I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me.
At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety.
The sudden overwhelming obligation to provide care, comfort and security for such a vulnerable human for decades encompasses your being.
One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks.
And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury, the social norms for what a parent needs to do to be proper climb ever higher.
As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would career advice from someone who just landed their first job.
I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life, don't really start to emerge until after the first few years.
Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of parenting and you'll likely get a hearty chuckle out of them.
> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks.
It’s the opportunity cost of having children. When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you’re wealthy, you can afford to bring them with you, or better, pay somebody to watch them while you’re gone. The well-off middle class needs to weigh completely changing their lives.
And you don't think the destruction of the village and sharp decline in birth rate feed of each other? Individuals have outsourced so much to abstract "institutions" that they can't see alternatives whatever precarious and worsening services these institutions provide.
“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury”
I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?
> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak.
It probably true but even the well of who can afford to buy the village aren't having kids.
I think it has more to do with
1. cultural acceptance and lack of strict cultural pressure to have kids. Its unimaginable in India to not have kids by choice. Its not a choice at all unless you want to be pariah.
2. Availability of affordable widespread recreation that will keep you occupied. Affordability of lots of on demand TV, dining out, live music, internet, hobbies, travel ect.
I’m 40, rich, coupled, live next door to my parents and close to my inlaws, have plenty of free time. I have no kids and no desire to have kids. My girlfriend is the same and plenty of our friends too.
I’m very happy for people who have children and love them to bits, but many of just don’t want to.
Delaying having children until ones' 30s also is a problem. After 30, fertility rates decline, and birth defects increase. You can't have a lot of children after 30, either.
Yeah. This has been the worst part. Neither of our parents feel the need to help with their TIME, but they will sporadically send us money after making us feel bad about asking. Meanwhile they had all kinds of help from relatives, in time, sweat, and money.
Part of the problem is that you don't get your full Social Security benefits until age 70, so for the one grandparent that is still working, they literally do not have the time to help. If they wanted to retire early, they would have to forgo what they perceive as critical $. Alternatively, they could sell their multi-million dollar home and downsize, but their egos could never handle that.
Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.
Of course it's not like this for everyone. Even for him it is not like this all the time :) but if you listen to the world around you there are these bits of beautiful life that appear here and there.
He says this at some point:
> That was the second thing Theo taught me. The first thing he taught me, at 430am in his first week, when he wouldn't stop crying, as a rage started bubbling up in me, was that no amount of urging, forcing, or frustration will get this tiny baby to do what I want him to do. All I can do is surrender and listen; find peace and meet him from a place of equanimity. Then maybe I'll have the presence of mind to change the wet diaper that was making him cry.
Ask yourself how many times per day do you take a moment to surrender and listen... If you do it (even without a kid) you will find beauty in every aspect of life. The thing about kids is that it can be so overwhelming that they give you no other choice. Of course you still have the choice of not doing it, and this can make you start building a lot of frustration against the kid, your partner, life itself...
Took me about 2-3 years to find my groove as a father.
Later I found out that post-partum depression is a real thing that fathers can go through. I went through all the stages of grief for my old life that I’d grown too attached to. Only when I’d gone through that could I actually open up to accept a newer, bigger life.
My son is 7 now. I love him dearly and am so grateful that I can be a father to him.
No, it certainly isn't. But it is a social sin to admit otherwise.
For me, it led to depression, therapy and medication. The first time in my life I'd experienced actual clinical depression. We do have a particularly challenging situation though. I'm always tired, ill, stressed, eat unhealthy, don't exercise enough. Being a parent is all consuming.
It has been getting easier as they get a bit older, and I love my children in all the ways a typical father does. I'd literally die for them. But a lot of the time I just do not enjoy it.
This was the most accurately description of first-time fatherhood I've read. It was a bit light on how debilitating constant lack of sleep can be but everything else: yes.
I would strongly encourage all fathers to become as closely involved with day-to-day care of their babies as possible. Don't wait until they can walk and talk.
I absolutely do not share my true feelings about fatherhood. They would not be viewed kindly or understood by most. Also, how I feel about things does not matter, at all. My obligation is the same regardless of how I feel. So I do my best to adjust my attitude and soldier on. This is just one of the many alienating and lonely aspects of fatherhood.
No. And that’s a bit of an issue - I’ve encountered people that plan to become parents and their understanding of the process is all wrong. Not saying that they’ll end up being bad parents - most people rise to the occasion, but it feels like society tricks people into having kids.
