7 ms·

Having a child relativizes everything else and makes life so much easier because you don't need to figure out the meaning of your life anymore and you don't eve

Having a child relativizes everything else and makes life so much easier because you don't need to figure out the meaning of your life anymore and you don't even need to be successful, neither personally nor professionally. This does not mean you won't be or you can't be, it just does not matter that much anymore. And this is friggin' liberating.

mikeg8 12y ago
I have an amazing father and grandfathers, all of whom I am close with. I've dreamed of being a father for many years (26M) and think I'll make a great one someday based on the examples I was fortunate enough to have. But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. Is reproduction really the meaning to life? (Biologists say absolutely). And saying you don't have to be successful anymore is very strange to me. Why wound't you need to be successful professionally to provide or personally to be happy? Don't you want your child to be successful, not rich but personally successful however they grow to define it? and shouldn't you show that to them by example?
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Not reproduction: parenthood. Never mind how the kid got there; they are soon more important than everything you naïvely thought mattered. Not so much defined by that. Instead, motivated by entirely new impulses. Its not that you change your mind about success. Your mind changes, and that isn't a bad thing.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    If there is one thing that rammed that home it was sitting next to an incubator watching O2 levels and heartbeat of an early born infant. Re-alignment of priorities would be a very mild way to describe the feeling.
    - gregpilling 12y ago
      I agree. My son spent his first week in NICU, and 6 years later had a brain aneurism, and another brain surgery at 11 years. He is fine now. Work problems are pretty insignificant in comparison.
  - peteretep 12y ago
    > Your mind changes Definitely! > and that isn't a bad thing Not yet entirely convinced on that front.
  - klibertp 12y ago
    > Your mind changes I'm very suspicious about that. Every new experience has the chance of changing the way you think, it's natural. But for something to have that much of an impact it has to involve a lot of brain chemistry. And I don't trust in being intoxicated by hormones, I'd rather use other, safer drugs for this.
- sz4kerto 12y ago
  > But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. I'm glad you brought this up. There's nothing that's forced upon you, you are not defined by this. It just happens so that most people change their priorities voluntarily and happily when they have a child. I personally continue pursuing professional success, of course. The difference is that if I become unsuccessful for any reason then the world won't collapse. So it just becomes much less important.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    Yeah, it wasn't transformative like a bolt of lightning. And I didn't instantly become one of those people who freaks out about all the parenting advice, things that might choke a baby, statistically insignificant ways of dying. I was easy-going before, still am. You may lose finite things like time, but not your identity. Parenthood only uncovers more of it.
- FullyFunctional 12y ago
  What I found is that I'm the same person, but having children changed my perspective. I'm more conscious of how I spend my time so I hopefully waste less and still have time for both my family and myself.
- kaiwen1 12y ago
  Until it happens to you, it's impossible to appreciate how sudden, profound and unexpected this change is (for must people). It's not a thing you plan or attempt. It's hard wired into your genes. Baby arrives. New behaviors, feelings, and priorities ensue. Whatever you were rushing around trying to do before is now less important. Your primary objective is to make sure that life over there in the crib is protected and provided for.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    It changes most of your life in a very profound way. The people you always called "mom" and "dad" become "grandma" and "grandpa". You begin to think of your friends not just in terms of hanging out, but in terms of how they influence your child, or how their influence on you indirectly influences your child. You begin to look at the physical world with a different eye -- partly toward safety, partly just pure wonder. It completely transforms your perspective.
