How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers
parenting.nytimes.com
parenting.nytimes.com
Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production.
Also I think parents in general will also have strong bias to not want to acknowledge their own child as a 'nuissance' in a survey/questionnaire.
My key point is that it would be important to reproduce this finding with actual sleep tracking instead of self-reporting sleep quality, to confirm if this is indeed linked with a bonding/interaction mechanism with a child or an unfortunate secondary effect of sleep deprivation.
When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week.
I know I could only survive on this little sleep because I wasn't exercising.
> Also I think parents in general will also have strong bias to not want to acknowledge their own child as a 'nuissance' in a survey/questionnaire.
I think this is one of the biggest taboos in Western society:
Anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive
This is absolute bullshit
I can see the downsides of having a child without loving him (in my case) any less
People refuse to see/acknowledge this, esp. women.
Managing his behaviour feels like an everlasting uphill battle. So much energy is drained, especially during meltdowns, causing frictions in the whole family.
So in order to be able to look after him I also need to look after myself. Getting enough sleep, some decompression time, looking after my body and still performing well at work is an everlasting struggle.
I don't expect people not in my situation to understand. At least I'm lucky in that it's "high functioning" we're talking about, even as much as a lot of people take objection to that term. But I know with effort he has every opportunity to thrive.
Nonetheless, in a market where as an engineer you need to stay on top of new stuff constantly ... yep, it's tough. We do it because we must.
Edit: Some additional thoughts.
As difficult as it sometimes is, being a parent is also a source of great joy. The responsibilities truly grow you as a person, and you kind of learn to cope. It's not something that's all at once either, I mean, you take it day by day, and you just learn.
As for work, for me it has helped that I'm truly passionate about what I'm doing, so have enjoyed learning about the new tech. I'm not saying I've got the same amount of talent, but it's amazing what persistence and a lot of deep dives into e.g Pluralsight can offer. As I grow older I'm more aware of my limitations, and picking the right horses (not just one) is über important.
Picking the right employer is equally important; being up front about the situation can yield amazing results.
We have it good in software in that we can work remotely, and flexible hours. Sure it comes at a certain cost ("always on") but for myself the benefits certainly outweigh drawbacks.
Cheers!
I know a huge number of women who love their kids but deeply mourn their lost independence and career opportunity they might have had without them, to say nothing of the profound physical impact of carrying a pregnancy. Women understand these issues really well, they just don’t feel comfortable talking about them with many men.
Just as society places much higher expectation that mothers will take care the child, society also places a much higher expectation that fathers will continue to go to work. Fathers with interrupted 5hrs of combined sleep are expected to do the exact same workload and work performance as they did had when they got uninterrupted 8 or 9hrs of sleep.
Talking about who got "hit hardest" is kind of pointless. Society expectation on fathers and mothers are formed from restricted gender roles. There are both women and men that feel extremely restricted from this. There is no objective "worse" fate to be either forced to go to work when you want to take care of the kids, or forced to take care of the kids when you want to go to work.
Yes, but that’s not what grandparent was talking about. They were writing specifically about the expectation that parents unconditionally think their children are the best thing that ever happened to them. The burden of this specific expectation falls much more heavily on mothers.
> Talking about who got "hit hardest" is kind of pointless. Society expectation on fathers and mothers are formed from restricted gender roles. There are both women and men that feel extremely restricted from this.
The current economic situation in the US is prohibitive to this family structure as well.
The combination of those two things is a huge problem in our society.
If Americans lived in dense cities with small living quarters and took public transit to work, they wouldn't need to spend so much money on housing and transportation, and they wouldn't feel the need to women to work full-time to keep up this lavish and unsustainable lifestyle.
Also my suburb I just moved to is way cheaper than dense city living and much less stressful. No gas guzzling.
The frugal living needed to be a stay-at-home mom or dad tends to be rare regardless of location, but it's not impossible.
What kinds of careers do these people have? If they both have low-paying jobs, then that's unfortunately understandable. But the McMansion-and-2-SUV-owning Americans I derided earlier aren't people with low-paying jobs, those are people with high-paying jobs who frequently refuse to live below their means; if they lived in a small condo or townhouse and got efficient cars their living costs would be a fraction of what they pay now, and wouldn't need to work so much.
Even in Europe, lots of people have luxuries they don't really need, especially cars. Sure, people in towns, or who have jobs away from the train lines might feel the need to have a car, but there's plenty of people there who live in the city, where public transit is excellent, and they still have (frequently expensive) cars. It isn't just Americans who make lifestyle choices that require dual earners, but we epitomize it.
For one, they're a sign that people are probably living beyond their means, buying things they don't need.
>Gas is cheap in the US so 20,000 annual miles of driving at 20mpg is only ~$2500 for the year.
That's a conservative mileage estimate. There's lots of commuters who drive quite a bit more than that. And gas is only cheap right now; earlier this decade it shot up to about $4/gallon for a while. I've seen this many times with Americans: gas hits a local minimum, so they all run out and buy enormous SUVs. Then gas prices go up, and they all whine about how much they're paying for gas, so they trade in their SUVs for smaller vehicles. Then gas prices go down again and they all run out and buy big SUVs again. It's idiotic.
Nope, buying an SUV indicates nothing about living beyond means. It’s better to have one SUV than two priuses. And again, 1-2k a year in gas is hardly a dent in car ownership costs.
$4 is super rare to never for most of the US and so is the super commuter stupid enough to drive an SUV for their super commute.