We have scientific evidence that parenthood floods your brain with all sorts of chemicals, and changes how your brain responds to stimuli. It’s a deeply rooted biological reflex. It may not be true for everyone, but it’s true of close to everyone.
>Surveys conducted over the last few years on representative samples in the US and Germany suggest that the percentage of parents who regret having children is approximately 17–8%.
I’ll throw in another anecdata point (more than one as I have multiple children): I found them to be mostly logistical burden for the first few months he is writing about, but my love fully developed over the years. Don’t give up hope if you’re not feeling it instantly!
I'm also very concerned about self-selection bias for the positive stories like this. Ideal would be an aggregate of fathers anonymously reporting satisfaction vs those reporting dissatisfaction with their choice of having kids , and then (male) non-fathers reporting satisfaction vs dissatisfaction with having kids.
Better not being much into kids and being free to not have any than being forced to and hating them for the rest of their lives. Spoken as someone who grew very close to such scenario (the second).
Don't get me wrong I couldn't imagine life without them, don't regret them, and I care for their well being deeply, but it certainly was not (and still is not at 5 and 3 years old) this overpowering feeling of love.
To speak plainly, I wasn't terribly interested in my son until he turned 3 years old. Then he started talking, started developing a personality with interests of his own, and fatherhood then became much more interesting. But I was intentionally quite uninvolved in those very early years. I don't regret this, don't see how else it could have been, and indeed I feel that some degree of fatherly aloofness towards infants is natural.
The answer is certainly "no". But does it matter? I guess it does in this age - after decades of social conditioning that parenthood is not much but an individual's lifestyle choice.
All this leading to worsening of social cohesion at all levels, inability to think beyond one's lifetime, extreme self-absorption, decrease in hope, demographic collapse across the world.
Not for nothing humans developed social pressure for parenthood: why would most humans willingly choose to give up their selfs for others over decades (if not lifetime)? Even laws/sanctions don't work if you don't morally know what is the right path.
It's f*cking hard work, for those in any doubt. It's the most difficult web server config file you've ever to edit at 4am to resolve some production outage, for years, without any hope of let up. Is it rewarding, yes, but it's a duty and there's no backup or timeout, you get to experience this 24/7 for at least a few year while they're young.
Fatherhood transforms men. Becoming a father was by far the most transformative event of my entire life so far. This is the common refrain I’ve heard. Of course, you also have to live up to the vocation.
I became a father after 51 years of avoiding it and avoiding children.
It has changed my life and enriched it in ways I could not have imagined before.
I monitored myself and my internal state as closely as I am able from learning that my partner was pregant until a few months after the birth. I could not detect the slightest difference in my mind, but I have gone from strongly disliking children to being a loving dad who enjoys being around kids. I am really enjoying it.
It feels like a whole section of my biological programming has been unlocked and while I couldn't feel it happening, I am now a different person, and a happier one too.
It has been the most life-altering experience I've ever had, and I've nearly died, I've had skeletal surgery while awake, and more.
Even if the other first timer is years ahead of you in parenting because they have an older child, whereas you have a newborn, they just don't remember the newborn stage anymore, and only went through it once. It is all a distant blur to them.
What a beautiful post. I've always had a difficult time explaining how having a child has fundamentally changed who I am to people who don't have kids. This captures some of that well. Thank you for sharing!!
It’s difficult to relate even to parents. But some days honestly feel like Christmas did when I was a kid, with all the potentiality. And the bad days have a sense of endless responsibility that can feel overwhelming.
My life in my 20s had too little meaning. Now, in my 40s, sometimes it feels like too much. I much prefer it to how it used to be, though.
“Finding babies funny is probably a useful survival mechanism for an overworked parent.”
Currently in week 5 of my own journey with my child, and the above is basically how you have to perceive things as you push through this early phase. Beautiful read, and looking forward to appreciating more as I’m less sleep deprived.
As a second time parent, looking back now, that is such a good advice. On the first play-through we second guessed ourselves so much. On the second time, we knew where all the good loot was hidden. :) we felt so much more in control. The truth is that a lot of details first-time parents try to control don't really matter that much or cannot really be controlled.
Well, there are Persian texts talking about c-sections more than 3 millenia old. So I guess if you adjust your timeline you can argue C-sections are also "how it has always happened" for some of us.
There is a high societal expectation that fatherhood (or motherhood) should look like the one in this article. Having had 2 babies in the last 5 years and observing most of our friends going through parenthood in the last 5+ years I think this is a very biased view that does not reflect reality.