    - brc 12y ago
      Yes, the last thing I would have expected was re-evaluating my own friendships for that influence on influence. Not long after becoming a father I terminated a number of friendships quite abruptly. All of a sudden what I had previously thought of as 'fun guys' seemed like a toxic influence on me. The other aspect of parenthood is it brings your life design into sharp focus. Proximity to bars and restaurants and hip furnishings suddenly take a very distant back seat to access to quality neighbourhoods, schools and places to spend time with your kids. Old friends snigger that you don't go out anymore and figure your life must be so boring - sometimes they act sympathetically when you spend another Friday night in. They don't realise Friday nights in with a young family are great fun.
  - mikeg8 12y ago
    Makes sense. thank you for your reply.
  - mturmon 12y ago
    Here's a beautiful quote that expresses this profound change, and the sense that its consequences are to be accepted rather than resisted: "Let's say gravity suddenly shifted a little making everyone a little bit lighter. It would likely make the news circuit for a while and make movers and other professional lifters particularly happy. But after the scientists had explained again and again why it happened and all the potential story lines had been exhausted by newspapers and television pundits, religious zealots and idle conversationalists (“How about that gravity?”), we would accept it, perhaps with a individual joy all our own. Which is to say, even though a slight shift in gravity on Earth literally changes everything on our home planet, after awhile we’d adjust. Occasionally we might think back to the days before gravity changed with wonder and even nostalgia, but we’d know that everything being lighter is just better on one of those annoyingly and truistically difficult-to-communicate levels and continue with the practice of everyday life, with appropriate changes to this new state of lightness. Parenting for me is something like this." * This is by LA writer and critic Andrew Berardini, seen in http://www.broodwork.com/index.php?/projects/andrew-berardini/ http://www.broodwork.com/index.php?/projects/andrew-berardin....
- joshrotenberg 12y ago
  Father of two here. I don't think the point is that you can't/won't want to succeed, it's more that the result of your success is to further the success of your kids. And that doesn't just mean "provide for your family" in the old fashioned "dinner on the table" kind of way, it has more to do with being happy with yourself, and your kids pick up on that. If you are successful, in however you define it, your family is as well. And for me, more and more as my kids grow up and become themselves, seeing them succeed (and periodically fail) feels like real success to me, more so than any pat on the back I'd get from someone else.
- tlear 12y ago
  It changes you but it is very far from defining you. There is just a lot of joy from an unexpected place in your life all of a sudden. Just doing simple things like feed you kid some honey or biking around with them strapped to into a child seat of your bike suddenly becomes really enjoyable. But also when you go and do something that you love doing you want to share it, I brought my one and few month year old to Yosemite this winter and she was running around near Camp 4 while I bouldered. Just hours of wonder on her face it is pretty special. Then again there are some mental case parents, who lose all social connections, gain 100lb and can never be seen again by their friends. Just don't be that. I have former friends like that, it is some kind of North American phenomenon. For me it feel so nuts I really don't get how people become that.
MrZongle2 12y ago
Father of two here. It's true that having a child forces any responsible adult into revisiting their priorities, and some things that seemed important before parenthood suddenly aren't. I don't think it eliminates a desire to be successful: I think that it changes the parameters by which you determine success. And having a child throw up/mess on your nice clothes and shower the inside of your nice car with food and toys tends to make you settle for less in those departments, I admit. Prior to kids, I considered success to be pulling down a six-figure salary, having a nice big house and my own office at a high-profile, successful company. Now? Success is having a quiet office (size unimportant but preferably my own), enjoyable work and time to spend it with my kids before they are old enough to leave home. It is worth it, and anybody without kids who says otherwise knows not of which they speak. Parenthood is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. If you're not a parent, you've just read the brochure.
