I think we need to have a tough talk about why it’s so much harder to have kids these days, but that would involve talking about wealth inequality and the death of the community.
One big one is that today’s parents put too much pressure on themselves (both individually and as a group) to always be supervising. Some parents don’t feel that they can leave their child alone for 30 minutes while they shower or clean, or watch TV, because we’ve built up expectations that everything is structured and that we’re supposed to sacrifice our individuality for the kid. Some recent research has shown that millennial parents are spending a lot more “hands on” time with their kids than any previous generation, rather than passive supervision like when kids are playing in the house while the adults do something else.
Plus there is a significant line of people who feel compelled to do high effort, high visibility shows of parenting effort: Instagram worthy birthday parties, more structured play and learning, high effort cooking of things from scratch rather than convenience foods, etc.
Finances (and working hours) are definitely a big part of it, but a bigger part is the shift in norms and expectations that we’re expected to be much more for our kids than prior generations.
A former coworker used to take leave when her kid was out of school. Kid was 10. I was a 10 year old “latchkey” kid in the 80’s, we’d get home, I’d make a snack for me and my 8 yr old brother. Then we’d ride our bikes until the streetlights came on, and we’d go home.
I’m not a parent. I don’t really think either her or my parents were “right” or “wrong”, but I don’t understand why that changed.
I don’t understand why that changed.
It’s easy to point at social media, and that’s part of it, but I think it’s probably the ubiquity of photos and videos, easily transmitted to others. Even those of us who aren’t on social media still send photos and videos of our kids to the grandparents, to cousins, to other friends and family. We’re constantly exposed to parenting highlights, which subtly shifts the expectations on what the non-highlight portions look like.
Yeah. Not having retired family in hood health nearby is an issue. Someone had to move for their career. Or died. Or is too fragile. Or still working.
Nearly need polygamy for the economic certainty.
My wife and I have 6 month old twins… we’re both only children too. We are so lucky that my mother in law moved to our town as soon as we told her. Both of my parents are disabled, and cannot assist. Also, my wife getting the 12 weeks fmla / baby bonding was fine, but not great. I got nothing for paternity leave from my office and took two weeks of pto when they were born. It was and still is rough. If we didn’t have MIL around, we’d be in a real tough spot…
The lack of paternity leave and shortness of maternity leave in (assuming) the US is absolutely criminal. I was lucky enough to get 4 months, and that was not nearly enough to get my feet fully back under me before returning to work.
The fact that you had to take PTO just to bond with your kid is upsetting and frustrates me because those first few months are so valuable, and I feel like dads often miss out on so much.
Support networks are so incredibly important to parents. Don’t have kids of my own, but am helping with my sibling’s kids. Babysitting and just general support split with my parents. Thankfully, they don’t need financial help but that’d be on the cards if it came to it.
Support networks like this, whether it’s family, neighbours, friends or some combination is almost mandatory if you’re not very wealthy. It takes a village to raise a child, after all.
It’s really straightforward to understand, there’s no “third places” for kids and kids are generally undesired in US society. It used to be, even if you weren’t religious, you had community because everyone in the neighborhood looked out for each other’s kids.
It’s a lot easier when you’re not outnumbered by kids and can swap with other adults, even if it’s 30 minutes to get a shower. Everyone is so isolated these days, it’s much more difficult to build support like that unless you are religious or have family involvement.
My street that I live on has twelve houses that front it, six on each side. Of those twelve houses, ten have kids, and nine have kids between 1 and 9 years old. It’s a real treat to be able to let the kids out, to share parenting responsibilities, to commiserate with the other parents when necessary, and to really just let the kids be kids. Sometimes there’s ten kids on the swingset in my backyard that is absolutely not designed for ten kids, or they’re riding bikes, or playing with chalk. It’s a real pleasure.
I bought the house 11 years ago. There were no kids. So we’ve kinda built the community. We’ve watched as houses go on sale, people come looking, and we would actually talk to them about our neighborhood.
So it’s kind of like the neighborhood that I grew up in at this point, and I really don’t think it was by accident. And I don’t think that my neighborhood is the only one like this.
Living the dream friend. I want that sense of community so bad. All my life I’ve lived isolated from others and it fucking sucks. My dad would always scold me: “go outside and play, get off the computer, blah blah blah” but like with whom? Glad your kids get to be kids. Cheers
I know, and I try not to take it for granted (although I do sometimes, because I’m just a guy). Until I was 10, I lived in a neighborhood where the houses were close together, the kids played outside, etc. Then we moved to a house on an acre and a half, which was huge in comparison to the like .18 acre property we lived on prior. You could fit five houses from my previous neighborhood on our lot. It was a beautiful home, great for playing outside – with just my brother and I. Not great for making friends in the neighborhood.
