Hacker News Reader

Comment by sershe | Hacker News Reader

One of the reasons I'm never having kids is seeing just this pattern. For everyone I can recall right now, it lasts forever. They have more time later but the drive is gone. I've actually seen a few of people with a shared hobby and a toddler be like "kids won't stop me from doing X, in fact it's going to be better with kids to teach/inspire/...!", and then they disappear forever (up to 5 years so far). Or (skiing example, I don't ski in this case but the person as far as I know used to be good) in 10 years they tell you how it's nice to go to a ski resort, ride a couple of simple slopes and watch their kids ride then have a beer. Same applies to intellectual hobbies like coding (again, from my anecdata). Nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea.

View on HN

From my experience, this is absolutely true. I figured children wouldn’t interfere with my hobbies because I’d still have evenings and the weekend to do stuff.

Turns out that during the week you are generally too exhausted, and in the weekend you always have to figure out where to leave your child if you won’t want to saddle your partner with them.

You could bring your kids, but people without children (rightly so) quickly tire of this, so you mostly end up interacting with other couples with children, and that’s glorious too, because suddenly there’s 4 instead of 2 qualified adults to pay attention.

On the other hand, I didn’t expect the amount of satisfaction I would get out of children to be this great either, and it was definitely worth the bargain.

"and in the weekend you always have to figure out where to leave your child if you won’t want to saddle your partner with them."

That's one harsh sentence right there.

> always have to figure out where to leave your child if you won’t want to saddle your partner with them.

Inartfully stated, but access to childcare is a huge deal. As a step-parent I've got Bio Dad taking the load off usually one evening a week, every other weekend, and he does the needful in an emergency. Grandparents aren't nearby but often take them home or on a mini-vacation during the major school breaks. A cousin spent last summer with us, which gave us a lot of freedom at much less expense than summer camps and babysitters.

I can't fathom how a relationship survives raising children without substantial outside help.

And then there are some people who actually seem to have time for all of that, which kind of makes it sad for the rest -- I remember a female coleague -- drop dead gorgeous, two kids, 28 years of age, always taking her kids for activities, full of energy at work, sometimes I wondered if she was on stimulants, which she couldn't be, because they are not legal in my country.

Consider that perhaps what they found is actually greater happiness. Not saying it’s true or that everyone should follow the kid path, but I’m experiencing what you describe and can confirm that the hobbies/interests were and still are fun but are turning out to be not the best part of life.

That's what I meant, to each his own. Also, as far as finding better happiness goes, PG is careful to qualify his view by referencing the chemical changes... That makes it more complicated; some people mention it as a positive (i.e. even if it turns out to be as bad as I thought I won't feel nearly as bad); as for me, it makes me even more wary, the thinking being similar to the cult analogy in the article... I don't view such things as positives.

Be careful, one day you might realize you missed something important.

After I'm dead, my kids can continue my work better than I could do it myself.

You may also realize that you missed something important by not founding a startup, climbing Everest, travelling the world, paragliding, writing a fantasy novel, or getting hooked on heroin. This is a vacuous statement that can be used as a reason to do anything at all, or nothing.

After I'm dead they can toss my body outside the gates. And they can give me a stick so I could fend off the scavengers - that is, if I care to ;)

> After I'm dead, my kids can continue my work better than I could do it myself.

Assuming they find your work interesting.

I'm really hoping my son enjoys playing games (board and video) and programming, but he could totally turn into a jock. (Although genetics says he'll never be good at basketball.)

If he turns into a jock, then he can continue all the work you never quite got around to ;)

I would tend to think that, for people truly on the fence, it is much better to not have kids and later regret it, than to have kids and regret that. At least with the former, you can still have an otherwise full life, and you're the only one who bears the brunt of your regret.

If you have kids and regret them, the kids are going to suffer for it, even if you do everything you can to hide that regret from them.

You can always adopt or foster children if you really regret it later. There are plenty of children that exist that need good homes without having to create more.

As someone who knows several people who wanted to adopt - it's not as easy as you might think (at least unless you are able to spend a lot of money adopting children from abroad).

Adopting older kids who come from problematic backgrounds has a significant probability of them having experienced some sort of trauma before they got to you. It's absolutely a great thing to do to take care of these kids but potentially very difficult as well.

This is why it's very difficult to get to adopt babies - they are the ones that everyone wants. Not saying this should make anyone not adopt just that it's not as easy as you seem to think - western countries actually don't have that many orphans & a lot of people who want to adopt them (which is of course a good thing!).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com