It's not all joy and kisses
August 14, 2015 1:27 PM   Subscribe

A study of 2,016 Germans has found that, "on average, the effect of a new baby on a person’s life is devastatingly bad — worse than divorce, worse than unemployment and worse even than the death of a partner."
posted by clawsoon (199 comments total) 52 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, crap.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:35 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


The study is Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrskylä, Parental Well-being Surrounding First Birth as a Determinant of Further Parity Progression, Demography Volume 52, Issue 4, pp 1147-1166.
posted by jedicus at 1:35 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Having a child under capitalism ruins three lives.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:38 PM on August 14, 2015 [70 favorites]


I walked past a Planned Parenthood today and there were protesters outside. One had a sign that said "A baby is a blessing, not a burden!" These people are kidding themselves. A baby is a HUGE burden (take it from me, I have two). Whether or not you want to shoulder that burden is up to you.

I do think a big part of this, though, is that society extols parenthood through the media and then works really damn hard to undermine it. I'm not sure what the situation is like in Germany, but here in America between the lack of reasonable maternity leave, terrible healthcare and insane work expectations, along with an intense culture of judging parents, particularly mothers, it's not difficult to see why you'd conclude that it's best to just not bother.
posted by selfnoise at 1:39 PM on August 14, 2015 [87 favorites]


This is why we need hatcheries.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:40 PM on August 14, 2015 [37 favorites]


Is the study narrated by Werner Herzog??
posted by indubitable at 1:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [26 favorites]


"New baby" is kind of a shitty metric. Your life, its upside down. No sleep. There's this little person who has effectively five states (happy, unhappy because of a lack/surplus of _____) that comes with no instruction manual and cannot be reasoned with.

A baby screaming from the unfairness of the world (bed! darkness! chronic heartburn!) for more than fifteen minutes is fucking make-it-stop-right-now-smother-it unholy. New babies this is not so much a problem. When they get their lungs underneath them they are able to produce a sound that will inhibit rational thinking in a way found only marginally by experiencing ungodly heat.

Hauauahghghgahahahgghgh: it goes to your soul. It makes you a snarling animal. You have not been sleeping particularly well as this sound rattles you in the midst of the night if its not some terror whoop out of the nowhere into which it will retreat leaving you with a sleeping angel and a palpating heart.

On the whole though, worth doing which is why we're all here. For most of us it gets better. Its got its moments like roommates you can't shake for eighteen biologically nuclear years. I'm way happier tagging my kids around than whatever "adult fun" I did before which now seems like so much time wasted and less wholesome.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:45 PM on August 14, 2015 [35 favorites]


Yeah, okay, you're part of the problem... :-)
posted by Naberius at 1:47 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


The study describes the effect of a German baby on new parents. Other studies, such as that by Fälschung (2012), suggest that German babies are among the most difficult to raise in the world. Falsch (2013) suggests that this is due to their unquenchable desire for order that new parents have difficulty dealing with.
posted by vorpal bunny at 1:47 PM on August 14, 2015 [119 favorites]


My son is hands down the best thing that ever happened to me, and i've had a pretty good life.
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:48 PM on August 14, 2015 [25 favorites]


I'm not sure what the situation is like in Germany, but here in America between the lack of reasonable maternity leave, terrible healthcare and insane work expectations, along with an intense culture of judging parents, particularly mothers, it's not difficult to see why you'd conclude that it's best to just not bother.

But Germany has quite good maternity leave: 100% pay for 14 weeks, 156 weeks of parental leave, with 67% pay for the first 52 weeks. It also has a very good healthcare system and reasonable work expectations: an average of 34 days off per year and a mere 1,406 average hours worked per year. On top of all that, there's a very generous direct subsidy for parents.

And yet Germany's birth rate is 1.5 compared to the United States 1.88.

As an antinatalist I see no problem with this. Personally I think that the better people's lives are the less likely they are to upset a good thing by having children, especially multiple children. Having children is awful, and it's (relatively) more awful the better your life is before having children. I suspect it's so bad, in fact, that it would bankrupt a modern state to pay parents enough money to make it a rational decision to have an average of 2.1 children (the replacement rate).
posted by jedicus at 1:50 PM on August 14, 2015 [11 favorites]


Ha! My wife sent me a link to this study.

Yes, children are terrible and will ruin your lives. The damndest thing is, we keep having them anyway and love them in spite of the hell they put us through. Biology is weird.

I always wanted lots of kids. I have one. One is lots. I am content.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:52 PM on August 14, 2015 [20 favorites]


I'm pretty interested and well versed in this topic, because my (religious, conservative) upbringing excluded the entire concept of 'not having children.' It was never part of my thought-life (unfortunately). So I've seen this in a couple of other places, and actually searched out the study to read.

The study itself actually only quantifies this 'dip' in happiness that hits its low point as a child reaches 2 years of age, and slowly ebbs away after that…but it doesn't recover for years. I don't know why some of these news articles are framing the dent as permanent. It doesn't appear to be (for everyone at least), but these studies have not been conducted super long term either.

I for one, was pretty fucking miserable, depressed and really damn angry for the first…3 or so years of my kids life. I still battle with anxiety and depression surrounding parenthood almost daily, even though he's just turning 4. Things are slowly getting better, but I struggle with huuuuuge parts of parenthood; mostly the financial ramifications of it, but the social and mental-health issues associated with parenting aren't really a picnic either.

But I'm glad this is helping to put some of the myths about parenthood, happiness and satisfaction out to pasture.

Don't even get me started on the whole "there's no good time to have babies, you'll find the money!!!" bullshit line that seemingly everyone throws out there…its horseshit, and its not true. Don't lie to people. Stop it. Were it not for generous support from our families, my wife, son and I would have been homeless because we had a child.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:52 PM on August 14, 2015 [48 favorites]


Two seems like a weird cut-off point for the study. I just went to see my mum - she was pleased to see me, and I was pleased to see her.
posted by carter at 1:53 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Here's the actual study, if anyone wants to read it.

From the abstract:
A drop in well-being surrounding first birth predicts a decreased likelihood of having another child. The association is particularly strong for older parents and those with higher education: these characteristics may be related to the ability or willingness to revise fertility plans based on prior experiences.
posted by teponaztli at 1:54 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Of course, this study only considers the first couple of years after having a child.

If you remain childless, chances are much higher that you will die poor and lonely. Not to mention the effect that in developed countries like Germany, there is a reverse population pyramid, meaning that every young working person will eventually have to take care of >>1 senior citizen. Which may or may not lead to a complete breakdown of the pension system. Good luck with that happiness thing as an old person without children in that situation. Did I mention that you'll probably die lonely? You'll only have a 50% chance to outlive your partner. If you managed to hang on to a partner that long, that is.
posted by sour cream at 1:54 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


“Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler. ”
― W.C. Fields
posted by robbyrobs at 1:55 PM on August 14, 2015 [50 favorites]


On the other hand puppies increase happiness forever and ever. TAKE THAT, BABIES.
posted by erratic meatsack at 1:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [24 favorites]


Of course having kids is ruinous, but who's going to populate the future if you don't have kids? Other people? Other people are notoriously sketchy and ill-mannered.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [69 favorites]


Did I mention that you'll probably die lonely?

Nah, my sister has 3 kids, and I got the middle one to promise to take care of me when I'm old by assuring her I would also have a dog.
posted by amarynth at 1:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [37 favorites]


The study describes the effect of a German baby on new parents. Other studies, such as that by Fälschung (2012), suggest that German babies are among the most difficult to raise in the world. Falsch (2013) suggests that this is due to their unquenchable desire for order that new parents have difficulty dealing with.

We all know who else was once a baby, right?
posted by Kabanos at 1:58 PM on August 14, 2015 [27 favorites]


I'd imagine this says at least as much about Germany as it does about having kids.
posted by jpe at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


My son is hands down the best thing that ever happened to me, and i've had a pretty good life.

This is special pleading. Maybe it's even true, but parents are notoriously unreliable narrators. When asked directly about whether having a child has been worth it, they often say yes. But when asked more objective questions about their quality of life, they tell a different story.
Using data sets from Europe and America, numerous scholars have found some evidence that, on aggregate, parents often report statistically significantly lower levels of happiness (Alesina et al., 2004), life satisfaction (Di Tella et al., 2003), marital satisfaction (Twenge et al., 2003), and mental well-being (Clark & Oswald, 2002) compared with non-parents.

There is also evidence that the strains associated with parenthood are not only limited to the period during which children are physically and economically dependent. For example, Glenn and McLanahan (1981) found those older parents whose children have left home report the same or slightly less happiness than non-parents of similar age and status. Thus, what these results are suggesting is something very controversial – that having children does not bring joy to our lives.
This disparity is the result of a cognitive bias called anchoring or a focusing illusion.

Of course, this study only considers the first couple of years after having a child.

See above; it doesn't get better.

If you remain childless, chances are much higher that you will die poor and lonely

Ah, but if you create a child, there is a 100% chance that you have created a being that will suffer and die. And to do so that the child can be your caretaker or companion in old age? That is both incredibly selfish and a self-perpetuating problem.
posted by jedicus at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [118 favorites]


There's an easy fix for the each worker supporting > 1 retired people. Import more workers. This happens in places that people are actively trying to move to. Increase the labor force.

Of course, this will not happen until things are teetering, but the solution is right there.

As for kids, I always thought the principle was that kids decrease happiness but increase satisfaction with life. Can those with kids tell me one way or another?
posted by Hactar at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wonder how much insomnia and sleep deprivation accounted for how participants self-reported their mental health?

The current systems of putting the baby in a crib in another room must be contributing to the sleep-deprivation that is going to affect perception of one's mental health.
posted by Nevin at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


(I like my kids and don't regret them at all.)
posted by Nevin at 2:00 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Good luck with that happiness thing as an old person without children in that situation. Did I mention that you'll probably die lonely? You'll only have a 50% chance to outlive your partner. If you managed to hang on to a partner that long, that is.