My sample might be a bit biased as most our friends are PhD educated and in Tech or Academia.
My own observations:
- I was not terribly interested in our kids between ages of 0 - 2. This does not mean I did not fully participate in their life, but this was a muscle I had to exercise. I went to therapy as I thought I was somehow broken because thats not how people should feel. What I learned is that feelings are much more common than it is widely accepted.
- Once they started to speak, ask questions, and being more emotionally regulated it became very different. At this point I spend more time with my kids than my wife and generally love spending time with them, its almost effortless. Explaining things, buildings legos, became one of my favourite activities.
- Having daily help (live in nanny, live in grandparents) is an enormous help both from kids and relationship perspective. Seems like a trivial thing but if you do not have live in help you are likely to never be alone again as a couple for more than 24h (i.e. you can't go on a short trip).
Observations about my friends:
- Trying for a baby and being unsuccessful for years or going through multiple miscarriages can make couples extremely sad. You can reduce this risk by trying early.
- If your mental health is not amazing before kids it is likely get worse. This is about functional people that have mild mental health problems. Two of our friends developed severe mental health problems that in one case ended in a divorce and in second case multiple years of unemployment (father who was not primary care giver).
This were generally reasonable people that sought mental health help from both therapy and medicine perspective.
- The societal expectations that women should be super excited about motherhood is not always true. Within our friends group probably 50% women are less involved in raising their kids than fathers. Some (reluctantly) admitted that they don't really like how motherhood negatively affected their job prospects, bodies and mental health.
- If you do happen to get divorce with young kids it is likely going to be a life changing event. Situation has to be pretty bad to get divorce with young kids so most likely you will be better off but from the two cases we have seen this typically means severe financial burden and inability to sustain long term relationship afterwards. If you are a women and somehow loose custody there is also going to be pretty severe societal judgement against you even in very progressive locations.
It may sound as a little bit depressing view of parenthood but this is more reality check for those reading only the bright side. Overall, I am extremely happy we have kids and our relationship is stronger than it was before but thats not the case for everyone and it required work.
Well written, and very recognizable. I felt pretty much the same as the author at the time of my firstborn. The second kid's birth I don't even remember, haha. I can say that 8 years later the love for the children and my partner has only deepened. Family life is unrelenting and exhausting at times, but I'm one of the lucky ones with a fabulous partner and healthy, smart and fun kids-- until the teenage years change the picture all over again, maybe?
Reading this just re-confirmed to me that I’m not cut out for parenting. I’m glad he’s digging it, but my reaction to all of the little miracles he described was either rolling my eyes or thinking “that sounds terrible”.
As a fellow first-time parent with a 1 month old at home this captured a lot of feelings that I’ve experienced recently. Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful article
It’s surreal, for sure, but I would like the drugs this guy is on. I can’t wait till they’re off to college when I’m 58 and I can program full bore again.
Nice post, new babies are really magical. There are so many more transformations coming! Now that I have two, one of them coming up on age 4, so many new things make sense. You don’t immediately get the sense of the father/son discipline dynamic when they’re infants. You watch someone go from “perfect” to perfectly
human. A little angel to a little man. The first time your child hurts someone: that’s when fatherhood shifts into gear.
> And after a few minutes passed I started to...think
Gosh I miss the first-baby newborn phase! Thinking time is dramatically cut in little-kid phase; but hey, tricycles and legos and Playdough!
You’re in it now friend! Keep writing and hang in there, it’s a life-long occupation!
I have to say that nothing in my life compared to having children. I have a 15 and a 17-year-old, today.
I think the biggest factor was the shift in self-preservation instinct. Before my son was born, I had "believed" that I'd be the kind of guy who -- barring alternatives -- would jump in front of a bullet, sacrificing my own life to save my child.
But I'd been on Earth for 29 years at that point and during that time, one of the things that's sort of wired into you is "avoid, at all costs, the path of projectiles fired from guns." Though I recognized that this sort of thing doesn't happen to the vast majority of people in my position, I'd wondered whether or not that instinct might kick in should that occasion ever occur.
Shortly after my son was born, after the haze of sleepless nights ended, I realized something -- really, everything -- had changed. Replaying that scenario in my head, I no longer worried at all about how I'd react. I knew that there would be no scenario, ever again, where my safety would take precedence over that of my son (and later, my daughter). It wasn't the complexity of knowing I would have an impossible time living with myself if I survived and my son had died; it was like my brain had rewired a new instinct.
