Hacker News Reader

Comment by badpun | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

View on HN

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.

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!

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com