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Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

> What my life would look like had I not gotten married and had children

For every person that feels better off in that situation, there’s another person who feels trapped and tied down and unable to pursue their passions.

Different things make different people happy. And that’s okay.

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This remark always comes from people who do not have children. I have never seen a parent express regret over building a family.

I firmly believe this is because it'd be incredibly socially unacceptable to do so.

Most of the parents I'm close to are in the "wow, this actually kind of sucks" category.

Against what I hear about parenting, I'm mostly left feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled, but what am I going to do? Maybe it'll come later.

I've never heard of a millionaire express regret over making millions of dollars.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to be happy without a million dollars.

Presumably, outside of accidental pregnancy, people who would be unhappy with children don't have them and people who would be happy with children do have them. It's not really that surprising if people who choose a particular life path tend to be happy with it.

I have. Very much I have but I'm also a safe person to share with generally so I find myself the holder of many other peoples secrets.

There was a great NY Times opinion piece on exactly this. You should try and look it up.

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