An April First Deliberation (not fooling)

[drwex]

gatopretopointed to this article in Open Salon: Does Having Children Ruin Your Life?

The original article is pretty good, and many of the follow-up comments are pretty insightful.

I'm blogging this in part so I can record my reply, which I first put in a comment to his entry. The following will probably make more sense if you've read the original:

Does Having Children Ruin Your Life?

Mu. Having children means you no longer have the life you had before. You have a new one now. It's passage through a singularity, movement from the tribe of not-children to the tribe of have-children.

One woman told me that while she loves her kids and would never unwish their existence now that they’re here, if she had known what parenthood was like before she had kids, she wouldn’t have done it.

True. I've referred to parenthood as a Faustian bargain, and particularly grown to sympathize with the parts in Faust where he regrets the bargain he made.

...it was almost entirely 1s and 10s afterwards.

True. Particularly true with first children, when every experience is new.

while she generally feels satisfied and happy, at least once a week she wants to abandon her husband and kids and just run away from her life.

True. I have the same feelings and I'm pretty sure Pygment does, too. Parenting doesn't have vacations, generally, though if you're of a sufficiently privileged class you can get someone else to do the parenting while you escape for some amount of time.

The parents I know seem, as a general rule, to be less happy than the non-parents. They are more stressed out, more exhausted, more worried, less fun, less funny, and much more interested in their personal/familial lives than the outside world – at least compared to those without children.

True. See above about Faustian bargains. You give up that externally visible joy for things that the outside world doesn't see. Let me tell you there is NOTHING IN THIS WORLD like the sound of _your_ six-year-old making 'graaargghh!' sounds as he tries to emulate a zombie. The non-parent tribe doesn't see things this way.

I just don’t get it. I’ve never understood it. It truly mystifies me why anyone would want to have children. And I really want to understand.

Why do people drink coffee? It's vile disgusting stuff that has to be doctored heavily to be even vaguely palatable. Why do people eat live bugs? All that mystifies me, too. But I accept that people do it and think it's a good and wonderful thing. Dear lord there are people who SEEK OUT durians! Compared that, child-rearing seems utterly sane.

That said, if you don't want to have kids then please don't. Really. Just don't.

Why have kids when it looks so bad?

Because it's the greatest adventure anyone can embark on. It's a bigger challenge than Everest and has rewards that are literally incomparable to anything else on earth. Because some of us like the idea of family including small growing people and helping them develop into whomever they're going to be. Because we feel the same sort of urges that salmon must feel as they swim against the currents.

It's almost a nonsense question - why do some people believe in God? Um, because they do? Because they can't imagine a world without some incarnation of supernatural Divine? Having kids - or rather the decision to have kids - is a lot like that. You make a mystical leap of faith, believing in something outside of and better than yourself.

(Oh, and the commenter who said that it was like trying to explain sex to a virgin - yeah, that too.)

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

#include love_black_coffee.h

Now, with that out of the way, the answer to the question:

Why have kids when it looks so bad?

...is: there is no other point to life. Any enjoyment you get from life unrelated to that is gravy.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Well, I think for folks without kids, there is a point to life. I wouldn't say my life is pointless, but compared to being a huge influence in the life of a child, sure, the points in my life may seem less meaningful. To you, perhaps, but not to me.

I will also say that the craziness is totally worth it, and I don't have kids, but I have 9 nieces and nephews and I can only imagine how much prouder and happier I'd be of my own children. My heart bursts for them and they're not even my kids!

And, every few months I hate my job for a few days or a week, so what's wrong with every week hating your life for an hour or two? It's the same percentage of time, I think.....

As for the "why do people do....?" oral sex comes to mind. If you dissect it, sure, it's gross.

Also, every job can be dissected to have awful parts, so having kids...same thing.

And I'll note that even if you get away from your kids, your kids never get away from you. I can't get away from thinking about Tony every few hours, I can only imagine having kids, I'd think about them constantly.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I think the point he was making is about biology.

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

True. See above about Faustian bargains. You give up that externally visible joy for things that the outside world doesn't see. Let me tell you there is NOTHING IN THIS WORLD like the sound of _your_ six-year-old making 'graaargghh!' sounds as he tries to emulate a zombie. The non-parent tribe doesn't see things this way.

And since it's impossible to understand this before you have kids, you have to made the most important decision in your life with insufficient information.

Don't get me wrong. You know I'm not against children. But I just had to point that little problem out: the only way to know how awesome it's to be in it, and you have to decide to be in it without knowing how awesome it is.

No offense taken

[drwex]

You're completely right - that's why I made the 'leap of faith' comment at the end.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I used to go on at length about this. But now I let the icon summarize it.

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes. That icon is a pretty powerful argument to consider. The "not a spectator sport" bit is certainly something to consider.

it's good IF you know you want kids

[drwex]

I was perfectly happy to be a non-parent for a long time. I didn't feel a need to participate. I still respect those who don't feel the need. I'm just motivated to answer the "why" question posed by the original columnist.

[make-your-move.livejournal.com]

Well thought out and well put responses. I sometimes imagine my life w/o kids ... for about 30 seconds at a time, maybe once every other day or so.