Having kids isn't some sort of instant insurance policy for being taken care of in old age or in sickness. Plenty of people with kids end up in nursing homes and not visited by their children, which probably feels lonelier than not ever having had kids at all.

Families are whatever you define them to be. We all need all the luck we can get.
posted by mochapickle at 2:00 PM on August 14, 2015 [77 favorites]


This is special pleading. Maybe it's even true, but parents are notoriously unreliable narrators.

If this is true for parents who report feeling "happy" then it must also be true for parents who report being "unhappy."
posted by Nevin at 2:01 PM on August 14, 2015 [17 favorites]


"Children ruin everything. "

Actual quote I've heard from more than one parent.
posted by clvrmnky at 2:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Ha!

Try TWO kids!
posted by Artw at 2:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


As for kids, I always thought the principle was that kids decrease happiness but increase satisfaction with life. Can those with kids tell me one way or another?

For me, having a kid is a constant reminder that wondering whether I'm "happy" or "satisfied with my life" isn't really all that fucking important in the grand scheme of things.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:06 PM on August 14, 2015 [51 favorites]


If this is true for parents who report feeling "happy" then it must also be true for parents who report being "unhappy."

Perhaps, but that's one reason why researchers use more objective quality of life questions instead of direct questions like "do you regret having children?"

But moreover, it's not a symmetrical problem. There is a significant taboo against reporting that having children has made you unhappy. There is no such taboo (and indeed quite the opposite in most cultures) about reporting that having children has made you happy. The distortion only flows in one direction.

With particular reference to the focusing illusion: the child (or children) exists to provide a focus. There are no "non-children" present to give rise to a countervailing bias.
posted by jedicus at 2:08 PM on August 14, 2015 [11 favorites]


I still blame the nuclear family for it being so hard. You need a village full of people to pass that baby off to, because just one or two of you (plus occasional grandparenting) is NOT ENOUGH. I dreamed about that village when the kid was small. I might have made it to regular breastfeeding if there had been another breastfeeding friend or relative to keep the kiddo going while I figured myself out, or I had just been able to get more sleep. Never felt so alone in my life, even with the husband around. It's barbaric what we do. Babies are 24/7 need machines, but no one or two adults can do that without breaking down in some way. And yeah, you carry those scars.
posted by emjaybee at 2:08 PM on August 14, 2015 [96 favorites]


We all know who else was once a baby, right?
posted by Kabanos at 3:58 PM

MATHOWIE!
posted by symbioid at 2:09 PM on August 14, 2015 [15 favorites]


I swear, whenever mefite regulars convince me they are a terminally dismal group of people, something always arises to demonstrate that their usual pit of despair has no bottom.
posted by 2N2222 at 2:10 PM on August 14, 2015 [52 favorites]


On the other hand puppies increase happiness forever and ever.

You've never had a grown puppy now large dog with "the waters," I'm taking it.

That is not happiness. That is lots and lots of rags. Rags that must be dealt with like hazmat.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


I figure there'll be robots to care for me in my dotage. In the meantime, I'm gonna blow a kid's college fund on beer, hobbies, and trips abroad.

*makes it rain*
posted by echocollate at 2:12 PM on August 14, 2015 [19 favorites]


Yeah, well your mom was a baby once!
posted by oceanjesse at 2:12 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Other studies, such as that by Fälschung (2012), suggest that German babies are among the most difficult to raise in the world. Falsch (2013) suggests that this is due to their unquenchable desire for order that new parents have difficulty dealing with.

An English couple adopt a German baby. He grows up seemingly healthy and thriving in all regards, except that he never starts to speak. The couple take him to see doctors and specialists who can find nothing wrong with him to explain his silence.

Years go by and then one day they sit down to dinner and the child says, "Mother, this strudel is a little tepid."

The parents are amazed and ask, why, why after all these years of silence did you suddenly decide to speak?

"Up until now everything had been satisfactory."
posted by sobarel at 2:15 PM on August 14, 2015 [130 favorites]


You think having a baby is bad? Do you know what babies become? CHILDREN!!!
posted by Thorzdad at 2:17 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


Our first child's due date is tomorrow. This is just what I needed.
posted by gauche at 2:21 PM on August 14, 2015 [38 favorites]


What does "happiness" or "life satisfaction" mean, anyway? I suppose I should just read the damn study, but as a 40-something adult I've learned that life is not going to be happy all the time, and sometimes there is not much you can really do about it.

"Emotional resilience" would seem to me to be the better measure.
posted by Nevin at 2:23 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


Ogre Lawless: "You've never had a grown puppy now large dog with "the waters," I'm taking it.

That is not happiness. That is lots and lots of rags. Rags that must be dealt with like hazmat.
"

Right, so... teenagers.
posted by erratic meatsack at 2:23 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think most logical reasons for not having a baby are pretty absurd in the face of how much some people want babies and how you actually feel about a baby once it's born. A baby may not make your life better, but it makes you wayyy more intense in some ways that are fascinating and important. I am cool with my easy breezy child-free life for the moment, but even taking care of my little niece and nephews who I am merely related to is some weird primitive bio-potion.
posted by easter queen at 2:23 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Before I had children everyone was looking at me, expecting something, especially my idiot parents; now the heat's on the little people and I just drinking.
posted by colie at 2:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [22 favorites]


Congratulations though gauche. Seriously!
posted by echocollate at 2:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [16 favorites]


You think having a baby is bad? Do you know what babies become? CHILDREN!!!

And teenagers are basically the worst roommates ever. Babies at least gave some affection from time to time.
posted by GuyZero at 2:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Our first child's due date is tomorrow. This is just what I needed.

Too late now. Do your best to enjoy it. Congratulations.
posted by GuyZero at 2:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Good luck with that happiness thing as an old person without children in that situation. Did I mention that you'll probably die lonely? You'll only have a 50% chance to outlive your partner. If you managed to hang on to a partner that long, that is.
posted by sour cream at 1:54 PM on August 14 [+] [!]


eponysterical.

("sour grapes" was taken, eh?)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [11 favorites]


Kids are long term thing. Of course they completely wreck your life when they're babies and then you want to completely wreck their life when they're teenagers.

But there is a neat feeling when they're in their 20s or 30s and you see they've because an interesting person and you know you had a hand in that.

Assuming y'all don't kill each other in the teenager years
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:28 PM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


My parents divorced when I was four and remarried wonderful people who were both very influential in my life. As such, from my twenties on I always figured I'd be a stepdad and even looked forward to it. It didn't occur to me until much later that this might be kind of weird.
posted by echocollate at 2:29 PM on August 14, 2015 [15 favorites]


But there is a neat feeling when they're in their 20s or 30s and you see they've because an interesting person and you know you had a hand in that.

Or you realize you've inflicted a complete asshole on the world.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:30 PM on August 14, 2015 [28 favorites]


The study does say that "about 30 per cent remained at about the same state of happiness or better once they had the baby".

(Which means that the other 70% must be getting really depressed...)

But, speaking to prize bull octorok's point, there's a whole field of therapy which argues that "being happy" should be less important than doing what you value. If raising a - hopefully! - kind, competent, resilient person is worthwhile to you, then maybe the day-to-day experience of not being happy while you're doing it isn't so important.
posted by clawsoon at 2:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


There's a field of evolutionary psychology that takes great delight in figuring out exactly how much parents can be expected to resent and fight with their children. There's a great book about it by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.
posted by clawsoon at 2:48 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think most logical reasons for not having a baby are pretty absurd in the face of how much some people want babies and how you actually feel about a baby once it's born. A baby may not make your life better, but it makes you wayyy more intense in some ways that are fascinating and important.

Yup. There's no way to prepare for being a new parent, it's just (to quote Samuel L. Jackson) hold on to your butts. Life doesn't have a constant baseline, anyway; to torture this quantified happiness metric some further, happiness is constantly recalibrating to account for baseline drift. I'd love to be able to sleep gloriously through the night every night, but I'm doing okay on the sleep debt scale at this point (and I've got 10 month old twins! For whom I'm sole caregiver for the next 24 hours at least!) and I get to go home, lay down on the floor next to them, and listen to them practice saying "dad" under their breath as they yank on my hair and beard.

Ah, but if you create a child, there is a 100% chance that you have created a being that will suffer and die.

Perhaps this is sarcasm, but it's a viewpoint I can't understand. Yeah, they'll die someday, but they get to laugh with delight when the dog does something ridiculous, they get to learn how to play music or run around on a sports team, they get to figure out who they are and what that means to them.

And finally, from the article:

Second, complications during the birth also appeared to shape their decision to not “go through it again.”

Yes yes and yes. We're lucky that we got two in one go, because pregnancy can be extremely hard on many mothers (and fathers) and the medical issues are nothing to take lightly.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:54 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Of course having kids is ruinous, but who's going to populate the future if you don't have kids?

Robots. Or I dunno, some sort of cloud-based virtual contractee solution. Children are an area totally ripe for some Uber-style disruption.
posted by happyroach at 2:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [16 favorites]


I have taken to not-entirely-joking that I intend to just adopt a teenager in my 40s. Yes, losing out on years of bonding, etc. But also losing out on the years I feel least able to handle. Some people seem to do great with babies, but I have a dear friend who seems to have been completely flattened by the experience. They're affluent, smart, married, he's a feminist, she doesn't have to work, everything that should make it as easy as it's going to get, and I love her dearly but I barely talk to her now, and it's sad. I never really wanted to be Not A Parent, but I'd choose that any day over wrecking my life more than it's already been wrecked. Some people are great at it, but some people just wind up shells of their real selves. I think the harm it can do when it doesn't go well could easily end up outweighing the benefit when it does, at least for people who are somewhat more fragile. (Like having preexisting physical or mental health issues, which is not that unusual.)
posted by Sequence at 2:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


Children are an area totally ripe for some Uber-style disruption.

