Tell HN: The regret of parenting and how to handle it | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: The regret of parenting and how to handle it

168 pointsmustafabisic1183 comments

Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

Parenting is trending today on HN and I loved the comments. It inspired me to write about a thing I do well that I never thought about before.

Coming from someone who had these feeling from time to time, but almost never ponder on them, here is how I do it.

I noticed this is true not only in parenthood, but in everything else.

What worked for me in parenthood and marriage and sports:

1. Nip it in the bud. As soon as I start thinking about regrets I go and DO something positive now. I did have times when I pondered past (but that was in high-school and I had enough of a lesson that pondering won’t solve anything) 2. Loose hope it’ll get better (I’ve read about a POW in Vietnam war, he was like the longest captive pow in history. He said the guys who died or were in the worst condition first were the ones who hoped they’ll be out by Christmas or other important date) 3. Find joy in obstacles (the more unique obstacles you have the more unique perspective and gift you can give to your children and the world) 4. Hang out with your tribe even if it’s only virtually (whatever happens it’s nicer when you share it and you see other people have it similar) 5. Think about the future when it’s a high likelihood you will look at this moment and wish you’re back (it might help you put things into perspective)

One of these five is bound to help. If you have anything to add please do.

Also, if you like the post please check my weekly newsletter for remote-working parents in my profile. I cover a lot of relevant things there every week.

P.S. I know I'm coming in hot with the post. Raw and unedited. The only way to do it as a parent :)

View on HN

I’ll add a slightly different take: include your kids in everything, starting as early as possible. Hobbies, errands, everything.

It will be challenging, it is undeniably more work, but it becomes easier over time and will pay dividends eventually.

It’s difficult to make the perspective shift in the moment, but it’s helpful to remember that the whole entire world is new and exciting for kids. They’re curious little creatures, constantly growing and learning. Even mundane tasks like running errands can turn into engaging, stimulating activities for little ones. The weekly grocery pickup or a trip to the hardware store are opportunities to explore the world and instill curiosity. It doesn’t happen for free, though: as a parent, it’s your job to engage and foster this.

I haven’t even touched on how rewarding it is to include kids in hobbies. My kids are under five, and partake in everything from hiking, camping, backpacking, canoeing and snowshoeing to woodworking and cooking. Turns out kids just wanna do all the great things their parents do, and will rise to the occasion if given the opportunity :)

The opportunities are there if you let them be there!

Best answer. I am happily child-free, but I love parents like this, and their li'l ones.

I want to specify that mundane might be super mundane. My kids (1,5 years) absolutely love 1. emptying washing machine 2. emptying laundry 3. picking up toys to a box when cleaning 4. peeling potatoes with me. They will give me potatoes, I peel them, and they'll taste the raw potatoes and put them to a container.

This surely takes more time than doing the tasks alone, but this way is much more fun.

I agree with this take 100%. I also think for all of the different perspectives the biggest one I try to achieve is "if you're not happy your kids won't be happy". So hobbies and needs should be met if they are really what put you in a better place. Babies and toddlers require a large amount of work and there are surely sacrifices but if you're miserable it's not helping your children and they will know.

edit; nm

It seems like a response. The parent said a source of regret was “I can’t take up new hobbies” and this response was “involve your kids in your hobbies”

Ah indeed, there are two extremely similar titles on hn currently with very different contexts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33259414

Agree with this 100%, as a father of 5. I have 2 sped kiddos that are aseverely handicapped and even at 7 and 8 years of age they cant do many so-called mundane tasks. Also no one can or wants to watch them, including family. Also if you think child care is a difficult and expensive problem, try hiring one through an agency for sped kids. Also the prognosis is that they will be permanently dependent, so there's no light at the end of the tunnel. The only solution is to get acquainted with the idea that your life will never be what you wanted, and to stop comparing yourself and your career to others. If you can do that, you can talk yourself into committing to tomorrow. Not that tomorrow will be better for YOU, but your commitment to it affords a future for your family, or at least, 1 more day of future.

I appreciate your comments.

> The only solution is to get acquainted with the idea that your life will never be what you wanted, …

What I’ve found fascinating as I’ve gotten older is that the life I _wanted_ at different points in my life has never been what I ended up with later, but somehow that’s been okay and when I look back I always come to be thankful for every “setback”. Like Steve Jobs’ commencement speech, life has to be lived going forward but is only understood looking back.

You are certainly a stronger person as a result of having two special needs children, likely far more compassionate and understanding than you would have been otherwise.

I’ve heard the concert expressed as setbacks being our “divine moment” to move toward our true path. Maybe a bit woo woo but I certainly feel like my setbacks have put me on a more fulfilling path.

>include your kids in everything, starting as early as possible. Hobbies, errands, everything.

This, 100%. It's actually easier than you think once it becomes a habit. Kids learn by emulation and practice, so they will naturally pick up on politeness, kindness, etc. as you go about your day.

Being able to see things new with your kids' eyes is enlightening as well. You've seen rocks, you've seen all the rocks, but you kids have never seen that rock before, and it's fun to look at it together and share what you know.

I would add that trying certain kinds of new hobbies with kids is also great. For example, if you've never tried painting before, start with your kids giving it a go as well.

All kids want to do is spend time with you. They're not particular. It's cliche, but it's true--they grow up faster than you think. Never pass up the chance to spend time with them.

hot take:

You are not your children, spend time on yourself, lest you find yourself suffering from the empty nest syndrome.

hotter take:

Not even your children want that.

Eh, there are some hobbies and kids that that works for and some that it doesn't. My kids like hearing me play music, but recording music requires several hours of focus in a quiet space. I can do a version of it with them, but it's not the same.

After my oldest turned 6 her ability to understand some things greatly improved, and I love that I can read books with ber that I remember from my youth. But I still can't read the books I would choose to pick for my own pleasure.

It gets easier the older they get. By the time my girls are 8 and 10, I'm sure that I'll be able to dedicate a weekend to recording like I used to, but it's absolutely not something I can do with little kids around.

Tipp: I usually go to bed with my 3y old son at 8pm. Then I usually wake up at 4am (or earlier). Between 4am and 6.30, I can do all my personal stuff, self-hosting, reading HN, trying technologies etc. We eat breakfast together and then head to work/Kindergarden etc. Worked really well and I totally enjoy the calm morning hours to slowly prepare for the day. That said, having kids is still the biggest challenge I ever encountered (I worked abroad, got a PhD, went to UC Berkeley and still, all of this felt super easy compared to a kid).

That sounds incompatible with having any kind of social life, even when you don't have the kids around.

social life is other parents with kids on shared weekend activities.

Yes, I realized that it is inevitably to loose friends after having a child. At least those without kids frequently got very angry with me for cancelling dates late, not being on time, or not calling frequently enough. I cannot solve this riddle, so my priorities are

a) stay healthy enough to be able to support my family

b) spend time with my child, since you cannot postpone this

c) care for those who really rely on me (parents)

There's usually not much left afterwards, but I still have long term friends who understand that I may be largely unavailable for a 10 year timespan.

There's certainly a few hours you can grab for something; I'm sure the extra sleep young children need contributed to our survival as a species, or else few children would have survived to adulthood. :-)

I've got a side project I've been trying to work on, but there's just so much else that needs to be done: You've got to keep connections with family and friends, you've got to do your laundry and your taxes and your shopping, you've got to figure out what to do about schooling, and so on. And I can't tell you how many times I've managed to block of 3-4 hours on a Sunday afternoon / evening to do some proper hacking, only to have my son fall ill and have to spend that time getting him medicine or trying to help him fall asleep.