*kiss* You and M are good folks, and good parents. Just wish you were closer to here.

[louiseroho.livejournal.com]

I second that "Wish you were closer!"

and thank you

[drwex]

it's a shame we don't have a real teleporter.

Thank you

[drwex]

...and yeah, it'd be nice to see you.

[dpolicar]

Honestly, I find this discussion puzzling. Have for ages (and Lord knows it has been going on that long).

"Why do people have kids?" is not quite the sort of question that can be answered by examining the world, but it's pretty close. Its cousin, "What beliefs/expectations/attitudes/demographics/etc. characterize people who choose to be parents, vs those who don't?", OTOH, is a perfectly researchable question. For all I know, any number of researchers have asked it; hell, for all I know there's a well-established set of answers with data to back it up.

This is no different than how we explore questions like "Why do people start smoking?" or "How do reasons for having sex for the first time differ between people who first have sex at age <15 and those who first have sex at age 17+?" or any number of other things.

But I'm perpetually left with the sense that, when people (including the woman who wrote the post you link to, and her commenters) have the discussion, they don't mean that question. If someone came along with the results of a 50-year study looking at what motivates people to have children, I don't think any of them would go "Oh, cool, someone answered the question!".

It seems more like the question being discussed is, rather, "Why is having kids a good thing?" (or in some cases, "Why is having kids not a good thing?")

Which is fine; that's a perfectly good philosophical question, and like many good philosophical questions the purpose of asking and answering it is to clarify what one considers important and how one wants to think about those things. One can answer on long-term utilitarian grounds ("evolution is not a spectator sport") or deontological grounds ("there is no other point to life") or any number of other grounds, and that's great. None of those are "the right answer", nor is it reasonable to expect them to be.

But I keep being puzzled by the conversations. It often seems to me that there's a deep confusion underlying them about what kind of question is being asked, and what kinds of answers are desired.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

"What beliefs/expectations/attitudes/demographics/etc. characterize people who choose to be parents, vs those who don't?"

For one thing, people desiring zero or one child and ensuring equal outcomes among children tend to fervently defend the teaching of evolution in school. Creationists OTOH have lots of kids and send them out for football and other forms of ruthless competition. The contrast baffles me.

I think that's not quite the question

[drwex]

I think the question, reframed, is "Given all that observe that is negative about parenting, why is there such enormous social pressure on women (and me) to parent?"

I don't think the question of what characterizes those who do parent would be answerable because it assumes that parenting is a voluntary choice. Given that 70% of children in the US are unplanned(*) that's not really relevant.

(*)"Unplanned" here is the broad category encompassing everything from "we never meant to conceive but now that we have we're forced to carry it to conception" all the way to "Well, we were thinking we might have a kid some day and this just happened."

Re: I think that's not quite the question

[dpolicar]

(nods) Yeah, I agree that that's often the question. Actually, I think there's often an assertion masquerading as a question, namely: "It's perfectly OK for me not to have children!" And answering a question that's really an assertion in drag is fraught with trouble.

As for whether one could meaningfully research the question of motivation to parent... I'm not convinced, but I'm content to disagree.

[tigira.livejournal.com]

Let me tell you there is NOTHING IN THIS WORLD like the sound of _your_ six-year-old making 'graaargghh!' sounds as he tries to emulate a zombie. The non-parent tribe doesn't see things this way.

Or taking part in Knock-Knock jokes as your son is trying to figure them out, or having the little guy ask for the song you sang to him as a NEWBORN, or having him crawl up next to you and snuggle and hug like like you're his own personal huge teddy.

I get it.

Of course you do

[drwex]

...you are of the parent tribe. :)

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

The first time around was a piece of cake. I went into it without hesitation. The second time has been rough. Nothing to do with the fact that it was adoption but more with the fact of my own personal life struggles and whether I felt I was fit to handle raising two kids. I did OK with one but it's been tough the second time around.

So, being the child of a divorced couple who spent much of my HS and College years glued to a computer instead of socializing (despite having the skills to easily do so with my peers), part of working on said personal struggles resulted in a reawaking of said extroversion. Really, really bad timing to say the least.

Working on that by connecting with other parents of similar age, hobbies and interests.

Still enjoying being a parent a lot. Boy is it a lot of hard work sometimes.

it's a square problem

[drwex]

Having had much more of a struggle with our own second I'm convinced that two is not twice as hard, it's four times as hard.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I have never wanted to have children. Never. And yet I understand why people do. I've been a teacher and a therapist, and both of those professions perform some parenting functions.

Watching somebody grow has got to be one of the coolest things there is. Watching somebody grow while knowing that you had something to do with their growing -- god, that's what "awesome" used to mean. Explaining something to somebody and watching the light go on in their eyes as they get it, and knowing that they'll always be able to do this thing you just taught them -- and they can even teach it to others -- that's pretty incredible, too.

It's the no-vacations part that makes me choose not to be a parent; I just haven't got the physical or emotional stamina. But I can certainly understand why people want to be.

It's my ambition in life to be an aunt -- one gets a few of the benefits of parenthood without having quite as large of a time commitment while knowing that one is giving the parents a much-needed rest, to boot.