I suspect that having children is great, but raising them sucks. Perhaps... Nursr?
posted by clawsoon at 2:58 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think most logical reasons for not having a baby are pretty absurd in the face of how much some people want babies and how you actually feel about a baby once it's born.

I must be missing the ability to generate those proteins or whatever causes baby craze. I have cousins and nephews ranging from toddler to tween, and they're all pretty... sticky.

Jokes aside, though, does this study call into question the idea of having children in order to create some meaning in your life? People talk about having kids as providing fulfillment and direction, and I honestly don't really get it.
posted by backseatpilot at 3:00 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


So there are major taboos about happiness and child rearing, and it's definitely important to acknowledge that people can be very unhappy after having a child.

At the same time, I'm reading the study, and it's not the Slate pitch the original link is making it out to be. It is an attempt to answer a demographic question about developed countries. Their findings are entirely concerned with whether or not a negative experience with the birth of a couples' first child will influence their decision to have a second.

They do find a correlation, but the authors mention that their study is limited in some ways, and should be looked at alongside qualitative studies ("our analysis describes the predictors and consequences of changes in overall life satisfaction for parity progression, but it cannot speak to the underlying mechanisms that determine parents’ difficulty with the transition to parenthood. These factors, such as the ease of the birth experience, level of exhaustion during the first year, and relationship stress, are not available in our survey data and are better suited to qualitative work").

They cite other studies that looked at factors like difficulty with conception and pregnancy (with morning sickness and other factors having a big effect). They spend some time talking about how the demands of a professional life may make it much more difficult to have a child, which is certainly not new. It's suggested that the demands and tasks of parenting are unappealing for people with high socioeconomic status. They even speculate that access to healthcare and social services could make a huge difference in peoples' happiness with child rearing.

In other words, it's not that having kids is intrinsically awful, it's that there are many factors that can influence someone's subjective experience. The article's abstract suggests that policy-makers could take note of this data to adopt social programs aimed at helping new parents, which could increase happiness and therefore overall fertility. And, of course, an individual's happiness with having a child does not need to be dictated by this study, because there are so many factors at play that your future happiness could have more to do with what part of the country you're from than anything else (parents in West Germany are apparently better off than those in East Germany). Or, in other words, this study needn't have much of an effect on whether or not you're going to have a good time as a parent.
posted by teponaztli at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [24 favorites]


At least in America though we're getting back to a strong correlation between success and fertility. In my cohort couples with 3 kids are more common than 1, to say the least of none, and coming up fast on 2. 4 is sufficiently common to be worthy of very little note.
posted by MattD at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


clawsoon: "But, speaking to prize bull octorok's point, there's a whole field of therapy which argues that "being happy" should be less important than doing what you value. "

Sister Helen Prejean (the death row nun) gives speeches for college seniors where she differentiates between happiness and joy, arguing that you should pursue things that give you deep and lasting joy, even if they don't make you happy all the time. Like, say, ministering to death row inmates who mostly get put to death. It's not a happy job, but it gives her joy.

Parenting is not a happy job -- I had an absolutely shitty parenting day today that I am so frustrated about I will probably cry when my kids go to bed -- but it's an extremely joyful one.

(And also, yes, the first two years of parenting are so relentlessly difficult that it is not at all surprising that a lot of people have one kid, say, "WOW CAN I NOT GO THROUGH THAT AGAIN" and stop. Definitely a country facing a demographic decline should talk about how they can make those first two years less sucky if they want people to reproduce a second time. This being Europe and them doing cool healthcare things, I think once a month they should send you a night nurse and a day nurse for two days and let you go fucking sleep in a hotel for two days. That would have solved like 90% of my problems.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:14 PM on August 14, 2015 [67 favorites]


reading this thread feels like reading that sci-fi short story that got posted a while ago about the lady who goes to colonize a new planet but instead becomes host to alien parasites that flood her brain with love hormones, and all she can feel is joy as they crack her spine as they emerge from her body
posted by danny the boy at 3:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [32 favorites]


Gee, and here I am just trying to be happy for other people when they say they get joy from something.
posted by teponaztli at 3:20 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Procreating just seems narcissistic, in this modern day and age, living in America. We don't need to make more children to keep our species alive. That already happens enough. If you have kids so that you won't die alone, well, guess what? You will die alone. If you think that your gene pool is so special that you need to perpetuate it, then aren't you a special snowflake. The world is not wanting little versions of you. But, wait, what if you want to have children to strengthen the marriage? That works like more balls and chains and makes for an even more messy divorce.

Having children comes from age old needs of creating a built in labor pool to help manage the ranch and to insure that a particular tribe remains in greater power, based on population. Oh, and species survival, Darwin and stuff.

Having a kid today in a Western country is AOK. Please do it, if you must. I mean, shit, it is an amazing thing! It is natural! I mean, if I could have a baby, well, let me check that out! Curiosity, for christ's sakes.

What pisses me off is how religious groups force women to have babies, but that is a different thread, entirely. 7 billion miracles is enough!

I enjoy kids and their childish antics. But, I don't need to have a kid to remind me of what being a kid is like. I am reminded of my childish antics daily. As I am certain I have just done, yet again.
posted by breadbox at 3:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm not sure I know what good reasons to have a child might be, but "Because it'll make me sooo happy!" is absolutely not a good reason. Regardless of whether it's true or not-- possibly even more so if it were true. Because it's another person's life, not some consumer good. Who knows why other people exist, but "To satisfy my desires and make me happy"? No.
posted by Bardolph at 3:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


Life *without* kids exhausts me, so...
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:34 PM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


One of my etymological dictionaries claimed the history of the word "child" was not clear and speculated "chide" in English, derived from German, was possible.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 3:35 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also known as Erstekinderkeinmehrgemütlicheittag
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Following links in this post, I came across this:
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

At last, I've found something to make life worth living.
posted by falsedmitri at 3:44 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


You know what's hard? Life. At least sometimes. But, at least for me, happiness has always been a slippery, squirrelly little weasel anyway. One thing my kids have definitely given my life: meaning. I love my kids, I'm glad I have them, whether that's delusion on my part or not. (And yeah, yeah, I know... eponysterical.)
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 3:46 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Life *without* kids exhausts me, so...

Exactly. I would say that among the parents I know, there's a pretty strong correlation between happy (if standardly exhausted) parents and people whose stress-coping skills were already at a really high level prior to child-having. People who coped poorly with life pre-kids are definitely not coping any better with life post-kids.

It's not one-to-one, and certainly I know a couple of people who've been forced by the demands of their kids and lives to *develop* coping skills they never had before, but in general I feel comfortable in predicting that I would be ill-equipped to parent, given how I handle just about everything else in life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:47 PM on August 14, 2015 [13 favorites]


Following the links in this post, I came across this statement

According to Jimmy Alfonso Licon, procreation is only morally justified if there is some method for acquiring informed consent from a non-existent person, and due to the impossibility of this, procreation is therefore immoral.[12]

and I'm having trouble reading it as anything but the driest sarcastic reductio ad absurdum ever
posted by Existential Dread at 3:48 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


At least in America though we're getting back to a strong correlation between success and fertility. In my cohort couples with 3 kids are more common than 1, to say the least of none, and coming up fast on 2. 4 is sufficiently common to be worthy of very little note.

Yes, I know. They often write editorials about how $300,000 a year is just enough to maintain a bare middle-class existence.
posted by escabeche at 4:01 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


At least in America though we're getting back to a strong correlation between success and fertility. In my cohort couples with 3 kids are more common than 1, to say the least of none, and coming up fast on 2. 4 is sufficiently common to be worthy of very little note.

Strong? Yes.

Positive? No.
posted by gurple at 4:07 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


> Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

"It's the end of the race! We win!"
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:08 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


As alluded by a number of comments here, one of the defining characteristics of the parental instinct is that one's own happiness falls steeply down the list of priorities. I'm probably less happy now than before I had a kid -- especially right now, when the kid isn't sleeping and he's driving his parents bonkers -- but I count it as a net positive that my life contains things I would (and do) willingly sacrifice my happiness for.

I think it's valuable for people to understand this, and the idea of parenthood as all smiles and kisses is a pernicious one, but using this to posit parenthood as a "mistake" strikes me as fundamentally misunderstanding how the whole thing works.
posted by bjrubble at 4:20 PM on August 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


What does "happiness" or "life satisfaction" mean, anyway?

they are both things i feel on a regular basis in my childfree life of splendid leisure
posted by poffin boffin at 4:23 PM on August 14, 2015 [44 favorites]


Existential Dread: contextually, people were saying that bringing a life into this world was inherently virtuous. I think that the consent argument does a good job of undermining that bit of silliness, at least.

It's an act that exercises an immense power. Like anything so radical, with so many consequences, it can't really be right or wrong in and of itself.
posted by idiopath at 4:28 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I hate kids. I like cats. If a cat and a kid were walking in the middle of the street and a car was about to hit them, I would save the ...............
posted by locidot at 4:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


The study is deeply flawed in its failure to control for Goodwin's law in its assessment.
posted by humanfont at 4:35 PM on August 14, 2015


i want to say CAT but in reality i suppose the obnoxious pressures of society would make me try to save them both. but i would grab the cat and just punt the kid out of the way, or possibly grab it by the back of its pants and swing it like an olympic hammerthrower to safety

i'm really excited to save a kid now actually, i bet i could get it like 15-20 feet easy
posted by poffin boffin at 4:35 PM on August 14, 2015 [28 favorites]


This is special pleading. Maybe it's even true, but parents are notoriously unreliable narrators. When asked directly about whether having a child has been worth it, they often say yes. But when asked more objective questions about their quality of life, they tell a different story.