All that to say, it certainly is possible to have "side projects" other than your child, but as OP said, you really have to adjust your expectations down. :-)

Since I'm a parent, I'm getting really good at time management. When the kid was 1 it was impossible to do anything, but now that he's 3, I do get at least some time almost everyday for hobbies/projects (not a lot, as you mention, but at least some).

Some things I do:

- I insist on getting some exercise done everyday (basically, walking the famous 10000 steps). Apart from the general benefits of exercise, not being in awful shape helps having more energy and therefore getting more things done. It's difficult to find time specifically for this so what I do is if I have a remote meeting where I'm not going to talk a lot (and most days I have one), I do the meeting while walking outside, connecting to it from my smartphone.

- While commuting to work by bus I do some Anki (I'm learning Chinese with it).

- I'm aware this is not within reach of everyone, but we hired someone to do a good chunk of the housework. When deciding if you should do this, consider that you are basically buying free time for yourself. How much is free time worth to you? For me, now that I have very little, it's worth a lot.

- Having only a little time to do something is no longer an excuse. If I have 15 minutes, I read a book for 15 minutes, no longer saying "I'll save it for when I have more uninterrupted time".

Pretty accurate. Military service does prepare you (a bit) for kids. Guard duty lets you sleep for 3 hours before your next shift. Then another 3 hours and that's enough. Yep, early childhood parenting.

Discipline, boredom and acceptance cover many of the other challenges of parenthood.

three (3) hours! ha! i wish. and i'm still inside that hurricane.

Every kid is different. You've got a real challenge on your hands. Our first was the same. Good luck!

Hey man! Sending my beat wishes and virtual strength towards you! My kid is 13 months old now and I think there were 2 or 3 occasions where she slept more than 3 hours straight. I feel you! It'll get better! Or so I hope :)

I've never been able to do this as there's usually 1-2 hours of cleanup to do after bed time. And directly after bed time I have very little will left to do housework so instead the cleanup gets delayed til 9/10pm. (3 kids) Rinse repeat :(

It depends on the kids, the ages, and the phase of the moon - but I've had good success making a daily habit of "kids, time to pack up" half an hour before their bedtime routine.

We go together through the house and find good places for everything, figure out what they want to do with in-progress activities, etc.

When I started this practice, it took three people and twenty minutes to do five minutes worth of cleaning, but the kids get faster as they learn (a skill they might find useful in their own home, one day).

Including the kid in the chores from as early as he possibly could has been a huge win for us. At 6 he can now handle stuff like simple food preparation, emptying the dishwasher and folding his own clothes pretty much unsupervised. That saves a lot of time on the evening clean up.

Any time I read a comment like this, I have to ask, when do you get time to do things with your partner? When do you do chores? For most people it's the evening, which you don't have, and in the morning you do your own stuff.

Or am I assuming too much and you are a single parent?

You don't.

But kids grow up - it doesn't stay this way forever.

> You don't.

I recall my SO asking my relative's wife (mother of three) what to do if you're already out of energy and dinner is not ready.

"Some days there just won't be any dinner for you" was the reply.

Naively it seems like things like frozen ready meals or meal replacers (Soylent, Huel) would be an easy fix (I wouldn't give them to the kids, but for a tired parent it'd be better than nothing).

I'm not a parent though (although planning to be), so am keen to know why that's wrong.

It might have been implied. A sandwich or whatever.

It's not wrong - you do what you can to stay nourished.

The only wrong approaches I can identify is beating yourself up about not preparing a decent meal for yourself and not eating at all.

Both me and my SO lost weight in the first months because we made the former mistake.

Thanks for your comments, it's really helpful to hear other people's experiences :)

I am a parent of 2, and you're right: I've never skipped a dinner, but sometimes that dinner has to be a bowl of cereal.

The webcomic SMBC says it well: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/before

Mac and cheese….

> You don't.

Thank you for saying this. I strongly believe this is the right action until kids are older and start helping around the house. (Still trying to convince my SO though.)

Honestly, raising kids is not that hard if you give yourself permission to be not perfect. Order pizza, avoid using plates when you can, let yard overgrow a bit, hire cleaning service. Bail out of unwanted social obligations. In fact, trying to get approval of others is what makes parenting hard.

It’s common in many parts of the world for people to get their weekly housework done by someone else. Failing that, there’s always the weekend.

Once kids get slightly older you have routines and they become so much easier to manage. My partner and I get plenty of time together once the kids go to bed, especially on the weekends since they don’t nap at school (ugh). The secret is being very focused on routines.

I can confirm this. Going to bed with the kids and being fresh in the early morning feels way better, than tiredly wasting time in the evening.

my work starts around 5 am so my personal time starts at 3 am. One of my colleagues has two children a few years older than mine so his bed time is a little bit later- he goes to bed at 11 pm and then wakes up at 2am to do his personal stuff - running a minimum 80km/week non-negotiable. i personally get around 5 hours a day of sleep which is manageable but there are times that's not possible.

i think parenting is actually alright if you don't need to sleep. i have a pet theory that my son inherited my ability to get by on very little sleep and it can be pretty aggravating at times!

some hobbies are definitely no longer possible so if you are thinking of starting a family but consider the annual pilgrimage to tomorrowland or ultra (and all the trips ahem that go with it) mandatory then obviously, think twice. those i know who continue to do things like these with children clearly have someone to offload their parenting duties to- and that is something that you have to discuss with your partner before you move forward on such a huge event in your life.

I have kids and the thought of going to bed at 11 and waking up at 2 for personal time has never once crossed my mind! That sounds like an awful recipe for severe sleep deprivation. There are plenty of other, healthier, ways to get personal time as a parent as kids age.

> he goes to bed at 11 pm and then wakes up at 2am to do his personal stuff - running a minimum 80km/week non-negotiable. i personally get around 5 hours a day of sleep which is manageable but there are times that's not possible.

This is patently absurd. The number of people who can get by on this level of sleep is probably less than the 0.01%

we hire the 0.01% :)

I have several married with kids friends that somehow seem to have plenty of time. One is president of 250 person company. He also writes small games for a personal website. One of his kids is old enough to participate in the creation

I have another friend who's a manager of 70 people at FANG, has 2 side companies. 2 kids at home. No idea how he does it.

I have another who works at FANG and from his facebook he seems to have have time for personal projects, and gaming, and guitar, and photography, while raising 3 kids.

One of my co-workers has 3 kids and yet managed to show off amazing side projects every 2-3 months.

I know several more.

I don't know what they do. I'm single and feel like I have time for nothing :P But it's clearly possible.

I know others that find a way to do fun stuff with their kids. In both sense. Some find kid friendly activities that they'd also enjoy. Being makers together for example. Others visit all their friends often and bring the kids. The kids are great and us friends love hanging out with them.

  manager of 70 people at FANG

Ultimately being a manager is a choose your own adventure, with an already running team, it is often possible to do almost nothing and claim credit for your staff's work.

The American Dream.

Even made a series about it: Mad Men.

What are their wife's doing? Maybe the chores are inequally distributed and they sacrifice more career wise

Given the (apparent) income level, the other option is hired help.

... or husband or partner ... but yes, almost always wife.

This, to me, is the real gamechanger. There is a often gigantic difference in family workload between the primary caretaker and the other parent (if any), even when they both work. Additionally, this workload is often wildly underestimated by secondary caretakers.

