I'm Not Having Kids (and That's Okay) | Hacker News Reader

I'm Not Having Kids (and That's Okay)

ashlybq.substack.com

18 pointsdaosha26 comments

This is plagiarized word for word from https://web.archive.org/web/20150210200039/http://kalihawlk.... (original URL: http://kalihawlk.com/not-having-kids/)

For more on this plagiarism campaign, read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40164077 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40185250

MIND...BLOWN!!!

There’s a visible increase in new accounts that are promoting clickbait titles and also using “Show HN” to promote products.

Green accounts submitting projects with no explanation, with the domain name of the project having been registered prior to the HN submission.

My best guess is that a foreign community wrote a guide on how to use HN for promotion, much like you would use Product Hunt or similar websites.

I say foreign because I actually spent a few hours a couple of days ago looking into this. I spend a lot of time in /new and couldn’t help but notice this pattern.

Many of the accounts doing this date back to a few years also, with blatant spam being their first submission for the last couple of years. It’s very obvious if you pay attention, but I am not sure it can be moderated outside of HN users themselves weeding it out.

The points you make are true, but all of the plagiarism I've commented about recently has been done by one person. It stretches across many Substack and Wordpress accounts. I imagine they have plagiarized plenty more posts that no one has spotted.

I've held off on giving the perpetrator's full real name, but it seems like naming them in a standalone post is going to be necessary.

For now, if you see submissions from user-generated content/blog sites, be very skeptical - even if the is dated years ago. This person often back-dates their stolen posts.

This makes me even more confused by the other post that was made by this account, asking why an earlier submission was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40178265

If you are a straight plagiarizer, it seems rather brazen to call attention to the flagging. Are you able to find an original for that one as well? I wasn't.

Troy I've seen you calling this plagiarist out in a couple of threads. Thanks for the work you're doing, and the receipts!

You’re welcome, and thanks for saying so. I wish it wasn’t needed.

Really sucks that this was plagiarized. I love commenting on these stories.

I've been the youngest engineer on the teams I've worked with for practically my entire career. Early into my career, I got a front row seat to see snippets of how my peers with children lived, such as:

- Absolutely zero control over one's sleep schedule for many, many years

- Zero alone or solo time for many, many years

- For many couples, zero or little intimacy for years

- Lots and lots and lots of crying, then crying and screaming, then screaming, then tantrum-ing

- Unbelievable amounts of repetition and transpiling gibberish to English

- Absolutely everything about childrens' shows (children can watch the same movie 100 times, from what I've observed)

- Career sacrifices, such as having to work at companies and/or living in locations you'd prefer to not be working or living in

- Society type-casting women into motherly roles while "men being men" is generally acceptable

Given all this, I knew from very early on (20s) that I did not want children. I was very (very!) lucky to find a partner who held the same beliefs.

We are in our late 30s now and are still strongly committed to this decision.

HOWEVER, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting kids if both partners really, really want them AND know what they're signing up for!

From what I've seen, raising kids requires levels of selflessness and patience that are almost supernatural, and it's essentially a lifelong job (especially when the children beget grandchildren, and, given the state of affairs, will definitely need a hand while they work since daycare is all but unaffordable for most).

One thing that's annoying about parenthood being the default is that core working hours at many companies are structured around children, especially with the pervasiveness of working from home. Being online at 7am is perfectly acceptable, for example.

This isn't great if you, say, want to start your day at 11am because waking up at 8am or later is no big deal. I understand why it is the way it is, but it's still annoying.

You can do whatever you want and I can criticize you for it. Most of people who I’ve seen that don’t have children, when they get old have an emptiness inside them and not much to look for. When they’re younger they think they’re gonna be okay, but we usually don’t know if we feel the same way a few minutes from now, how can you say no I won’t feel that way 30-40 years from now? I hope the writer of this article be happy and fulfilled but I still don’t understand for myself any of their points. Shrugs Edit: Also, you can have a business and travel the world and still raise a child, as people have done since beginning of history, its not either or I feel like. It would even make it more fun some might say.

On the other side of the coin, there's a subset of parents that regret having children. Check /r/regretfulparents

I think we don't hear much about the people that hated having children because is not culturally accepted in society to expose that view.

Yeah it’s important to be ready to have a child, be financially and mentally stable. Also you can argue they hate having children, but if they didn’t, they would be more unhappy. Raising a child is very hard work and time consuming so ofc a lot will hate having them, but I wonder if you ask them 10,15 years from now, what would they say? Most parents I saw that had an unexpected child after many years are very happy about having them.

> Also you can argue they hate having children, but if they didn’t, they would be more unhappy.

I have the feeling this is a type of logical fallacy but I can't pinpoint which

> I saw that had an unexpected child after many years are very happy about having them.

It can be genuine happiness. But also it could be what they tell themselves. Because, what would be the other option? Not like they can backtrack. So better to tell themselves that they are happy with kids rather than suffer the cognitive dissonance.

This is hard to prove anyway, but is not unheard of that people lie to themselves to feel better with their past decisions.

> I have the feeling this is a type of logical fallacy but I can't pinpoint which

Although not a logical fallacy, "choice-supportive bias" might do:) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

It's also true having kids is a major lifeshift that may not turn out how you hoped and you'll end up with plenty of emptiness inside you.

