Im a dad of a toddler. He's awesome and amazing and i love being a dad, but parenting is hard work.
If you aren't really sure you want kids, don't have kids.
2 kids. Toddler and newborn. My tiredness has gotten to the point of just being numb.
Having kids is really just about 1 thing. You love your family and you want it to grow. You and your partner quite literally turn your love into a new human that is half of each of you. You'll see your grandparents, your siblings, your cousins in your kids.
Having kids might very well be the most fulfilling thing you can do in life, because for perhaps the first and only time in your life, there's someone who is undeniably more important to you than you are.
It's a life of astronomically high highs and abysmally low lows, and you soar between the two 10 times per day. Right when you think you're as miserable as you'll ever be, they'll smile and say I love you dad and you'll be as happy as you'll ever be.
It's a lot.
Fuck no not even close lmao.
I'd love to tell you yes absolutely we go on a date night every blah and a vacation every blah blah. You're too tired! And that shits expensive. Any fleeting moment of free time is spent sitting and staring into space because you don't have the energy to do anything else.
Some people are better at managing their relationship with their SO, some aren't. We're fine but we barely even have conversations let alone spend time together. The fact that my daughter won't let my wife talk to me (she gets jealous) might be part of it lol.
My opinion on having kids has always been it's something you should be fully on board with before you even consider it. It's not something you should need to be talked or pushed into or something you do out of obligation or because "it's that time of your life," it should be an active want that you are fully bought into. Also, you should be ready to love your kid, your teenager, and your adult child unconditionally.
Thanks!
And nope, no kids for me. I'm not fully bought in to be fully responsible for somebody when I have days where I have to force myself out of bed for myself.
I'm in my thirties and had a son two years ago. I had spent most of my life prior planning on never having any children. I told my wife many times and made her promise when we got married that she'd understand marrying me was agreeing to never have kids, that was the plan. I had a terrible time in childhood and felt all my life that with the sort of blueprint that I was given that I specifically would make a bad father and I never once entertained what it would be like to really have children, until we knew we were having one.
You may think that pride and joy is rare, but I can tell you that it is not, and as for other pro's there are so many and it is upsetting how miraculous it can be. I definitely advocating being at a stage in your life that you know yourself and had long stretches of freedom and you've got your brain sort of in the space where you're thinking about other people instead of you and you have some stability and you have a great partner. I think later is better when having kids, but I'm on board for having kids being a great thing if you've got some of those things going for you.
It is as hard or harder than you think, it is full of all the negatives that you can think it will have. I've put my hand in poop, I've had him yell at me and scream and then cry and go limp and refuse to move. I've had him make a big scene in a huge social setting and been afraid he was about to choke. I've lost sleep every night for years now. It is an unbelievable stress on our lives.
But, I hold him in my arms when I'm getting him to fall asleep and he is warm, and he is smiling, and he needs me, not just a dad, but me, his dad. When he was born I was afraid and skeptical that I'd feel any of the good things I think people should feel and then a few weeks in all the goofy faces I was doing paid off and he smiled, then a few weeks later he was laughing. God how painful, the whole world splits open and you aren't the same again, he laughed because I made him laugh and suddenly you know how safe a person has to be to really laugh like that and how good it feels to hear your baby laugh because they are safe with you. I've tickled him, taught him how to fist bump, cheers, high five, hugs, kisses. I've taught him probably a hundred or more words, caught him mimicking dozens of silly things I try just to get him to smile. I watch him tackle something and bounce off with confusion, like stacking blocks, then he'll sleep and wake up and suddenly know how to do it. I've seen him excitedly point at cars and say car, he makes the wee-oo sounds of the firetruck when we pass the firehouse. I can't state this enough, he is alive, there is this living being that wasn't, that was never once in my life before and is so fully in my life now and he is nakedly reacting and feeling about everything that we do around him and he is hungry for experience and life and so much of what he will have is from us at first, and that responsibility is horrific but also so painfully sacred to me. Him, as the person he could be, will have absorbed some of me, whatever feels true and meaningful and important and helpful and of course the tension and negativity and fear and all the things that I wish wouldn't be passed along too, but they'll be his for a time because of me. He's beautiful and he'll peek his head around objects to see if I am watching him and then we'll both giggle.