And as any parent with children of sufficient age has probably experienced, it was tested time and again, though thankfully in much less serious ways. I remember teaching my daughter to ice skate at age 5 and upon watching her lose her balance, watching as my body lurched forward and dove under her, clumsily catching her and breaking her fall.
"Watching" is the way I describe it because I don't remember ever having a thought in advance of doing it nor any control over my body once it had made the inevitable choice. There was no planning, no strategy, no honest understanding that a guy who'd never slid into first base, dove to catch a football or been skilled in any way when it came to sports along with not being particularly good in a pair of hockey skates[0] had a greater chance of injuring myself in the fall than my daughter had of injuring herself in five layers of padded cloth falling a couple of feet to the ground. I remember the moment I'd "saved her" in triumph and the subsequent feeling of defeat during the hours spent in the ER diagnosing my fracture rib.
I often compare the kind of parent I thought I would be against the kind of parent I ultimately became. I had put off having kids mostly due to my sister-in-law's 4-year-old terror (who turned out just fine). I would be the strong, stern Dad who didn't let their child misbehave. I would temper this by being the loving, affectionate Dad that my own was. And while I became the latter, I quickly realized how much more effective it is to call out and encourage the good behavior. I learned to have "sit downs" and discuss the bad behavior but to be gracious with it. I understood how poorly I reacted to negativity as a child and how discouraging that was to my success when I saw my son respond like I did.
Somehow, through a divorce and ensuing turmoil in my own life, I managed to end up with two teenage children who love nothing more than to spend time with Dad. We have a less-than-perfect parenting time schedule that the laws in my state make impossible for me to change (despite my flexible schedule and my children's desires) but my kids would rather schedule friend time on Mom's clock and invite friends out with us on my time. My kids both call me every day after school and we talk, sometimes for hours. We play Fortnite five out of seven nights an evening -- a game I'd be unlikely to touch without them[1] but one I'm thankful that we "play on the same team" and use mostly for talking to one another over twelve miles.
I realized that up until about age 12, I could read their minds and understood them better than they knew themselves. Sometime in their teen years, I discovered that -- in some ways -- they are more brave, more honest and better children than I ever was at my best.
I remember thinking "I'm not going to push programming on them" because I really respected the fact that my Dad didn't push what he did on me -- he wasn't a programmer, but he supported my second love as if it were his own. And I remember how proud I was when my daughter signed up for programming class in 8th grade and yelled at me when I suggested she might enjoy "art" (her passion and offered at the same time) more "I'm NOT doing this for YOU, Dad!" That's my girl.
I think the biggest adjustment, though, is realizing that they are the entire reason I'm here. Every single thing I do comes with the question: "How does this affect them?" I might have looked at a man who behaved that way and thought "that's the kind of Dad I want to be" but I know there's nothing special about that with me -- it was a re-wiring. I fear my own death only in that I know how it would affect them were it to come suddenly in their young lives.
I, like most boys raised by stereo-typical "Family Ties" or "The Cosby Show" parents learned "men don't cry" and rarely had the temptation to do so until after they were born. Last month, "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" was released and I made it a point to get through it alone before watching it with my kids. I sobbed -- and I mean ugly cried -- through the whole thing sitting alone in my bedroom. I didn't do much better the second time with my kids[2]. I'm blessed that I've never lost my composure over my own life and its struggles but I can imagine how devastating and permanent losing one of my children would be.
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to have kids, I thought I had a lot figured out before I had them. There are few things I had more wrong in my life. Maybe it's possible for some to accurately imagine/prepare for the experience but I had absolutely no idea. I didn't have the arrogance to pray for the kind of teenagers I raised. My son and daughter both share so much of my brain, the way I process things and the like but they use it differently. When people say "your kids teach you as much as you teach them", that's what they mean. You watch your own struggles get adapted to differently, quite often better, than you did. My son processes things with deep empathy. My daughter errs toward logic and reasoned argument. More than a few occasions, I'm stuck thinking "dammit, they're right" and find myself demonstrating the act of apologizing. That's a humbling experience.
[0] This was a wet indoor rink and though I could handle myself OK on outdoor lake ice and was very proficient with inlines on cement or gravel.
[1] My gaming days are behind me, frankly.
[2] My Dad, who was -- in every way -- a stereotypical "He-Man" is exactly the same way.