>Then gas prices go up, and they all whine about how much they're paying for gas, so they trade in their SUVs for smaller vehicles. Then gas prices go down again and they all run out and buy big SUVs again. It's idiotic.
That does sound stupid, good thing it’s now how anyone actually functions. Most popular SUVs today are the smaller ones that get twice what a Tahoe or whatever of 15 years ago would have gotten.
I suspect the issue is that your model is based on observed people in places with lower costs of gas and living and applying the costs of some big west coast metro to that lifestyle. That’s about the only idiotic thing going on here.
Here’s a tip: if you find yourself in a scenario where you think people are wasting buckets of money for no particular reason on a massive scale, you’re probably wrong.
And they'll have a built-in best friend. We talk about our personal perspective, but what do you wish your parents did for you?
Going to three is exponentially harder. With two, one parent can usually manage both or worse each can manage one kid. Go to three and parents are outnumbered. And generally only two kids ever get along at one time, so there always the outlier. Even numbers are best it seems.
I'm sure parent-to-parent IRL, people are a lot more negative (read:realistic) about their experiences.
Anecdotally our third child is the least anxious and most confident out of the three. We were clearer about the stuff that really didn't need sweating over - we had no choice!
It actually gets easier the more children you have, not more difficult.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-mak...
People with kids are happier than those without, only after their kids move out.
For a few years it was very stressful, and life always revolved around them (I was pretty active in their life). I expect that it'll be pretty different. Maybe I'll get some T back!
Assuming you have the space for it, I never understood couples that insist on both parents being woken up every night by a newborn. Much better for everyone involved to trade off nightly so that the other person can get a full nights rest.
I'm 99% certain that no baby cares that only one parent is being disturbed.
So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed.
Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this?
Since my wife nursed the kids, our arrangement was that she would be up with babies at night almost every time, and I would be up with them in the morning when they decided that 5am was time to be up for the day. Over time, I stopped waking up to baby cries at night, but I am now hyper-attuned to child noises from 5-7am.
> Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this?
That's what I meant by "Assuming you have the space for it...". If the baby is in a separate room and there's space for a bed or mattress, whoever is "on-call" stays there and the other parent gets an uninterrupted nights sleep. Or the reverse and the "resting" parent goes and sleeps on the couch. 7-8 hours uninterrupted on a couch wins over repeated interruptions on a bed.
Same system works if you have a grandma visiting to take over for a night. There's no merit badge given out for everyone being equally sleep deprived. It's just worse for everyone, including the baby.
If the mother is directly breast feeding then likely she's going to be taking the heavier end of this load. If the baby is formula fed or she's pumping, there's more leeway to switch off.
I sleep right through my wife's alarms going off, and her phone is merely on the other side of the bed.
She, in turn, sleeps through my phone's alarm and my annoying klaxon on the dresser. Obviously this doesn't happen on the first night or five, but you get used to it.
My wife and I traded off as you indicated but that was no picnic, either. We found it easier to split wake-ups during a night so that each of us could get a manageable amount of sleep, vs one person waking up every couple hours all night long. No matter how you slice the time up, nobody is going to 'well-rested' when there are only two people taking care of an infant.
Embracing marriage as a team sport goes a long way to avoiding petty resentment. It's also standard practice for the resting parent to ensure there is plenty of coffee after the non-resting parent's final 37 minute power nap.
Fully in agreement. Good communication and empathy in marriage are paramount to successfully raising kids. I'm just saying even the most understanding people can hit a breaking point after long enough without sleep, especially without a lot of external help.
I have a leg up working from home though - I just take the baby at the start of the day for several hours so my wife gets another good sleep cycle or two in, which makes my wife a lot more open to me sleeping in a different room.
My snoring contributes to that too though - my baby sleeps better without me in the room!
Sometimes I wonder if people would be a lot better off if they formed 3-6 adult family units for the purpose of sharing resources and raising kids.
Back in the "old days", and still in many non-Western cultures, grandparents live with parents and help with family care.
It's great that you know your child is being raised by you and your partner. You aren't offloading the child to a babysitter and trusting daycare to raise them with your principles or just to your level of care.
The downside is crossing paths with your spouse in a 5 minute handoff. Rushed dinners to cram in as much adult interaction as you can before you do bedtime or rush to work. There are times when you meet up at a McDonalds to eat and trade cars.
I don't think we would have done it differently, but there were definitely periods of loneliness that both of us felt.
If you're ever talking with friends who have kids (particularly young kids)(particularly newborns like you're talking about here) you might do better by phrasing this as a question instead of a fact. ("Hey, assuming you have the space for it, why not trade off nightly?")
Nicest response you'll get from what you said is a polite nod and then they change the topic, the most useful would be a polite but pointed jest about how you obviously don't have kids, and at worst you'll do lasting damage to a friendship.
Trust me, nobody who's getting this little sleep wants to be told how to do it better (unless they've asked you, specifically, for your advice on this,specifically) :)
"Walking on eggshells" is a similar dog whistle to "political correctness".
Consider instead thinking about it as "having empathy that other people have a different life, priorities, and experiences than yourself, and adapt your patterns to not make premature judgements or conclusions".
"Speaking your mind" is overrated. Your mind isn't that important or interesting. (Not attacking YOU here - this applies to everyone, myself included)
And exercise itself has a major influence on T levels.
I’m about to have a child in the next 2 weeks and that’s not my experience. Pretty much all my friends and family with kids have been telling me about the “fun” and “positive” sleeping experience I’m about to have. They keep saying how the Nth child was terrible or didn’t sleep etc.