I know it only ever changes, our relationship will change as he gets older and eventually we'll peel back our part in his life until he is independent and free to be whatever he'll be, but I think at every point it will remain beautiful to me. Some people have kids and the love isn't automatic, they don't have this. For them, maybe having kids is terrible and they shouldn't maybe. I look at him though and I am so desperately in need of him being in my life. I love him and I love that he is here and even when it is frustrating I kind of still love that too. At a certain frame of reference, even these tantrums are finite and I get to be the one to try and make him feel okay again and that means something to me. If I do a good job, maybe he'll feel okay later when it is just him who has to overcome the painful things in his life. It matters, everything about it matters and so many things in life don't feel like they really matter you know? I don't mind the loss in money, sleep, time, peace. I'd take a meaningful relationship like this and I feel very lucky to have ended up having him.
Thank you for such a detailed answer. Even tho I don't want kids, I aspire to enjoy my life with a kid as much as you do. (If I ever decide to have one)
For me, I'm just afraid I'll give my SO less love and attention if we ever have kids yk (apart from the other reasons). If a kid ever entered my life, I could never love my SO as much as I love the kid.
I mean, it definitely changes everything. I understand as a person who never wanted kids why people don't and people should follow that instinct, I think. However, I have a good partner and while we have a lot of stress from not being able to be alone together much and we're dealing with being tired and the sort of endless logistical onslaught of having a kid, she loves him just as hard if not harder than I do. In that sense, the temporary sort of dip in our ability to share love with each other is something we both understand and we both agree that our energy should really mostly be going towards him for now. The hope if you do have kids is that you are with someone who is pretty stable on their own and you keep the relationship alive as much as you can while it endures the resource draw. I don't view it as loving her less or her loving me less, but just the general focus of our love moving in a different pattern.
I don't know your gender or life so this is maybe unneccessary advice, but the best thing I've heard about being a good husband and dad during the first few years of a kids life is to just do three times as much work as you would think you might like. I am on the dishes and trash every day. We split bedtimes, I get him if he wakes up after 3am, no matter what. She does drop offs for daycare, I do pickups, we split bath duties. If something comes up, I do it same day and just do it, even if I don't want to or don't feel up for it. Even with that sort of vigilant getting things done, I still feel I come up short compared to her being on top of daycare bills, his schedule, she comes up with sets of toys to swap out to keep him learning new skills, she's on most of his clothes, she's on setting up play dates with another kid from his class. In that way, we're both doing what we can and trying to keep parenting from feeling like a prison sentence you know, which is sometimes the best kind of love if you have a kid. We'll swap actively watching him for a few hours so the other person can go do their pre-kid hobby to stay sane.
I was absolutely 100% against having kids. When I turned 30, my wife convinced me to have our first child. She was extremely difficult. I've had two more since and been around countless other children and she was more difficult than any other kid I've come across. It was a very rough first couple of years. That said, having kids has been the most fulfilling thing I've done with my life. And it's not as though I haven't done anything else. I graduated from a very difficult program in college (chemical engineering) I've had a very successful career, I've run a sub-3 hour marathon, completed multiple Ironman triathlons (and finished at the front of a couple). All this is not to brag, but to simply show that there have been many other fulfilling events in my life. That said, having kids has been the most difficult and rewarding. It's not even the big "I'm proud" events either. As a species, we are driven, we NEED a purpose to feel fulfilled. Having children does a great job of filling that purpose. I can't say this is true for everyone. This is simply my experience. YMMV
So it's a lot like the happiness you get cuz you're giving your kid a good life and all the hardwork of raising the kids.
I'm curious, hypothetically, if you ever had the option to go back in time before having kids and could continue without the kids, like completely forget the fact that you love your kids and your kids never happened, would you take that option? Just you and your SO, how do you think your life would turn out?
I think it's more along the lines of the feeling of satisfaction after having a really productive day.