That was a great article. It highlights many things I routinely hear in church about how God works through families. They and the books we read talk about how children are a gift that humbles us, starts transforming our character, and teaches us a lot. God uses children in big ways.
Recently, we’ve been reading Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes. Today we’re to discuss the chapter on Fatherhood. I was happy to see the author had learned a few of these lessons. Here’s a few for those interested.
Do’s include investing time in them, speaking tenderly, teaching them, setting an example, discipline where necessary, and especially praying for them. If they have Christ, and God intervenes for them, many situations day to day work out better than if left purely to human nature. My friends strongly attest to this with many examples.
Don’t included too much criticism (or too little praise), excessive strictness, irritability (esp “been at work all day!”), inconsistency, and favoritism. He gives examples of each hurting relationships between fathers and sons.
I thought those were a nice start. Character of Christ, putting the children first (love), and some specific tips. Lastly, we can be calm knowing God is in control of every step of our future. He just expects us to act on what we’ve learned a day at a time. He’ll only let happen what needs to happen for His plan for our lives and our kids’ lives. That’s comforting.
As someone who used to work with a children's hospital (on the EMR site but still) I wish we could find and kill the asshole who decided a myriad of childhood cancers was in their grand plan.
I was gonna say you must be new to HN, but it appears you’re not. I assumed the anti-Christian sentiment had finally driven most Christians away from here.
llm_nerd|1 year ago
At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety.
The sudden overwhelming obligation to provide care, comfort and security for such a vulnerable human for decades encompasses your being.
One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks.
And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury, the social norms for what a parent needs to do to be proper climb ever higher.
crystal_revenge|1 year ago
I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life, don't really start to emerge until after the first few years.
Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of parenting and you'll likely get a hearty chuckle out of them.
selectodude|1 year ago
It’s the opportunity cost of having children. When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you’re wealthy, you can afford to bring them with you, or better, pay somebody to watch them while you’re gone. The well-off middle class needs to weigh completely changing their lives.
627467|1 year ago
baxtr|1 year ago
People say it’s the cost. But what’s way worse is the effort and time you need to spend for every child.
A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly.
A couple can’t replace the village unless they have tons of money.
DAGdug|1 year ago
apwell23|1 year ago
It probably true but even the well of who can afford to buy the village aren't having kids.
I think it has more to do with
1. cultural acceptance and lack of strict cultural pressure to have kids. Its unimaginable in India to not have kids by choice. Its not a choice at all unless you want to be pariah.
2. Availability of affordable widespread recreation that will keep you occupied. Affordability of lots of on demand TV, dining out, live music, internet, hobbies, travel ect.
anon291|1 year ago
zemvpferreira|1 year ago
I’m very happy for people who have children and love them to bits, but many of just don’t want to.
2OEH8eoCRo0|1 year ago
Incentivize remote work so we can spread out into these cheaper and under served communities.
throwaway2037|1 year ago
WalterBright|1 year ago
wooque|1 year ago
ToDougie|1 year ago
Yeah. This has been the worst part. Neither of our parents feel the need to help with their TIME, but they will sporadically send us money after making us feel bad about asking. Meanwhile they had all kinds of help from relatives, in time, sweat, and money. Part of the problem is that you don't get your full Social Security benefits until age 70, so for the one grandparent that is still working, they literally do not have the time to help. If they wanted to retire early, they would have to forgo what they perceive as critical $. Alternatively, they could sell their multi-million dollar home and downsize, but their egos could never handle that.
llm_trw|1 year ago
Anecdotally the more kids in a family the more neglected the child. I can't imagine having more than one child a decade and raising them well.
mr_mitm|1 year ago
youoy|1 year ago
He says this at some point:
> That was the second thing Theo taught me. The first thing he taught me, at 430am in his first week, when he wouldn't stop crying, as a rage started bubbling up in me, was that no amount of urging, forcing, or frustration will get this tiny baby to do what I want him to do. All I can do is surrender and listen; find peace and meet him from a place of equanimity. Then maybe I'll have the presence of mind to change the wet diaper that was making him cry.
Ask yourself how many times per day do you take a moment to surrender and listen... If you do it (even without a kid) you will find beauty in every aspect of life. The thing about kids is that it can be so overwhelming that they give you no other choice. Of course you still have the choice of not doing it, and this can make you start building a lot of frustration against the kid, your partner, life itself...
mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
Later I found out that post-partum depression is a real thing that fathers can go through. I went through all the stages of grief for my old life that I’d grown too attached to. Only when I’d gone through that could I actually open up to accept a newer, bigger life.