I tell the story often, but my wife is from a different place in Jersey than me, we didn’t meet until I was in my late 20s, a few years after my parents split, sold the house, and put that life behind us. One of her close friends got married a few years back, and beforehand, we went and I got to meet her friend’s fiance. We get to talking, and he tells me his last name, and it turns out they lived three houses down from me, but I had never met him because nobody went outside to play.
And it’s not to say we were homebodies. I played sports, I always was doing something, but it was also never less than a car ride away, which is isolating. So I don’t want my kids to live like that. They will walk to school when they’re old enough. They’ll walk downtown. They’ll throw rocks in the brooks that run through town. They’ll hang out under bridges. That’s important stuff to me.
I’m definitely not having kids for this reason, and many more. I’m doing I’d say okay right now. I’m stable ish. Why would I want to change that at all? I see my peers having kids and immediately they can’t afford to even go out to eat, and don’t have time to get a beer once every 4 months. They chose that, I don’t hold them against it, but why would I risk where I am for that?
Logically speaking it is definitely a hard sell. I imagine a lot more planning goes into having them these days, and the financial burden is considerable with all the other costs rising as well.
I only have one biological kid, he is 29 now. The other 3 are step kids. What I realized is that, for reasons probably too long to go on here, is:
- I am terrible with small kids, the younger, the worse time.
- Teenagers are easier for me to deal with
- I don’t get that “it’s worth it” or “this is the most rewarding thing” feeling. I feel like I should have never had any kids.when I am doing things with kids I am generally thinking “I want to do something else” not involving kids.
- While I am much better about it these days, there was a 10 year period where i dispised kids, with my spouse, at the time, not making the situation better. I don’t hate children, in general, anymore, I am still pretty ambivalent about anyone else kids.
That being said I love my kids, none of the above is their fault whatsoever. However,I totally get why people do not want kids.
It’s likely because you’re damaged and hopefully the generational abuse could at least improve with you
I actually, literally, have no idea what you are getting at.
Dropped your /s mate. It doesn’t matter how clearly and objectively wrong the silly braindead sentiment you’re shitting out of your mouth is. No one will assume you’re being satirical. Everyone will just take your words at face value that you really are just a backward troglodyte mouth breathing waste of skin. But I’m willing to give you the benefit of a doubt that you said the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard since last Wednesday in jest.
Mentally stable take on hating kids. Stay safe
Wtf.
The only people really thinking it’s “the most rewarding thing” are narcissistic psycopaths.
Nope, I love kids because they are so pure and that you can see how most people are good underneath all the shit. It’s tough to have kids, but it doesn’t contrast this whatsoever. Things go downhill fast for families where they don’t connect with their kids though, and for those that hasn’t had that, they will say things like you with vitriol because it’s hard to look in the mirror. Also, I happen to think it’s the most rewarding thing, but it’s maybe not everyone’s thing. But all people I met that hate kids have been abused even if they haven’t recognised it yet. The boomers were in my opinion really good at not perpetuating the fear and punishment as much, but for people in general to experience how grounded honest connected kids act we have a ways to go.
You should seek professional help.
I have a lot of professional help. Is that yet another trigger for you?
Oh no an american republican that thinks people are “triggered”.
I have a baby.
This is accurate.
I have twins.
Can confirm. totally accurate
At work, I was recently on one of the coffee-fetching breaks. Well, I actually fetched my trusty herbal tea. Then we met another guy at the coffee machine and they all started talking about how much coffee they drank. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that they were all addicted, because they had kids. And I just stood there with my trusty herbal tea, like yep, I don’t have kids.
I assure you, many of us were drinking copious amounts of coffee before kids, too.
I’m finding very little of this thread resonates with me. I have a toddler who I love and get to spend a whole day off with during the week. I still get to do my running, cycling, rock climbing. I get some reading done most nights.
I’ve mostly sacrificed video games and social life, but rock climbing is social and a happy child is far more rewarding than games.
There are sacrifices, but I don’t feel like I’ve given up my life. Is this because I don’t live in the USA?
It is because people are different.
Not living in the USA most definitely helps. The age of your kids makes a difference. My youngest is 16 months old and in his phase where he has no awareness of danger and sleeps like shit still and my gas tank is empty 24/7 by the shitty quality of sleep with the constant mental energy spent making sure he doesn’t kill himself. And that is when everyone is healthy.
I would litterally kill for them, but it is easy to understand why people feel like they do, especially with the current economic and societal context.
Maybe we got lucky with our kid’s sleep? I remember it was awful while my partner was on mat leave, but now they sleep through the night most nights so it’s usually other shit that’ll keep us up.