I can see that there are mechanisms at play that favour the father to 'stay around'. But specifically for the Testosterone concentrations it seems to me that the cause could have nothing to do with an endocrine change triggered by bonding or nurturing.
For example, the article stated that there is a correlation between lower testosterone and more caregiving and baby-related household tasks. What would surprise me however is if the finding would stand if they made a second study which gave a supraphysiological dose of testosterone to even out the difference in testosterone. My prediction is that the same variation of caregiving and baby-related household tasks would remain.
A prime example of that there is a correlation between testosterone and voting for the winning team in politics and sports. Measure testosterone after an election and men who has higher testosterone will have a higher rate of having voted for the winning party. Obviously, before the election there is no such correlation, so we can fairly rational make the conclusion that having more testosterone does not make a person a better judge of who is going to win.
One larger reason, as given by a professor in neuroendocrinology, is that people and researchers alike tend to view behavior as soft science and hormones as hard science. There has been (and still are) a lot of resistance to the idea that behavior alone can cause biological changes in the body.
The second reason is that again and again, when people try to test a correlation between a hormone and behavior by supraphysiological doses, the predicted behavior does not occur.
The third reason is that the general role of sex hormones is to regulate the body in favor of reproductive success. The generally accepted theory to explain why testosterone goes up by having voted on the winning team, or by winning a competition, or by winning a physical fight, is that the individual perceive themselves as having gained social rank and thus the body adjust testosterone levels accordingly. Any behavior that does not have a clear link to reproductive success is unlikely to be regulated by a sex hormone.
then fatherhood generally results in testosterone levels dropping.
I'm a new parent, and I'm pleased to say that our 5-week-old is sleeping really, really well. I was not expecting this after all the horror stories others told... I did, however, feel like I aged about 10 years in the first week as my other half had an emergency C-section and I had to do everything for both her and the baby.
Nothing like getting thrown in at the deep end! :D
First couple weeks sure after that.. get a second bed, couch whatever. Separation of concern works way better one takes care of the kids other takes care of $$.
For those of you who are skinny and want to bulk up and don't mind eating somewhat bad food: Eat lots of sugary candy and junkfood like potatoe chips. I find it's the easiest way to get fat.
I gained 40 pounds through my wife's pregnancy and post.
I am just starting to shed some weight now
- 5 months old baby
I don't know how much weight I've put on, but I certainly don't enjoy how I feel and look now.
Being able to exercise again has been a major milestone for me.
Getting into a more regular exercise routine might be a good thing. Weightlifting works well for myself, alas it does nothing to curb the appetite. :) But it's a great way to relax the mind and get a break from everything. It helps produce testosterone as well, supposedly.
So if you find yourself likewise falling off the wagon, cut yourself some slack. You're playing the long game.
Now if I would just cut my serving sizes in half! :D
All that changes today as we’re finally getting a garden shed and I’ll be back in the saddle.
The 7km commute was a no brainer by bike. It took a leisurely 20 minutes where as the car would be much the same with lots of tedious traffic. Bus wasn’t an option on this route.
When I changed job my commute was 18km across the city. The car route involved a toll on a congested motorway or through stop start city congestion. The bus route required two buses with various degrees of waiting time made worse on the way home because of the one specific bus I needed that always appears unreliable. The car would take at least one hour bus would take up to two hours and the bike about 50 minutes.
Now that we’ve moved home I’m even further away but there’s a direct express bus that takes just 70 minutes. The car route is better, no toll and better connected, but is still an hour in traffic and the bike is about an hour.
Cycling is great because you arrive to work energised, but it’s tough to do everyday and still have energy for the kids at the weekend, so I’ll buy an ebike and cheat.
our bike club members assure me that an ebike isn't all easy sailing. I believe them! With how heavy the ebikes can be, you can't just be sailing along on the battery, not putting in any effort, and expect to go very far.
So far it's much easier to cut out junk food because I think the whole morning about what I need to eat during lunch. I also need to figure out my relationship with the feeling of hunger, which the fast gives me the possibility to do.
Ended up being full after eating 3/4 of a hamburger last day. I generally eat two with ease.
It's a cascade of less sleep and time which means less exercise and a worse diet.
My son is 13 now, and its only in the last few years that I've really started to take care of myself. I've started exercising, stopped eating junk, and tried to make time for sleep. The result is I've lost 60lbs over the last few years, and am in better shape than I've been since highschool. However, I still don't sleep as well as I did before he was born.
My advice to new dads is: Take care of yourselves. Eat right. Don't cut out exercise to save time.
Caring for a toddler means being shackled to a creature that is entirely dependant on you, but there are still ways you can work in some self care while taking care of them.
I heard this joke a while ago, and while cruel seems to have an element of truth to it by observation. Lack of sleep, lack of exercise, less time to make healthy meals seems to be a terrible combination for weight gain.
The experience itself is different. While for women it is more shocking and exciting, men still need to handle their partner and other responsibilities during this period and pretty much share that experience which, as article suggests, alters them both in some ways.
meh, not really. I don't think you can equate having to walk around mother+baby type stores on your weekend with growing a baby inside you.
Life doesn't change "that" much for fathers during the pregnancy apart from support the mother with the changes she is going through
After the birth, then hold on, the ride is now beginning and everything you ever know is turned upside down
GP is not equating, and explicitly says so in the first real sentence of their post:
>The experience itself is different.