Dude, your own link says "My analysis in the Journal of Socio-economics (Powdthavee, 2008) is a recent British example of parents and non-parents reporting the same levels of life satisfaction, on average.", and even the bits you choose to quote are far from unambiguous. In light of this, maybe you could stand to be a little bit less patronising about telling people that they are experiencing their experience wrong.
posted by howfar at 4:37 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


What Eyebrows said, times a thousand. I get a lot of joy from my sons, but that's separate from the grind of actually raising them, which changed my life. When you're childless (and single), your life is yours, but with kids, it's just not. There's the hectic minute-by-minute tasks of caring for another human, especially when they're under 3 or so, but that's not all. I don't know if it's in the study, but for me, having kids has really grounded me in terms of my mortality. Here is my son, this beautiful person I want to live a long and happy life, and if that's the case, then he will outlive me; nothing is more terrifying to me, now, than the thought that I will outlive my son. So it kind of drives home the unimportance of my life, in a way, that I would have never understood as a childless person.
posted by zardoz at 4:40 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


Once you learn how to crush the right dosage up and stir it into the mac and cheese, parenting isn't so bad.

Before I learned how to do that, it was a huge hassle. Afterwards, I'm able to see the monsters in the closet, can talk for seven hours about Batman's zoo, and think that Paw Patrol is excellent television programming.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


I apparently said, once, within earshot of my oldest daughter, and one of my oldest friends, and I have no recollection of this; "I can't wait until the last kid moves out, and the dog dies." Believe me when the last kid moved out and took her dog with her, it was devastating. The cats saved me, some kittens I meant to socialize and adopt out. I was reminded I made this statement, in stereo. It must have been an awful moment, from an awful day, from a terrible week, that went on for a month. It would take a whole lifetime to warn you about what is going to happen in your lifetime, the time logistics is why it is not done.

Children are a rare yet common gift. If you do not like people, do not make them.

Mutter, mutter, I still think they made that up.
posted by Oyéah at 4:52 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


I recently hosted a party for a group of old school chums, of whom I was the only person without kids. Over the course of three hours I tried repeatedly to learn of the wellbeing of my friends, but most questions netted a blank expression followed by a recitation of offsprings' activities and accomplishments, in which I had no interest whatever. It was absurdly frustrating and afterward I felt joy and gratitude that I had escaped having my individuality so utterly obliterated. I mean, these people no longer appeared to actually possess selves, and their children were mostly adult. It was scary.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:58 PM on August 14, 2015 [23 favorites]


I love my neice and nephews (currently aged 3-6), I love spending time with them and I hope I'm a positive and beloved part of their lives...but I can only handle the demands - mental and physical -children that young place on you for limited amounts of time. It's like the difference between enjoying a beer or two from time to time and living at the bottom of a Niagara Falls of beer.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


I tried repeatedly to learn of the wellbeing of my friends, but most questions netted a blank expression....

Friend: Hi, kinnakeet! Long time no see!
You: Wellbeing query!
Friend: [looks askance]
You: Wellbeing query iteration two!
Friend: [starts to eye the door]
You: Wellbeing query iteration three! Initiating emergency wellbeing-retrieval protocol!
Friend: Um, so, hey... hey.... [casts about for topic]
Friend: Hey, let me tell you how the youngest is doing in karate!
posted by gurple at 5:05 PM on August 14, 2015 [24 favorites]


most questions netted a blank expression followed by a recitation of offsprings' activities and accomplishments

You don't need kids to do that, I'm like that with my cat already.
posted by teponaztli at 5:06 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


I am absolutely going to start greeting friends with "Wellbeing query!"
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:10 PM on August 14, 2015 [51 favorites]


. It would take a whole lifetime to warn you about what is going to happen in your lifetime, the time logistics is why it is not done.

The movie Boyhood addresses this.
posted by Nevin at 5:15 PM on August 14, 2015


There's this little person who has effectively five states (happy, unhappy because of a lack/surplus of _____) that comes with no instruction manual and cannot be reasoned with.

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop--ever!--until you are dead.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:16 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Oh, wait, those are terminators.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:16 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


It took me 18 months of hard work and doctor's appointments to get pregnant with my first child, and they were the worst 18 months of my life. No matter how hard parenting has been -- and that first child was an Atypically Complicated Child to parent, in many ways --it doesn't touch the pain of infertility when you desperately want children.
posted by KathrynT at 5:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


One of my coworkers was discussing this the other day. He and his wife are about to have kid #3, and they're super excited and seem to be amazing parents, but his wife has frequently commented on losing her identity and not really knowing who she is anymore outside of the children.

It doesn't sound very appealing.
posted by erratic meatsack at 5:33 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Did I mention that you'll probably die lonely?

Sure. The last time we ever talked.
posted by srboisvert at 5:39 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


Babies? Ha ha ha.... Just wait until they are teenagers.

Oh wait, forget I said that. I don't want to make you even more depressed.
posted by freakazoid at 5:42 PM on August 14, 2015


Wow. What a thread. You'd think from this discussion that there aren't any other things for one to do in life than seek/find "happiness" and "life satisfaction" for one self.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:48 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Wow. What a thread. You'd think from this discussion that there aren't any other things for one to do in life than seek/find "happiness" and "life satisfaction" for one self.

It is a post about a study of happiness. One could also read the comments and think that no one cares about narwhals or Frosted Flakes.
posted by snofoam at 5:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [18 favorites]


Well, what else you got?
posted by Spathe Cadet at 5:59 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


In a life chock full of regrets of every size, shape and color, not having kids is something I have never regretted, not even for a nanosecond. Die alone? HA, is if anyone died any other way. And the best part is that the Earth is happy about my choice.
posted by dbiedny at 6:17 PM on August 14, 2015 [16 favorites]


You'd think from this discussion that there aren't any other things for one to do in life than seek/find "happiness" and "life satisfaction" for one self.

shhhh - next thing you'll be telling them that santa claus doesn't exist and there's no easter bunny
posted by pyramid termite at 6:18 PM on August 14, 2015


Quote from a friend's wife, mother of two teenagers: "Kids are like farts. You can barely stand your own."
posted by Hairy Lobster at 6:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


If you want things above and beyond happiness/life-satisfaction, why not take the average amount it'd take to raise a kid (There's articles tallying this up every year, it seems, ~$250k in the US), and pour it into some of the non-AI Risk charities rated well on effectiveness? That could treat... ~200,000 cases of tropical diseases, looks like. Or ~40,000 malaria nets. Plenty of lives improved. I don't know that I could look at a theoretical kid-of-mine and say "Yeah, you're worth more than 75 other people."

As noted above, it's not really a question of "should". People who want kids are going to try to have kids. People who don't want kids shouldn't feel pressured to have them. In my opinion, people who're ambivalent shouldn't feel pressured either. Parenting's best left to the enthusiastic.
posted by CrystalDave at 6:22 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


every baby born is a book not written.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:22 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


hal_c_on: "When the second pregnancy (secundigravida...Its German...?!?) came about, the magic was gone! "

Primagravida! Nulliparous! So many foreign words!

erratic meatsack: " his wife has frequently commented on losing her identity and not really knowing who she is anymore outside of the children."

We are considering whether or not to have another one, and part of my hesitation is that I literally JUST GOT MYSELF BACK after five years of parenting very small children, and I am hesitant to dive back into a newborn for another two or three years.

---

Having children gives me kind-of an existential crisis because (being philosophically minded) I periodically wonder what the philosophical justification for having them is. I love kids, I am great with kids, I always wanted them and thought I'd be good with them, and I am, and I really ENJOY my kids, and other people's kids. (Lots of parents like their own, but not other people's. I just really love kids in general.) But when I stop to be like WHAT IS THE JUSTIFICATION? I don't know what it was. It's way easier to come up with justifications not to have kids. Is it enough that we're life and life wants to beget life? Is it enough for it to be a biological (species-level, not individual-level) imperative? I can never decide.

Also I think it's easier to be a parent if you're amused by absurdity. I think kids are HILARIOUS because they are so consistently absurd. They literally make no sense. If you're amused by things that make no sense, they're HYSTERICAL. If you're annoyed by people who don't behave logically, they're SUPER ANNOYING. I find nothing as funny as children totally failing to understand the world, it consistently cracks me up.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:26 PM on August 14, 2015 [34 favorites]


I swear, whenever mefite regulars convince me they are a terminally dismal group of people, something always arises to demonstrate that their usual pit of despair has no bottom.

Well, I've always thought personal happiness was really problematic. After all, any moment of happiness you have is a moment you're not filled with rage at capitalism, and probably means you need to check your happiness privilege. Learn to sit with this.
posted by officer_fred at 6:30 PM on August 14, 2015 [20 favorites]


My two little nieces and one nephew get into absolutely bonkers shenanigans that I loooove hearing about. When we lived closer to their parents, we used to come over with a bottle of wine after they fell asleep and just laugh at all the stories that accumulated since the last time. Plus every time there's a long reddit thread on amazing things kids say (whether profound or creepy or absurd) I can't help but devour it all. Most of them are just incredible tiny people and it's crazy watching them learn about the world.

It's also pretty great to go home after listening to those stories and not worry about the heated arguments, the pains, the frustrations, and sometimes sheer agony they put their parents through.

Uncles and aunts are the best!
posted by erratic meatsack at 6:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I still blame the nuclear family for it being so hard. You need a village full of people to pass that baby off to, because just one or two of you (plus occasional grandparenting) is NOT ENOUGH.

So, like, state-run daycare for all kids then? Germany has that. Still sucks.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:38 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Looking at the actual article I can't find anything that says that having a baby represents a loss in well-being greater than death of a partner. I checked for the words, death, mortality and all instances of partner. How many of those of child-bearing age would lose a partner to death? (The average age given is 29 at the time of childbrith). I can't imagine it would be statistically meaningful.