Were almost there. The oldest can manage herself for a little while in the morning and sleeps well
The youngest one is up at 5:30 - 5:45. It fucking sucks. And he still wakes up every other night.
6 more months and we should be over the bump.
Do you work more than 12 hours to make a basic income? I think that’d be a large difference between wherever you are and the US.
Nurse salary in the UK
It’s definitely partly not being in the US. Economically… it’s just really rough. Childcare for our one kid is nearly as much as our monthly mortgage. We make decent money but still have only enough savings to survive 2, maybe 3 months without income.
I still have plenty of hobbies, but like, because finances are tight, we only have one car in a very very car dependent area. There’s simply no public transit where I live. So all of my hobbies have to be at home, or after when my kid goes to bed, which is usually close to 9:30pm, leaving an hour, maybe two, for time to myself during the week.
curious if you have somewhere/someone you can trust the toddler with while you do those hobbies.
I found that having a support network (either personal through friends family, or socialized through the government) has a big effect on how miserable parents are early on.
Really depends on your support network, and that’s not USA specific. If you have help and your kid is easy going, then life can be a lot easier than if you have no help and your kid is challenging. Help can takeany forms, so yes childcare in USA is expensive and hard to come by, but involved family can help a lot regardless of where you live.
Its nice that you enjoy bein a dad. Do you and your other partner do equal parenting? Only One day in the work week with the kid sounds a bit odd. Maybe I am getting it wrong.
We both do 5 days in 4 (compressed hours) so we only have to pay for 3 days of childcare. I get to do fun things for a day with my kid, and the weekends are normal.
Ah interesting, sounds like a good model if you can find a good childcare. I think the comic refers to raising kids on your own without extra help. So it makes sense that there are fastly different experiences.
I am picking up more hobbies as my kids get older. I get into what they’re into.
If you don’t want kids, don’t have kids.
Don’t let family, or even your significant other pressure in to it.
I’m sure it is fulfilling for some, but some parents are carrying too much guilt to admit have a kid can lead to depression.
babies stop being that hard after a few years
We have twins, currently 11 months old. Even we haven’t been this degraded after the first 3 months. The first three were more surviving that anything else and to this day are the most challenging period of time I had to get trough in my life. After that it startet getting better. I even shower sometimes now.
My two year old has been two for the past 5 years…
I remember one time I had an informal work related sitting and my boss asked if I could come. I told him that I can’t because it’s my week to babysit the 2yo and he was “just bring him along, it’ll be fine.” So I took him along and then spent the rest of the night babysitting him because my child is a fucking force of nature. He doesn’t tire, he will go wandering, he will touch everything and he will throw anything he can get his hands on. So when his nap time came and I had to take him home my boss said “I don’t remember my children being that hard.”
And that’s when I understood that if you have no siblings you were a fucking menace as a child. Parents who have more children do so because they thought the first one wasn’t that bad.
Your boss also probably didn’t do as much of the child rearing.
That being said, I tend to try to push aside the tough times. They’re a given. I try to just remember the good times as best I can.
ok
Stop giving into social pressure to have children.
If you truly want to, have the resources, & you’re okay with making a lot of personal sacrifices, go for it.
But don’t do it just because it’s “expected of you” or anything else people say to try and guilt you into it. It will end up making everyone involved miserable.
It’s such a natural human function. In our super advanced society, it really ought to take as much sacrifice as daily bathroom breaks do.
The thing about kids is they make you notice aging. They grow up fast but you realize you still are too.
Hunching over in your 20s vs your 30s can be a big feel.
The first 3-5 years is incredibly stressful but it gets better as the kids are able to do more things for themselves and aren’t trying to kill themselves 24/7.
Yeah. I loved it when my kid got down to trying to kill itself (through sheer mind-bogglig stupidity, not intent) less than weekly. It really saves on energy, and makes bigger family adventures possible.
and aren’t trying to kill themselves
well…
I don’t even understand how people fine the time, energy, and most importantly money to have children. I can barely find all three to do my hobbies.
Oh that’s easy. When you have kids, you stop having time for those hobbies. So you don’t have to worry about spending money on them anymore.
The kid becomes the hobby. Children are fascinating, they’re always growing and changing, they present a host of new challenges, and watching them grow up is at least as exciting as watching my Gundam model collection grow or golf score improve.
them grow up is at least as exciting as watching my Gundam model collection grow or golf score
I adore my kid, but I’ll withhold a final verdict until I hear more about your Gundam model collection.
Fortunately, I’ve raised my kid well enough that they’ll laugh if they find this comment, and will also check for updates on that Gundam model collection.