In my observations, a secondary caretaker will often think "I still drop off my kids in school, I read a story at night, I bring them to sports practice, I'm being a good parent.". And yes they are, they are helping and having great "quality time" with their kids.

But in terms of total time invested, if you actually count the hours (I have), it's a small fraction of a primary caretaker. Roughly between 1/3 and 1/2 for invested secondary caretakers, which makes a huge difference when we're talking about, say, 20 vs 40 or 60 hours per week.

Who feeds them? Dresses them up? Helps with homework? Stays home with them when they are sick? And that's without even touching on the mental workload.

my four year old can dress himself. my 10 year old can cook and make breakfast or lunch for himself and his little brother. not every day, only occasionally on weekends, but it helps. breakfast and lunch is also served in school. the older one helps with housework. the kids can wash themselves and go to bed on their own. that really takes care of most of the work.

i work from home. we spend plenty of time together. doing housework is family time.

there is no homework. if the kids come home with work that they need help with, then i'll have a talk with the teacher. homework is a practice that should be abolished. but if it is given, it should be tasks that the kids can do on their own in order to practice what they learned. if a child can not do their homework on their own, then by definition the teacher didn't teach them yet (or failed), and the homework was not appropriate. homework is not the place for the children to catch up what they didn't learn in school.

I wanted to ask too. These people seem to be very productive even without the kid part. So, how can they achieve that without compromising anywhere ?

Either their day somehow magically has more than 24 hours (maybe they live on venus?) or they are .. how to say this .. lying?

I can assure You they are making a lot of compromises. Add a little bit of compounding around skills and resources and they achivements can look magical, but most of it its just smoke and mirrors. And of course there is outsourcing of everything that is not essential to their image (that include child upbringing also). It's amazing how much time You can get back when You have Your private valet and helicopter pilot on standby (I have witnessed this first hand).

Thanks for sharing. These positive experiences will help people be more convinced it can be done.

On the flip side, for the people who are struggling, this might make them feel even worse about themselves.

How can we help them?

Do you know any examples of people who struggled, but then turned it around?

I guess these guys you mentioned struggled at one point right

> No idea how he does it.

The magic phrase is "I'll have to leave early to pick up the kids, you take care of this".

For me the magic word was "he." Somewhere in the background there's a woman taking on the whole load of the labour.

They don't go out. Kids go to bed and now you've got from 7:30/8pm till bed time to do whatever.

Obviously Energy levels are not the same across the chimp troupe.

There is no need for a cactus to ponder about what a redwood tree is doing.

Ugh yeah. I’m naturally on the less energetic side, and generally need a decent amount of sleep (at least 7 hours) to really function optimally. I am envious of those who can get by with less.

I don’t have kids, partly for this reason. (I don’t have family nearby who could help.)

> a manager of 70 people at FANG, has 2 side companies.

Is this even allowed?

Yeah I'm wondering about the childcare burden picked up by their partners, and how much disposable income they have for childcare.

And there is the other guy having 11(?) kids and earned literally billions in multiple companies to play around with rockets and EV and stuff

Having kids is the easy part, participation and actually being around in your kids life the more tricky one.

Not saying successful people are not on one side of the spectrum per se but IMHO there is not outsourcing or substitute for actually spending time with them and it is quiet easy to forget

Technically 10, as one changed their name and doesn't want to ever interact with him again.

So, technically 11? Or is technically the new literally?

Literally correct. Literally the best kind of correct.

The question is: how much their partner/parents/nanny is taking on? Without someone who is always available to help, it's impossible to be free and successful with young kids. Simply impossible. You can't travel, you can't work late (in the office) you can't do offsites, you can't sleep, you have no weekends to work on side gigs, because your side gig are your kids. Which is great, but soooooo costly from all angles.

PS: I love my kids, but I'm basically working/living at 50% of my capacity since I got my first, and that is really hard to swallow.

You need to know the age of the kids too. 0-3 months and 1-3 yrs are probably physically the most demanding.

To be fair I was not working late even before the birth of my son… life is to short to waste it on work (and I do love my job… still there are so many nice things to do in life that is a pity to focus only on work). I never considered professional accomplishment worth the effort!

Richard Fairbank, Capital One CEO famously had 8 kids and seems to have spent enough time with them. Probably helps being a billionaire though....

An hypothesis is that all these people have plenty of money to get nanny/cleaning help/food delivery?

> No idea how he does it.

They probably pay a nanny or an au pair.

The advice I've been given by people similar to what you are describing is to ensure you have at least 80 hours of help per week from multiple nannies, au pairs, or family. Then it is a matter of how much of your time you want to carve off for the kids vs must carve off. I haven't tried this, but I'd consider something like an au pair if I had a larger home.

I used to work 100+ hours per week, and that got significantly reduced after having a kid. I have been mostly embracing fatherhood since I imagine after age 10 their interest in me will be negligible.

> I don't know what they do. I'm single and feel like I have time for nothing :P But it's clearly possible.

It is likely that, for these people, their hobbies and extra time are plowed into these productive pursuits. Which likely means they use none or very limited modern time syncs like TV, video games, sports, youtube/tiktok, facebook/internet forums, etc. It's actually pretty amazing how much time we waste on these things.

Additionally, someone who is dedicated can often find 15 minutes here and there on a commute or while running errands to listen to a segment on a podcast about an industry or technology. And when you can't do that sometimes just thinking things through in those moments, changing a diaper or in the checkout line. I'm amazed how much about starting a company is about thinking through everything carefully, so you don't waste as much time running about.

Finally, constraints force people to get creative to accomplish what is important to them. It's not uncommon for very productive people to also have large time constraints.

>I don't know what they do.

That's the secret. With some parents, when you find out you realize they probably aren't parents who spend much time with their kids.

I have a friend who founded a startup a year before becoming a dad. His spouse works for a startup as well. He lives in a different city so we rarely meet nowadays.

After about 2 years of listening to them talk about how adorable their kid is and all the time they spend with them, I found out that the kid is dropped off at daycare by mom at 8AM. Nanny picks the kid up from Daycare and puts him to bed at 8PM. Mom and dad basically only see their kid on weekends. Even then, dad is usually too busy and it's pretty obvious that the 3 year old kid has realized he can't rely on his dad for anything.

People can raise kids however they want. There are entire cultures and countries where kids are raised by maids and nannies because population density is high and labor is cheap. But they are more honest about who is raising the kids and that's why they can work 12 hour days and focus on their careers or themselves above all else.

Somebody has to have the time take care of those kids.

Love my kids but man I wish i was still a DINK. Turns out being a parent isn’t as grand as I thought it would be nor have I found myself to be enjoying the parenting lifestyle or finding myself as a naturally maternal dad… I know two other guys who feel the exact same way.

I feel bad for feeling this way but i wish our 230 k income (now severely reduced due to wife working part time for past 2 years) was me and the mrs living in a penthouse overlooking the water and being able to go to the gym, do my hobbies, travel the world, retiring earlier, not having to put away $100 per week per kid into savings for when they are older l due to this f’d up expensive world.

Our lives now consist of being sick, stressed, constant arguing, being unhealthy, paying a shitload in daycare fees , tired, not exercising, having to buy a bigger car/house etc etc… the kids come first and get what they need and have heaps of clothes, always eat healthy etc but man I feel like I have aged about 10 years in the past 2 years. My wife and I are defintly no longer the same people we used to be. It’s kinda funny, sad and nostalgic at the same time when our iPhones randomly show up clips/photos of us pre having kids and how youthful and happy we were and the photos are always us smiling in one of our many overseas holidays without a care in the world. Fast forward a few years and life is completely different, not necessarily worse, but just different.