My son is 7 now. I love him dearly and am so grateful that I can be a father to him.
munksbeer|1 year ago
For me, it led to depression, therapy and medication. The first time in my life I'd experienced actual clinical depression. We do have a particularly challenging situation though. I'm always tired, ill, stressed, eat unhealthy, don't exercise enough. Being a parent is all consuming.
It has been getting easier as they get a bit older, and I love my children in all the ways a typical father does. I'd literally die for them. But a lot of the time I just do not enjoy it.
moconnor|1 year ago
I would strongly encourage all fathers to become as closely involved with day-to-day care of their babies as possible. Don't wait until they can walk and talk.
mberning|1 year ago
exitb|1 year ago
rayiner|1 year ago
snthd|1 year ago
>Surveys conducted over the last few years on representative samples in the US and Germany suggest that the percentage of parents who regret having children is approximately 17–8%.
orzig|1 year ago
ricksunny|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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thefz|1 year ago
wat10000|1 year ago
mattlondon|1 year ago
Don't get me wrong I couldn't imagine life without them, don't regret them, and I care for their well being deeply, but it certainly was not (and still is not at 5 and 3 years old) this overpowering feeling of love.
tafka|1 year ago
A_D_E_P_T|1 year ago
To speak plainly, I wasn't terribly interested in my son until he turned 3 years old. Then he started talking, started developing a personality with interests of his own, and fatherhood then became much more interesting. But I was intentionally quite uninvolved in those very early years. I don't regret this, don't see how else it could have been, and indeed I feel that some degree of fatherly aloofness towards infants is natural.
627467|1 year ago
The answer is certainly "no". But does it matter? I guess it does in this age - after decades of social conditioning that parenthood is not much but an individual's lifestyle choice.
All this leading to worsening of social cohesion at all levels, inability to think beyond one's lifetime, extreme self-absorption, decrease in hope, demographic collapse across the world.
Not for nothing humans developed social pressure for parenthood: why would most humans willingly choose to give up their selfs for others over decades (if not lifetime)? Even laws/sanctions don't work if you don't morally know what is the right path.
Simon_ORourke|1 year ago
VMG|1 year ago
you don't have to sift through some indecipherable mountain of information to find a solution
you just have to provide some basic mammalian service like provide warmth or food in a first world country
it can be stressful but it's actually quite simple
halfcat|1 year ago
But also if you asked me, “what led to most of the goodness in your life?”, I’d answer:
Moments of desperation
binary132|1 year ago
epicureanideal|1 year ago
If anyone reading this is thinking about having kids, be really careful who you have them with.
lproven|1 year ago
I became a father after 51 years of avoiding it and avoiding children.
It has changed my life and enriched it in ways I could not have imagined before.
I monitored myself and my internal state as closely as I am able from learning that my partner was pregant until a few months after the birth. I could not detect the slightest difference in my mind, but I have gone from strongly disliking children to being a loving dad who enjoys being around kids. I am really enjoying it.
It feels like a whole section of my biological programming has been unlocked and while I couldn't feel it happening, I am now a different person, and a happier one too.
It has been the most life-altering experience I've ever had, and I've nearly died, I've had skeletal surgery while awake, and more.
youoy|1 year ago
> My mother came in with a great tip: when in doubt, ask second time parents, not other first timers.
So true in so many levels.
kazinator|1 year ago
hammock|1 year ago
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dannyfreeman|1 year ago
mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
My life in my 20s had too little meaning. Now, in my 40s, sometimes it feels like too much. I much prefer it to how it used to be, though.
shakes07|1 year ago
Currently in week 5 of my own journey with my child, and the above is basically how you have to perceive things as you push through this early phase. Beautiful read, and looking forward to appreciating more as I’m less sleep deprived.
anonu|1 year ago
My experience resonates with the authors. But certainly the experience ranges dramatically for different people under different life circumstances.
hipadev23|1 year ago
borski|1 year ago
Rendello|1 year ago
nazghoul|1 year ago
Also: “We all came out like this. This is how it has always happened. Insane.“
… I was a C-section :P
flpm|1 year ago
DoingIsLearning|1 year ago
mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
Nobody said it was going to be easy. They’re just venting after all. I just smile and nod.
saas_startup|1 year ago
My sample might be a bit biased as most our friends are PhD educated and in Tech or Academia.
