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Comment by igotsideas | Hacker News Reader

This is my current life and can verify that we have 0 minutes for other things. However, if you’re POS parent, then sure there is time.

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I'm in no way supporting the outrageouslu peurile post, but do you think an argument can be made that children seem to take more effort from their parents than needed? The reasons could be still external, but I'm still curious if you can do a good job as a parent without fully dedicating your time.

Full disclosure: am an armchair childless philosopher

the affirmation than a children take up all your time is exceedingly simple to be shown false:

if a children takes 100% of your time no exceptions, what twins' parent would do?

it's clear that there's some psychological mechanism at play that transform single child parents into helicopter parents at a great conversation rate, to the point they have to oversee every minute of their children's lives without even realising that's happening

having multiple children quickly teaches you that yes, children can survive some time on their own, but multiple children is a rare sight these days

The amount of time that having an additional child takes isn't linear. If you have multiple children of a similar age (which is the most common scenario); you can entertain, feed, etc. them at the same time.

it still takes more time than one children. even if it's ten minutes for things that can't be parallel like changing nappies, it contradict the claim that one children takes all of one's time

it's simple hard logic, wouldn't have expected to have to explain it or getting downvoted for it on hacker news.

When you have one child you give them all your attention. When you have two you divide it.

When you have one, maybe it take 5 minutes to change a nappy, then you play for 10 minutes after. When you have two, you then have 10 minutes of nappy changing time, then only 5 minutes to play. The time is reallocated, not added to.

then you can reallocate second child time to free time and the claim that 100% of the time has to be child time it's still bullshit.

do you cook? order delivery one evening and presto, half an hour free.

the only kind of parent that have zero time free after a child are helicopter parents

and that before taking into account there are in a lot of cases two parents.

Well it's good that you are finding that your experience of parenting is giving you the balance that you need. Not everyone's child or experience is the same.

but that's the whole point of the goddamn argument: giving the child 100% of oneself is a _choice_ not a fact of life. own the choice, instead of complaining that there' no time for anything else.

I'm sorry but this last comment of yours made me literally laugh out loud.

So, not being a parent yourself, you claim that not only is becoming a parent a choice when it is most certainly NOT (rape, faith, the reasons are myriad) but you also claim to know better than parents just how much time/attention raising a child takes.

Your entire 'argument' in this thread is nothing but what you think/imagine vs. reality

>you claim that not only is becoming a parent a choice when it is most certainly NOT

never claimed that. I claimed that time allocation to parenting is a choice. and that's irrefutable idk why it's even a topic up to discussion, but I can see why you might just be trying to misinterpret my position as a easy way out.

> not being a parent yourself

another topic change, and another wrong assumption.

The issue is that with very young children, you ALWAYS have to be supervising them (if they aren’t sleeping)... you can do other things a bit, but you always have to keep one eye on them. It is impossible to do real focus work.

With two kids (or more), you can watch them both at the same time. It isn’t like you are always actively doing something for the kids, it is just you are always watching.

no? you just need to have safe spaces, it's not like they going anywhere anyway.

Yes. Even though our 17-month old has run of the place in a safe space, it only takes 5-10 minutes of no attention for him to come running up and trying to pull me somewhere. As above, this makes any sort of focus impossible.

Sure, if you don't mind listening to a screaming child while you try to do other things.

A first time parent typically has no prior experience with being a parent, so it'd be pretty surprising if it didn't take more time than "needed". With the second child they have a better idea of what to do and can be more efficient, but hopefully have to split their time between two kids.

There can be other reasons why parents can have time,they don't have to be POS, may be they organise their time differently or say live in a low COL location and work fewer hours or some such combination.

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