Another curious question, it would be interesting to see the impact of adopting a cat or a dog on men’s testosterone levels.
Very interesting idea though. But all of this fathering thing is related with continue one's bloodline I guess. Humans are very motivated to maintain their lineage. Adopting pets may be related with another topic.
Can I safely assume you haven't adopted any children? I'm a parent of two adopted kids (now mostly grown). If you think what motivates me is any different than what motivates other fathers, you would be terribly mistaken.
And here is my turn to speak without knowing: I imagine that if a father is too attached to the idea of the continuation of his genetic legacy, it may pressure the children to fulfill the father's idea of a legacy rather than find their own path.
Edit: And that itself has much deeper relation to a biological child than to adopting one. Not that adopting isn't significant or emotional, it's simply not that varying level of experience.
> Another curious question, it would be interesting to see the impact of adopting a cat or a dog on men’s testosterone levels.
I would compare this analogy to the opposite and unfortunate experience like the death of a close one. Losing someone that's biologically linked to you can be really hard even if you weren't that emotionally attached to that person. By comparing that to losing a friend outside of your family circle, which is also a very harsh experience, it seems that biological line would be an emotional line deeply attached to a person no matter what experience one has.
How do you know your child is actually biologically yours? Human fathers have no biological/natural means of identifying a child as theirs. So your hypothesis that having your own child va adopting is different does not stand. The father - child bond is a mental construct and I see absolutely no reason why adopting is lesser than biologically fathering a child.
Also, family resemblances do exist. Their absence doesn't disprove parentage, but their presence is evidence for it.
When adopting, if you were not sexually active prior to adoption and have not donated sperm, you can be certain the child is not biologically yours. Even if you were active or a donor, you can still be very confident the kid is likely not yours.
I think adoption is a wonderful thing and I am not trying to undercut it, but it seems entirely possible to me that those differences could impact the bond between a father and child.
I think most of the confusion here is coming from the idea that psychology can't be related to biology. However, I firmly believe that biology is the base of the psychology and you cannot alter psychology without altering the biology itself.
What may have confused you is that I stated that the idea of being biologically related to someone, has a mental effect that creates some emotional attachment - yes, due to the biological relation as a social construct. That was an additional idea to compare it to adopted cat/dog/child analogy.
Edit: also the testosterone stuff is mostly a myth in the sense that, while testosterone of new fathers drops, it also recovers some months after the baby is born and older. So you get some months of baby snuggles and then you're back with your old libido. Also, men with kids are way more attractive to women (including their wives) anyway.
People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?
Also, it is nice to have a receptive audience to dad jokes.
> every week it gets a tiny bit easier
It doesn't have to be chaos and it doesn't have to be torture. It's all fairly subjective and I don't want to type out a novel. But, I do want to give you a bit of a different perspective.
I am very busy tending to these babies, keeping our home maintained, working, tending to our dogs, etc... I handle 50% of our feedings entirely by myself (feeding for us is code for: change baby, feed baby, burp baby, soothe baby, get baby onto their next activity or put down for a nap or sleep, and this is times 2 for our situation). We're walking the twins in the morning and the evening. We're bathing a baby every night, so they get a bath every other day right now. We play with them during the day and we read to them at night before bed.
Yet, I slept for just under 7 hours straight last night. My wife slept for 4 hours, pumped, and then went back to sleep. She leaves me a note on the bathroom counter every night so that I know if I need to wake her up or not. I can hear that she is waking up now and so after this comment I am going to head upstairs and I'll be feeding both of the twins again by myself while she pumps and we get ready for that morning walk. I also worked out twice this week and since Sunday have gone for 2 hour-long runs. I have another run today, whenever I can find the spare hour. Another workout tomorrow. Saturday is a day off. We'll play with the twins as much as they'll have it. We don't really have any help in the house, it's overwhelmingly just my wife and I. We're making things work and things are working well. I've been told by people IRL not to say these sorts of things out loud. I've been told to "stop bragging" about how my infants sleep at night. So, personally, I've found that I don't really care to say much about it.
edit/ I'd do well to note that I work full-time remote and that makes a world of difference in our outcomes. If I had to commute to an office, no doubt that I'd be exercising much less and we'd not be eating very well right now.
I feel like the stress is much higher than it would be without kids, but the rewards are higher as well. Managed well it can be more than worth it, but doing it when you aren't prepared makes it hurt that much more.
The negatives are real but they are outweighed by overwhelming positives. In my experience, there was a new level of satisfaction achieved after becoming a father that made it worth every sacrifice.
To offer a counter-point, my daughter is 18 and off to college (literally dropping her off this saturday), and my son is 15. With each moment that passes from the time they are born, things get easier ... sleep? improves. complete and utter dependency? they learn to wipe their own bum. So, all the things that _seem_ really bad that people are reporting here are, ultimately, rather temporary.
That's not to say there aren't new challenges that come once they get older, and some challenges aren't experienced by everyone (I feel incredibly lucky and blessed that I haven't had any behavioral issues with my kids). So ... yeah ... they're not little parasites forever, just keep that in mind :P
Having children is a life experience. A hard one, that will change you. It is certainly not the easy route. If you want a life of low stress and self satisfaction - having no kids makes a lot of sense. And I'd never begrudge anyone who makes this choice (of which I know many).
Choosing to have a family means you are willing to sacrifice your own goals to some extent. I think you could say the same about any relationship - you generally have to give up some of your own time and or desires to make a relationship work, whether short term or long term. Having kids is probably the most extreme version of this.
