I am of the age to have kids, some of my friends have them, but I have mixed feelings about it, just wondering about other people’s experiences.
I am of the age to have kids, some of my friends have them, but I have mixed feelings about it, just wondering about other people’s experiences.
Eh, I’ve got five kids and they run the gamut from incredibly cool to assholes. One is pretty accomplished professionally and made sure to find ways for both her dad and me (step-dad) in her wedding. Another went no contact over the divorce/remarriage of her mom. Another has struggled with addiction and mental health, but has overcome the former at least and recently graduated and is working as a nurse. The last two are still at home and one has emotional issues and some autism and weaponized incompetence, the other is hard working and responsible and has drive balanced with emotional maturity (though hormones are kicking in so…)
In my opinion, there is too much emphasis on being perfect parents and having perfect kids leading perfect lives. We love them all and make sure they know it. We try to set healthy boundaries and allow them the same. But at the end of the day, they are people and they are going to struggle and much of that is out of our control beyond being here with advice and help in times of crisis.
And even the assholes are pretty cool in their own right. Not fun to parent, but still people who I think are great to have in your life.
I do occasionally lament the path not taken, but if I didn’t have kids this would be the path I lament. (Probably just a smaller house and nicer vacations.)
I’m not trying to convince you, but I want to put in a word as a parent of assholes who sometimes daydreams about where my life might be without kids. It was a good decision for me. And if I didn’t have them to be accountable to, my depression might well have gotten hold of me in a moment of weakness and I wouldn’t be here to write this. My kids don’t make me happy (well, sometimes) and it’s not their job to, but I’m very glad I had them.
Thats all fair. I wrote what I wrote for OP, though, and I’m truly confident my wife and I made the right choice for us. I’ve also never felt babies or toddlers were cute. Yesterday, I went shopping for dress shoes, and there was a family there with a kid who was maybe 7, and he flopped down on a bench and shouted “PHONE” and his father handed him his iphone so the kid could watch youtube videos.
We’re going to Tenerife for 10 days in a week or so, and we’re looking at a 2 berth campervan to shoot off around Ireland in as well. l also just booked 5 days going to Valencia, Spain and then up to Barcelona by train to see my favorite band, Bad Religion play a show in both of those cities. I have a full time(ish) job that I actually like and also have time to try to make money doing my creative things, which is actually growing year on year.
I am also very aware of overpopulation. The planet has twice as many people now as it did in the 70s. It cannot endure continued human expansion when everyone wants their own house and car and swimming pools.
Not to argue your decisions, but you might want to take another look at your over-population if that’s a concern.
Yes, we seem to be passing a sustainable level of population and too many people are still held in poverty partly by over-population. However the long term trend is the opposite. By all studies, population will plateau in the next few decades, then start to decrease. While that also sounds good, it looks like it is likely to drop fast. We are more likely to have instability and disruption caused by population falling too rapidly.
If replacement value for a stable population is about 2.1 children per women, most developed countries are already well below that and their populations will drop significantly as older larger generations pass. Was it Korea that hit 1.1? That means cutting their population in half over the space of one generation While I have no idea how to fix the chronic war state between the Koreas, a sudden (in one generation) loss of both population and economy is all too likely to be seen as an opportunity for the war state to turn hot.
Even in the US, we’re a bit protected but our birth rate is well below replacement value. We’re still growing in both population and economy on the strength of immigration. Most countries don’t benefit from that and current politics may impact this and cause us to start shrinking as well. While some is a good thing, a lot of shrinking too quickly can be equally bad as overpopulation. We need to figure out how to stabilize at a reasonable birth rate more like 2.0, to steadily reduce population without disruption
That’s all fair. We still vacation, although they are sanitized “family” vacations for the most part. Plus we aren’t the kind of people who want to be tooling about foreign countries without a curated experience. Take us to your beaches, cuisine, alcohol, and cultural artifacts.
You have a lot of work flexibility for those vacations. I can work remotely, but usually I’m not allowed to take my equipment out of the country to do so. My wife has a lot less flexibility. So we are limited by time more than anything else. We live modestly and I make a good living for the cost of living here. Kids would certainly put a damper on that lifestyle, but in our case, they aren’t holding us back.
Overpopulation is a whole other thing, of course. Looks to me like we’re headed toward another global conflict or pandemic that might resolve that in part. Not saying that’s a good thing, but I think life has a way of correcting imbalance whether you do it voluntarily or not. I certainly don’t want my kids to have to live through that, but like most other things, that’s out of my control and I can only help where I can and hope for the best.