My personal situation is complicated, but I think children make specific kinds of people happy.
I have a child, and I really enjoy learning. And we here at HN love the Feynman style "you want to learn, then be able to teach" paradigm.
I want to say I am often inspired by far smarter parents than me here, as my son is still less than 5. But I doubt I can catch up to teach him robotics. One man here once quipped he and his son were bonding over the shared development of typed programming language.
When my son reacts to input and adapts, he is the ultimate compiler, and I am part of one scraggly development team. When you look at parenting this way, I find it to be that cheesy "most rewarding achievement of your life" commentary far less trite and I feel it internally and beam with pride.
I would love to hear counter-arguments, but HN has show me anecdotes where I feel I am reading, coincidentally, the parenting tips of future world leaders and specifically movers and shakers in the CS world by virtue of how they inspire their kids.
I don't feel that anyone disputes that children make parents happier (cuteness, inadvertent humor, fulfillment ...) but the responsibilities associated with them (sleep deprivation, education and care related costs, ...) stress everyone out which everyone acknowledges as well
It's probably because happiness is a difficult thing to pin down. I could see them as decreasing happiness, but increasing fulfillment. But then, since fulfillment is a big component of happiness, perhaps I'm just defining happiness wrong.
I can totally see stress as a major factor. Just the thought of financing some or all of college is stressful. Given that most parents want their kids to experience college, I can see that weighing on the minds of many parents.
Hypothesis: people mostly say having kids makes them happy, because they know that's the right answer and they've never actually stopped to evaluate that statement since the child was 2 days old and the joy hadn't worn off.
Like most things, I suspect it's an opinion that's formed and then never reflected on unless something major comes along to force a correction of it.
As an aside to this, there's a lot that society and governance can do to make life easier for parents both in the short and long term. Places that do that make the statement more likely to be true, as the article suggests.
If we further subsidized child-bearing we would have fewer abortions which for my personal socio-economic beliefs (YMMV) would be a great thing but would the right wing allow that? NO! — Ironic, huh?
Among those who really see abortion as a compelling issue many are pretty far left on immigration, national defense, capital punishment and social welfare programs. They find themselves stuck in a right wing they're not terribly comfortable in because they were drummed out of the Democratic Party, through its doctrinaire insistence on the abortion license.
You see this especially strongly in the Catholic community; abortion is almost universally condemned, while the rest of the issues you mentioned are supported. Catholics also traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party (Democratic-Republicans). While you can find a small minority of Democratic politicians who identify as anti-abortion, they typically aren't active about it.
> You see this especially strongly in the Catholic community; abortion is almost universally condemned
This actually isn't true; while abortion (both the act and its legality) are condemned in strong terms by the Catholic hierarchy, opinion polling has consistently shown the US Catholic community has roughly the same distribution of views on abortion and its legality as the general public.
Splitting hairs, but when Quinnipiac broke out Catholics who were weekly communicants as opposed to merely 'identifying', there were significant differences.
> Splitting hairs, but when Quinnipiac broke out Catholics who were weekly communicants as opposed to merely 'identifying', there were significant differences.
Further splitting hairs, what they actual broke down was weekly Mass attenders vs. others, not weekly communicants. Those aren't the same thing.
But, yes, unsurprisingly, adherence to authority on the one point correlates with adherence to authority on the other.
Children are an absolutely massive financial net-negative for all quality-of-life levels above the poverty line, and a few below. They will contribute to society far above their cost, but never pay back their parents. Maybe we should subsidize childcare more? Surely, that would better align parent's benefit with civilization's.
> Children are an absolutely massive financial net-negative for all quality-of-life levels above the poverty line
Not in my experience. My kid cost me money, but quality of life increased a lot since everything is now much more enjoyable. Also, kids do not pay back their parents with money, but they pay back much more with their love, and making life much more enjoyable for the parents.
>The researchers caution that their findings don't mean that American parents are less happy than other parents around the world, as some media outlets have reported
Like for example the headline of this very article. I guess it was not written by the author.
The article seems to cite public policy as the source of the difference. I don't think public policies are the root cause, but rather the underlying values of the culture that gave rise to them (as the article later seems to suggest). I'll bet that the U.S. end of that chart tends to be characterized by cultures that put individualism above all else, while the other end much less so.
Individualism is good; I'd never want the other extreme. I think Asian cultures subvert the individual to the group far too much. But the extreme individualism of the U.S. has led to an ever more selfish, narcissistic and cold society, where material gain and personal comfort trumps everything.
The Nordics, where having kids also increases your happiness, are also very high on individualism as opposed to collectivism. The key difference to the US are the public policies that allow families never to stress about things like arranging daycare to the kids from the day they born.
These policies are not there to combat individualism, but to enable it with taxpaid support networks. Most of them are not poor aids, but state benefits that everyone enjoys, like the free or cheap high quality daycare used by the poor and rich alike.
I'd really like to see a study specific to female happiness with children. I live in the US, and I think men and women's experience with children is entirely different.
When my wife worked, she missed our kids tremendously. Almost 75% of her take home went to day care. She was pretty miserable.
