Good stuff. Sounds like anything, there are pros and cons. I guess I can see how this puts stress on marriages.
Good stuff. Sounds like anything, there are pros and cons. I guess I can see how this puts stress on marriages.
There has been a lot of good advice shared thus far, I'll add my own experience. I never wanted to have kids, but I have an 18 month old son with my wife. We were very fortunate that he has always slept well, rarely cries, and likes to play independently as well as with other kids. On the other hand, we have friends with children that cry constantly, will not leave their side, and do not sleep well. This has little to do with how you parent and is mostly luck of the draw (my wife would argue that nutrition, consistency, etc. helps).
I have also been fortunate that motherhood has suited my wife and she spends more time managing the day to day duties of having a child than I do. I'm enjoying introducing things to my son that I also enjoy like soccer, golf, cars, etc. It has gotten better consistently and I expect it will stay that way until he is a teenager than I imagine it will slide back a bit.
Just my $.02.
Anon wrote:
Just my $.02.
it's worth -$.02 cents
I don't have kids but my sister does. Two great girls, they've been wonderful and any parent would be proud to have kids like them. Her and her husband are very devoted to them and they are awesome parents. One day when I was talking to her after one of them was giving her a hard time about something she said to me "you will never know how lucky you were to not have kids."
It's a tough job and no question, some days can be pretty miserable.
Maybe your son could teach you how to use the internet so you stop double posting.
Boo-yah.
My first kid is about 10 months, and it's been amazing. Granted she is a very easy baby, so I've got it pretty good. She's been a good sleeper and is happy most of the time.
My first week my wife and I were frazzled and we felt clueless, but things got better from there really fast.
The first smile was great. The first laugh was better. Now she's learning to sign which makes life even easier.
She crawls to the edge of the stairs and squeals with joy when I get home from work.... have to say it's a nice way to be greeted.
The next one may be tougher, but I love being a dad.
father of an 8-week old, so i'm in the thick of it. about a month or two before the birth i got pretty anxious about the impending loss of freedom. found myself drinking an extra beer or two (which i didn't need) on weekend nights to savor my last moments of "freedom."
and i was more free then, but i don't look back with any regret. our son is i would say middle of the road in difficulty... he sleeps great some nights, and is a complete disaster other nights. he started smiling at me two weeks ago and there is nothing better in the world than seeing your boy smile at you while you change him or bounce him on your lap. it makes all the difficultly worth it. and i never could have understood that until i heard him cry for the first time the day he was born.
i'm running a fraction of the mileage, sleeping a fraction of the hours, and not able to devote as much to work as i could 2 months ago. but having a kid is sort of like you just found a new room in your house that you never knew about. you don't miss the other rooms while you're spending more time in the new room. it's all additive and you don't feel regret.
it's really hard, and it's also really fun. it's all the worst things you've heard about it and all the best things too.
a panther! wrote:
... after hearing your whole life about the miracle of halving children. ...
This is a serious medical procedure and should only be done by surgical specialists. It is indeed a miracle. I'm sorry those children had to be halved.
I feel the need to speak up here since I'm someone who never wanted kids, didn't have any, and have never regretted not having them. I am now 59 years old, and having been child-free this long (a term that used to be in vogue to emphasize the many positives), I don't think it's likely I am suddenly going to wake up one day and rue the fact I did not. For whatever reason, I was just never interested from the emotional or life-satisfaction rewards standpoint in having kids. The desire was just never there to begin with. When the subject did come up for some reason, the logic people presented was unconvincing to me, and still is.
The question of having kids or not is interesting, because everyone is an experiment of one. Once you've had kids, you can't go back and then not have them to compare. All we can do is listen to each other, and to our own hearts, and make our own decision.
I would say to younger adults who are either very unsure or seriously considering not having kids: Don't let yourself be pressured, or be too swayed by the argument that it is the most ultimately rewarding experience of human life. No doubt it is for many people. But some people just aren't built that way, at least speaking for myself. There are many other things to explore in life. It has given me great satisfaction and been highly rewarding in so many ways to have the freedom to do so that I very likely would not have had otherwise.
Take your time, think it over, feel it all the way through. I know people who do regret having had kids, and said they did so "because it was the thing to do," or never really thought about it and went with the prevailing current. Years later they now wish they hadn't and some have said they envy me.
Right now the planet is plenty populated with humans, the oceans overfished, and there is significant ecological devastation in many parts of the world, including the West. We and the planet both could probably use a breather from having so many babies. But even if one disagrees with those assessments, since there are already so many following the biological impulse to have kids, there is no danger whatsoever of not perpetuating the species. That's a red herring.
There will always be far more people wanting to have kids than not, so if you don't want them, feel confident in your own decision not to have them, and live your life as you see fit. I agree with the person above who questioned how unselfish it really was to have kids because of it pulling one out of their own self-absorption. From another standpoint, having kids is completely selfish because in doing so you are perpetuating *your* own genes, and no one else's.