My own observations:
- I was not terribly interested in our kids between ages of 0 - 2. This does not mean I did not fully participate in their life, but this was a muscle I had to exercise. I went to therapy as I thought I was somehow broken because thats not how people should feel. What I learned is that feelings are much more common than it is widely accepted.
- Once they started to speak, ask questions, and being more emotionally regulated it became very different. At this point I spend more time with my kids than my wife and generally love spending time with them, its almost effortless. Explaining things, buildings legos, became one of my favourite activities.
- Having daily help (live in nanny, live in grandparents) is an enormous help both from kids and relationship perspective. Seems like a trivial thing but if you do not have live in help you are likely to never be alone again as a couple for more than 24h (i.e. you can't go on a short trip).
Observations about my friends:
- Trying for a baby and being unsuccessful for years or going through multiple miscarriages can make couples extremely sad. You can reduce this risk by trying early.
- If your mental health is not amazing before kids it is likely get worse. This is about functional people that have mild mental health problems. Two of our friends developed severe mental health problems that in one case ended in a divorce and in second case multiple years of unemployment (father who was not primary care giver). This were generally reasonable people that sought mental health help from both therapy and medicine perspective.
- The societal expectations that women should be super excited about motherhood is not always true. Within our friends group probably 50% women are less involved in raising their kids than fathers. Some (reluctantly) admitted that they don't really like how motherhood negatively affected their job prospects, bodies and mental health.
- If you do happen to get divorce with young kids it is likely going to be a life changing event. Situation has to be pretty bad to get divorce with young kids so most likely you will be better off but from the two cases we have seen this typically means severe financial burden and inability to sustain long term relationship afterwards. If you are a women and somehow loose custody there is also going to be pretty severe societal judgement against you even in very progressive locations.
It may sound as a little bit depressing view of parenthood but this is more reality check for those reading only the bright side. Overall, I am extremely happy we have kids and our relationship is stronger than it was before but thats not the case for everyone and it required work.
Def_Os|1 year ago
parpfish|1 year ago
lproven|1 year ago
Until it happened to me.
jacknews|1 year ago
This. Although I'm not sure this merits my quote book. I would phrase it as "there's a big part of me that's someone else" maybe.
mpbart|1 year ago
RunSet|1 year ago
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36057840/
causal|1 year ago
jonstewart|1 year ago
nachox999|1 year ago
That's EXACTLY what I felt when my daugther was born
erulabs|1 year ago
> And after a few minutes passed I started to...think
Gosh I miss the first-baby newborn phase! Thinking time is dramatically cut in little-kid phase; but hey, tricycles and legos and Playdough!
You’re in it now friend! Keep writing and hang in there, it’s a life-long occupation!
tomcam|1 year ago
uhtred|1 year ago
mdip|1 year ago
I think the biggest factor was the shift in self-preservation instinct. Before my son was born, I had "believed" that I'd be the kind of guy who -- barring alternatives -- would jump in front of a bullet, sacrificing my own life to save my child.
But I'd been on Earth for 29 years at that point and during that time, one of the things that's sort of wired into you is "avoid, at all costs, the path of projectiles fired from guns." Though I recognized that this sort of thing doesn't happen to the vast majority of people in my position, I'd wondered whether or not that instinct might kick in should that occasion ever occur.
Shortly after my son was born, after the haze of sleepless nights ended, I realized something -- really, everything -- had changed. Replaying that scenario in my head, I no longer worried at all about how I'd react. I knew that there would be no scenario, ever again, where my safety would take precedence over that of my son (and later, my daughter). It wasn't the complexity of knowing I would have an impossible time living with myself if I survived and my son had died; it was like my brain had rewired a new instinct.
And as any parent with children of sufficient age has probably experienced, it was tested time and again, though thankfully in much less serious ways. I remember teaching my daughter to ice skate at age 5 and upon watching her lose her balance, watching as my body lurched forward and dove under her, clumsily catching her and breaking her fall.
"Watching" is the way I describe it because I don't remember ever having a thought in advance of doing it nor any control over my body once it had made the inevitable choice. There was no planning, no strategy, no honest understanding that a guy who'd never slid into first base, dove to catch a football or been skilled in any way when it came to sports along with not being particularly good in a pair of hockey skates[0] had a greater chance of injuring myself in the fall than my daughter had of injuring herself in five layers of padded cloth falling a couple of feet to the ground. I remember the moment I'd "saved her" in triumph and the subsequent feeling of defeat during the hours spent in the ER diagnosing my fracture rib.
