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Comment by siren2026 | Hacker News Reader

siren2026

When I hear people say this with all the morale high ground that comes with it I’m always wondering if it’s partially because of some hormonal changes. It has been proven recently that the human brain changes after having kids.

I know you didn’t intend it that way but there are so many people that are extremely judgmental about having kids (or rather judging people that don’t have kids). I also understand that it’s such a hard task that there must be some level of self convincing needed to make it work.

All that to say, i tend to dismiss those opinions.

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I feel that physical change the moment I saw my son first time. Something snapped/connected in my brain. I will do anything for that little thing. The feeling is visceral. It is very hard not to preach your best experience to others

That added some intensity behind my motivation to avoid parenthood: so many people describe having their brains hijacked in this way that I could not be sure I would be immune. Best steer far clear, I thought.

I mean the obvious retort to this is that until you become a parent all of your behaviour is probably driven by some deep evolutionary desire to demonstrate your suitability as a mate.

So we can dismiss opinions of non-parents as well.

Ideally we should discuss all those behaviour (becoming parents, becoming successful) logically without the hormones and feelings that makes you think they are the most important thing in the world.

Essentially discussing facts versus emotions.

Almost every parent in this discussion uses emotions to justify why they are doing the grandest accomplishment in the world by being a parent.

> without the hormones and feelings

I'm saying that's impossible, we're all emotional creatures. That parents have higher levels of certain hormones than non-parents doesn't mean non-parents are rational, objective creatures. They're just feelings-driven in different ways.

Like, to put it another way, try to give me a totally value-less assessment of why winning Olympic gold is a "grander" accomplishment than having children.

In another comment you said there's "inherently nothing very special, unique or difficult about" having children. I'm saying that's an illogical, hormonal/emotional statement. Not that it's wrong, but that it's irrelevant to whether having children is a "grand accomplishment". Something being special/unique/difficult is only relevant to you because of how you feel about the world.

It is perfectly possible to study the world around us without our emotions and feelings. There is in fact a ton of philosophy that has been written on this topic. Please read about rationalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism

And yes, I could in fact give you multiple logical arguments for why winning an Olympic gold is a "grander" accomplishment than having children:

- Logically, this is a way more difficult achievement than having kids by at least some measure of difficulty. One way to measure difficulty is that fewer people are able to achieve it. Everyone (literally almost everyone) can have kids. But only a select few can win a gold.

- By winning a gold medal you leave a bigger legacy than by having kids. You will be in a lot of history books, and a ton of people will look after you. You will inspire the next generations. By having kids, you will also change the next generation but I would argue by way less than by winning gold in the olympics.

See? Those are logical arguments. They are based on measurable input/outputs. You could argue with similar arguments as to why having a kid is such a grand achievement, but yet, no parents did that. They all come back to hormones and feelings.

>>> In another comment you said there's "inherently nothing very special, unique or difficult about" having children. I'm saying that's an illogical, hormonal/emotional statement. Not that it's wrong, but that it's irrelevant to whether having children is a "grand accomplishment". Something being special/unique/difficult is only relevant to you because of how you feel about the world.

No, again: those words have measurable meaning: Having children is neither special/unique (as it is literally the normal outcome for most people), neither difficult (at least to HAVE children is not difficult, raising them well has probably some level of measurable difficulty). How can you disagree with this logically?

> See? Those are logical arguments. They are based on measurable input/outputs. You could argue with similar arguments as to why having a kid is such a grand achievement, but yet, no parents did that. They all come back to hormones and feelings.

No, they're not logical arguments, they're based on a whole suite of assumptions about value systems that I would argue reflects more about how you feel about the world than any sort of rational/objective assessment of what constitutes a "grand achievement".

> Logically, this is a way more difficult achievement than having kids by at least some measure of difficulty.

Why is difficult grander or more of an achievement? This is not self-evident. Can you make an argument for this that isn't an appeal to emotion?

> By winning a gold medal you leave a bigger legacy than by having kids.

Same exact response from me. Why is a bigger legacy grander or more of an achievement? Can you make a logical argument in favour of a bigger legacy that's not an appeal to emotion?

I see no logic in your arguments, I see you restating your values as if they are logical.

> How can you disagree with this logically?

I don't disagree with what the words mean, I'm saying that you think special/unique/difficult = grand accomplishment for feelings-based reasons, not logical reasons.

This is going to be my last reply because we are talking past each other.

I think it is perfectly fine and logical for you to reply to my logical arguments with other counter-logical arguments such as:

>> Why is difficult grander or more of an achievement? This is not self-evident

You could say to you a "grand achievement" is keeping your bloodline as this is what evolution wants us to be. That has some logic. I actually would agree with some of those arguments, and we could go back and forth. Sure, it represents some of our values but you are making at least some logical sense.

What I reject is reasoning such as: "Raising kids is probably the most meaningful and significant thing I have done with my life." and when asked clarifications around why that would be the cause, the replies are "feelings, and you will know when you have them".

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