How many kids and how old? If you have multiple kids under 5, just remind yourself to chill. It will get better.

My daughter is now 11 years old and... well it does get "better" in some senses, but the constant work remains. There are plenty of fun moments sure, but now that she is a "tween" new challenges have arisen.

The happiest people I know are those who had kids very early in life, and managed to maintain their careers despite this. Their adult children no longer demand so much work, yet the parents still have the benefit of their company and the satisfaction of watching them develop independently.

Freed from the constant effort of parenting, these people can now return to the DINK lifestyle.

The age of the parents is irrelevant in this, it's simply an observation that older children are less work than younger children (approaching zero as they're adults, obviously). The only time this might be relevant is if you're having kids at such an old age that you're going to be retiring before they're independent, which is rare for men and bordering on impossible for women.

> The age of the parents is irrelevant in this, it's simply an observation that older children are less work than younger children (approaching zero as they're adults, obviously). The only time this might be relevant is if you're having kids at such an old age that you're going to be retiring before they're independent, which is rare for men and bordering on impossible for women.

I would argue otherwise for a few reasons.

First, when you are young, you are physically more capable of handling the disruption of the young child. You can get by on less sleep, and your body will be more resilient to the awkward schedule. As you age the physical demands will be more difficult to handle.

Similarly, the "return to DINK" status does NOT imply retirement. If you have children in your early 20s, you can end up as DINKs in your early 40s. Sure you may still have to work, but at that age you are able to fully enjoy most of the activities you could in your 20s without yet having much diminished physical capacity, and as a bonus now your adult children can join you in those activities. By the time you do retire, your finances should fully recover from the hit of having children decades ago and you can afford to take many vacations.

Now instead imagine that you have children at age 40+. You will be exhausted, your physical activity will be reduced, the disruption in lifestyle stacks with the ravages of aging. It is much more difficult to remain healthy as you age, nevermind the huge burden and loss of free time associated with the children. And if you hadn't saved up enough in advance, the financial hit could be substantial, and it might delay your retirement.

In addition, if you have children younger in life, you are more likely to have the previous generation available to help shoulder some of the burden. The longer you wait, the less able your parents' generation is to assist as their own health declines.

There are some pros to waiting of course, if you are in a fast paced and highly demanding career you may not be able to weather the added burden of children while advancing, so having them later might increase your overall earning capacity. You can also live the DINK lifestyle while you are still at your healthiest.

Once the kids are older the daycare fees go away, and they start to look after themselves more.

Sounds like you may be an urbanite. Judging from the penthouse reference. Feeling pinched at that income is a special joy of city living. Or California.

One thing to consider is that some athletic clubs offer family plans with daycare included for an affordable price. The breaks are priceless.

there is a comment here that's dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261300 which speaks about their regret not having kids earlier.

i want to respond to that comment with:

i fully agree. i had my kids late and i am almost fifty now. i am not regretting having kids so late, but i feel much better than i thought i would feel at that age. and that's what got me thinking that having kids earlier would mean we'd now be independent and, given the higher income would be able to do a lot more interesting things than i was able to earlier. again. i have no regrets, especially because i was able to travel and live in many different places before i got married, much more than the average person, which i would not have been able to do, had i married and gotten kids earlier. so it's a tradeoff, but it's something well worth considering. just make sure you have a partner that shares your motivations.

> Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

Single dad with a 5 year old son here. These are self imposed limitations that just aren’t real. For example, I joined a kayaking club when my son was 2, and bring him on kayaking trips about twice a month in a tandem kayak, with proper safety gear. And I am up right now reading on the Internet at night while he sleeps!

Whatever you wanted to do as a non parent, you can likely still do. Be creative, bring the kids along and integrate them, or make deals with other parents to share and trade childcare duties.

Well done you - I'd like to hear more about your experience and I'd love to do the same.

(I didn't want to have kids and ended up being a single parent. The part around 1.5 years old when I was taking care of my daughter by myself was rather rough. Like, how do you even take out the trash and other basic things? Despite everything, now I kind of lucked out in that my parents are helping me a lot)

What has helped me was a combination of trying to really simplify life, and accepting and embracing that things will be hard, and that this will require a lot of energy and strength. I see my pre-parent self as really weak, and am genuinely grateful for how hard this has been, because it has helped forge me into someone with real strength, that I didn't have before and never would have had. I'm not going to lie, I was a mess the first few years as a parent and was massively stressed, couldn't sleep, and couldn't figure out how to find time just to do basic care for my body not alone enjoy hobbies.

For your example, I usually take out the trash together with him, we each hold half of the handle. It takes 10 minutes to get him dressed and willing to do this, but it works. I try to avoid TV and media, but will occasionally use it as a babysitter when I need to do something like a meeting or cook food. I do sometimes do zoom meetings with him, and cook food together with him. The more I can engage him in adult activities, the less bored he is, and the less he acts up, gets hurt, etc.

These sources had ideas that helped me the most: * Magda Gerber's RIE Philosophy (see https://www.janetlansbury.com), especially useful before age 3 * Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Dad" e-mail list (now also a book) * "Simplicity Parenting" by Kim Payne and Lisa Ross * "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan didn't have much specifically useful advice, but basically taught me to just relax and have fun as a parent, and not worry that I am messing everything up * The "Outdoor Boys" Youtube channel. This guy is a total badass, and brings his 3 boys on epic wilderness adventures alone

I don't have any family support, but did recently move in with an amazing girlfriend, that is willing to help trade off parenting duties.

Thank you so much for writing this down!

> Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

This is unnecessary dark. You will definitely be able to do those things when your kids grow up and leave your house. You will also most likely be able to do them much sooner - teenagers don't need constant help or supervision, and even earlier you can easily arange something with your spouse so that one of you can take a couple days off. 7-8 years old is probably a good treshold. Also, you will be able to engage your kid in a lot of your hobbies. Once you show them why you like them, chances are they'll like them too.

I agree with you, but there are real people having these thoughts and feelings rule their life.

I can't lie that I never get a feeling like this, but it often just bounces of me as I have a similar thinking.

Thanks for the comment. Appreciate it.

Oh only have no time to do what i love for the next 8 years huh? Sounds like a breeze! And that's the best case scenario, kids won't leave the house usually before 18-25 years of age.

it's actually quite amusing how many parents say it gets better when the children leave the nest. then why have children!?

It's also great. Hard to explain. I would be careful telling childless people how great it also is. (If childless is by choice, I don't want to obnoxious. If it isn't by choice, I don't want to make them sad for something they might never have.)

It changes your life in a weird way. Stuff can be hard and still worthwhile.

“There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.”

― Woody Allen, Annie Hall

>it's actually quite amusing how many parents say it gets better when the children leave the nest. then why have children!?

There are lot of places in the world where there is no expectation that the children will leave the nest.

The whole "I can't wait till my kids are 18 so I can kick them out and get my life back" is only a phenomenon in some cultures.

Most people in the world barely if ever in their lives get a chance to do what they love. Nobody promised anyone a perfect life. And I think it's obvious that the decision of having a kid comes with some sacrifices.

Not true… if you are good at time management you can still do almost all the things you used to do. Especially with 2 parents and 1 kid!

Agreed. It changes but hobbies still happen occasionally.