In Table 3, they divide all of those studied into Drops of Self-Esteem as, No Drop, Drop of 1, Drop of 2, Drop of 3+. They placed improvement under "no drop?" They are saying no one had improvement? (They aren't literally saying that, but they don't note improvement.)

I've got a queasy feeling about these numbers not adding up.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Except for a brief period when he didn't need sleep, I have always loved my son. We stayed up way too late watching the meteors this week. Something we could do from my bed, with bowls of ice cream and cups of tea. A fox came up on the porch and was just as interested in the show.

Who else is going to be utterly content doing that with you?

It is not just bodily fluids and tantrums. There are honest questions that you thought you knew the answers to and suddenly you are not so sure and you learn while trying to answer. We now have this Sunday morning ritual where he starts shaking me and asking if I am awake. "I am now," used to be my surly reply at 04:30. Now I get up and make him a hot chocolate and myself a coffee and we get down to brass tacks. I have always been blunt with him about what is knowable and what is not.

He really wants to understand life and does not yet understand that I don't either and he never will. I do understand that sitting up in bed with a warm drink, talking about death and watching the sun rise is about the closest I will ever feel to another being.

I never wanted kids. We were told we couldn't. We made other plans and then I'm standing in the delivery room holding his swaddled highness and trying to tell moaning mom she was done and he was here.

Also I think it's easier to be a parent if you're amused by absurdity. This to the nth power.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:43 PM on August 14, 2015 [51 favorites]


Sister Helen Prejean (the death row nun) gives speeches for college seniors where she differentiates between happiness and joy, arguing that you should pursue things that give you deep and lasting joy, even if they don't make you happy all the time. Like, say, ministering to death row inmates who mostly get put to death. It's not a happy job, but it gives her joy.

There's a part in the recent movie Inside Out where Joy sobs great big tears because she figures out that sadness allows for a certain type of joy that isn't a properly basic emotion, but comes through experiences that are difficult and negative, yet create something qualitatively positive that wasn't there before. I've become convinced that this is in large part what this movie was about (discovering the true nature of joy) as much as it was Riley figuring out how to navigate emotionally her big move.

It also brings to mind the happiness paradox (where happiness is akin to a type of internal contentment, not the attaining of pleasure). The more we pursue happiness directly, the more it's elusive. But when we give ourselves to certain endeavors, joy often comes as a natural byproduct of things that we often wouldn't freely choose as a seedbed for it, but it paradoxically is the most fruitful way to bring it about. When we ask, "what thing do we do or not do that brings the most joy" (like having children), it's sometimes too shallow of a question to understand what happens when we give up something significant that brings loss (like freedom, money, health, time) for something lasting and tangible that might not have been discovered in other ways.* Sacrifice and loss can coexist with joy. They are often meant to.

*This doesn't mean that parenting is never severely disappointing, or mentally or physically damaging, or meant to be for everyone. It means that negative effects aren't the only part of the equation, as it doesn't always see things through.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:04 PM on August 14, 2015 [23 favorites]


Thanks for that comment, SpacemanStix. Said much better than mine.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:12 PM on August 14, 2015


7 billion miracles is enough!

I'm still getting used to referencing the world's population as 7 billion instead of 6. We reached 6 billion people in 1999, and apparently 7 billion in 2011. And keep in mind that it was still six digits as recently as 1804. By now even a seemingly insignificant action, like littering with just one more wrapper or having just one more child, can add up really fast.
posted by Rangi at 7:13 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


So, like, state-run daycare for all kids then? Germany has that. Still sucks.

Maybe a neighborhood daycare would be better? A local co-op of volunteer parents and available single adults? "The state" (even a "democratic" one), in a country with millions of people, is a distant bureaucracy that's very different from the communal care of a 150-person village.
posted by Rangi at 7:17 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


And keep in mind that it was still six digits as recently as 1804.

You mean nine. It hasn't been six digits for many thousands of years.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:21 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Daycare intrinsically sucks because you have to drop the kids off there and you get to be cool fufilled single working person for 8 hours without them, which sucks worst.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:22 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looking at the actual article I can't find anything that says that having a baby represents a loss in well-being greater than death of a partner.

That seems to be a reference to other studies using the same happiness scale.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:22 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


With regard to the back and forth in this thread -- I think those of us who don't want kids are deeply, deeply fortunate. Indescribably fortunate. I'm pretty sure it's probably inbred or genetic or what have you, this complete indifference to parenthood. And it means we're living on easy mode, able to imagine and generate deep and rich meaning in our lives without having to undertake the most difficult thing people can do.

To the majority, which does seem to crave and need kids at a bone-deep level, I doff my hat and bow with grave respect. I will be the last person on the planet to doubt that you have worked incredibly hard for the love and meaning you reap from parenthood.
posted by artemisia at 7:37 PM on August 14, 2015 [27 favorites]


Who else is going to be utterly content doing that with you?

idk, how about friends, a family member, your SO, your dog? maybe a very patient cat. i get what you're saying about your bond with your kid but really i don't think anyone needs to actually create a human being in order to have a meaningful emotional connection with another living creature.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [34 favorites]


If babies really made their parents so miserable, there would be more only children in the world. I mean, I get that they're saying that some kids are only children because it is so hard, but seriously, that two year "low point" that sounds like just about the average age at which younger siblings are conceived. Why do it again if it's so not worth it?

I agree with those who are saying that "happiness" and even "quality of life" are the wrong metrics. I wanted kids (for as long as I can remember) because of that whole "heart walking around outside your body" thing. Kids are an investment in the world, in the future, a reason to care. Having kids is the hardest thing I've ever done, and while it doesn't feel like happiness, exactly, it certainly feels like the opposite of depression. Having kids makes me feel everything just like depression makes me feel nothing. My kids are the answer to the question "what's the point?"

Not saying that if you actually have depression, having kids will make that go away. It's not that simple. And post partum depression is a real thing, actually.

But I'm trying to get at an intense set of feelings which is not "happiness" any more than depression is just "sadness," which my personal kids brought me personally, and which I would've endured hormone treatments and surgeries to experience, if I had to. I've endured a lot for my kids even as it is, and I would do it all over again, and in fact when my oldest child turned two, hard as that time was, I did it all again. Just like billions of other parents.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:50 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


If babies really made their parents so miserable, there would be more only children in the world. I mean, I get that they're saying that some kids are only children because it is so hard, but seriously, that two year "low point" that sounds like just about the average age at which younger siblings are conceived. Why do it again if it's so not worth it?

Maternal amnesia is fairly well documented for the pain of childbirth at least. I would not be surprised if it extends to other aspects of early parenting which also closely follows the setup for cult induction brainwashing.
posted by srboisvert at 7:55 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


it doesn't touch the pain of infertility when you desperately want children.

From watching friends go through this, I'd agree. It is weird, though, listening and being supportive about something that you don't connect with at all. I like kids well enough (and love babies, OMG they are so scrumptious and fun to hold) but I just lack whatever bone-deep drive it is that makes people spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of effort to have a biological child.

If babies really made their parents so miserable, there would be more only children in the world.

This is a really good point. Kids can be a hassle and a lot of trouble, but people seem to like them enough that they go on to have several more after the first.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:56 PM on August 14, 2015


If someone gave me a survey every day asking me to rate my happiness from 0-10 during the four years prior to the birth of my child and continued over the past four years of raising my child, I am absolutely certain the results would show much lower lows and much higher highs in the past four years and in the four years before the results would be in a 7-9 range pretty consistently. Yes, I was probably happier before my child was born, especially on a consistent basis. However, I probably have had more days I'd rate a 10 since then. And there have been more days in the 0-2 range. Parenting is hard in ways I never imagined, mostly in the toll it would take on me. I don't regret having my child but damn it's so much worse than I expected.

Now I need to go have my third beer because that child is finally sleeping and it's the brief window of time that is mine alone and I am again doing things like waste time on the internet rather than do laundry or get some sleep. Cheers.
posted by Burn.Don't.Freeze at 7:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


You mean nine. It hasn't been six digits for many thousands of years.

Oops, you're right. One billion surpasses nine digits; one million surpasses six.

And yet, we reached one million around 10,000 BC, roughly at or just after the time we started domesticating plants.
posted by Rangi at 7:59 PM on August 14, 2015


There should be a baby rental service for single people who get invited to parental gatherings. I'd get totally invested in my rental kid for three or four hours, talk a lot of shit, take the kid back and then go drink bourbon on the couch and watch The Brak Show until I passed out on the couch.
posted by echocollate at 8:10 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


i don't think anyone needs to actually create a human being in order to have a meaningful emotional connection with another living creature

They don't. But this kid is half me and half someone I've known for 35 years. Beat that connection. I see the both of us in him, so clearly. Ghosts in the machine. The intersection is terribly interesting and teaches me about my self. I know what those looks mean and it is totally gratifying to help him out when he is trying to grasp something ungraspable.

And 60 lbs of musclebound boy crawling into bed with you and holding you tight on a cold winter morning? I've had snuggly dogs and this is better.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


then go drink bourbon on the couch and watch The Brak Show until I passed out on the couch.

omg thank you for ending my idle Netflix surfing and giving my night purpose again [did not need prompting for bourbon]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yet another popularization that fails to convey heterogeneous treatment effects. Nearly 1/3 of the subjects were equal or better off even in the first, hardest year. If you feel your lives (and bank accounts) are reasonably together and can stand being 200% more chaotic, there's a reasonable chance that not only will you be better off in the long run, but you will even be better off in the short run. Though that's not to say that it couldn't be a million times easier with better government policies, more communal childrearing, etc.