- innguest 12y ago
  > It is worth it, and anybody without kids who says otherwise knows not of which they speak. That's some gross generalization. Any childless bachelor could know what the "path" is like by staying over with a friend that has a child and helping out for some time. On the other hand, parents that walk the path and later find out they're not cut out for it, have to suffer quietly, and can't voice their true opinions, because it's taboo; because no one can dare fathom someone might not like kids, and so many get pressured into having them without having what it takes.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrZongle2 12y ago
    "That's some gross generalization. Any childless bachelor could know what the "path" is like by staying over with a friend that has a child and helping out for some time." Uh, no. Having children isn't like having a dog or being a part-time nanny or live-in tutor. It is a multi-decade commitment to raising another human being from infancy to adulthood with all of the frustrations and joys -- yes, joys -- that come along with it. "On the other hand, parents that walk the path and later find out they're not cut out for it, have to suffer quietly, and can't voice their true opinions, because it's taboo..." Who are these parents, quietly suffering? I've seen a lot of crappy parents, who complain about their kids. I've seen a lot of deadbeat parents, who up and abandon their kids. And I've seen a ton of childless adults playing backseat parent. If you've got some studies and numbers to back up this apparent crisis of parenting victims, please share.
jkestner 12y ago
Well said. A part of you now wants to devote resources to someone else's success. Do you invest in your own future, or the wider possibilities with a whole new human? Once you have a child, it isn't even a struggle to balance those - she will hungrily take whatever you offer, and (hopefully) you'll enjoy it. The final big step in finding your place in the universe (spoiler: not the center).
innguest 12y ago
Philosophy is cheaper and a more interesting kind of fun.
petercooper 12y ago
it just does not matter that much anymore. I don't want to slam your well put, positive point, but this was not true for me at least. Getting married and having kids has motivated me to work hard and aim high - I could have (and did) sat around on my ass playing video games for the rest of my life. Different strokes for different folks, but I'm a far more driven person after gaining responsibilities than before.
- magic_beans 12y ago
  I think you misinterpreted OP's comment. He meant that having a child completely neutralizes the petty stress of the daily grind because you have something far more important.
  - russgray 12y ago
    For me, having kids amplified the daily grind. I hated leaving in the morning before they got up, and returning after they were in bed. Luckily this is a profession where at least some aspects of the grind are optional, and now I work remotely full-time.
magic_beans 12y ago
I can't tell if this makes me excited for parenthood or terrified of the demise it will bring to my own life.
- c0ur7n3y 12y ago
  Your life will have a demise regardless.
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    There are those in the world working on fixing that. Personally I'm hopeful that they will be successful eventually; the question is just how soon.
    - kzhahou 12y ago
      I think he meant "life is suffering."
wooyi 12y ago
If anything, I felt more pressure after kids to be successful. I had to prove to them that their father was not a mediocre person. I also need to show by example - that I did not want them to be mediocre and that they should strive to be the best at what they do.
- jkestner 12y ago
  Cool thing is, they take their metric for success from you. But you sound like you're measuring success by your role in the workplace. I'll bet they care a lot more about your role as a father.
  - wooyi 12y ago
    Yes. And for me, to be successful is to be happy with what I do for a living, and to have the freedom to pursue my dreams. Selfishly, I rather be a mediocre father and successful/happy with my career/lifelong work vs a great father and a mediocre career. We all pick our own paths. No regrets so far.