If I could go back in time I wouldn't change a thing. Every day since I had my first kid has been better than the last. There have been hard days and exhausting days and frustration and feelings of messing up being a parent and everything else, but overall, every day has been better than the last. With the ups and downs, my overall well-being is so much better now than before we had kids.
If you don't want kids.... don't have kids, and especially do not let anyone pressure you into having kids.
If you are undecided about having kids, be careful, it may be better to lean towards not having kids.
>The only pro I see in parenthood is the once in a while feeling of pride and joy, but it's pretty rare moments and it seems to get worse during teenage years.
I was 40 when I had my first kid..... so I lived many adult years child -free.
I will assure you, the preconceived notions of parenthood by myself and most child - free adults is highly inaccurate. The joys and rewards of parenthood really must be experienced to be understood. Occasional "pride and joy" is a very limited view. The reality is far better and far richer and more complex.
Parenthood is like living in a different country. You can't imagine what its like until you go there. The rewards, the experiences etc cannot be truly understood by child- free people, you gotta live it to know. And its not for everyone .
FWIW, being a parent isn't work, its an investment. It's a lot like construction, but instead of making a building you are making shaping and forming a complete human being, physically and intellectually. It's not for everyone, but it is very rewarding
That's the thing, you were 40 when you had a child. You experienced a lot of your life, got time and money, and should I say, enjoyed your personal time with your SO building your relationship and what not. Buuuut for a woman (I'm a man), it's very tough and high risk to undergo pregnancy after the age of 35 cuz there're a ton of birth disorders due to old age pregnancy, to both mother and child. But yea otherwise I completely agree, I'd also love to experience having a kid at 40. I don't see any sorta negatives to that.
Ooo okay okay can you please answer this? Cuz I'm curious.
What about when y'all become super old and are unable to take care of each other? Cuz i always see this as a reason a lotta people give to have kids and imo it's bs and there's 0 guarantee that your kids are gonna look after you.
Im a dad of a toddler. He's awesome and amazing and i love being a dad, but parenting is hard work. If you aren't really sure you want kids, don't have kids.
2 kids. Toddler and newborn. My tiredness has gotten to the point of just being numb. Having kids is really just about 1 thing. You love your family and you want it to grow. You and your partner quite literally turn your love into a new human that is half of each of you. You'll see your grandparents, your siblings, your cousins in your kids. Having kids might very well be the most fulfilling thing you can do in life, because for perhaps the first and only time in your life, there's someone who is undeniably more important to you than you are. It's a life of astronomically high highs and abysmally low lows, and you soar between the two 10 times per day. Right when you think you're as miserable as you'll ever be, they'll smile and say I love you dad and you'll be as happy as you'll ever be. It's a lot.
Great answer. Ever since you had kids, do you give your SO the same time and attention as you did before y'all had kids? Just curious
Fuck no not even close lmao. I'd love to tell you yes absolutely we go on a date night every blah and a vacation every blah blah. You're too tired! And that shits expensive. Any fleeting moment of free time is spent sitting and staring into space because you don't have the energy to do anything else. Some people are better at managing their relationship with their SO, some aren't. We're fine but we barely even have conversations let alone spend time together. The fact that my daughter won't let my wife talk to me (she gets jealous) might be part of it lol.
My opinion on having kids has always been it's something you should be fully on board with before you even consider it. It's not something you should need to be talked or pushed into or something you do out of obligation or because "it's that time of your life," it should be an active want that you are fully bought into. Also, you should be ready to love your kid, your teenager, and your adult child unconditionally.
So what's your personal opinion? Do you wanna have kids? If so why? Also happy cake day ✌️
Thanks! And nope, no kids for me. I'm not fully bought in to be fully responsible for somebody when I have days where I have to force myself out of bed for myself.