P.S. I should add that in saying having kids is selfish in terms of perpetuating one's own genes, that's when viewed from that level. It is obviously also unselfish on another level. I just don't think the selfish/unselfish criterion is a very good one for deciding the merits of whether to have kids or not. That can be argued every which way from Sunday and never really resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Another red herring.
No kids, right decision for me wrote:
I feel the need to speak up here since I'm someone who never wanted kids, didn't have any, and have never regretted not having them. I am now 59 years old, and having been child-free this long (a term that used to be in vogue to emphasize the many positives), I don't think it's likely I am suddenly going to wake up one day and rue the fact I did not. For whatever reason, I was just never interested from the emotional or life-satisfaction rewards standpoint in having kids. The desire was just never there to begin with. When the subject did come up for some reason, the logic people presented was unconvincing to me, and still is.
The question of having kids or not is interesting, because everyone is an experiment of one. Once you've had kids, you can't go back and then not have them to compare. All we can do is listen to each other, and to our own hearts, and make our own decision.
I would say to younger adults who are either very unsure or seriously considering not having kids: Don't let yourself be pressured, or be too swayed by the argument that it is the most ultimately rewarding experience of human life. No doubt it is for many people. But some people just aren't built that way, at least speaking for myself. There are many other things to explore in life. It has given me great satisfaction and been highly rewarding in so many ways to have the freedom to do so that I very likely would not have had otherwise.
Take your time, think it over, feel it all the way through. I know people who do regret having had kids, and said they did so "because it was the thing to do," or never really thought about it and went with the prevailing current. Years later they now wish they hadn't and some have said they envy me.
Right now the planet is plenty populated with humans, the oceans overfished, and there is significant ecological devastation in many parts of the world, including the West. We and the planet both could probably use a breather from having so many babies. But even if one disagrees with those assessments, since there are already so many following the biological impulse to have kids, there is no danger whatsoever of not perpetuating the species. That's a red herring.
There will always be far more people wanting to have kids than not, so if you don't want them, feel confident in your own decision not to have them, and live your life as you see fit. I agree with the person above who questioned how unselfish it really was to have kids because of it pulling one out of their own self-absorption. From another standpoint, having kids is completely selfish because in doing so you are perpetuating *your* own genes, and no one else's.
The lady doth protest too much?
a panther! wrote:
I am in my late 20s and the wife of my friend just had a baby. Honestly sounds pretty miserable - he sounds so tired and looks awful whenever I see him. He barely sleeps, has trouble juggling work, and is constantly busy. Also his wife has gotten super bossy since. I never thought I would say this but seems like a bit disenfranchising after hearing your whole life about the miracle of halving children. For parents when does this start to get rewarding?
You don't want to be a father in your 20's. Use protection. You also don't want to be a skinny fat distance runner either. Get in the gym and lift. Use protection. Two simple rules every let's runner should follow.
a panther! wrote:
I am in my late 20s and the wife of my friend just had a baby. Honestly sounds pretty miserable - he sounds so tired and looks awful whenever I see him. He barely sleeps, has trouble juggling work, and is constantly busy. Also his wife has gotten super bossy since. I never thought I would say this but seems like a bit disenfranchising after hearing your whole life about the miracle of halving children. For parents when does this start to get rewarding?
It depends on what you find rewarding - different for everyone, but I suppose one thing common among us here is running, so here are some of my rewarding running experiences:
- First kid breaks 8:00 mile a few days before turning 6. I thought that was cool, but then all of his siblings except one that got to that age did it (so 6 out of 7). The "delinquent", now 11, redeemed himself and is now has 19:09 5 K on a loop certified course at altitude to his credit.
- You can tell your son he is not getting a drivers' license until he cracks 1:10 in the half, he grumbles some, then does it at the age of 16.
- You can run together as a family at a decent pace.
- Your three-year-old reminds you that you have not yet taken him for his run.
- You win masters prize money while pacing your 14-year-old his his first half. Next year, you still win masters prize money, but you cannot keep up with your son anymore.
The new parent "initiation rite" is tough, though. It was hard for me and for my wife in particular. But as was mentioned by other posters, there are tricks to the trade which we learned as we went along - nursing being one of them. It takes some time for a new mother to learn to nurse effectively, you need to be patient. Another is keep first things first - for us this included getting runs done and making sleep a priority. Take good care of your wife - it is harder for her than it is for you, she pays quite a price to be able to give birth to children. Expand your professional skills - this gives you better options for providing in lower-stress jobs. Overall, seek solutions, and you will eventually find them.