7 or 8 is probably a good threshold. My 8 year old can be left alone for a little while and not notice you missing.

I found if the hobby needs you to commit a fairly large block of time to get going it is probably not going to work.

I’m introducing things to him, but he’s work adverse. Any time he realizes it needs any sort of practice or effort it is a hard no. Work in progress.

I’ve always seemed to need less sleep than most, so I just used nighttime.

However, there are quite a few activities that are frowned upon or impossible with sleeping kids in the house, like guitar or drums.

I probably wouldn’t kayak in the dark either. I’m not very coordinated and they’d never find my body.

I think that becoming a parent fundamentally changes who you are. It's the antidote to all the worries and anxiety you had about success and coping before, but now don't have time to indulge in.

Paradoxically, that releases the door to new kinds of success you couldn't imagine before.

The parent who can let go of their old self gracefully, and drop many ambitions (which in retrospect seem childish) is able to transform.

Those who cling to the desire to remain "able to stay up all night playing with new technologies" will surely find regret and fail to take advantage of the enormous perspective change that parenthood bestows.

> I think that becoming a parent fundamentally changes who you are

All major life decisions you make changes who you are. That's what makes them "major".

> The parent who can let go of their old self gracefully, and drop many ambitions (which in retrospect seem childish) is able to transform.

What kinda self-serving sophistry is this? I can easily argue that the world would benefit a whole lot more if people remained childishly curious. It is the moment you let go of that child inside that you die if you ask me. Stay curious, stay hungry and keep improving. That's just a no-brainer. The idea that dropping ambitions is somehow a transformative experience to strive toward is such a weird thing to say.

> Those who cling to the desire to remain "able to stay up all night playing with new technologies" will surely find regret and fail to take advantage of the enormous perspective change that parenthood bestows.

What perspectives are these exactly? this reads to me like self-aggrandizing at best. Are you gonna tell me that people can't possibly have an understanding for "what truly matters in life" unless they have kids? What about the perspective you lose by becoming a parent and giving up on your dreams? It is a trade-off you are making. You are losing one perspective to gain another. But the idea that "people who chose otherwise will surely find regret" is just laughable. How could you possibly know that? You can't really run the experiment N times to compare the results? I can literally copy the text of your post and make the opposite argument.

In summary, let me see if I got this right: expanding your horizons by constantly learning and _acquiring new perspectives_ is considered a childish ambition that must be shed in order to metamorph into a parent so that you can take advantage of your newly _acquired perspective_... How do you square this circle exactly?

> All major life decisions you make changes who you are. That's what makes them "major".

Meh. I'm married, bought multiple houses, moved country. I don't know how many major life decisions you can make but none of them have changed me in the way merely expecting a child already has. I expect when they're born will reveal the next 90% of that transition.

Hmm.. I've done all that and have a child and lost dear ones. And none of that has really changed me as a person, but each one has had a profound impact on my life (except buying a house).

As the parent comment says, they are just different and everyone has their own way of processing major events.

You go from worrying about your own success to worrying about the success of your offspring.

So the antidote to wanting to do interesting things and change the world is to give up on your ambition, procreate, and raise a new generation of people to go through the same cycle of ambition, despair, and duty? That sounds like an incredibly bleak world to live in.

How about the argument that your own ambition is put on hold temporarily (possibly for a decade or more, but does that matter?), not quashed, and your kids may change the world in ways that never would have happened had they not been born?

It comes down to gambling ~$500k and many years' time to make a new human who will themselves then have to gamble money and time to change the world, or investing that money and time into directly trying to influence reality myself. If I want something done right, I will do it myself, and not burden my notional kid with the obligation. Perhaps they'd just want to surf or bum around Spain, anyway.

When I said about kids "changing the world" I meant in the broadest possible sense. If they're surfing and bumming around Spain, why not? If they make some other people happy as well as themselves whilst doing so, that's gotta be good right? I think many people on HN are rather focused an "achieving great things", whatever that may be, which can involve starting companies or making a lot of money which is hardly a guaranteed route to happiness in fact often the opposite. So, as a happy parent who has enjoyed adventures and travelling and career to some extent etc before having a family, I just share my experience that having kids gives a lot of joy and purpose and gives something to the world, and that other things many of us strongly want to do when we're younger don't always deliver really in terms of purpose and fulfilment. So, don't rush to have kids but don't dismiss it either ;) There's a compromise. :). PS not sure where you get the $500k from. Maybe it more costly in the US.. Kids are happy without growing up in a rich household. Long as they're fed , housed , clothed, have some fun things to do. They don't need trust funds, top notch college, competitive sports etc. Sure a lot of people think they do but a lot of people think that's nonsense

This is very philosophical and not answerable here or anywhere. It’s also very personal.

You could have ambition to change the world, help your fellow humans, cure diseases, whatever. Those are noble.

You could also view life as a journey of self discovery. In that case, having children can help discover your true self. Or is it your true self? How do you know?

Or maybe children are God’s gift, and it’s your religious responsibility to have children so that they can experience God’s world.

Or it’s a biological trick to ensure survival of the species. That is a scientific but unfulfilling answer.

There is no right or wrong answer.

Not a value judgement on either opinion, but, ironically, there is a buddhist perspective here which would rhyme with: that's exactly what you are doing in your normal life without children every second while chasing your ambition. And OP's solution of letting go of yourself is the antidote to that cycle.

> I think that becoming a parent fundamentally changes who you are. It's the antidote to all the worries and anxiety you had about success and coping before, but now don't have time to indulge in.

All the parents in Silicon Valley would like to have a word with you.

Trust me - having kids doesn’t dissuade everyone from pursuing riches as you seem to claim. If anything - I see people stress harder than before because now they have to succeed and so do their children. The families who don’t stress as much are those who already had success - they already got their tens of millions.

LOL I replaced my old worries and anxieties with exciting new worries and anxieties.

Same! The old worries and anxieties seem so trivial now. And the new worries and anxieties all seem So Very Important.

Fantastic comment, totally matches my perspective as a father of three. Not letting your old self go leads to all sorts of problems, severes your relationship with both your child and your spouse, and is a sure way to remain unhappy. I see a lot of this in new parent families around.

Original post mentions staying in touch with other parents who are in the same situation as yourself, and it indeed helps a lot — eventually everyone start chatting about things like children’s sleep problems, chickenpox, school fees, car seat brands, or whatever, which helps normalizing the difficulty you’re going through.

Trying hard to hang out with your old childless friends, on the other hand (if you can afford their schedule), is a road to hell.

So all non-parenting ambitious are "childish" ?

All non-parents will regret the decision?

Lol.

I'm pretty sure this is referring to the scenario where you either have kids or are expecting kids soon. Only once you become a parent do those non-parenting ambitions seem childish.

...so if you never expect to have kids, then your (by definition) "non-parenting ambitions seem childish" ?

Also, if parents don't feel that way, are they lesser parents?

This post is so condescending. You not only tell people their ambitions outside of raising children are childish, but then go on to exclaim how much they'll regret by not having children because of some advantageous perspective change.

This is worse than listening to the rust evangelicals.

The post is entirely about parents, including the last paragraph. There’s no commentary at all about people who choose not to have kids.

To rephrase the core message: once one decides to become a parent (the kid is born, it’s irreversible), one has access to opportunities for new types of experiences and emotional fulfillment. Acknowledging that, and taking advantage of it, is a powerful way to have a positive experience as a parent.

