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.
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.