My life was definitely not remotely together, yet our new child has definitely improved our lives. I'd say it has improved our happiness too, and if some sociologists have come up with a set of questions to show that what we are calling "happiness" isn't "really" happiness, well then they are failing to measure what really matters. And for those who claim it is all biological programming when it does work: that too is tautologically true, but no more so than love for a spouse, friend, parent, pet, or artform. Even a newborn is ridiculously complex, by far the most interesting pet we've ever had. The downsides are definitely huge and not be entered into lightly, but even the hard-nosed data measuring banal life-satisfaction show that it does work for many people. Better measurements and survey questions would, I think, show that lots of parents are, as they themselves claim, indeed better off in a deep sense. I know that lots of people are self-deluded, but I know a lot of very savvy, skeptical parents; I don't believe that this, of all things in the world, is the one thing we are all brainwashed about. But I imagine those who doubt our self-accounts are probably just biologically programmed to do so.
posted by chortly at 9:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


They don't. But this kid is half me and half someone I've known for 35 years. Beat that connection.

I mean, gotta say the chief reason I haven't is less about the lack of kid and more that I haven't been on earth for 35 years?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:04 PM on August 14, 2015


SMBC made a good comic on how having kids can be both terrible and wonderful.
posted by that girl at 9:13 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Having done the NYC vs Chicago pizza thing to death, I see we've moved on to the New Game+ of unwinnable arguments about what is best in life
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:15 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Babies are adorable but poop themselves and are terrible conversationalists. I don't think it's really any kind of willful "amnesia" about the baby years as "I was only sleeping 5 hours a night for two years (if I was lucky) so it's all pretty fuzzy." I would not have been terribly coherent if interviewed when the kid was that age.

But I can tell you that nine-year-olds, they are a hoot. Just smart enough to talk about interesting things, but in such a world of their own that you will never ever know what they're going to say next. They will let you sleep in, too.

I'll have a teen in a few years. His dad was a terrible teen, but had a terrible father of his own so that had a lot to do with it. My dad wasn't great either but I was annoyingly straightlaced at that age. So there's no telling what we'll get. Even if it's stressful, he's nearly to adulthood at that point; we'll just dig in and wait it out.
posted by emjaybee at 9:16 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


My kids are nightmares. One more than the other, but we aren't suposed to have favorites, are we? At the same time, I would very likely be dead in a ditch somewhere if they hadn't come along and forced me to straighten my act out, so there is that.

And now number 3 is on the way, because I figure it increases the odds of one of them not abandoning me in my elder years by fifty percent. Plus, having 3 kids under 4 years old will be a total disaster, but we will only have to get through it once.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:20 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Beat that connection.

This sounds weirdly and specifically competitive.

I personally like that we live in a world where there's plenty of room for snuggly young'uns AND snuggly dogs and you get to pick.
posted by mochapickle at 9:23 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Also, soon after marriage my dad started asking about when we would have kids and filling my head with stories about how great parenting was. When we finally anounced the pregnancy his tone suddenly changed and he said my life was now over. I asked why he told me all that nice stuff about parenting and he said "You ruined my life, and now I've ruined yours."

Touche, Pops, touche.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


I think most logical reasons for not having a baby are pretty absurd in the face of how much some people want babies and how you actually feel about a baby once it's born. A baby may not make your life better, but it makes you wayyy more intense in some ways that are fascinating and important.

Replace "you" with "me," "my," or "I," please. You do realize that not everyone feels the same way you do about it, right?

There are myriad logical reasons not to have a baby, starting with "I don't want a baby." All of them are perfectly valid and non-absurd reasons, regardless of how much some people want babies and how some people feel about them once they're born. Having a baby when you don't want one will certainly NOT make your life better, and having a baby when you don't want one will not, in fact, make you more intense in ways that are fascinating and important. It will make you more fucking miserable than the people in this study, who presumably wanted to have a baby.

Yeah, I get it that you and a lot of parents are happy they had a baby. Good for you! Some people are happy they bought a boat. Some are happy they moved to the suburbs, some are happy they decided to, I don't know, plant a garden or get plastic surgery or live in Thailand. There's no difference. It's a lifestyle choice, not a no-fail prescription for how a life should best be lived.
posted by caryatid at 9:31 PM on August 14, 2015 [13 favorites]


Even after reading all these comments; I would still save the cat, kudos to the person who would try to save both, but in the end, you would also get hit.
posted by locidot at 10:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm not sure I know what good reasons to have a child might be, but "Because it'll make me sooo happy!" is absolutely not a good reason. Regardless of whether it's true or not-- possibly even more so if it were true. Because it's another person's life, not some consumer good. Who knows why other people exist, but "To satisfy my desires and make me happy"? No.

We talked about this a lot before getting pregnant with our first. I felt like I should have some sort of Honorable Reason why it was right for me, personally, to reproduce, and there just wasn't one beyond the fact that I wanted to more than I'd ever wanted to do anything.

I felt weird about that for a while and then decided actually, that was a great reason.

I'm a happier-after-kids person (which is good because my number three turned out to be twins and now it's basically the Duggar house over here).
posted by gerstle at 10:03 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think there may be a frame of reference problem here. Picking up the higher highs and lower lows comments above: is it possible that after kids you're working on a -5 to +15 scale where before there was only 1 to 10? And the only real answer is a complicated conversion mathematically? Especially as prior to kids you didn't even know the scale went beyond 1 to 10?

And then add in the further complication that questions like this are answered against expectations rather than reality. So if you expect having kids to be an 8, the -5 moments feel like FULL ALERT! WE ARE AT NEGATIVE THIRTEEN!

My personal experience with this is in the other direction. After the death of my husband, I thought that I was going to max out at maybe 5, because I expected (was lead to expect? I don't know?) that this was the worst thing that could ever happen. So now the 10s feel like a million and I want to dance for joy.

In other words, being human and having feels is complicated.
posted by susiswimmer at 10:51 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


You really can't separate Germany from the study. When I lived in Germany, the couples I knew enjoyed long trips all over Europe and physically demanding things that would be very difficult with a baby. They also tended to live in very tiny apartments. I can understand why it might be sad for them.

But my hobbies are quieter ones that can be done with a kid around, and my life was fine. Yes, less bar hopping, but I was going to stop doing that when I got older anyway and it was no big loss.

I do really wish we could avoid the usual cycle of "thing on parenthood gets posted, the anti-child brigade rolls in to tell us how babies are selfish and no one should have kids."
posted by corb at 11:32 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Mod note: A couple of comments deleted. Generally, please don't throw insults at other members. Also, though, framing things as some sort of competition ("beat that") is likely to lead to angry discussion. Presumably, folks can have children or be childless, be happy, sad or have mixed feelings about either of those conditions and discuss it like adults here without making it (again!) some sort of dumb fight. Please try.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:51 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


I wasn't that interested in kids when I was younger, but have one child born when I was 40, and I think one thing that younger people can miss is general sense of decay that surrounds you as you get older. You see your parents, your family, your friends getting steadily older and sicker and dying off one by one. You watch someone whose greatest joy was walking in nature bound miserably in a wheelchair. You hear a great joke and think "I can't wait to tell X, he'll get a blast out of it" and then remember "Oh wait, X is dead, he'll never laugh at a joke again". You watch your own body and everyone else's gradually fall apart.

A child offers not an antidote to that, but a counterbalance to it. You get to see a life develop instead of decay, watch as the kid acquired more and more faculties instead of losing them.

So it's not so much that a child makes you happier, but it counterbalances a certain kind of despair.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:54 PM on August 14, 2015 [25 favorites]


Metafilter: unwinnable arguments about what is best in life
posted by Rangi at 12:09 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


This quite helps me with the "female turning 40 soon" problem of procreating here. Toddler niece is adorbs but also omfg sooo exhausting.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 1:40 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think those of us who don't want kids are deeply, deeply fortunate. ... I'm pretty sure it's probably ... genetic

Put THAT in your "evolution", you goddamn THEORISTS.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:06 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think this study needs to be repeated for other countries. Like Turkey, where kids are seen as national treasures.

I love many individual Germans, but Germans as a collective can be a bunch of whiny bitches. I've met way too many whose idea of poverty is only one long vacation a year and driving an Opel. So I would take this study with a grain of salt, or as Germans would say, I would enjoy it cautiously*. They've also coined the phrase "complaining at a high level" - Jammern auf hohem Niveau.

*which is actually the way Germans enjoy most things. Though this small comment may or may not say more about my Germany-induced bitterness than about Germans themselves.
posted by ipsative at 3:19 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


I thought Conan settled the "best in life" question a while back.
posted by bswinburn at 4:53 AM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


I love many individual Germans, but Germans as a collective can be a bunch of whiny bitches

I have the same problem. I love a German, and then the German joins a collective of Germans I have previously loved - my "pre-loved Germans", if you will - and next thing I know they're all whining about my love techniques. In German! I mean, I hardly even got them all pregnant, it's just utterly unfair.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 5:50 AM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


idea of poverty is only one long vacation a year and driving an Opel.

Um. That is (first world) poverty these days, no?

Yeah, I'm German all right.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 6:00 AM on August 15, 2015


Hi! I'm just looking for a used Opel.
posted by Dumsnill at 6:21 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


You can be happy as a clam for most of your life and then you get old (if you're lucky, although old age is not for sissies as the great Bette Davis said) and then you die. I love my children and they do bring me great joy, even as they shit me to tears at times. I will end and they will go on and then they will end. Hopefully they will have children (if that's their choice) who will carry things on (and then they will end etc ad nauseum). It's that circle of life thing. No-one should be forced to have children and vice versa. Choosing to have children is just about the most personal thing there is.