People report they gained from having to 'move up a level', without kids you are someone's son or daughter and that's it. Having kid(s) you become someone's father or mother as well which changes you hopefully for the better.

Someone has to pop the next generation out. They will look much like whoever did that. They won't look or think like the ones who decided to sit it out.

Most of the people I've seen that do have children are extremely miserable for the first couple thousand days and then moderately miserable for the next decade.

So what, probably our sample is not representative.

My pet peeve is when parents tell me (or other people who can't actually have children), that "you'll never know until you haven't experienced it". I grew to think this is the most toxic behavior, triggering FOMO, overstepping boundaries and so on.

Now that I saw these failed parenthoods, I understand that this toxicity comes from their own misery, to justify their life choices. Well, they'll never know how it is to explore the world and be happy and content on your own in your thirties-forties until they'll experi... Oh wait, they won't.

And don't even get me started with the "at least you have a choice to adopt" line, which, since it's not YOUR BLOOD, doesn't count. All those looks on their faces... Sigh.

Look, not caring for anyone is always going to be easier than caring for someone.

I think becoming a parent has helped me a lot in a million ways. You actually have a reason to advance, a reason to do stuff for others. It helps that there's just no way out. Plus I've been part of layoffs twice in about 20 years. Most things in life can and will collapse, including work, your social group at work (amongst other reasons because employers have somehow convinced employees of the "need" to keep secrets, resulting in a tension that will always be there when I work for one company and they work for another). Family doesn't collapse half as easily. The only friends I kept over 20 years I got in high school or at the latest university, and even that group is slowly bleeding dry.

> helped me a lot in a million ways

Again, some people figured how to live a life with fulfilment, being content, having a purpose, but without a kid. In fact, what worries me a lot that some people think the kid is the ultimate solution. And that is really, really bad and unfair to many involved (family, partner, and eventually the kid themselves)

> Family doesn't collapse half as easily

You'd be surprised. Mine did, and in the region I'm from, did many, too. In fact, the modern invention of a nuclear family is more brittle than some want to accept.

With truly a lot of sympathy, I encourage you too, to try to think outside your bubble. I am happy for each one of those around me who manage a life with their babies and new family.

But this "you'll never know until" mentality is very toxic and the ones repeating it don't realize it's true vice versa.

- - -

All the other issues you mention (jobs, friends come and go) are also generalization, and certainly didn't apply to me or many others, thus, not a proof of anything.

I think you don’t know anything in life until you try it. Goes both ways for having children and not having children. You won’t know until you’re old and then see if you are happy or not.

> You'd be surprised. Mine did, and in the region I'm from, did many, too. In fact, the modern invention of a nuclear family is more brittle than some want to accept.

I get it. Some families fail. People get really angry about that, and I understand why. That doesn't mean it will never succeed (and frankly, a failed family is imho, in quite a few ways, still better than no family at all).

I'm pretty damn sure the "mass families", or however you want to call it, so big that kids only really had other kids as parents, that came before were a LOT worse than a nuclear family.

My main point is that there's a strong motivation to keep a family going. And that is a huge part of what keeps me stable. I think it's a necessary part of keeping me stable.

Try not to generalise. I know plenty of people who dont have kids. We are older, we know how this pans out. If you dont have kids bc all you want to do is party and be trivial then thats ok but might not be the best reason. But if youve never seen yourself as a parent and youre kind of not really part of that usually more conventional type of life then it's probably totally logical. I know several couples who are ex musos and have lived together for decades but chose not to have children. They are as happy as anyone else. So am I.

I’m very glad its working out for you :) Although I wonder if you and your friends are in the minority or the majority.

I think the root problem that this article is talking about is the reasoning you had for responding like that. It's way too meta, it would require too much introspection for you to understand, but try to imagine that the point the person is making is to express the frustration with people who can not accept the decision not to have children. Who therefore feel compelled, at all times, to question the decision not to have children, to make the argument for children, to express unsolicited "worry" about the future happiness of a person without children, etc.

Put a different way, the widespread phenomenon of the behavior you just demonstrated, is what is being pleaded against (unsuccessfully in your case). Perhaps that helps you to understand why "but children are great" is missing the point they were trying to make.

The person isn't asking "should I have children?", ask yourself, (and everyone else who responded like that) why you responded as if they did.

I think most childless people (like me) would want them, but there's no way to possibly finance even a single one. Even with a relatively high paid job, at least if you want it responsibly.

It’s a personal decision. It’s not for everyone. But “childfree” as an identity is counterproductive, seemingly aiming for the vegan/atheist stereotype for being insufferable about what they’re not doing.

She’ll miss out on entire new level of spiritual awareness, social maturity, graciousness and generocity, and ultimately miss out on a range of emotions we need to be fulfilled.

An empty, selfish life.

The financial arguments and overpopulation arguments are strawman arguments. Having a single child isnt contributing to those problems, but still offers emotional growth. Leaving a sole child with no sibblings is selfish.

> Empty, selfish

This is sad.

I wish you the best for your non empty, non selfish life. I also hope once you open your mind and develop some sympathy for people who think differently. Not to mention those who didn't choose this path, yet you put them into the empty, selfish box.

Hope this is not your best self.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com