mikeg8 12y ago

I have an amazing father and grandfathers, all of whom I am close with. I've dreamed of being a father for many years (26M) and think I'll make a great one someday based on the examples I was fortunate enough to have. But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. Is reproduction really the meaning to life? (Biologists say absolutely). And saying you don't have to be successful anymore is very strange to me. Why wound't you need to be successful professionally to provide or personally to be happy? Don't you want your child to be successful, not rich but personally successful however they grow to define it? and shouldn't you show that to them by example?

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Not reproduction: parenthood. Never mind how the kid got there; they are soon more important than everything you naïvely thought mattered. Not so much defined by that. Instead, motivated by entirely new impulses. Its not that you change your mind about success. Your mind changes, and that isn't a bad thing.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  If there is one thing that rammed that home it was sitting next to an incubator watching O2 levels and heartbeat of an early born infant. Re-alignment of priorities would be a very mild way to describe the feeling.
  - gregpilling 12y ago
    I agree. My son spent his first week in NICU, and 6 years later had a brain aneurism, and another brain surgery at 11 years. He is fine now. Work problems are pretty insignificant in comparison.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > Your mind changes Definitely! > and that isn't a bad thing Not yet entirely convinced on that front.
- klibertp 12y ago
  > Your mind changes I'm very suspicious about that. Every new experience has the chance of changing the way you think, it's natural. But for something to have that much of an impact it has to involve a lot of brain chemistry. And I don't trust in being intoxicated by hormones, I'd rather use other, safer drugs for this.
sz4kerto 12y ago
> But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. I'm glad you brought this up. There's nothing that's forced upon you, you are not defined by this. It just happens so that most people change their priorities voluntarily and happily when they have a child. I personally continue pursuing professional success, of course. The difference is that if I become unsuccessful for any reason then the world won't collapse. So it just becomes much less important.
- jkestner 12y ago
  Yeah, it wasn't transformative like a bolt of lightning. And I didn't instantly become one of those people who freaks out about all the parenting advice, things that might choke a baby, statistically insignificant ways of dying. I was easy-going before, still am. You may lose finite things like time, but not your identity. Parenthood only uncovers more of it.
FullyFunctional 12y ago
What I found is that I'm the same person, but having children changed my perspective. I'm more conscious of how I spend my time so I hopefully waste less and still have time for both my family and myself.
kaiwen1 12y ago
Until it happens to you, it's impossible to appreciate how sudden, profound and unexpected this change is (for must people). It's not a thing you plan or attempt. It's hard wired into your genes. Baby arrives. New behaviors, feelings, and priorities ensue. Whatever you were rushing around trying to do before is now less important. Your primary objective is to make sure that life over there in the crib is protected and provided for.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  It changes most of your life in a very profound way. The people you always called "mom" and "dad" become "grandma" and "grandpa". You begin to think of your friends not just in terms of hanging out, but in terms of how they influence your child, or how their influence on you indirectly influences your child. You begin to look at the physical world with a different eye -- partly toward safety, partly just pure wonder. It completely transforms your perspective.
  - brc 12y ago
    Yes, the last thing I would have expected was re-evaluating my own friendships for that influence on influence. Not long after becoming a father I terminated a number of friendships quite abruptly. All of a sudden what I had previously thought of as 'fun guys' seemed like a toxic influence on me. The other aspect of parenthood is it brings your life design into sharp focus. Proximity to bars and restaurants and hip furnishings suddenly take a very distant back seat to access to quality neighbourhoods, schools and places to spend time with your kids. Old friends snigger that you don't go out anymore and figure your life must be so boring - sometimes they act sympathetically when you spend another Friday night in. They don't realise Friday nights in with a young family are great fun.
- mikeg8 12y ago
  Makes sense. thank you for your reply.
- mturmon 12y ago
  Here's a beautiful quote that expresses this profound change, and the sense that its consequences are to be accepted rather than resisted: "Let's say gravity suddenly shifted a little making everyone a little bit lighter. It would likely make the news circuit for a while and make movers and other professional lifters particularly happy. But after the scientists had explained again and again why it happened and all the potential story lines had been exhausted by newspapers and television pundits, religious zealots and idle conversationalists (“How about that gravity?”), we would accept it, perhaps with a individual joy all our own. Which is to say, even though a slight shift in gravity on Earth literally changes everything on our home planet, after awhile we’d adjust. Occasionally we might think back to the days before gravity changed with wonder and even nostalgia, but we’d know that everything being lighter is just better on one of those annoyingly and truistically difficult-to-communicate levels and continue with the practice of everyday life, with appropriate changes to this new state of lightness. Parenting for me is something like this." * This is by LA writer and critic Andrew Berardini, seen in http://www.broodwork.com/index.php?/projects/andrew-berardini/ http://www.broodwork.com/index.php?/projects/andrew-berardin....
joshrotenberg 12y ago
Father of two here. I don't think the point is that you can't/won't want to succeed, it's more that the result of your success is to further the success of your kids. And that doesn't just mean "provide for your family" in the old fashioned "dinner on the table" kind of way, it has more to do with being happy with yourself, and your kids pick up on that. If you are successful, in however you define it, your family is as well. And for me, more and more as my kids grow up and become themselves, seeing them succeed (and periodically fail) feels like real success to me, more so than any pat on the back I'd get from someone else.
tlear 12y ago
It changes you but it is very far from defining you. There is just a lot of joy from an unexpected place in your life all of a sudden. Just doing simple things like feed you kid some honey or biking around with them strapped to into a child seat of your bike suddenly becomes really enjoyable. But also when you go and do something that you love doing you want to share it, I brought my one and few month year old to Yosemite this winter and she was running around near Camp 4 while I bouldered. Just hours of wonder on her face it is pretty special. Then again there are some mental case parents, who lose all social connections, gain 100lb and can never be seen again by their friends. Just don't be that. I have former friends like that, it is some kind of North American phenomenon. For me it feel so nuts I really don't get how people become that.

