lifes or making at a minimum way more difficult( if they family support that is, otherwise good luck )
- Forgeties79 2mo ago
  Oh this is when you were a student? I thought this was as a parent with kids in school. Getting pregnant (especially in the wrong state) in the US as a high schooler can absolutely ruin your life. In some states it can even get you killed due to the legal chaos still happening in hospitals.

globnomulous 2mo ago

> Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible. Movies and TV shows portrayed only the bad. Teachers told me that becoming a parent was the worst thing in the whole world. A wide range of celebrities spend their days posting about how amazing it is to be without children. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but this isn't at all what I remember. I frankly can't think of a single movie or TV show that paints parenting as bad, let alone the worst thing in the world. I can think of only one celebrity who I can recall extolled his child-free life. That was within the past year-- and I think the guy is a total dipshit man-child. And I have no idea where you grew up, or whether that's actually a factor, but my teachers, when they had kids, seemed like loving parents. When they didn't have kids, I don't think they ever spoke badly or parenting.

mcv 2mo ago

I agree parenthood is underappreciated and undersold. Nothing in life beats seeing kids grow up from helpless infants to well-adjusted, passionate young adults. Lately I frequently find myself wondering if every philosopher who pondered the meaning of life was childless, because it feels to me like the answer must be pretty obvious to any parent.

siren2026 2mo ago

>> Which frustrates me immensely, because I feel that society at large did everything it could to convince me that parenthood is terrible Uh? I feel it's the opposite. Society constantly judges people that don't have kids. Having kids has always been the norm. It projects you as a grown up mature adult. In fact I think a ton of people have kids simply because they want to give that image of being a well established mature person.