What do you get out of it? Life long companionship, for one thing. And a very unique experience, that only other parents can ever understand.
Not necessarily. I know many people who have quite strained relationships with their parents/children. I have relatives who had children based on the mindset of "who will take care of me when I'm old?", only for their kids to mistreat and abandon them in their old age.
> and if so, why?
Yes. Chemical change in my brain / body causing me to love those little buggers more than life itself.
No. A bit of free time and piece and quiet would be nice occasionally and to selfishly do what I want, when I want, how I want.
> would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?
At the time of the first born, most definitely. But girlfriend got pregnant "fairly" young at 24. She wanted to keep it, no further discussion had.
In retrospect, that is a very hard one. Very much aware of the "grass is greener" paradigm and to be "happy with what you got". But overall, I don't think I would change anything.
On a more pragmatic note, the idea that brains change when you have kids to make you more nurturing and empathetic sounds good for a career. It would help with communications and teamwork to be stronger in those areas.
Re: "completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that" I hear the same thing here often about joining or running a startup and putting in 100+ hours per week.
The only reason I regret having kids is because of the planet they will be inheriting, and all of the shit they will have to deal with.
Crucial difference is that you can (ethically) quit the startup if you decide it isn't worth it.
I think parenting, like school, is also a very high-effort, high-reward activity. Maybe while the negatives are easy to understand, the rewards are not so easily understood. "Give life to your offspring" just doesn't have the same ring as "make a ton of money" or "become the ruling class".
If you don't want children, don't worry about it. Population increases exponentially.
No, it does not any more. See talks of Hans Rosling.
It is difficult. The first year is hard. It’s hard to even draw parallels to. You know how it’s like to learn to ride a bike or a new language or play a musical instrument when you’ve never played one before? It’s like that almost everyday for the first few months at least. You will be sleep deprived. You will be in auto pilot doing things you wonder how/why you did it.
But the reward is amazing! You have the opportunity to do right in the world. You can raise kids that’ll add sanity to your worldview. I’m raising my kids to be empathetic and kind human beings. My older one unprompted goes to the shy kid on the playground and involves him/her. That’s so rewarding to see. He cares for his brother to the extent that he’ll ask us to go “let it go” when we try to get the younger one through his tantrum.
Now, why was it the best thing to happen to me professionally? 2 things: 1. Something better be a fucking good reason for me to spend time on it. Stupid meeting? Sorry, I’m busy I’m walking out to do other work. Random chit chat in a meeting that’s running late? I’m cutting that shit down. I’ve learned to value my time like execs value their time. I’m not rude but I have become very particular. Something has to be worth my time to take me away from spending time with my kids. 2. After parenting most things feel easy to me. Exec presentation? Give me an hour. Train a new person with a bad attitude. Pfft. I can handle that without getting upset. Deal with an aggressive Engineering Manager. Yeah I got skills to calm this person down. Stand up for the quite colleague in the corner? You bet I’ve noticed it and intervened to seek their input.
It has been my observation and experience that if you don’t do so patronizingly, a lot of how to talk to a child can be applied to grown ups with marvelous results.
All of this though is if you’re ready for it. I knew I was when I realized I wanted to share my view of the world with someone I was caring for. Good luck!
I've raised great kids, and the world is better off for them being in it.
You learn to value, care for, and depend on others more in a way that’s hard to do otherwise.
And kids are great fun. Seeing them discover new things is wonderful.
Having kids is big both my wife’s and my quality world so we don’t regret it. It is really hard a lot though too.
You learn to live a life of service which the world needs more of.
Also, join something like https://www.peps.org, a parenting organization.
Having a deep bench of helpers and pre qualified play mates is crucial. It can't just be the parents vs their kids 24/7.
Having kids was the best reason not to commit suicide I've ever had.
During the first 4 years of fatherhood, I did triatholons and ran ultra-marathons - primairly ultras as the crowd was far more relaxed. After our second was born I decided to take up powerlifting, worked up to a 1405 total.
I've recently decided to go back to endurance events as being 230lbs of raw strength isn't conducive to life, plus our grocery bill is higher due to that. So I'm swimming and dropping weight; running at 230 (now 210) was terrible and humbling all at once.
My wife did half-marathons and now does cross-fit.
During these different 'eras' we exposed our children to our activities and they partook when interested, they are highly interested in riding their bikes and run as they please. Though they prefer volleyball and gymnastics at the moment.
They only negative, is they can't sit for school, as school only offers one recess during the day.
It's better for the environment (the mountain of plastic and CO2 that having kids causes is astounding) and there are plenty of people in the world that are passionate about having kids.
Always been on the fence, keep hoping I want to have kids some day, because I sure don't want to go into it with a negative attitude. I don't want to "miss out" and regret having lived a childless life when I'm 70, but I sure don't want anything about that lifestyle today. My wife seems to be much the same way. We always talk about "some day, if we have kids.." but nearing our 40s, some day doesn't seem to come.
I absolutely believe it must be rewarding in a way I cannot imagine -- just as most 'worthwhile' pursuits that take time and effort and learning and growth are. And precisely because the benefits are non-obvious (I don't really enjoy anything about being around children). I've found raising pets to be far more rewarding than I could have imagined, so I'm sure children must be 100 or 1000x that reward.
But, just like I don't need to take on every challenge the world has to offer (someone else can die on Everest, others can become passionate about their skydiving hobby), I'll pick and choose my challenges.