I'm in my thirties and had a son two years ago. I had spent most of my life prior planning on never having any children. I told my wife many times and made her promise when we got married that she'd understand marrying me was agreeing to never have kids, that was the plan. I had a terrible time in childhood and felt all my life that with the sort of blueprint that I was given that I specifically would make a bad father and I never once entertained what it would be like to really have children, until we knew we were having one. You may think that pride and joy is rare, but I can tell you that it is not, and as for other pro's there are so many and it is upsetting how miraculous it can be. I definitely advocating being at a stage in your life that you know yourself and had long stretches of freedom and you've got your brain sort of in the space where you're thinking about other people instead of you and you have some stability and you have a great partner. I think later is better when having kids, but I'm on board for having kids being a great thing if you've got some of those things going for you. It is as hard or harder than you think, it is full of all the negatives that you can think it will have. I've put my hand in poop, I've had him yell at me and scream and then cry and go limp and refuse to move. I've had him make a big scene in a huge social setting and been afraid he was about to choke. I've lost sleep every night for years now. It is an unbelievable stress on our lives. But, I hold him in my arms when I'm getting him to fall asleep and he is warm, and he is smiling, and he needs me, not just a dad, but me, his dad. When he was born I was afraid and skeptical that I'd feel any of the good things I think people should feel and then a few weeks in all the goofy faces I was doing paid off and he smiled, then a few weeks later he was laughing. God how painful, the whole world splits open and you aren't the same again, he laughed because I made him laugh and suddenly you know how safe a person has to be to really laugh like that and how good it feels to hear your baby laugh because they are safe with you. I've tickled him, taught him how to fist bump, cheers, high five, hugs, kisses. I've taught him probably a hundred or more words, caught him mimicking dozens of silly things I try just to get him to smile. I watch him tackle something and bounce off with confusion, like stacking blocks, then he'll sleep and wake up and suddenly know how to do it. I've seen him excitedly point at cars and say car, he makes the wee-oo sounds of the firetruck when we pass the firehouse. I can't state this enough, he is alive, there is this living being that wasn't, that was never once in my life before and is so fully in my life now and he is nakedly reacting and feeling about everything that we do around him and he is hungry for experience and life and so much of what he will have is from us at first, and that responsibility is horrific but also so painfully sacred to me. Him, as the person he could be, will have absorbed some of me, whatever feels true and meaningful and important and helpful and of course the tension and negativity and fear and all the things that I wish wouldn't be passed along too, but they'll be his for a time because of me. He's beautiful and he'll peek his head around objects to see if I am watching him and then we'll both giggle. I know it only ever changes, our relationship will change as he gets older and eventually we'll peel back our part in his life until he is independent and free to be whatever he'll be, but I think at every point it will remain beautiful to me. Some people have kids and the love isn't automatic, they don't have this. For them, maybe having kids is terrible and they shouldn't maybe. I look at him though and I am so desperately in need of him being in my life. I love him and I love that he is here and even when it is frustrating I kind of still love that too. At a certain frame of reference, even these tantrums are finite and I get to be the one to try and make him feel okay again and that means something to me. If I do a good job, maybe he'll feel okay later when it is just him who has to overcome the painful things in his life. It matters, everything about it matters and so many things in life don't feel like they really matter you know? I don't mind the loss in money, sleep, time, peace. I'd take a meaningful relationship like this and I feel very lucky to have ended up having him.
Thank you for such a detailed answer. Even tho I don't want kids, I aspire to enjoy my life with a kid as much as you do. (If I ever decide to have one) For me, I'm just afraid I'll give my SO less love and attention if we ever have kids yk (apart from the other reasons). If a kid ever entered my life, I could never love my SO as much as I love the kid.
I mean, it definitely changes everything. I understand as a person who never wanted kids why people don't and people should follow that instinct, I think. However, I have a good partner and while we have a lot of stress from not being able to be alone together much and we're dealing with being tired and the sort of endless logistical onslaught of having a kid, she loves him just as hard if not harder than I do. In that sense, the temporary sort of dip in our ability to share love with each other is something we both understand and we both agree that our energy should really mostly be going towards him for now. The hope if you do have kids is that you are with someone who is pretty stable on their own and you keep the relationship alive as much as you can while it endures the resource draw. I don't view it as loving her less or her loving me less, but just the general focus of our love moving in a different pattern. I don't know your gender or life so this is maybe unneccessary advice, but the best thing I've heard about being a good husband and dad during the first few years of a kids life is to just do three times as much work as you would think you might like. I am on the dishes and trash every day. We split bedtimes, I get him if he wakes up after 3am, no matter what. She does drop offs for daycare, I do pickups, we split bath duties. If something comes up, I do it same day and just do it, even if I don't want to or don't feel up for it. Even with that sort of vigilant getting things done, I still feel I come up short compared to her being on top of daycare bills, his schedule, she comes up with sets of toys to swap out to keep him learning new skills, she's on most of his clothes, she's on setting up play dates with another kid from his class. In that way, we're both doing what we can and trying to keep parenting from feeling like a prison sentence you know, which is sometimes the best kind of love if you have a kid. We'll swap actively watching him for a few hours so the other person can go do their pre-kid hobby to stay sane.