DiksOutForHarambae wrote:
a panther! wrote:I am in my late 20s and the wife of my friend just had a baby. Honestly sounds pretty miserable - he sounds so tired and looks awful whenever I see him. He barely sleeps, has trouble juggling work, and is constantly busy. Also his wife has gotten super bossy since. I never thought I would say this but seems like a bit disenfranchising after hearing your whole life about the miracle of halving children. For parents when does this start to get rewarding?
You don't want to be a father in your 20's. Use protection. You also don't want to be a skinny fat distance runner either. Get in the gym and lift. Use protection. Two simple rules every let's runner should follow.
I've stopped having sex with my wife to avoid pregnancy.
It's been about a year - now that is protection!
But as someone that is on the cusp and having pressure applied with many friends falling pregnant and others already having kids, I'm really struggling to find the motivation to loose my freedom.
My wife earns 3 times what I do (although I earn decent money) and we have discussed it would make sense for me to be a stay at home dad.
So I would loose my job, social life, sleep etc to look after someone else. That may sound selfish, but really that is where I'm at at the moment. Reading how rewarding it is to nurture new life etc really doesn't sell it for me. Currently we have a lot of freedom to travel where we want, and in general do whatever we want.
A baby seems like an anchor that would suck the fun out of your life.
GuyWithAKid wrote:
Anyone who says having a baby is rewarding/fun/amazing is COMPLETE LIAR. Some days it is - but most days it's a constant battle to keep up with feeding, sleeping, play, worry. It's the most stressful thing in the world. Person who commented about a 26 and 29 year old is a liar and has 26 years of repressing all the lost sleep and crying. NOTHING will shake your hold on life like a SCREAMING baby. NOTHING. Baby crying is legit the most over powering, all consuming sound in the history of the universe. It can't be ignored and just when you think it's at it's loudest it gets louder. Pretty sure Navy Seals Training uses baby crying as a method to stress out the entrants at night and keep them awake.
+10000000
You 2.0 wrote:
hmmm..... wrote:Children help to remind us that the world doesn't revolve around us, and that there are more important things than out own comfort and convenience.
The world doesn't revolve around us, just around what is literally the clone we chose to make of our own self.
Have kids if you wish, but let's not delude ourselves that this is some altruistic act that is paving the way to enlightenment.
exactly
Guy with 3 kids wrote:
GuyWithAKid wrote:Anyone who says having a baby is rewarding/fun/amazing is COMPLETE LIAR. Some days it is - but most days it's a constant battle to keep up with feeding, sleeping, play, worry. It's the most stressful thing in the world. Person who commented about a 26 and 29 year old is a liar and has 26 years of repressing all the lost sleep and crying. NOTHING will shake your hold on life like a SCREAMING baby. NOTHING. Baby crying is legit the most over powering, all consuming sound in the history of the universe. It can't be ignored and just when you think it's at it's loudest it gets louder. Pretty sure Navy Seals Training uses baby crying as a method to stress out the entrants at night and keep them awake.
I am not trying to insult you, but maybe you should get some counseling. I am serious. I have three kids and they have all strengthened my faith in life. Are there stressful times? Hell yes. Are their nights when I'm up and like WTF? Yes, but the will to love is much greater.
I'm not sure how you can say that "Anyone who says having a baby is rewarding/fun/amazing is COMPLETE LIAR." That makes me sad.
Look into counseling and see if it can help. Best wishes and much love to you.
Dude, save us your Bull$hit. You sound like Ned Flanders (who isn't a reflection of a real person). Know who IS more like a real person?? Homer Simpson. Ask HIM about kids.
That guy... wrote:
When my son was about three he wrote a letter about "Dad" and how great I was. I'ts still taped on the back of my closet door and I can't pass it without reading and smiling. He's 16 now. That's what is great about kids.
Great. What about the time he screamed for 4 hours straight in the middle of the night. Oh wait, the FIFTY times he screamed for 4 hours in the middle of the night? or the time he pooped all over your lap? Or the 100x time he wouldn't sit still for 2 seconds during dinner out at the restaurant? Or how he took over your wife's boobs from you for 3 years? Or the 10000x time you asked him nicely to stop playing video games, and he ignored you. Or the sex life he took from you because as parents you were both too stressed to care about one another?
Wait until he becomes a pill head and you have to bail him out of jail 20x and spend your life savings on his lawyers. Get back to us then, and hold on to that letter!
a panther! wrote:
I am in my late 20s and the wife of my friend just had a baby. Honestly sounds pretty miserable - he sounds so tired and looks awful whenever I see him. He barely sleeps, has trouble juggling work, and is constantly busy. Also his wife has gotten super bossy since. I never thought I would say this but seems like a bit disenfranchising after hearing your whole life about the miracle of halving children. For parents when does this start to get rewarding?
Tell your friend to suck it up and pretend he's enjoying the experience. That's what everyone does.