Hacker News Reader

Comment by elteto | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Honestly, no reason for not having children is good enough for some people.

I'm a woman in my mid-40s. I do not have children and have simply never wanted children.

I've been called selfish, shallow, and other such things. Something must be wrong with me. No man will ever marry me if I won't have children. I'll change my mind - on a scale of "because I'm young and stupid" to "biological clock will kick in".

None of this is true, of course.

Back in the day I discussed the no-child option with my wife. We are both cool with it, but neither of us really stood a firm ground so we eventually gave birth to my son. It has been a mixed experience and I totally get why people don't want kid(s).

I usually have an open mind to other people's personal choices. I rarely judge other people's personal choices. This is probably one of my few good qualities.

I’m fairly confident that the lack of sleep during my first child’s first two years permanently altered my brain in way that has seriously affected my ability to do my job. I think there is research to back my claim that sleep can change your brain just as trauma does.

Another anecdote, but I remember someone here commenting that after several days without sleep he got his amygdala (maybe?) physically damaged and that permanently f-ed up his sleep schedule.

As a terminal procrastinator who frequently pulls all-nighters (this year I even got to two in 3 days) I was terrified (and apparently decided to never comply with any deadline anymore, but that's another story).

I wonder how possible it is to permanently damage the brain without physically impacting it or rooting around in there. There are studies that show visible changes in the amygdala and other structures in the brain after 8 weeks of 15 minutes per day of mindfullness meditation for instance. One "side effect" of it for me has been noticeable memory improvements. The brain changes in response to stimuli for sure, but the changes may be reversible.

The thing to realize is your (I am presuming) inflexible job was probably as responsible as your kid. They should let you work very flexible hours if you just had a kid unless by nature it just can't be done for that job.

Reasonable assumption but in this case I was able to be flexible enough. The problem was my child not sleeping more than a couple hours at a time and our stupid adherence to the "baby should sleep in a different rule" in the US.

It does sound shallow, that's because having children impacts you more than for a year or two and it's more than just losing sleep.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com