Having kids gives you a chance in making a more significant impression than just exist and disappear.
I don't think anyone should have children because it helps them come to terms with their own mortality.
It's easier to make an impression on someone if you are nearly constantly around them through their most impressionable years, starting at or near birth.
If you aren't the actual (natural or adoptive) parent, the actual parents will probably get tired of you trying to do this relatively quickly, unless you have an unusual relationship with them.
The only real concern I have about having a child is I don't know what kind of world he's entering.
Long story short, I did have kids and it was the right decision. And if I were able to talk to myself when I was struggling with the decision, I would say "Don't miss this experience. There is nothing else in life like it. It is hard but it is worth it."
If your scared how it will affect your life, maybe it isn't for you. It's not how kids work, you make it work, period. Either you do it or you don't. Whether it's a good idea is very irrelevant.
In terms of sleep she usually sleeps from midnight until 4-5 when she will wake up to be fed, but often I don't even wake up now (yes, she is in the same room).
TL;DR: YOLO/FOMO.
And at risk of sounding a bit handwavy, I think I've adapted to being a parent much better than I thought I would, which I guess could be thanks to some biological help.
Also used to look a lot younger than I actually was, and now I look my age or even older, but that could simply be lack of sleep.
My thought process was that going from 1 to 2 was going to follow some sort of logarithmic increase in complexity - but I am now convinced that the change is exponential.
With 1, you can split the work. With 2, the dad will probably be focused on the older kid and the mom on the younger kid. Thus, there is less help to go around.
Maybe at #3 there is some sort of loop-back effect where the older kid can help out with the younger siblings?
Anyone with more experience care to opine?
A colleague of mine has 7 kids. Both she and her husband work full time with white-collar jobs. If she hadn't gotten raises and promotions they likely couldn't afford the childcare costs and she would be a stay at home parent. (Cultural norm for her).
I can't imagine how this would work in a blue-collar setting where work has to be done on-site. Between sick kids who can't go to school/childcare, doctor vists, dentist appointments, parent teach conferences, flexible work hours to come in late/leave early are normal things parents need to do and even more so when you start talking 3 or more kids.
The loopback can happen, but it doesn't really manifest until much later. Spreading them out 2-3 years seems like the best way to scale to large families as that first two years really are all parenting unless you have teenagers in the house.
(Also don't get me started on current employment laws as it relates to pregnancy and how being a mom can impact both wage and career opportunities)
At the same time, the mental adjustment was easier. None to one was the biggest mental adjustment for me (wow, I'm a parent now! Oh God help I'm responsible for keeping another human alive). One to two and two to three were more like changes in degree rather than a complete paradigm-shift mentally. For number two and three I've already worked through the reality that I'm now a father.
Age difference has to play some role as well. Our three are very close in age. Maybe the experience is different when there is more distance between them.
It's not the life for everyone, but I really enjoy it.
In terms of effort, the per capita cost goes down after each kid IMHO.
1 kid = 1
2 kid = 2.5
3 kid = 3
4 kid = 3.25
Good god. Is everything a math problem for you people?
It's called 'figuring life out'. Sometimes there's not a 'logarithmic increase in complexity'. You just wing it. And you figure it out.
Though I am glad someone has similar thoughts as me!
~ Cheers
More kids with problems equals full time job though.
Somedays things just work out. Sometime they just don't.
You can't assume it will be easier but some days it will.
16 examples -> I would set more store by tealeaf reading.
It was so noticeable... like I'd just stepped into someone else's brain. really weird.
It felt like a mental "click" but not like you get when you have been trying to solve a puzzle... it felt like a mental " gear change ".
My thought processes changed order or priority, Things that I felt were important before were suddenly less important and I think I things from a different angle (not just life stuff but problem solving approaches.).
its really hard to describe.
What I can say is that having a second didnt do a damned thing... lol whatever change was going to happen only happened on the first.
Very possible that been a father cornered you to think more pragmatically in daily life, and that translates to how you do things at work.
I definitely felt a change in perspective like this. Sitting in a 1hr long meeting, going over something which could be done in 10 mins, and the whole time thinking "none of this even matters, there's a human life at home which I helped create!".
I doubt that this concern is “widespread”. Sounds like the author creating unnecessary urgency for an already interesting topic.
But I have had folks try to make me feel like I*m doing something wrong for not wanting children - both men and women. Apprently, that's what I'm supposed to want.
Startlingly? Almost like every person was different..
English is not a good language
My daughter had problems with her stomach or with us trying to put some clothes on her. The scream amplitude and frequency in a small bathroom are a horrendous combination.
I joked at the time that she sounded like Nazgûl.
Went to the doctor and turned out that I had a cold as some point and the pressure in my ear never equalized back correctly, which meant the ear drum couldn't vibrate right. A couple weeks of allergy medicine seemed to fix the issue.
Around that time though, I bought a pair of ear muffs and wore them every time I had to put her to bed or change her diaper. Amazing. Highly recommended.
1. It doesn't mention obvious potential causes to brain changes and hormone levels that coincide with having children like lack of sleep, changes to diet, or adjustments to work patterns etc.
2. It says towards the end that I should continue to wrestle the boys. Great!
It has been amazingly difficult with twins, for the first 6 months it was pure hell. I didn’t really sugarcoat it when people asked, yes it’s hell, no it’s not fun. People were much more understanding of the my sour attitude with twins.
Many people both get up as a sign of support but yea it’s stupid, after some time we found that taking turns getting up has allowed the other to get some sleep, surprised we didn’t get any guidance from the hospital on this subject at all while at the hospital.