Here’s an analogy: you decide to move from an apartment in the city to a nice house out near the mountains. At the nice new house, you realize you can’t order in Thai food, you can’t pop down to the corner store for a coffee and muffin, you can’t decide to go see a show at the last minute. A lot of the conveniences and advantages of the big city are gone.

But you can see the stars at night. You can walk in the woods and see deer. You can be mountain biking or skiing in 30 minutes from your door. New opportunities, different experiences are there for you. Accessing and appreciating those experiences is the key to enjoying your new living arrangements.

Some people miss the old city stuff too much, or under-appreciate the new stuff, and they move back closer to the city after a year or two.

Stepping out of the metaphor… that’s not really an option with a kid. Parenthood is a decision you can’t reverse. So it’s even more important to work on finding and enjoying what is new and different in life as a parent.

That does not imply that everyone should have kids. More like: advice for those who already do.

I liked your metaphor. That's a good take.

Second this comment...

My wife and I recently had our first, and so far this is the perspective I've been trying to adopt, which has helped.

It's not like you lose your ambitions completely, but there are new constraints. You no longer get to indulge in the excesses of youth, but it's OK, because taking care of a new life is simply a significantly higher priority. It's a liberating feeling.

I was worried before having a kid that I would be so bogged down with childcare that it would be impossible for me to get anything done at work. But I heard from a number of people that after having kids they were forced to develop better time-management skills. This has definitely been happening for me. I find it much easier to stay on task when I'm working on something, since I know the time available is so limited. After a while, the impulse to experiment and be free-wheeling has diminished a bit, and I've had fun purposefully moving through things.

The impulse "stay up all night and play" is definitely a youthful one. People want to stay young forever, which is certainly one way to go, but it's important to understand that there are real reasons many people are happy to move on to the next phase of life where they give those things up.

> I think that becoming a parent fundamentally changes who you are.

Agree 100% by adding “can” in there. The OP’s feelings are very similar to my own early on. I still have those nagging thoughts now and then but I know now what to focus on.

Fact is, young children are thankless, selfish, and inconsiderate little parasites that could give 2 shits about their parents desires. The parents that can look past all that and see the little spots of joy, look forward to the fun stuff like sharing a hobby, and letting go of your original picture of life seem to have the best experience with it.

That perspective change is NOT guaranteed, though. I know plenty of parents who seemed to naturally have this figured out right away. It’s taken me several years to even just see the light but I’m getting it now. We had a particularly tough first kid but she’s grown out of a lot of those challenges and we’re finding it easier to find the fun stuff together.

I used to feel like this. I worked and travelled all the time and resented the fact that I had to give up so much of my remaining free time for family things.

Covid forced a change on me whereby I was tied to home much more and started connecting with my kids better. And I’m very glad it happened with hindsight.

I actually feel like a selfish and stupid idiot now wanting to work (messing around with some new JS framework or whatever) when I could have been spending time with my children. Fortunately it happened early enough that it was still reparable. I would have bitterly regretted learning this lesson 10 years later.

Raising kids is hard and it can be a drag, but you are only in the thick of it for a few years, and you don’t have to totally park your life even during those years. Losing yourself totally would also be a bad life decision and likely bad for your marriage too.

> Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

All false. Yes, there is a time like that, but then your kids will grow up and will go sailing and hacking with you, it's not never. Also yes, you'll learn to live with less sleep, for a while.

Anyway, what a funny crisis, at times where money is god, where individual happiness is searched for through product and service consumption, people don't even know why have kids anymore, what a great testimony about our civilisation's decline.

Do you have kids?

>people don't even know why to have kids?

So, what are your reasons to have kids, oh supreme reproduction guru?

Kids are where you find real and lasting fulfillment and happiness.

Go visit an old folks home and ask to hear about their lives. They don't talk about work accomplishments, they talk about their family and particularly their kids. When everything is put into perspective, that's what vast majority views as most important. It's hard-wired.

I’ve been hiking, mountain biking and paragliding this week with my 8-10 yr olds. Since they were born I’ve been fighting the good fight of getting them outside and building my role as a giving Dad.

Nothing compares to having kids. Tremendously hard. I have lots of friends who don’t and yeah, they live the life but what they don’t have is so much richer

I said goodbye to my previous life when on one evening in a restaurant in Italy I discovered that I just don't enjoy going places that much any more.

As for creative work after hours: I realized I was overestimating its importance to me because previously I would frequently elect to just watch YouTube or argue on the internet - I just didn't see it back then.

After a year or so since becoming a parent I returned to the previous rate of producing side-projects so it's all good now. I just don't have time to waste on those other activities, which is also a net gain.

> Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

No, because I'm one of those people who makes every effort to not be a parent :)

(Not that I have a queue of people with any desire to partner with me in the parenting process ATM!)

Though parenting isn't the only thing that can get in the way of late nights playing with new tech. As I'm getting older, all-nighters generally are getting harder, my running has spun into endurance event territory which requires a lot of training time and sleep in between, I do some martial arts too, my parents aren't getting any younger and if they need/want some care & attention that bumps other priorities, …, … Not having enough hours in the day or days in the month is something most people have to contend with in some way, shape, or form.

Exactly. There are not enough hours in the day as it is, how is having children going to help with that?

Why can't you share your hobbies with your children? Learn new ones they can share in as they grow up? Stay up while they sleep for you time?

You're right in that you really can't stay up all night in such a way that you can't parent the next day, and yes, that's annoying sometimes, but just getting older, having more workplace responsibility does that to you too. If you're serious, childcare options (sitters, nannies, etc) exist for most scenarios. I have friends who kept a pretty active nightlife through their kids younger years by paying people to be there.

Whatever you do, I'd suggest you don't bank on using one strategy. Kids change. What you can do with them changes. What you'll enjoy changes. I'd suggest you go with it. Lean into parenting to find the things you like. They'll appreciate it too.

I'll put it this way, I can't think of many activities that I might do that are more important than making sure my kid grows up and has a good life.

Cranking out really cool code? Nahhh

Getting that project at work to get me a raise? Not really

For personal activities that you need to do because they recharge you and bring joy to your life (e.g. kayaking)? Well, you need to juggle schedules and keep doing them. And when the kids are old enough you now have a new partner to do hobbies with.

Very true and succinctly put :)

One trick to parenting is the almighty ROUTINE! Don't sacrifice it for anything. If your kid goes to bed at 7pm 6/7 nights a week, that's not a routine. Kids can't recognize complex routines, I find they're all or nothing.

We implemented a routine of bedtime at 6:30pm and it liberated our evenings. The routine means in evenings one partner always has to stay in unless we call a babysitter, but that's a small price to pay for being able to go out, or stay in and follow your hobbies and passions.

Now, to be fair, we have a good sleeper (but not a good eater, seems like you only get one!), but routines of all kinds help, and I think they can help all kids. Stick to the routine, it pays dividends.

At what age do routines become a thing?

Immediately. Among countless other benefits, a consistent routine is a strong contributor in getting an infant to sleep through the night.

About 6 weeks old (that's around when they start to respond to night and day)

Don't forget, for many loving parents, the smile and hugs from your kids give you lots of more energy for life

I've practically never not had kids. We had our first at age 15. I still was able to graduate university on time, teach myself to program beyond the cs minor, learn new technology, go camping and hiking, and even got a couple kayaks eventually to go out with the kids. My trick is starting my day before 5am, since high school.