No-one's happy and joyful all the time. Raising children is hard but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Happy one day, sad the next. That's life. With or without children.
posted by h00py at 7:27 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Idk having kids really hasn't been that hard. Having elderly parents is a lot harder and has absolutely 0 upside.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:40 AM on August 15, 2015 [8 favorites]


I think climbing Kilimanjaro or hiking across an arctic plane sounds like a miserable experience, punctuated by moments of utter bliss and joy. Yet people clearly feel it's worth it.
That's how I feel about having kids.
posted by Omnomnom at 8:55 AM on August 15, 2015 [12 favorites]


There's tremendous social pressure on parents, especially new parents, to be positive about their childbearing. To be sure there's some commiseration around the playground about how tough it can be, but buyer's remorse is out of the question. The dirty (little?) secret is that you can love your kids like crazy, more profoundly than you imagined possible, and still regret having them. I wish we knew how to be more honest about that, especially across generations, instead of so much insipid bile about cuddles and mama bears and giving your life meaning.
posted by werkzeuger at 9:19 AM on August 15, 2015 [9 favorites]


I do really wish we could avoid the usual cycle of "thing on parenthood gets posted, the anti-child brigade rolls in to tell us how babies are selfish and no one should have kids."

That's funny, I was just thinking I do really wish we could avoid the usual cycle of "thing on parenthood gets posted, and the pro-parenthood brigade rolls in to tell us how babies are the best thing ever and everyone should have kids."

There are more of the "pro-parenthood brigade" than the "not for me, thanks brigade" (which is a lot more accurate and less hostile and judgmental than "pro-child" and "anti-child," don't you think?) and OMG do we get tired of hearing that we have no idea what we're missing. Yeah, we do know, and we're not missing it.

No one is trying to tell you you made the wrong choice. No one here has said no one should have kids. It would be lovely if that courtesy could be reciprocated.
posted by caryatid at 9:38 AM on August 15, 2015 [19 favorites]


There's tremendous social pressure on parents, especially new parents, to be positive about their childbearing.... The dirty (little?) secret is that you can love your kids like crazy, more profoundly than you imagined possible, and still regret having them.

But isn't the second statement here kind of the logical consequence of the first? Disappointment is the consequence of expecting enjoyment, regret is the consequence of feeling like we should have made a higher-utility choice for ourselves. But the idea that we all exist as delightfully solitary rational actors, entirely unencumbered by obligations to other human beings except insofar as they're 100% voluntary entered into and amply counterbalanced by benefit to us, seems very much like a convenient modern fiction (of capitalism, maybe? Of democracy?). Historically, isn't it just the nature of life that other human beings come into your life in more-or-less inconvenient ways, to trouble you with their needs and faults, and that you suffer it because of your common humanity, try to love them because the alternative is hell on earth, and count yourself lucky if you get a few moments of joy out of the interaction?

It seems like such a weirdly consumerist mentality that gets us to the place where we could not just say, This is hard, I am suffering, but make (and own) the radical statement I wish you didn't exist.
posted by Bardolph at 10:40 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Um. That is (first world) poverty these days, no?

Yeah, I'm German all right.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 6:00 AM on August 15 [+] [!]


eponysterical!

I also once heard a middle aged guy say, "imagine how horrible it must be to have a child of yours die. You invest so much time, so much money..." with a straight face.

the quidnunc kid: and next thing I know they're all whining about my love techniques. In German!

See, that's the point: if it's Germans complaining, it probably means your love techniques are perfectly adequate, quidnunc kid!
posted by ipsative at 11:14 AM on August 15, 2015


Bardolph:

There are billions of reasons to regret. You can regret being impulsive, you can regret not taking a risk, you can regret things that are not even your own fault. One can be disappointed because someone didn't follow through, because something did not meet your expectations, even because you expected to embody selfless love and instead found you were venal and shallow. I don't see how these things are inherently capitalistic.

The idea that some people would not be parents isn't some perverted invention of late capitalism, it is as old as civilization - we've had religious or ceremonial figures who did not raise up families as far back as recorded history reaches.
posted by idiopath at 11:27 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


7 billion is enough.
posted by Tom-B at 11:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Idiopath-- yes, I definitely get that the experience of parenting can be pretty miserable for various (most?) people-- was just saying that it seems weirdly presumptuous to make the jump from "This sucks! I hate what is happening to me!" to "I regret your existence." I mean, there are a whole lot of people whose interactions with me have been net utility-negative from my perspective, but it feels somewhat invalidating of the other person's independent selfhood to say that because I'm decidedly not having fun, therefore the universe is better off without them, and if I could I would undo the sequence of events that led up to their being here.
posted by Bardolph at 11:39 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Idk having kids really hasn't been that hard. Having elderly parents is a lot harder and has absolutely 0 upside.


So... How exactly were you thinking to spare your kids that experience?
posted by Salamandrous at 2:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


Also the upside of having elderly parents is not having your parents die young, it seems to me.
posted by Salamandrous at 2:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Becoming a parent has been incredibly tough for me, for a number of reasons, so parental remorse is a subject I've though a lot about.

You know what they say about being able to hold contradictory ideas in your head at the same time? Here's mine: I love my kids to an inexpressible degree, like jump-in-front-of-a train love. Of course, right?

At the same time, in the broadest possible sense, and again for a number of reasons, I hugely regret becoming a parent. I have fucking hated most of it, outside those moments of pure, previously-incomprehensible joy that, yes, parenting does bring. Occasionally. Sometimes even often.

I would die for my kids. But I have loathed probably 90% of what it means to be a parent. So should I never have done it? Believe me, I am often ashamed to find myself wishing exactly that.

Where does that leave me? Still trying to figure that one out.
posted by El Curioso at 7:31 PM on August 15, 2015 [11 favorites]


(Oh, 3 and 6, by the way. Girls.)
posted by El Curioso at 7:46 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


One interesting aspect of the kid/no kid debate is only the kid camp has experienced both sides. Being dismissive of something you've never experienced makes for an uninformed argument.

I expected to like fatherhood, but I was TOTALLY unprepared for how awesome it is. I cried for the first week of my little buddies' life, tears of joy. There are no words to describe the "love" I feel for him. You know that feeling you have when you KNOW you've bought someone a really great present, and you can't wait for them to open it, or use it, or wear it, or read it? It's like that, but times a million, every day. I love life and I GAVE that to someone. I find myself crying a lot lately.

We lived in San Diego and don't get much rain. We went out for dinner one night and carried the baby to the restaurant. When we walked out it was drizzling lightly. He had never seen rain before. He looked up so quizzically then burst into smiles and laughter. He loves rain!

As for the whole carbon footprint, is my baby worth the lives of 75 people debate? F that. The world is fucked, it was fucked. That's not my fault. Nothing will change that. I don't despair for one moment at he not inheriting a better world or our contribution to that. There's joy all around us. I feel confident that we can instill a sense of joy in him regardless what happens to the world.

As for the study, it grossly misunderstands happiness in my opinion. I would argue that an ounce of sublime parental happiness is worth a 1,000 lbs of workplace happiness or marital happiness or mental well being. But that's just me, to each his own. But I can tell you that I've gone through the looking glass and I had no idea what was on this side til I got here.
posted by karst at 6:21 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


karst: are you saying that I, as someone who first attempted to get a vasectomy at the age 16, who got one over a decade ago, who has never wanted to be a parent, should go have a child so I can really know how I feel about the issue?
posted by idiopath at 7:01 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


I-have/want-kids: great
I-don't-want-kids: more power to ya
YOU-shouldn't-have-kids: bite me
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:23 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


You have to have kids: eye roll "OK, Grandma"
posted by idiopath at 7:24 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


"karst: are you saying that I, as someone who first attempted to get a vasectomy at the age 16, who got one over a decade ago, who has never wanted to be a parent, should go have a child so I can really know how I feel about the issue?"

No. Certainly not. There's no reason anyone should have a well informed opinion on parenthood. But you can't know what parenthood feels like until you're a parent. To say that you'd trade Friday nights and $250k in pocket money in exchange for dirty diapers and midnight tantrums is to misunderstand the trade off.

Metafilter loves to point out that a man can never know what it's like to be a woman. Or a white person can never know what it's like to be black. It's the same with parenthood. You may not want to be a parent. That's fine. But if someone has never had a kid they can't really know what the pros and cons of parenthood are. It's like a virgin saying that sex is gross.
posted by karst at 7:52 AM on August 16, 2015 [7 favorites]


Except for a brief period when he didn't need sleep, I have always loved my son. We stayed up way too late watching the meteors this week. Something we could do from my bed, with bowls of ice cream and cups of tea. A fox came up on the porch and was just as interested in the show.

Who else is going to be utterly content doing that with you?


Any pothead.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:26 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


I expected to like fatherhood, but I was TOTALLY unprepared for how awesome it is.

Guess that's why single mothers aren't a thing that exist.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:27 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


No. Certainly not. There's no reason anyone should have a well informed opinion on parenthood. But you can't know what parenthood feels like until you're a parent.

Okay, but then everyone who does decide to have a child is also making an uniformed decision, which might be reflected in this study.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:21 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


Well, I'll never know what it's like to start my own company but that doesn't mean I can't make an informed decision about the downsides not being worth the upsides for me.
The "you'll never know what the experience is like until you try" argument is correct but limited in its application.
posted by Omnomnom at 10:06 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


The question of "how do you decide whether to become a parent when you can't really know what it's like before you become a parent, and when becoming parent actually, at least for some people, changes your fundamental values and sense of what's worth doing?" is not an easy one. But the philosopher L.A.Paul has spent years thinking about exactly this and it's worth hearing what she has to say.
posted by escabeche at 10:33 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


To say that you'd trade Friday nights and $250k in pocket money in exchange for dirty diapers and midnight tantrums is to misunderstand the trade off.

My mate was changing his kid and while he had the nipper on the bed and had the nappie off it pissed so hard its urine bounced off the ceiling. Off the fricking ceiling! (In a rental!) Meanwhile my cat is housetrained and can sleep on my belly without moving for up to 2 hours. And has much lower carbon emissions.