I often compare the kind of parent I thought I would be against the kind of parent I ultimately became. I had put off having kids mostly due to my sister-in-law's 4-year-old terror (who turned out just fine). I would be the strong, stern Dad who didn't let their child misbehave. I would temper this by being the loving, affectionate Dad that my own was. And while I became the latter, I quickly realized how much more effective it is to call out and encourage the good behavior. I learned to have "sit downs" and discuss the bad behavior but to be gracious with it. I understood how poorly I reacted to negativity as a child and how discouraging that was to my success when I saw my son respond like I did.
Somehow, through a divorce and ensuing turmoil in my own life, I managed to end up with two teenage children who love nothing more than to spend time with Dad. We have a less-than-perfect parenting time schedule that the laws in my state make impossible for me to change (despite my flexible schedule and my children's desires) but my kids would rather schedule friend time on Mom's clock and invite friends out with us on my time. My kids both call me every day after school and we talk, sometimes for hours. We play Fortnite five out of seven nights an evening -- a game I'd be unlikely to touch without them[1] but one I'm thankful that we "play on the same team" and use mostly for talking to one another over twelve miles.
I realized that up until about age 12, I could read their minds and understood them better than they knew themselves. Sometime in their teen years, I discovered that -- in some ways -- they are more brave, more honest and better children than I ever was at my best.
I remember thinking "I'm not going to push programming on them" because I really respected the fact that my Dad didn't push what he did on me -- he wasn't a programmer, but he supported my second love as if it were his own. And I remember how proud I was when my daughter signed up for programming class in 8th grade and yelled at me when I suggested she might enjoy "art" (her passion and offered at the same time) more "I'm NOT doing this for YOU, Dad!" That's my girl.
I think the biggest adjustment, though, is realizing that they are the entire reason I'm here. Every single thing I do comes with the question: "How does this affect them?" I might have looked at a man who behaved that way and thought "that's the kind of Dad I want to be" but I know there's nothing special about that with me -- it was a re-wiring. I fear my own death only in that I know how it would affect them were it to come suddenly in their young lives.
I, like most boys raised by stereo-typical "Family Ties" or "The Cosby Show" parents learned "men don't cry" and rarely had the temptation to do so until after they were born. Last month, "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" was released and I made it a point to get through it alone before watching it with my kids. I sobbed -- and I mean ugly cried -- through the whole thing sitting alone in my bedroom. I didn't do much better the second time with my kids[2]. I'm blessed that I've never lost my composure over my own life and its struggles but I can imagine how devastating and permanent losing one of my children would be.
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to have kids, I thought I had a lot figured out before I had them. There are few things I had more wrong in my life. Maybe it's possible for some to accurately imagine/prepare for the experience but I had absolutely no idea. I didn't have the arrogance to pray for the kind of teenagers I raised. My son and daughter both share so much of my brain, the way I process things and the like but they use it differently. When people say "your kids teach you as much as you teach them", that's what they mean. You watch your own struggles get adapted to differently, quite often better, than you did. My son processes things with deep empathy. My daughter errs toward logic and reasoned argument. More than a few occasions, I'm stuck thinking "dammit, they're right" and find myself demonstrating the act of apologizing. That's a humbling experience.
[0] This was a wet indoor rink and though I could handle myself OK on outdoor lake ice and was very proficient with inlines on cement or gravel.
[1] My gaming days are behind me, frankly.
[2] My Dad, who was -- in every way -- a stereotypical "He-Man" is exactly the same way.
nickpsecurity|1 year ago
Recently, we’ve been reading Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes. Today we’re to discuss the chapter on Fatherhood. I was happy to see the author had learned a few of these lessons. Here’s a few for those interested.
Do’s include investing time in them, speaking tenderly, teaching them, setting an example, discipline where necessary, and especially praying for them. If they have Christ, and God intervenes for them, many situations day to day work out better than if left purely to human nature. My friends strongly attest to this with many examples.
Don’t included too much criticism (or too little praise), excessive strictness, irritability (esp “been at work all day!”), inconsistency, and favoritism. He gives examples of each hurting relationships between fathers and sons.
I thought those were a nice start. Character of Christ, putting the children first (love), and some specific tips. Lastly, we can be calm knowing God is in control of every step of our future. He just expects us to act on what we’ve learned a day at a time. He’ll only let happen what needs to happen for His plan for our lives and our kids’ lives. That’s comforting.
anonu|1 year ago
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