Simple: the moment you have a child, you stop being the person who had hobbies and interests and become a parent, a single-minded organism that exists solely to make sure your children make it to maturity in good shape. Your Spotify Wrapped becomes Baby Shark, your guitar or mountain bike or whatever gets ebayed to make room for a nursery, and travel plans become fiction, written around a character who is no longer you, a stolid lump of responsibility.
This does not sound very appealing, tbh
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.
Maybe you’ll get it if I put it like this: I heard the comparison once that children can instantly create experiences that feel like rolling on MDMA.
Yeah I’m pretty sure “just take drugs” is going to win this one. Like for starters, molly only disrupts my sleep for like one night. And I don’t need to buy it a plane ticket to take it on vacation.
You can (or should) also only take it like once a quarter.
That’s a really weird metaphor. And I’m going to express some serious dubiousness.
Also, why would I want to be rolling on MDMA around a bunch of kids? Nightmare scenario.
I think they meant the feeling of bliss and love you can get when you’re on MDMA. Not the hyper sensitivity and all that.
Your Spotify Wrapped becomes Baby Shark
Or you can just play your music. Babies and kids still like regular music. That’s what existed before the hyper commercialized crap came into existence. Kids just listened to what their parents listened too, and as they grew older would start seeking out new stuff.
guitar or mountain bike or whatever gets ebayed to make room for a nursery,
Are you confusing a guitar with a whole band? They don’t take up a whole room last I checked. You can just, you know, move the guitar.
And I don’t know why you’re storing your mountain bike inside in a room but if you can’t find somewhere else to place a muddy bike than indoors I’m a bedroom, then yeah, I think it’s safe to say you can’t afford a kid at the moment.
travel plans become fiction
You can still travel with a baby. Should you? Well, not on planes. But after a year, you can leave them with a relative / trusted person.
Someone who has issues these badly with kids like you tho shouldn’t have kids, so we do agree on that however.
This is a weirdly hostile comment… That comment describes parenting experiences for a lot of parents. Is that the absolute reality of everyone with kids? Of course not, but kids consuming a lot of time and resources is absolutely true.
So was the one I replied to
Yeah my dad just played his music on long car rides even when we were pretty young. Mountain bike you can just get a kids trailer for that. Once they get a bit older they can have their own bike.
And start a huge fight every time you want to go on a bike with them, so after a few years you just give up and watch your body deteriorate as you turn into a couch potato.
Can’t even escape this by being queer - I’m mid 30s and about half of my straight couple friends have kids now, none of the queer couples do, and yet we’re still asked about it sometimes, it’s so odd.
Fortunately all my siblings have at least one now so finally my mum’s stopped asking…
I mean… in a way… that’s a win for equality
On one hand, kids are great. They can come with a ton of joy and rewarding experiences. However, they are also exhausting, expensive, and will sometimes push you to the point where you’ll seriously wonder if you made a huge mistake.
I have three kids and I love them very much. I wouldn’t want to be without any of them but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to have any. Being a parent is incredibly hard work.
It’s all a bit of a cope, deep down there is this primal call that isn’t easily shrugged off. Well for some at least. I know that it will get stronger for me and stronger with each year.
I am not saying the purpose of humans nowadays is to make children nor that we should be reduced to such concepts but… it’s not easy to escape millions of years of evolution. It is definitely going against everything that screams “multiply” deep down and that will take mental health toll
The only primal call I have is to fuck. I could not care less about actually having a kid as a result. If anything seeing how having kids has affected my friends ability to do so has made me want them even less.
Agreed. Never had any desire to have kids, still don’t. (The wife wants them, though.)
That said, when we had a pregnancy scare last week, my first thought was “well I’m 36; guess it’s time anyway”.
She was not pregnant. Which was relieving, because I don’t think it’s a wise decision to have children in today’s political landscape. That said, if it happens, it happens. I don’t think I’d have a meltdown over being a dad like I would have in my 20s.
That’s how the instinct works for guys. Then you have a little person to protect and it changes
Yup. Imagine a portable hype beast that loves all the same stuff you do.
Then you have a little person to protect
No thanks. I’ll watch out for other people’s kids if I’m around them but I don’t want to revolve my life around it.
As a parent to a little one right now… I can say that I rarely felt the “drive” to have kids. My SO was really let down that my initial reaction was anxiety over finances, for example.
That said, I don’t know if anything else could ever give me the kind of joy and happiness that just being able to love on my kid has brought me. If something happened to her I would be devastated.
But I also recognize that I’ve had to sacrifice a lot of personal freedom to be a good dad. I would never downplay that to “trick” people into wanting to be parents. It’s definitely a tradeoff, and especially difficult financially these days.
Simply - Misery loves company.