Now she stays home. She gets a lot of off-hand comments from other friends with kids about "how bored they would be if they stayed home". Or from friends without kids about "how they feel like they are doing something with their lives".
Now she feels like she isn't doing enough with her life.
Maybe she needs thicker skin, or maybe the societal pressure for women is immense.
Men working is expected by society. IME, the dads I know who stay home get more of an "awesome bro!" type response when they say they stay home.
I just feel like no matter what I do, I will feel happy with kids. No matter what my wife does, she feels like it isn't good enough.
[Edit: so many links to books! I've exhausted my audible credits for the month. Thanks for the support!]
Wow, I have a very similar experience to yours. My wife worked, same thing, now doesn't work, and she feels lonely and like she (1) isn't contributing and (2) has no adult conversation.
I try to help her by mentioning how great she is with the kid, and by taking the kid places by myself so she can go see and do adult things.
Good point. No matter how you arrange it, its important to have respite, regularly. Back when the boys were babies I'd come home Wednesday night, she'd shove the youngest into my arms and head out the door for a night off with the girlfriends. Every Wednesday night. Just her time. It made everything else endurable.
A huge part of that is the lack of OTHER stay at home moms that would previously create an entire social group for each other. It's socially awkward to mix in a stay at home dad into that type of group for a number of reasons.
Add in moving away from home and family to the mix as contributors for the lack of adult conversation too.
It the worst of both worlds I think. Pressure from the home duties and from work. Doing less than your best at both.
I have made it a point to suggest to my wife, if she ever chooses go out to find work at whatever point, that volunteer work would be the best. No financial pressures.
Societal Pressure on Women in the work place is immense.
Societal Pressure on Mothers is also immense.
They combine to make it exceptionally tough on Women. But mad props to those who have persevered despite that pressure--like my Mom and many other mothers out there.
> IME, the dads I know who stay home get more of an "awesome bro!"
If you are independently wealthy, sure. Otherwise, IME, you are considered a failure for not being able to provide for your family.
That's a problem with our culture, then, because early retirement (in the sense that you work on whatever you want irrespective of money and spend more time with your children) can be much more fulfilling than the vast majority of office jobs. Financial independence should be a goal of everyone's.
I think this is sadly a cultural thing. My wife comes from a culture that really values being a stay at home mom. She gave her career up to be at home full-time to raise our child and I've never seen her happier (but more tired :).
Our peers are for the most part American born and have a very different view. The moms obsess about missing out on their previous careers and living life as they did pre-children. They seem much less happy (as do their children).
In large parts of the world raising kids is "doing something with their lives", just not in the US.
I think the idea that you aren't doing enough with your life if you are just raising kids is wrong. Educating kids is one of the most important jobs. They will grow up to be full human beings, so the positive effect you can have on the world through them can easily be greater than the positive contribution at a job.
When I was growing up, my dad stayed home to take care of us and my mom worked. And he eventually felt devalued by the rest of society, socially isolated, and (as we grew up and needed him less) missing a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
I think it's an individual thing. Healthy boundaries are a good thing to have regardless of gender. It's important to learn not to give up things that are important to you regardless of the messages society sends, and that if society has a problem with that, that's society's problem and not yours. Society is pretty big, after all, and there's bound to be some portion of it that will accept your well-considered choices.
I'd also observe that there are probably time-sensitive issues; much of the day-to-day stuff with small children is dreary, but the long-term prospects are quite good. I've heard lots of older people say that having adult children is great, because they're self-sustaining and yet emotionally close / connected.
Many long-term projects (probably including startups) have somewhat crappy day-to-day moments but high long-term satisfaction. And many short-term satisfactions (like eating ice cream) may have negative long-term consequences.
Bryan Caplan's book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think is also good on these topics, and he points out that much of the supposed happiness research is overblown or misused.
No data to back up my feeling that most of the pressure stay at home women get is from other women. My wife stays at home and we buck any negative comment together to keep those feelings at bay. We show we are proud of it, not ashamed by it and we aren't willing to let anyone else belittle our choices.
Any negative comment, any off-hand comment needs to be squashed immediately. Same thing happens with self-esteem issues I think. If the negative comments don't stop from 'friends' you have to make the sometimes tough choice to find better friends. I make sure to say with force how much she does, how helpless I'd be or what a mess I'd be without her help at home.
I think like yourself my mental state is strong enough that I choose lowering myself to lift her above the haters.
It seems there's no "bright" side. There are some stay-at-home moms in my wife's family and they were... defensive... when my wife went back to work.
So either way, you find a way to be resentful or ashamed.
Go back to work and miss your child's first steps/words/laughs. Go back to work and someone else raises your children. Someone else uses your child to teach their child how to be a leader. Someone else (accidentally) gets called "mom".
Stay at home and barely manage to tread water financially compared to your dual-income friends. Stay at home and watch your career disappear (unless you chose one of those "never need to skill up" careers that're considered "safe" for women, like teaching). Stay at home and prepare for a lifetime of resentment about men being further ahead than you career-wise. Stay at home and propagate stereotypes.
