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Comment by Sohcahtoa82 | Hacker News Reader

> Many people go on holiday to de-stress.

A friend of mine that has kids said that once you have kids, there's no such thing as going on vacation. You're just being a parent somewhere else.[0]

I personally am skipping the side-quest of parenthood, but have certainly seen his claim play out. My wife and I were at Universal Studio Hollywood, and some couple had a baby in a carriage that wouldn't stop crying, and I just couldn't help but think...imagine spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars to go on vacation, and you still gotta deal with a screaming baby.

I couldn't deal with that.

[0] For anyone saying "Just let the grandparents/some other family take them for the week", this isn't an option for everyone for various reasons. In my friend's case, it's because he lives in London, but his parents live in the USA, and his in-laws live in Malaysia.

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If you have kids, you need a vacation from vacations. Even well behaved kids require a lot of extra logistics on the part of the parents. It's significantly more work than just staying at home.

I remember our first trip - I had two carseats strapped to my back, rolling 1 large bag, and had 3 other bags I was carrying. The lines, the airplane ride, .... Then you get to your destination, have to make sure they don't do anything stupid while waiting 30-60 minutes for luggage, have to get the (larger) car, have to get all the carseats in properly, etc.

Figuring out food for everyone. Entertaining everyone. The extra bathroom breaks. Etc.

I still get headaches thinking about negotiating sleeping arrangements.

One of my favorite is actually to just go camping. There's not a ton of extra work involved. You have a home base. You have entertainment. There's food but you pack it and its set in stone rather than having to figure out food on the fly.

My daughter is 4 months old but my wife and I were both avid travelers before she came along. We’ve agreed vacations are for us until she’s old enough to talk about what she’s just experienced. And even then we’re not taking her anywhere elaborate.

I salute you, with your endurance and your temerity.

I had to once shepherd a family trip (15+ people?), managed to get everyone out of the airport, into the bus, got all the luggage out at the hotel, everybody checked in, then the bus driver came over to me and said, "there's a piece of luggage still out there on the curb".

It was mine.

I have two kids, and I'm firmly in the "why pay extra to be a parent somewhere else" camp while my wife is the opposite. However I have to admit the kids do get a lot out of trips, even if it's draining for me. They always seem to "level up" cognitively when exposed to new things for two weeks straight. I'll grit my teeth and suffer through a trip so that the other 3 family members are happy.

That being said, I fully intend to take advantage of adults-only hotels/resorts when I have time and child care covered. If I'm going to go on vacation, I certainly will want to minimize my exposure to other people's kids. No one likes a 3 year old running around in the hotel room above you at 12 AM and then again at 6 AM.

I find it surprisingly endearing in other children, and incredibly annoying in mine. I presume because the act is funny if you are not responsible for stopping (or failing to stop) it.

The fact that you characterize parenthood as a "side-quest" confirms that you probably shouldn't become a parent.

Yeah.

If you’re not looking forward to it being the main event, you probably should just skip it all together and save yourself the disappointment.

Parenting is extremely undervalued in modern society.

It's a good thing then that they're quite deliberately skipping it without compunction, though it seems not without unwarranted judgement.

There's a weird vaguely-evangelical bent here that is, ultimately, not surprising, but still jarring. Threads about having children tend to bring judgemental parents out of the woodwork to tut-tut anyone who dares to choose a different path.

No one seems to be as dogmatic or tut-tutting as much in this thread as you, so you should be aware that you seem to be unintentionally projecting.

This is a basically a tut-tutting conga line at this point.

A fair statement, even though the phrasing is meant to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek.

I'm 42 and have simply never felt the desire to be a parent. Never felt a biological need to reproduce. Don't get me wrong, I have a libido, but never wanted a baby to come from it.

I can rave for hours about how great the DINK life is. A sibling comment talked about the logistics of traveling on vacation with kids. It's amazing to not have to deal with any of that.

A lot of people who don't characterize it as a "side-quest" shouldn't be parents either.

And yet they reproduce anyway.

I knew it wouldn't be long before the blood-and-soil folks came out lol. Why do you feel the need to suggest not becoming a parent to someone who just said it wasn't the life they wanted? Do you mete out the same judgement on parents who also should have abstained?

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