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Comment by codegeek | Hacker News Reader

Don't let the naysayers discourage you. Having and raising kids is one of the most wonderful experiences you can have in your life. yes, it is incredibly difficult, painful at times. But it is all worth it.

I strongly believe that if kids turn out bad, their parents should be blamed for the most part if not all.

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I agree with you. It's one of the few things why we live. We(human race) would die out if nobody would have kids. Taiwan and Japan are two countries with a really low birthrate and you can see the aging process very well.

The article clearly shows that some people don't want to have children or have found having children to not be as satisfying as you did. We can't make decisions for others, and perpetuating messages and depictions of child raising as fulfilling is really misleading.

So propaganda against children is OK, but for children is not? If people say what makes them happy, what is wrong with that? It doesn't imply that it would work for everyone, but it implies that it might work for some other people, too.

Why don't those unhappy parents give up their kids for adoption?

There's nothing wrong with having children and having that experience be a great one. However, that kind of story is the dominant narrative in US society and people deserve to hear alternative points of view and experience for those where it didn't turn out OK or as a positive experience. Those kinds of stories and experiences don't get a lot of exposure, esp. in regards to media representation and cultural norms.

> Why don't those unhappy parents give up their kids for adoption?

The article went over this, as there are a wide variety of reasons someone has a child, planned or not. Some people may have children that they were forced to, or may find that the life they imagined having with children never materialized and that they do not want to continue being a parent. Also, cultural norms and representations of parenthood and expectations of how to interact with children heavily influence the perception of being a parent, so when these norms leave out the experience of people who regret or are not happy with being a parent, we are misleading people. Adoption and foster care systems are not a perfect solution, it would be better to provide more information and experiences for people to help them evaluate whether or not a child would be for them.

In general I suppose it is bad if people can't be honest with their feelings. As one extreme example, I think post-pregnancy depression is actually quite common and can even drive mothers to suicide. Since they can not talk about it because they are supposed to be happy, they often don't get proper treatment.

As for helping people evaluate, that seems tricky. How could you simulate the experience of having kids? I guess most people just extrapolate from what they see around them and what they experienced in their own families. And on the case of unwanted pregnancies it wouldn't help anyway.

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