Having a great partner helped, being poor as shit didn't. I did have to take jobs that paid more now (but still crap) and eschew jobs that would pay low to start but offer growth. I couldn't save a dollar until my late twenties.

it's very rare to hear from such young parents having what sounds like a mostly good experience. how much were your parents able to help?

here in china the tradition is to get married early, and then live with the parents who are then able to help a lot with watching the kids. if i look down in the courtyard of our building it's practically only grandparents that are out in the morning with toddlers that are not old enough yet for kindergarten.

i find this model of a multi generation family very appealing. if only school were a bit more flexible with students who have children.

may i ask which country you are from?

if you imagine living in a country where parents get unconditional financial support, and you wouldn't have had to work, then i think, at least with your attitude, having children that early doesn't sound like a bad idea.

if only the attitude in that country would not be to look down on having children at age 15. it's almost always considered a failure, kids having kids, being ignorant about contraception, forced to drop out of school to take care of their baby, because society is simply unwilling to accept that with the right attitude this doesn't have to be a bad experience.

Very little help from parents - often the opposite, they would actively hamper us. We are in the US. My wife did have to miss a year of schooling and never went to college. I do not recommend our path, but I love the idea of healthy, multi-generational families with grandparents who want and are able to help.

Everything that's worth doing in life will take a certain degree of work and sacrifice.

Parenting is no exception. And as others have stated, many people see it as the hardest thing they've done. I'd just like to complete the equation and say that it's also the most rewarding, at least in my case.

So the question is rather how to endure the hardship in the best way possible. Kind of the same way an olympic swimmer must come up with strategies to be able to train (ie. suffer) day in day out until they finally win a medal.

What I think is very helpful is:

a) To find activities that both you and your kids enjoy, and do those things (as opposed to just "watching your kids" as they play).

b) Find ways to still do those things you like to do on your own, and also for the things you like to do with your partner. This requires more coordination now between the parents and also with whoever is around and can support (family, other friends with kids, etc) but it's definitely possible.

All in all, in my experience, life is so much brighter and exciting with kids. It's exhausting, yes, but so is surfing and hiking, and building a startup, and anything else that's worth doing.

I think the key is to take control of our lifestyle and make sure that it is, with our without kids, aligned with what what you internally want to do (hence points a) and b) above).

Hang in there for the long haul. My (our) adult kids have turned out to be the greatest joy in my life, by a long shot — this, even though I've enjoyed a modicum of professional success and, in my late 60s, am lucky to still be healthy, ambitious, and energetic. Helping our kids to grow into kind, functional adults is the most important thing I've ever done or ever will do. I'm not at all sure I'd have said that when I was in my 30s.

It's fallacious to think that you won't have time to cater to your hobbies, as I have seen with others in my life. Perhaps the early years are hard, but of course you will have time sooner or later.

At the same time, this is one reason why I don't desire to have children of my own. I like having so much spontaneous freedom. The risk of having an unhealthy child is also non-zero, and well, once they come out, you can't exactly ctrl-z them.

You have to add a new line in between bullets to have a new paragraph in the numbered list you wrote. Perhaps you can still edit within the hour of posting.

Obviously the trendy comment this days is to blame the kids for our own lack of strategy in life... The problem is always in the other side of the chain.

I'm a DINK so I'm on the side of watching people with kids struggle to find time to do things without their kids. My observation is a person's free time all boils down to how both parents decide to divide parenting responsibilities. It seems completely possible to find a balance to do what you want with kids, just not everything you want.

I have friends where them and their SO seem to have really figured out how to divide things to make sure everyone has their own time. On the other hand, I have a friend whose spouse is weirdly transactional about time. He literally cannot find time unless his SO is given exactly the same amount of time. If he wants to go golfing twice in the same weekend - tough luck. It honestly comes across like they really don't want to be around their kids.

My wife and I have taken our kids (now 4 and 6) on long hikes, camping, and even kayaking since the youngest has been 2.

There is definitely a loss of time to yourself, but it's not total, and often can be made to be enjoyable for you too (e.g. coaching the kids soccer team).

You may not be able to do everything you want, but can still do a good bit of it, and other stuff you wouldn't have done without kids.

If you have a newborn, the state of near constant need goes away more quickly than you fear.

I also think yhat loosing hope it gets better is a bad way of thinking about it. It gets different as kids get older, for the better i think. Hoping to have a child free life is a fools errand. Make the best of what you have.

Children cost the most thing during the first year. Even a 1.5 years old gives you plenty of time to do stuff. You either wake up early or sleep late. Arrange with your spouse to take turns. Etc. At least 4 hours of free time.

That does not match my experience.

First, you might have more than one child, so it might take a while between the birth of the oldest one and the time the youngest one is 1.5 years old.

Second, having a full-time job + commute + eating + running errands + actually spending time with your children + X is not only time consuming, it is also very tiring. Of course it depends on how old you are when you become a parent - and only a few years can make a big difference - but I can tell you, after a full day, you're toast when the kids are in bed.

I'm regularly getting up very early so I can be done with my day job early in order to maximize the time I get to spend with my children. But that means that in the hours I have "off", I wouldn't be capable of working on, say, a hobby video game the way I used to be able to when I was in my 20s or even 30s and single.

Yea if you have to commute it's a different story. I'm talking with the experience of mostly WFH beacuse of Covid.

I don't have four hours of free time even without children...

Then something else is wrong with your life. 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, these leaves 8 hours of personal time + 32 hours on weekends. Where exactly are >4 hours going each day?

Commute, exercise, grocery shopping, cooking, household upkeep? All the usual stuff?

I recently had a boss tell me that the two hours I used to spend standing on a packed train being coughed on by other commuters was "your time." I must conclude that the parent poster either has a similar worldview to that boss, or has someone who takes care of the chores for them so they have more time available for wakeboarding.

The 1-3 hours that I have to spend being fucking fried and incapacitated after concluding another packed, overly-long workday are, likewise, "my time." Such a blessing.

If it's not your time, who's is it?

It's lost time, simple as

These are all the things that new parents have no time for.

Exercise? lol

Shopping? Need to plan for it.

Cooking? Near impossible if the other parent is not around.

Me and my wife don’t have any problems finding time for these things with only one child!

Commuting is the one thing I simply cannot stand wasting time on

Very early in my career i worked a job with a 1 hour each way commute. Quit it after a year and never again applied to a job that was more than 30mins from my house - best decision I ever made

Of course then covid came and now I work remotely with 0 mins commute.

Grocery shopping, cooking, household chores take up maybe 1 hour max per day for me, average probably more like 30mins

I spend an hour a day getting in and out of bed (including feeding the cat etc), about two hours cooking/eating/cleaning the kitchen and then there is stuff like shopping, cleaning the rest of the apartment, and various other chores. I also try to get at least half an hour of exercise a day. On typical weekdays I have at best three hours of actual free time. Weekends are of course a little better.

Most people ponder about paths not taken, opportunity costs payed if you like.

Most people will in the end regret any path that did not involve spending more time with your kids, not all the other things.

> Did you ever think about how you'll never again be able to stay up all night and research new technologies, or have a hobby like kayaking, or .. All because of parenting?

I'm not even a parent and I know this is ridiculous? Of course you can't take a newborn kayaking but Jesus, to say "you'll never again be able to...have a hobby like kayaking" is the most obviously wrong thing I've ever read. It invalidates the rest of your post.

It's extremely obvious to me now that the difficulties my parents had were down to a lack of personal experience with life in general. Seems like a bad choice to learn life's lessons while also trying to bring new ones into the world. Some of the advice in here seems to be coming from similarly lost people. Rude, but true. Live your life until you're ready.