For you father-programmers out there: did you notice any changes in your programming/work abilities around the 12-16 week mark?
So, without enough time with my kids, my abilities as a programmer absolutely plummet. I wake up early and work, spend time with my toddler, then finish work while he naps and when his mom is home.
My productivity took a nose dive from the quite extreme sleep deprivation. Sleeping 3-4h for months is bad for your mind.
You're so sleep starved you program like a turkey and have to try and do mundane, low risk things for much of the day. Simpler fixes, documentation, clean up technical debt in test cases etc etc. Limit tricky things for the morning after you've warmed up and keep that burst short. But this is of course from birth until n months.
I'm guessing the lifestyle changes are going to have an effect that is large and the effects discussed here, while they may indeed be statistically signficant (who knows?), are going to have an effect so incredibly small by comparison that they really aren't worth considering. But that's pure prejudice on my part - we'll see if there's any data capable of rejecting that hypothesis.
The changes to your sleep are huge. Now if you've had twins... Yeah.
I wonder if sleep deprivation is related to raising children pre industrial era. It seems logical but I don't know much on this topic. :)
Just watch the first few minutes of this.
https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_walker_sleep_is_your_superpow...
I started to get some of my old coding mojo back around 8 months and at 18 months I'm IMHO better than I've ever been, but the newborn phase is basically a complete write-off. Parental leave exists for a reason.
Good for you. The FANG (you can guess) company I worked for stack-ranked me at the bottom of the tar pit in my write-off year with zero increase in comp, followed by another quarter of intense improvement program after which they decided I still wasn't good enough. Disagreements ensued for three more quarters and then that was that. The result... unemployment.
I spent an insane number of hours in the middle of the night bouncing on a swiss exercise ball, holding the baby, in nothing but my pants, in the dark, with the tv on (but muted), to coax the baby back to sleep. Honestly ... this sorta stuff needs to mentioned more to let prospective parents know what they're in for.
Since having a child, I've nothing but total admiration for any single parent - how they manage without a fulltime partner would be beyond my ability.
Then again I did notice I was very good at understanding baby talk.
Taking from some old notes of my 5 month old baby:
"eh eh eh", but no crying at 6 AM = "I need a diaper change" or "I'm hungry"
rapid kicking = excited
wide open arms while lying down = "pick me up"
"uh huh/mmm" with slight head inclining = yes.
when mother is saying something, baby laughs, turns head towards me, "uh huh/mmm" with inclined head = "mother is right" or "I told you so"
laughing and turning away = "I like that"
licking lips = "I want to eat whatever you're eating"
"aaaaaaaaaaa" = conversation or song
long, drawn out, angry crying = "I'm tired and I don't know how to sleep"
Screaming at night = “my parents are bad they aren’t feeding me they should be locked up”
Kicking feet = “oh god I’m wet please change me it’s so gross”
lol I remember this, we called it the 'worst parents in the world' cry. It continues forever, the form changes as they get older but the message is the same
But seriously, congratulations on getting to that level of bonding with child. It was also the same for me and it is magical!
I think, from my own experience, babies learn to communicate in a two way fashion - they try noises and responses with their caregivers, and when the caregivers respond in an agreeable fashion, the baby stores that bit of communication away to try again later (and possibly reinforce).
So I think some of their communication is learned (signals for positive/negative), and quite specific to the baby-parent pair, while some will be instinctual (e.g. I imagine the excited kicking to be related to an adrenal surge or something, and early-infant crying is definitely an instinctual distress signal)
A surprisingly common problem with very young children. Maybe also some adults.
However, I think the implication is that these changes stick around. After we finally hit our "parenting rhythm" around 6 months to a year, I did find that many of the soft skills were coming easier to me than they had before I was a parent. I found was getting better at doing presentations, reading emotions/intention, doing mentoring, and organizing others to accomplish goals, Now correlation is not causation, it could also be I was just transitioning into a more senior role anyway, and I've got a sample size of 1, but I'd like to propose a mechanism: constantly practicing my public speaking by reading "The Napping House" to a miniature tyrant who communicates only through facial expressions and screaming, is your responsibility to teach everything to including successfully eating food, and requires a logistics train on par with an Army brigade just to leave the house changed my brain and resultded in transferable skills.
We organised with me as evening shift - so mum could get a little uninterrupted sleep, and she picked up the morning shift.
It's also part of why I never wanted kids. That, and the threat of global nuclear war.
o hair loss (Eldest's birth and early life was traumatic)
o Loss of short term memory (mostly temporary, sleep loss related.)
o loss of hearing (eldest was fond of screaming)
o grey hair.
We split child care into two shifts. I took nights, wife took days. Hence why I had less sleep than the wife.
not only that its at about 3.5khz. now look at this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour
Right in the loudness contour.
children, less so, babies yes.
number two is nowhere near as loud or as prone to screaming
That sounds absolutely terrible. I am not looking forward to having a kid. :-(
I was unlucky, I had a screamy one. The second child barely cries at all.
0. Has anyone seriously looked into variations of intermittent fasting &| extended fasting?
1. Did you have brain fog after hunger went away after a few days, or less fog?
2. What about maintenance vitamins, electrolytes and preventing gallstones?
3. How long did you continue for, until hunger returned?
Eat your normal amount of meals, shovel it in your mouth, but stop before finishing the whole portion. I eat maybe 75% of each meals and toss the remaining bits. Do it for a couple months and watch the weight magically shed off.
