One more point, most of us are much better parents than we thought we would be before we had kids.
Kids do change your life, and that can be scary. But when you are actively raising kids, some things you do miss, most mostly what we did when we were without kids, really wasn't that important anyway. Much of it was just superficial.
Get real losers!
You self righteous dweebs.
Kids are terrible! 👎👎👎👎
People love to ask, “ do you have kids” , and when I emphatically say “no way”, the immediate reaction is “ oh good for you. I mean.,,,don’t get me wrong, kids are great...” hahahaaa. Admit it, kids are a financial drain and there goes any freedom you once had. They smell funny too. Glued to their phones and devices. Lazy useless kids are just an eyesore. And these days they’re all fat. No thank you. I like being rich in California and traveling and having whatever we like. And we can run anytime we’re not working. Not taking some grubby little beggar to soccer ⚽️ games, Enjoy your minivans suckers!!!
Loosers, All you have to do is time it right, run your 14:00 5k score the fertile trophy wife and then retire on 250k passive BEFORE you have kids.
People with kids who want them trying to understand people without kids who don’t is like extroverts trying to understand introverts. The former thinks the later must be horribly alone and sad. Yet it is just the opposite.
Adults who are childless by choice are, without ANY exceptions, weird. I don’t know if they eventually regret it, but I do know they live empty lives.
The entire point of life is to ensure it continues past you. Being a childless cool aunt or teacher doesn’t accomplish that at all.
There is only one kind of unconditional love, and if you aren’t a parent you don’t experience it. And you are a lessor person.
I think women do.
Men probably do, except I think it's not quite as meaningful as people say.
Probably the most meaningful thing anyone really does. This does not mean it's all fun or even a great roi, all in. Just something to feel motivated about, socially. It surely gives more satisfaction than anything a non-superelite person can do.
Superelite as in top few in the world in a leading field like politics, risk, business. Not best woodworker in your 25-mile radius.
I agree about the criticism loving your children is a litmus test for psychos and the fact people complaining about the children cramping their style are a little off, as the life of young irresponsibility is not the same for adults. Do you really envy the unkempt 55-year-old on drugs at a bar?
dad of three. wrote:
semantic antic wrote:
Stating an outrageous claim multiple times doesn't make it any more true. It's always suspicious when someone speaks in absolutes (e.g., always capitalizing ZERO). It sounds sort of like when people say that masks and social distancing have NO effect, or that a vaccine carries ZERO risk. Perhaps the risk is 0.00001%, but it's not zero, just as maybe social distancing wasn't the only solution but was part of it...not to get distracted by COVID, but it shows how claiming absolutes is just a way of trying to overstate a weak position.
If you think that raising a kid, which takes up more time than training for a marathon, has absolutely ZERO affect on the quality of a relationship between two people, I don't know what to say.
None of this is to say that some people don't absolutely adore their children. Their marriage may suffer and they have less time to travel or to get that promotion and may still be perfectly happy that they chose to have kids. That's fine. But it has an effect on those other parts of your life, clearly.
"For around 30 years, researchers have studied how having children affects a marriage, and the results are conclusive: the relationship between spouses suffers once kids come along. Comparing couples with and without children, researchers found that the rate of the decline in relationship satisfaction is nearly twice as steep for couples who have children than for childless couples. In the event that a pregnancy is unplanned, the parents experience even greater negative impacts on their relationship."
"Worse still, this decrease in marital satisfaction likely leads to a change in general happiness, because the biggest predictor of overall life satisfaction is one’s satisfaction with their spouse."
https://theconversation.com/have-children-heres-how-kids-ruin-your-romantic-relationship-57944What you can't conceptualize because you never had it, is the bond you feel being in a family that you and your wife created. My wife and I had a wonderful relationship before kids. But with kids there is a richness in our family bond that we hadn't experienced. And yes there are more stresses and even more fights but you also share so many deep and meaningful joys that its difficult to explain it to people without kids.
Its like trying to tell a blind person how pretty colors are.
You are missing the other guys point completely. Your experience around this is irrelevant, it is one data point in a see if experiences. Kids absolutely do change a marriage. I have two young ones. My wife and I work very hard to find time for the two of us but the vast majority of our time is spent co-parenting when we aren’t working or sleeping. Like 99% of it. To insinuate that this would not have a problematic effect on certain types of marriages and personalities is just bonkers. Sure it is not the actual kids fault but it certainly the impetus of “kids” can absolutely make a certain type of marriage degrade. What kind? Probably the kind that shouldn’t have had kids in the first place or has them too early.
Missing the big picture.
Social dominance, somewhat cooperative, is actually the point of life.
Anything else is like a child rebelling with drugs or perverted stuff, which does not fulfill you as much. I am sure people find many reasons to complain about the responsible life. These do not mean a life of perversion and irresponsibility is the right choice for your holistic well-being.
Almost everyone would vote to lock up nihilistic pleasure-seekers. This should tell you something about the social experience awaiting people who do this.
Working with people like this more or less amounts to a libel lawsuit for them wasting your time with bad faith.
