That’s because it omits what all of the things lost get replaced with. The time spent with your kid is incredible. Yes your YouTube playlist gets taken over by baby shark, but also you get to see them go from a lump that can barely move, to being able to do situps, then walk, then run up to you and start clapping their hands making the baby shark motions, and start cackling with the most genuine laughter you will ever hear in you life as you get up off the couch and pretend to scream “oh no the baby shark is gonna get me” as they chase you around the house.
It’s good times.
It’s also bad times. Like when you have to tell them no, or stop, or bed time, and they scream the scream of pure despair, as nothing in life could possibly be as painful, as terrible, as inhumanly awful as being told you’re not allowed to roll around in the broken glass that you just shattered on the ground by wildly throwing your teddy bear across the room.
Your life becomes singularly focused, You lose almost all of the things you were before, but your life is always interesting and meaningful. Except to other people. Other people think your hobbyless, in bed at 8 life, is boring.
Sounds like a lot of rationalization and silver linings for a sunk cost. I mean, if parents feel fulfilled, awesome. But outwardly, it’s a hard sell. Unless the family has wealth, the odds are high that any kid born in the US is likely to have a worse experience than their parents did.
If I use my own, elder Millennial born of Boomers experiential framework, having children ultimately seems extremely selfish. The kids are born into a hellscape of Capitalistic predatory systems, and have to struggle for years, or decades to gain any kind of agency. Meanwhile, the ROI for all that stress and trauma is increasingly less. So, why put them through it? So that I can say I have progeny? To scratch a biological imperative’s itch? Nah. No thanks. The world doesn’t deserve kids; it hasn’t earned them.
Having kids is selfish, it’s the whole “point”. Any DNA based organism’s only goal is to clone that DNA. Evolution happened and now you get a chemical boost (or whatnot) that makes you feel like it is totally worth it (which I feel that it totally is).
That’s because it omits what all of the things lost get replaced with. The time spent with your kid is incredible. Yes your YouTube playlist gets taken over by baby shark, but also you get to see them go from a lump that can barely move, to being able to do situps, then walk, then run up to you and start clapping their hands making the baby shark motions, and start cackling with the most genuine laughter you will ever hear in you life as you get up off the couch and pretend to scream “oh no the baby shark is gonna get me” as they chase you around the house.
It’s good times.
It’s also bad times. Like when you have to tell them no, or stop, or bed time, and they scream the scream of pure despair, as nothing in life could possibly be as painful, as terrible, as inhumanly awful as being told you’re not allowed to roll around in the broken glass that you just shattered on the ground by wildly throwing your teddy bear across the room.
Your life becomes singularly focused, You lose almost all of the things you were before, but your life is always interesting and meaningful. Except to other people. Other people think your hobbyless, in bed at 8 life, is boring.
Yeah…even then.
Sounds like a lot of rationalization and silver linings for a sunk cost. I mean, if parents feel fulfilled, awesome. But outwardly, it’s a hard sell. Unless the family has wealth, the odds are high that any kid born in the US is likely to have a worse experience than their parents did.
If I use my own, elder Millennial born of Boomers experiential framework, having children ultimately seems extremely selfish. The kids are born into a hellscape of Capitalistic predatory systems, and have to struggle for years, or decades to gain any kind of agency. Meanwhile, the ROI for all that stress and trauma is increasingly less. So, why put them through it? So that I can say I have progeny? To scratch a biological imperative’s itch? Nah. No thanks. The world doesn’t deserve kids; it hasn’t earned them.
Having kids is selfish, it’s the whole “point”. Any DNA based organism’s only goal is to clone that DNA. Evolution happened and now you get a chemical boost (or whatnot) that makes you feel like it is totally worth it (which I feel that it totally is).
I said it as nicely as I could.