> 2. Loose hope it’ll get better

I think there's a bit more nuance to this than this sentence might imply. Because hoping things will get better is betting on external circumstances to go your way.

It reminds me of of something similar I heard somewhere: everyone always thinks there will be more time for things later. There won't be, there will only be less time. And I do not mean that in a cynical "every day is one day closer to your death" kind of way, although that's technically true I suppose; there's research showing on average you'll have less time per week and everything. To have more time later you need to actively plan on and work towards making more time.

Ever since I've heard that I've been much more mindful of how and where I spend my time, of what I plan and what I don't.

So with that in mind, my take on this would be "don't expect things to get better on their own, see if and how you can actively work to make things better, but accept it if there is no possibility right now."

I don't regret it. I've managed to make the time thing work, even writing a book when our first was still an infant. I've also had experiences I never otherwise would have had without kids. One of my sons wanted to learn to scuba dive so I did it with him. Also been on some cool adventures like canoeing in the boundary waters because my sons wanted to do it.

So wonderfully captured this imp topic, and the response is so amazing.

Raising 2 kids, both winners at the Google & other Science/Code competitions. The advantage adults have w/ our experiences could go a long way for our kids, to take them leaps and bounds in their journey. Probably that could also bring in rapid development, as this enables them to learn things way earlier, which we had learnt much later.

This could even be errands around home, or seed their love for music, or pick groceries and put them in the trunk - these habits can all be acquired well when young. Imbibing such qualities or hobbies later on become almost impossible. I think it is the parents who seed the early thought process within a kid.

Btw, I created a small group on Telegram (t.me/nexturn) where we share similar stuff related to raising kids :)

In my experience as father of two children (now teenagers), the most challenging part didn't have to do with raising them. It was the slow and unavoidable process of disappearing from the lives of our friends. My partner and I were the first to have kids in our group of friends, even though we had them in our early thirties. Our friends waited until their early forties to have children.

It didn't matter that we made an extra effort to be available for plans (not plans with kids, adult plans). Our friends would organise something but wouldn't tell us ("We didn't ask you because you must be so busy/tired").

So it wasn't my/our experience of parenting that I regret but the experience of frienship and the assumptions that many people seem to have about how being a parent changes your relationship with the rest of the world.

That's great observation - after 10 years with children this stings extra hard. I also think that while having children I somehow lost the ability and will to make new friends. And this is especially tough because my old group shrank to only few, and most of them is too busy working to have time for their own children. Some claim that You can meet new friends through Your children (on playgrounds etc.) but I was never able to create any kind of bond with random people that had almost nothing in common with me, so it never worked for me (all relations created this way were boring and shallow and I prefer to read a book or watch TV than wasting time on shallow relationships that are clearly artifical).

For me it was music. I was never a musical talent, but I spent a fair bit of time on it and I’m proud of some of the stuff I did. I just… don’t anymore.

Do I miss it? Yes. Do I regret my choices? God, no.

I can relate to this post and can explain for those who don't understand how it can be so

Things that can make you feel this way include an absence of extended family (giving birth routine can be made harder when no one is visiting you at the hospital or offering help with school runs, weekends, etc). This can be aggravated by a hard birth (blood loss, complications). Women can also go through post-birth depression. This can last years up to a decade

As always everything depends on your personal circumstances

I find the secret is realizing all the “time” you had without kids was largely squandered and you have just as much time now with kids you just have to manage it more (this is especially true once they hit 4 and beyond). I have two kids myself, still get tons of time to work on projects or game. I cook dinner every night, help with chores, and have time with my partner. We just have to manage it more than when we didn’t have kids. That’s the secret to me.

I knew a 70 year old man who played raquetball at the Y. He could compete with younger people and had other hobbies as well.

The guy said he was pleased he never had kids. He considered himself 'younger than his years' and lived like it.

He was kind of obnoxious and wasn't really a happy person. I pity the guy, outside his hobbies I don't think he had much to look forward to.

My own experience is: having 2 or more kids under 5 is just too much work for two parents. You simply need more adults helping, period. You can either send 'em to daycare, get relatives to pitch in, or hire a nanny / babysitter / au pair.

Don't feel weird or guilty when you do this -- throughout history, children have never been raised solely by their parents.

What was that saying? "It takes a village" ?

I think our individualistic culture is getting in way - somehow now everyone behaves like the new motto is "Your children, Your problem" (including me, but I personally am not very fond of children, so at least I'm not a hypocrite).

What do you mean "never again"? Parents seem to forget that the 24/7 parenting thing isn't forever. My kid is 7 and would rather do his own thing. And when he was younger I had to juggle things to get time to do things I wanted to do, but that time period doesn't last very long.

Having kids is not about you. You probably should have nutted that out before you nutted them out.

I've been raising kids for 24 years straight now, and still have about 10 years to go.

Here's a few things I've learned.

- kids are an exercise in what happens when you have intelligence without wisdom. It can be a horrifying and cruel combination as well as charming and lovely.

- aside from certain extremes, you don't have a lot of influence on how your kids are going to turn out. Kids have certain predispositions, and fighting those is frustrating and futile. Let them grow, they'll figure it out eventually. Or they won't.

- kids pretty much raise themselves and should be free to do so. Make sure they're appropriately safe, have quality nutrition, avoid sugar, and then provide a safety net for them.

- one of the biggest failures in parenting, and one of the most difficult to overcome, is imprinting an image on your child of who you want them to be.

- my approach to parenting is this: keep it simple. Teach honor and the reasons for it. Apply discipline to reinforce core concepts of being honorable (don't steal, lie, mistreat, etc...). Other than that let them figure it out. Provide guidance on the rare and exceptional moments when they come to you.

My last note of advice is this: you'll never stop worrying, so get used to it. My oldest child is 24 and my youngest step child is 9. I worry all the time. I also recognize that I'm not the star of their story, they are.

So I keep my distance, worry like hell, watch them make avoidable mistakes and do my damnedest not to meddle.

Well I have been out on a kayak with the kids a few times. I get your point though. 30 day tour of SE asia might be off the cards (although some people event take their kids on stuff like that)

I'm still having trouble getting used to it. I have a two year old and losing sleep really devastated me. However, I feel better than say 6 months ago so I guess it gradually gets better.

had some of those moments. mostly because of my kid's health problems. after consultation with doctors, the kid is currently growing up really well. what made us go through was remembering why we had him in the first place. so, yeah. whenever I'm home, I spend most of my time with my kid.

You'll have less free time but you'll also be less inclined to waste what you have.

I mentioned my weekly newsletter for remote working people in the post and it's getting traction. Here is a link for easier access - https://thursdaydigest.com/

I have to shamelessly self-plug, as my parents told me - nobody's gonna do it for you :)

Your site mentions "examples below" but I don't see any. Do you have any example newsletters that are browsable?

I think the generic question is how to handle regret.

As a parent with grown children, my greatest joys are when they come and visit us. I am very happy to know that as we grow older, our children and grandchildren will be a part of our lives. I can't imagine how lonely I would feel if I knew I was getting older with no children.

Being a young parent with young children can be extremely difficult, but it's the most effective way to overcome egoism and selfishness that I've ever experienced. And the joy and slow anguish that comes from watching your children grow into capable, interesting people is indescribable.

It’s certainly hard, but regret? Never

Reply on news.ycombinator.com