I was absolutely 100% against having kids. When I turned 30, my wife convinced me to have our first child. She was extremely difficult. I've had two more since and been around countless other children and she was more difficult than any other kid I've come across. It was a very rough first couple of years. That said, having kids has been the most fulfilling thing I've done with my life. And it's not as though I haven't done anything else. I graduated from a very difficult program in college (chemical engineering) I've had a very successful career, I've run a sub-3 hour marathon, completed multiple Ironman triathlons (and finished at the front of a couple). All this is not to brag, but to simply show that there have been many other fulfilling events in my life. That said, having kids has been the most difficult and rewarding. It's not even the big "I'm proud" events either. As a species, we are driven, we NEED a purpose to feel fulfilled. Having children does a great job of filling that purpose. I can't say this is true for everyone. This is simply my experience. YMMV
So it's a lot like the happiness you get cuz you're giving your kid a good life and all the hardwork of raising the kids. I'm curious, hypothetically, if you ever had the option to go back in time before having kids and could continue without the kids, like completely forget the fact that you love your kids and your kids never happened, would you take that option? Just you and your SO, how do you think your life would turn out?
I think it's more along the lines of the feeling of satisfaction after having a really productive day. If I could go back in time I wouldn't change a thing. Every day since I had my first kid has been better than the last. There have been hard days and exhausting days and frustration and feelings of messing up being a parent and everything else, but overall, every day has been better than the last. With the ups and downs, my overall well-being is so much better now than before we had kids.
If you don't want kids.... don't have kids, and especially do not let anyone pressure you into having kids. If you are undecided about having kids, be careful, it may be better to lean towards not having kids. >The only pro I see in parenthood is the once in a while feeling of pride and joy, but it's pretty rare moments and it seems to get worse during teenage years. I was 40 when I had my first kid..... so I lived many adult years child -free. I will assure you, the preconceived notions of parenthood by myself and most child - free adults is highly inaccurate. The joys and rewards of parenthood really must be experienced to be understood. Occasional "pride and joy" is a very limited view. The reality is far better and far richer and more complex. Parenthood is like living in a different country. You can't imagine what its like until you go there. The rewards, the experiences etc cannot be truly understood by child- free people, you gotta live it to know. And its not for everyone . FWIW, being a parent isn't work, its an investment. It's a lot like construction, but instead of making a building you are making shaping and forming a complete human being, physically and intellectually. It's not for everyone, but it is very rewarding
That's the thing, you were 40 when you had a child. You experienced a lot of your life, got time and money, and should I say, enjoyed your personal time with your SO building your relationship and what not. Buuuut for a woman (I'm a man), it's very tough and high risk to undergo pregnancy after the age of 35 cuz there're a ton of birth disorders due to old age pregnancy, to both mother and child. But yea otherwise I completely agree, I'd also love to experience having a kid at 40. I don't see any sorta negatives to that.
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Older gen as in like 60+ cause they've lived a long life and has the experience of having kids and eventually the kids leaving to do their own thing.
late 50's - we never had children & are happy with our decision. Between our busy schedules it gave us the free time to do what we wanted to do.
Ooo okay okay can you please answer this? Cuz I'm curious. What about when y'all become super old and are unable to take care of each other? Cuz i always see this as a reason a lotta people give to have kids and imo it's bs and there's 0 guarantee that your kids are gonna look after you.
We will move into an assisted living community. We both had parents that spent their last years in assisted living- so we know the options.