MrZongle2 12y ago

Father of two here. It's true that having a child forces any responsible adult into revisiting their priorities, and some things that seemed important before parenthood suddenly aren't. I don't think it eliminates a desire to be successful: I think that it changes the parameters by which you determine success. And having a child throw up/mess on your nice clothes and shower the inside of your nice car with food and toys tends to make you settle for less in those departments, I admit. Prior to kids, I considered success to be pulling down a six-figure salary, having a nice big house and my own office at a high-profile, successful company. Now? Success is having a quiet office (size unimportant but preferably my own), enjoyable work and time to spend it with my kids before they are old enough to leave home. It is worth it, and anybody without kids who says otherwise knows not of which they speak. Parenthood is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. If you're not a parent, you've just read the brochure.

innguest 12y ago
> It is worth it, and anybody without kids who says otherwise knows not of which they speak. That's some gross generalization. Any childless bachelor could know what the "path" is like by staying over with a friend that has a child and helping out for some time. On the other hand, parents that walk the path and later find out they're not cut out for it, have to suffer quietly, and can't voice their true opinions, because it's taboo; because no one can dare fathom someone might not like kids, and so many get pressured into having them without having what it takes.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- MrZongle2 12y ago
  "That's some gross generalization. Any childless bachelor could know what the "path" is like by staying over with a friend that has a child and helping out for some time." Uh, no. Having children isn't like having a dog or being a part-time nanny or live-in tutor. It is a multi-decade commitment to raising another human being from infancy to adulthood with all of the frustrations and joys -- yes, joys -- that come along with it. "On the other hand, parents that walk the path and later find out they're not cut out for it, have to suffer quietly, and can't voice their true opinions, because it's taboo..." Who are these parents, quietly suffering? I've seen a lot of crappy parents, who complain about their kids. I've seen a lot of deadbeat parents, who up and abandon their kids. And I've seen a ton of childless adults playing backseat parent. If you've got some studies and numbers to back up this apparent crisis of parenting victims, please share.

jkestner 12y ago

Well said. A part of you now wants to devote resources to someone else's success. Do you invest in your own future, or the wider possibilities with a whole new human? Once you have a child, it isn't even a struggle to balance those - she will hungrily take whatever you offer, and (hopefully) you'll enjoy it. The final big step in finding your place in the universe (spoiler: not the center).

innguest 12y ago

Philosophy is cheaper and a more interesting kind of fun.

petercooper 12y ago

it just does not matter that much anymore. I don't want to slam your well put, positive point, but this was not true for me at least. Getting married and having kids has motivated me to work hard and aim high - I could have (and did) sat around on my ass playing video games for the rest of my life. Different strokes for different folks, but I'm a far more driven person after gaining responsibilities than before.

magic_beans 12y ago
I think you misinterpreted OP's comment. He meant that having a child completely neutralizes the petty stress of the daily grind because you have something far more important.
- russgray 12y ago
  For me, having kids amplified the daily grind. I hated leaving in the morning before they got up, and returning after they were in bed. Luckily this is a profession where at least some aspects of the grind are optional, and now I work remotely full-time.

magic_beans 12y ago

I can't tell if this makes me excited for parenthood or terrified of the demise it will bring to my own life.

c0ur7n3y 12y ago
Your life will have a demise regardless.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  There are those in the world working on fixing that. Personally I'm hopeful that they will be successful eventually; the question is just how soon.
  - kzhahou 12y ago
    I think he meant "life is suffering."

wooyi 12y ago

If anything, I felt more pressure after kids to be successful. I had to prove to them that their father was not a mediocre person. I also need to show by example - that I did not want them to be mediocre and that they should strive to be the best at what they do.

jkestner 12y ago
Cool thing is, they take their metric for success from you. But you sound like you're measuring success by your role in the workplace. I'll bet they care a lot more about your role as a father.
- wooyi 12y ago
  Yes. And for me, to be successful is to be happy with what I do for a living, and to have the freedom to pursue my dreams. Selfishly, I rather be a mediocre father and successful/happy with my career/lifelong work vs a great father and a mediocre career. We all pick our own paths. No regrets so far.