Anyway, slightly more relevant to the FPP: My German friends had a kid, the bloke fits the German stereotype pretty well, outdoorsy, hardworking, efficient, etc. He reckoned parenthood was going to be about 3 months of turmoil, then everything would settle down and they would go back to surfing, exercise, work achievement, etc. We bumped into them about 10 months after the birth and he was battered. How we laughed. He will admit to being a bit optimistic about how it would go. Having said that, as far as we can see there is a lot of variation in how demanding it can be. I think my German friend was influenced by another of our friends whose first baby was basically an angel, slept through from day one, lovely disposition, basically adorable.
posted by biffa at 12:37 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ok, somebody help me out, here. I KNOW we had a thread here in the ladt two years about a TED talk given by a woman and a man. It included the results of a study on happiness and having children.
I think the result was that the overall level of happiness was lower, but the highs were a lot higher (and the lows lower, I guess).
It was eye opening for me and makes total sense.

Can anyone find it?

For me, every day is like that.
4 year old sees toddler drop bottle and cry, picks it up for her and talks kindly to her = I feel like a million dollars.
Toddler spraypoops into bathwater an hour later = I want cry, Consider taking my passport and running away to Hawaii.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:46 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


oh god...

"spraypoops"...?

into BATHWATER???
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:07 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


(This thread has been really interesting - thanks to all contributors.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:07 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


into BATHWATER???

We call that a Code Brown.
posted by Artw at 6:25 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


While I don't doubt there is pressure on new parents to "keep a stiff upper lip" and refrain from disclosing feelings of unhappiness about ever giving birth, as father anyway I kind of think that, once you have brought a kid into the world, feeling unhappy about your choice is pretty damn selfish and, with a mouth to feed and nurture and make happy, totally beside the point. Feeling sorry oneself is kind of a luxury when there are other, more urgent matters to attend to - filling the fridge, paying the rent, making sure the kids are clothed and so on.

I realize I'm saying this from a man's perspective (women and mothers obviously will have other perspectives I will never know, and will never be able to speak for), and that maybe not all fathers feeling this way, but there is great peril in allowing oneself to feel unhappy for too long.
posted by Nevin at 6:36 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


into BATHWATER???

It is surprisingly often that putting a kid into water (especially warm water) produces immediate excretory outputs. If you can't handle floaters or full-on poop soup, don't have kids.

I don't have kids, partly for exactly this reason.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:02 PM on August 16, 2015


But you can't know what parenthood feels like until you're a parent.

Oh, brother. This isn't like broccoli or foreign travel or an activity or hobby (how do you know you don't like it if you've never tried it?). It is the height of arrogance and irresponsibility to insist that the only way to really know is to have a child.

23skidoo has already pointed out the obvious fact that you can't know what it's like to be childfree at any given age after you have a kid. You also have utterly no idea what it's like to know, as well as you know your own name, from the moment you become aware that someday you could have a child, that you have absolutely no desire to have a child. No matter how relentlessly society and biology and your parents pressure you to reproduce, you know that being a parent would make you deeply unhappy.

Being dismissive of something you've never experienced makes for an uninformed argument.
posted by caryatid at 7:04 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


I don't know the TED talk but it sounds like the thesis of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting.
posted by Miko at 8:03 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


oh god...

"spraypoops"...?

into BATHWATER???


On a somewhat related note, my one claim to fame is that I've changed hundreds if not thousands of diapers between my younger siblings and three children, and never once have I gotten peed on (or worse). We've just finished potty-training our youngest, so I think I'm safe.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:03 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


As I tell anyone who asks how I like being a parent, having a child is simultaneously the best thing that's ever happened to me, and the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 12:05 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


as father anyway I kind of think that, once you have brought a kid into the world, feeling unhappy about your choice is pretty damn selfish and, with a mouth to feed and nurture and make happy, totally beside the point.

You can regret your decisions or circumstances and still fulfill your responsibilities and obligations. With a smile, even. That's the opposite of selfish.

And as someone else pointed out, this is a uniquely German study. With the limited reproductive options in the U.S. you'd have a hard time discerning which women here even had the option to not have a child, or even conceive one.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:58 AM on August 17, 2015


how often do kids need to be washed anyway, can't you just leave them under the sprinklers for a bit
posted by um at 5:48 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wash mine once a week. Though I let him have recreational baths whenever he wants, where soap isn't necessarily involved and he just plays in the water for a bit while I drink wine and read a book.

I think I've maybe had a code brown once, and he's 4.5 years old now.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:39 AM on August 17, 2015


The only thing worse than having a child is losing a child.

Which speaks to the contradictions of the whole experience.
posted by clawsoon at 9:40 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


You can regret your decisions or circumstances and still fulfill your responsibilities and obligations. With a smile, even. That's the opposite of selfish.

I think it is important to examine and acknowledge one's feelings, especially feelings of sadness and regret. But it's also important, if you can, to adjust to your new reality and chart a path forward. If you are not clinically depressed and if you do not require medication or therapy to resolve your mental health issues, thinking negative thoughts is really dangerous, because it limits the ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunities.
posted by Nevin at 1:22 PM on August 17, 2015


Just popping in to say that I have two kids, and it's neither the pits of despair nor the heights of joy. Mostly just cleaning up a lot. So, erm, it depends? Can't generalize?
posted by alasdair at 1:23 PM on August 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


Alasdair, you're being way too reasonable about this.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:07 PM on August 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


I had a kid and it was... just okay.
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:30 PM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I thought I wasn't going to have children. That that was the sensible, responsible option, especially given the number of girls I knew who got pregnant at 15.
Then I look back over my twenties and realise I did sweet fuck all with it. And that the most meaningful thing I did was part-time parenting the child of a relative.
By a long, long way.

I'm pretty convinced I would have accomplished MORE in life by this point if I had just had a kid a decade ago. More travel, more holidays, more creativity, more things I would be proud of.
I'm impressed with what my mother accomplished with me, with less resources than I have.
Yes, that's down to my own personality quirks, because really - I can be pretty terrible at standing up for myself, or 'putting my own oxygen mask on' first. Whereas if I have a kid in the picture?
Bam, I am putting that oxygen mask on because someone else is depending on me to have it together, so I can put their mask on NEXT.
I feel like I have wasted a bunch of emotional labour on fellow adults, and relationship partners, when - c'mon. They're adults. Kids are labour intensive until you teach them to do each thing for themselves. It has an end in sight.
With a kid, I have this sense of not wasting time - because they're growing up so quick! I want to take THEM to the art gallery, to the park, on a summer holiday, to make good childhood memories, to give them the foundation for being a competent adult.
I want to be more productive, more creative myself, because I want to be a good example to them of what being a happy, competent adult looks like. I refuse to put up with terrible workplaces, terrible friendships, terrible relationships, because I have other, more important commitments.

After spending all this time and effort doing things for, supposedly, someone else, a small little human being, I realise I like the person I am more when I'm parenting.

So, yeah. I decided, screw it, I am going to be a parent, and THEN - I started thinking about what I really did want to do before having kids. A few years living in Europe, London, travelling the world. I'm doing it.
I'm on the other side of the world.
I mean, it'd be 'better' by some measure if my motivation wasn't so external, but it is what it is.



Oddly, I think another turning point was joining a child-free mailing list, and it being full of... child-phobics. Like, fully scared of having a child staring at them in public, and then going on rants about how they'd probably deserve and attract pedophiles. (?!?!!)
Really, really unwell, and I can only conclude it was some kind of uncanny valley thing, where they literally couldn't relate to children as human beings, and they were too similar to adults to feel comfortable, or... something. Anyway, I react pretty badly to discourse that de-humanises children. Or people in general, really. In my head, I could just... never really identify as childfree again, which is a weird place to start, but, eh.

Actually, even the commentary above about kids versus cats bothers me. Because, I've had this kind of conversation before. And if you'd always rescue a cat over any human, ok, fine. I can respect that, if not fuuuully understand it.
But I've seen people who acknowledge that they'd try and save a friend or an adult who was through no fault of their own going to be harmed, or a stranger from their community. In this forum, substitute another for another mefite perhaps. But they keep 'jokingly' persisting in saying that they'd prefer to save the animal over the kid, and... haha, it's supposed to be a joke, but it dehumanises children. Where would that be acceptable against any other group of people? For realsies, just substitute women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities in the mental run through of a joke before deciding that you'd punt a hypothetical 3 year old toddler who wants to be batman when she grows up.
But, eh, the dehumanisation thing is not a parent/not parent thing either though, I mean, worst case is when people who don't really think of children as human beings have kids themselves. That's the root of a some pretty terrible parenting fails - fundamentally not acknowledging the independent human-being-ness of a child. Assuming parenthood is ownership.

Anyway, to bring it round again. Happiness is often measured with scales that are actually measuring comfort.
Travelling is more uncomfortable, more stressful, but more meaningful to me. As with kids. More stressful, but so are most adventures in life.
posted by Elysum at 4:53 PM on August 17, 2015 [17 favorites]


Used to be only the comments section of other sites frustrated me.
posted by cherrybounce at 8:57 PM on August 18, 2015




But I can tell you that nine-year-olds, they are a hoot. Just smart enough to talk about interesting things, but in such a world of their own that you will never ever know what they're going to say next. They will let you sleep in, too.

Mine doesn't let me sleep in. He is a hoot though, and off in some world designed by surrealists.

This morning he grasped me on both sides of my mandible and informed me that the big birds were chasing the white squirrel. Had to go look at that. He's often wrong about what he sees but never that wrong.

He pulled me into the room with the best view and indeed, there are 14 adult and 7 little turkeys pissed off at a white squirrel, chasing it and knocking it off any tree it tried to climb. It was terrified and defecating and boy was identifying with it. So we had to do something. His idea was shotgun, mine was airsoft and no headshots and we went out and the turkeys evacuated.

9 is some kind of golden age between reason and whatever that is we are born with that is not reason. And it pulls you down (up?) to their level. I doubt I would have cared if he had not been here. Shooting turkeys with non-lethal weapons and saving the white squirrel was about the most fun we've ever had together.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


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