It works because it requires no change in meal-type habits; it’s simply fewer calories. End of the day, that’s always the goal and this way is the most direct and simple
When the meals come where it’s hard to stop at 75%, I force myself to toss my napkin and utensils on the plate ensuring the food is now “dirty”. So altogether, it’s very few behavior changes make for a foolproof method.
I think the best method is to understand your own patterns, and to find ways to reduce caloric consumption which are going to require the least amount of will-power for you and will cause the least amount of psychological stress. The exact method is going to be different for different people.
One reason I like it is that it requires the least planning and mental load. I eat what I want as much as I want (except sugar) and almost no matter what I do it works out to be less than my maintenance calories and I lose weight because I can't eat 4k calories in one sitting. The simplicity of it gives me less breaking points, and the ability to "eat whatever I want" makes planning for a big meal in 2 days a good reward to keep going.
The beginning is very hard and it's mostly due to sugar addiction. Many people say switching to keto first to wean off sugar makes fasting much easier.
To answer your questions:
1. Hunger comes and goes in waves, but mostly it just goes. Mentally I become more focused and clearer the longer I am into my fast, and overall I no longer get the fog from overeating or too much sugar.
2. I take a standard multivitamin GNC brand. When I feel light headed/have low blood pressure I drink a salty bone broth. Some people have their own electrolyte recipes like snake juice you can look into.
3. I go for a set amount of time. I found that it's very difficult if I'm just fasting for "as long as I can" because when the hunger comes I break. If I have a set breakfast time it's much easier to carry on until then.
I also had success with a ketogenic diet, but in my experience that's a bit harder to stick to, since there's a lot of hidden carbohydrates in food, and it's also the kind of diet you find yourself explaining all the time like when you have to turn down the cookie your colleague made, or you order a hamburger without the bun at a restaurant. TRE offers many of the same benefits, but has almost no impact insofar as how you live your life.
> Hunger comes and goes in waves, but mostly it just goes.
Interesting thing about the hunger pattern you described: subjective experience of hunger maps pretty well to the hormone Ghrelin, which tends to peak close to your normal meal-times, and then naturally subsides afterwords whether or not you have eaten. So the science points to the fact that hunger is very much something you can "wait out".
> I started skipping a day twice a week for a total of 5x 24hr fasts and 2x 48hr fasts. This week I completed a 72hr fast.
It's important to be cautious when attempting longer fasts. I know a lot of people have subjectively good experiences with multi-day fasts, but I saw a talk where the presenter showed evidence that long fasts (more than 72 hours) can cause long-lasting metabolic changes which weren't recovered even several years later.
I thought one of the benefits of fasting was long-lasting metabolic changes (for the better).
What the talk I linked in the other comment talks about is something different: there's evidence that prolonged periods of severe calorie restriction can make your metabolism's bias move more toward storing calories and away from expending energy.
1. For me, I never really experienced brain fog while IF. If anything, I seem to get more fog after eating regular/larger meals. When I was really hungry, drinking water and/or coffee (Starbucks double shots) worked for me. After a while you get used to hunger, and I seem to work better when I’m hungry vs when I’ve eaten a typical meal. If I’m seriously so hungry I’m getting a headache (which happens) id only have something with protein, absolutely no carbs (i.e lunch meat, eggs, nuts)
2. Don’t have too much knowledge or experience on gallstones. I took fish oil supplements occasionally and cut out creatine, but that’s about it.
3. Not 100% sure based on wording, but I was doing IF for about 6 weeks and lost ~20lbs. I ate from 6pm to 10pm, slept typically 1am to 7-8am. Only coffee and water during the day.
Now at 180lbs and not on IF or a strict IF schedule, I typically just have coffee in the mornings, a light lunch if I eat, and a typical dinner. 30 mins cardio 2-3 days a week, compound lifts 2-3 days a week.
Source - mid 20’s software developer
Yeah I seem to find that a bit of mild hunger (not starvation or malnutrition) is good for the mind. I have at some points in my life found myself in a bit of a dampened state, where I am constantly either a bit lethargic from the last meal, or a bit preoccupied thinking about what I'm going to eat next.
I would love to understand the physiology more, but I have a pet theory that your brain gets a bit more "switched on" when you make calories and nutrients a bit more scarce for yourself, and that maybe when you let yourself eat whatever you want whenever you want, that survival instinct gets dialed back a bit.
After trying fasting, when I see a snake with a full belly sleeping in the grass like it's dead it makes total sense to me. That's what digestion feels like.
Full head of hair is a qualifier, without it different things are needed to get yourself an in. The same logic goes for many attributes are considered qualifiers that aren't.
Yes, there are some men that expend very low energy and have women seemingly flock to them. I've seen bald men in this circumstance, and full haired men in this circumstance, I would say it is a very low weighting on anything.
Balding though seems to function different than bald.
Coming to today's workplace, after childbirth there is a drop in productivity of male employees as they adjust to their new reality. However, I have observed men become more diligent and aggressive at their jobs. I only imagine thats because they have a stronger sense of responsibility to provide for their partner & offspring. Whether or not Testosterone levels change is a different matter.
Just thinking back at my own first years with kids, the workload was so tough I neglected most testosterone producing activities (sports, action, male bonding).
I am certainly no expert on this area but it sounds to me like you are concluding that the study must be invalid, based on a bit of armchair science.
The species closest to us all don't hunt. They're opportunistic omnivores.