Ahhh yes... I totally get the point of “social dominance, somewhat cooperative, is actually the point of life”. How could I have missed this $hitty fortune cookie translation.
highhoppingworm wrote:
Ahhh yes... I totally get the point of “social dominance, somewhat cooperative, is actually the point of life”. How could I have missed this $hitty fortune cookie translation.
You sound studied.
I guarantee this is correct. Your wisdom amounts to swearing on an internet forum, so I doubt you've developed enough to even coherently disagree, not to mention form your own idea.
Nothing, no experience or trip or expensive meal or beach vacation or party available to the childless couple couple can match the joy of love between a parent and their child.
I am sorry but its true. Sure childless couples can lead happy and meaningful lives, but they can never have this rich sense of deep commitment, love and sense of purpose that occurs between a parent and child. No amount of money can make up for that.
End of thread.
The Clown Show wrote:
semantic antic wrote:
......but then kids came and took over their lives....
........also compromise your ability to create your own life and affect other important relationships........
Kids are definitely not for everybody and if anybody believes the two statements I picked out of your post I'd say they are not supposed to have kids either. Regardless of what your life was before kids, the moment you do have kids your life becomes about those kids. It's definitely different, it's definitely tough (if done right) but there isn't a single moment I'd want to go back to life without my children. They've given my life meaning, purpose and drive. I live for them.
To be honest I’d feel a lot pressure, guilt and just embarrassment for my parents if me being born is what gave their life purpose, meaning and drive. If they continue to live...for me. Great, so my parents are depressed cynics who might as well kill themselves because life is pointless with a spawn out to think about?
I feel good knowing my parents intentionally chose to conceive me when they did, but beyond not being an “accident”, I would hate knowing my existence is all that stands between them and a purposeless life. I also didn’t ask to be born and would never foist that onto a human either. That was my presumptive of them and I’ve told them as much, but what’s done is done.
dad of three. wrote:
Nothing, no experience or trip or expensive meal or beach vacation or party available to the childless couple couple can match the joy of love between a parent and their child.
I am sorry but its true. Sure childless couples can lead happy and meaningful lives, but they can never have this rich sense of deep commitment, love and sense of purpose that occurs between a parent and child. No amount of money can make up for that.
End of thread.
Not gonna lie, your posting on this thread does reek of insecurity with your decision to have children. You’re projecting amounts of money as the alternative meaningful life option opposite of having children. And you’ve also indicated you do have kids- so how could you even know others without kids suffer lesser senses of commitment, love or purpose? I know if my dad was desperation seeking confirmation on a running message board that raising me and my siblings was the right move, I’d be more than a little concerned about an impending divorce/new single dad on the horizon.
dad of three. wrote:
Nothing, no experience or trip or expensive meal or beach vacation or party available to the childless couple couple can match the joy of love between a parent and their child.
I am sorry but its true. Sure childless couples can lead happy and meaningful lives, but they can never have this rich sense of deep commitment, love and sense of purpose that occurs between a parent and child. No amount of money can make up for that.
End of thread.
Rough week? Hang in there buddy.
dad of three. wrote:
I am sorry but its true.
For you.
Try to understand that not everyone feels or reacts the same as you.
For a lot of people, children give "meaning" to their lives or make their lives "better." They would possibly lack a sense of purpose without them. You could argue this is selfish, coupled with the fact that they're bringing someone into the world without a choice or their consent to do that. But they would probably counter that with "life is a gift," or something. However, you could also argue that raising a child well is an unselfish/selfless act. I would agree with either perspective there.
Giving life meaning is an important thing for humans because we seek an intrinsic purpose. A purpose can be hard to find but having a child can certainly fill that void. Once we hit 40, it's pretty much--been there, done that as far as experiencing life. However, there are ways besides having your own children to fulfill that void of needing a purpose. When we're young, things such as running can give us purpose. The fact we don't know where we are headed and are establishing our way of life provides uncertainty and excitement simultaneously. That excitement can be lost in the mundane nature of existence. Other ways to feel a purpose are to help others in some capacity, which mimics the art of caring for a child of your own. So if you don't have your own child, you can perhaps spend time with your nieces or nephews or volunteer to help kids somewhere. Helping others young or old and volunteering can fulfill this human need to find a purpose without having your own kids.
Having a kid is sort of like running, it has it's ups and downs but unwavering commitment is key to being a competent parent. There's so much bad parenting out there-though every bad parent pretends they're super mommy on social media-the social media super mommy is a lot of times a red flag as it's selfish in nature (all about mommy). With this noted, I have immense respect for anyone who is an actual good parent, who genuinely cares for their kids and fulfills their emotional needs as well.
Ha. I think I am more responding to your incredibly odd sentence structure and incoherent writing. I literally don’t know how I would respond to the things you are saying because they look like they came from a some freshman year sociology/psychology random word generator.
Of course it is great if it works out. Not everything works out. There are no guarantees with kids. You can put in all the time and effort and love you got to them, but often it does not get them to succeed in life or have a great relationship with you. And there is no worse pain and frustration than that.
It’s like if you have a great job that you love, that pays well and brings you a lot of satisfaction, and not understanding how anyone else could hate working.