4 ms·

Thanks for sharing that. Obviously respect your choices on the individual level. The contrast you provided between those who are happy with family and those tw

Thanks for sharing that. Obviously respect your choices on the individual level. The contrast you provided between those who are happy with family and those two seem miserable is in line with what I am saying: it's both 'be smart about what you persue' and 'be smart about how you persue it.' So likely the first group was 'smarter' about who they chose as a spouse and how they set up the life with them than the second group. So maybe we can score the miserable group as a -1, the happy group as a +1 and your avoidance strategy as in-between: 0. So you can look at your strategy as good because it avoids the extreme misery but it also denies a shot at extreme happiness. And then if one were to go that potentially high risk/high reward path, their actual outcome (are they happy or miserable) is a function of how smartly they persue that endeavor.

dns_snek 2mo ago
Many people, including myself, just know that we don't want to have children. Our outcomes won't have the same distribution as those of people who always wanted to have children, no matter how "smart" we are about it. Another factor is that when you have children and regret it you can suffer a lot more than just "-1" of misery - I'd say the scale is more like -10 to +1 (centered around 0). Furthermore if you end up regretting it you will also inflict some part of that misery onto your children.
- FeloniousHam 2mo ago
  I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children, but I've met a lot of people who missed the opportunity (to be fair, I've never met the parents of a violent criminal). Kids can be hard, especially if you're not a natural, and especially when they're young, but-- it's impossible to describe the fulsome love I have for my kids. I'm not a sentimental person, and probably wouldn't have had them without my wife (which is a funny thing to say). Even when they're a pain and a disappointment, even with the ever present guilt, my kids give me some baseline purpose for free. And the wins are great--"all joy and no fun" as I heard once. The conversations as they become real people. It's impossible to describe and totally worth it.
  - dns_snek 2mo ago
    I don't really expect anyone to casually admit that they regret having children to anyone but their closest confidants, perhaps not even themselves, the social stigma and shame would be unbearable. I don't know how much research there is on this but anecdotally there are many emotionally absent and neglectful parents out there. They might be able to cope with the way their life is but that doesn't mean that they're good parents (or that they wouldn't do things differently if they got to start over again). There's also a chance that your child is born with disabilities that demand intensive life-long support. I know that I couldn't cope with that, so even if my general outlook on having children changed some day I could never get past this, for my own good and out of responsibility for my hypothetical child.
    - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
      Of course there are bad parents. I'm unlikely to encounter them, and even if I did I would probably not associate with them. But I suspect that you and anyone else on this thread offering thoughtful responses, are not the kind of person who would fall into that category. I only offer my own experience, because I had the same fears as you. One datapoint, but parenting changed me in so many good ways, and the hardships fade from memory.
  - S_Bear 2mo ago
    "I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children" I've met my parents for 18 years before I moved away.
    - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
      I'm sorry for you. Genuinely. I've only read of cases like yours (I think Neko Case has a hard story).

dns_snek 2mo ago

Many people, including myself, just know that we don't want to have children. Our outcomes won't have the same distribution as those of people who always wanted to have children, no matter how "smart" we are about it. Another factor is that when you have children and regret it you can suffer a lot more than just "-1" of misery - I'd say the scale is more like -10 to +1 (centered around 0). Furthermore if you end up regretting it you will also inflict some part of that misery onto your children.

FeloniousHam 2mo ago
I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children, but I've met a lot of people who missed the opportunity (to be fair, I've never met the parents of a violent criminal). Kids can be hard, especially if you're not a natural, and especially when they're young, but-- it's impossible to describe the fulsome love I have for my kids. I'm not a sentimental person, and probably wouldn't have had them without my wife (which is a funny thing to say). Even when they're a pain and a disappointment, even with the ever present guilt, my kids give me some baseline purpose for free. And the wins are great--"all joy and no fun" as I heard once. The conversations as they become real people. It's impossible to describe and totally worth it.
- dns_snek 2mo ago
  I don't really expect anyone to casually admit that they regret having children to anyone but their closest confidants, perhaps not even themselves, the social stigma and shame would be unbearable. I don't know how much research there is on this but anecdotally there are many emotionally absent and neglectful parents out there. They might be able to cope with the way their life is but that doesn't mean that they're good parents (or that they wouldn't do things differently if they got to start over again). There's also a chance that your child is born with disabilities that demand intensive life-long support. I know that I couldn't cope with that, so even if my general outlook on having children changed some day I could never get past this, for my own good and out of responsibility for my hypothetical child.
  - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
    Of course there are bad parents. I'm unlikely to encounter them, and even if I did I would probably not associate with them. But I suspect that you and anyone else on this thread offering thoughtful responses, are not the kind of person who would fall into that category. I only offer my own experience, because I had the same fears as you. One datapoint, but parenting changed me in so many good ways, and the hardships fade from memory.
- S_Bear 2mo ago
  "I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children" I've met my parents for 18 years before I moved away.
  - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
    I'm sorry for you. Genuinely. I've only read of cases like yours (I think Neko Case has a hard story).