I guess though, in the end, there's no doubt that someone that chose their career will regret it at some point in their lives, where you might be able to escape without regret having chosen to stay home.
You can have a bright side if you can shake off the judgement of others. Some folks seem better equipped at this than others and I'd like to figure out how to "skill up" that trait!
The dual-income and DINKs (dual-income no kids) families will always win when appraised financially. Home, car, health. You have to work twice as hard for the same output on one income.
"Stay at home and propagate stereotypes" feels wrong these days. The stereotype and expectation seems to have both parents working and having one stay at home is bucking the trend.
All of the negatives seem to center around the individuals valuation of themselves based on outside opinions.
I'm too close to giving real opinions so I'm bowing out of the thread. ARRGGHH!
tread water financially compared to your dual-income friends
Screw that. Don't judge your life by how others live.
My newest car is 12 years old. I have a wife, kids, and a good job and could easily have new cars every few years but instead I have no debt other than mortgage and I put the money into my retirement and college savings. I don't begrudge the choices of my friends who like to buy a lot of new things but I also don't feel any obligation to live the way they do.
Clearly you don't live in the Bay Area or you bought in before the house price jump.
Treading water financially is an accurate way to describe life in the Bay Area for families with a stay-at-home parent. The modest standard of living you describe about yourself significantly exceeds what could be expected for the median software developer in the Bay Area. Families with incomes below that would not be able to sustain their cash flow without a commute that exceeds 90 minutes or exposes them to unacceptably high levels of crime.
Maybe more people should move out of the bay area? Especially if they have kids? It's so much cheaper essentially everywhere else. Even with a salary cut I would imagine it's worth it in many situations.
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing that the economic unit versions of these families would move to a place with a better salary/cost-of-living ratio. Moving takes time; the advent of eye-popping living costs in SF is less than 4 years old. Moving a family is a big deal. There is data that suggests that moving children in their teens more than doubles their risk of mental illness and criminal behavior. Certainly the U.S. has the lowest barriers to relocation, but it's not a trivial undertaking.
I can confirm that it is pressure from other women because my wife has heard the same. It seems that a woman can choose any profession she wants just not to stay at home with the children.
I've observed the same. My wife is happy working while simultaneously feeling like she wishes she could be home with the kids. She works with a number of women with master's degrees and they consistently opt to stop working as soon as maternity leave is up if they are able to.
Our kids go to late stay programs at school because we both work, which means that if they want to do an after school activity like soccer, dance, scouts, etc that it's a "rush from late stay, change as fast as you can, go to activity."
We aren't trying to overload them or anything either, just aiming for 1 after school activity a couple of days a week.
I think 90% of the pressure is people trying to justify their life choices or requirements.
If you are working mom and you have to be for income sake or to pay student loans, you'll see stay at home mom's with a "must be nice" attitude.
If you're a working mom and you don't have to be, it's a "I'd be so bored" or "What do you do all day?" or "My job gives me purpose" because it reinforces your own life choices (whether you believe it or not).
If you're a stay at home mom because your job would just be paying for day care, it's going to be a feeling that you should be doing more.
If you're a stay at home mom because you choose to you should feel nothing but contentment with it because you made the choice.
This is a hard lesson that a lot of people, myself included, are experiencing because we've all been sold a different bill of goods our entire lives. There's even a book on it called The Two Income Trap.
The simplest way to filter out negative chatter is to identify whether somebody is trying to make themselves feel better about their own choices or not. That's 90% of the negative chatter that I observe.
> maybe the societal pressure for women is immense.
It is. I think feminism left our culture with the belief that it is OK for a woman to opt in to do anything she wants. But we didn't also get the message that it's OK to opt out.
Want a career? Great! Want to raise kids? Great!
Want to not have a career? Bad! Want to not raise kids? Bad!
It's unfair. I've watched almost every single woman I know in my age bracket (late thirties today) struggle with this dilemma in her life at some point. Instead of feeling that they can do anything, they feel they have to do everything.
Anything worthwhile is hard. Was I happy day 6 on a weeklong hike on an island in the rain and mosquitoes? It didn't seem like it at the time. Yet I'm going again. Its a silly question really.
Listening to great music isn't hard. Watching a great film isn't hard. Simply spending time with loved ones isn't hard.
All are, in my view, worthwhile.
Yes, there is a satisfaction in accomplishing something difficult. But that neither makes it inherently worthwhile, nor does it mean all worthwhile things are hard.
There is no personal accomplishment to hedonistic pleasure. I would call them pleasant, even broadening which I guess is worthwhile, once in a while. So maybe I should say it with many more words and more detail, so non-Calvinists can get it: many very hard, very demanding things are worth doing even though not constantly pleasurable.
I do think people have children for the wrong reasons, most of them selfish. Honestly I want kids so I have someone to play legos with, or whatever they want to do.
I should have explained my point more. I think parents have children because they feel obligated, or due to religious, family, social, or some other personal need. I don't know if I've ever met anyone or seen anywhere that a couple has asked themselves WHY they are having children, but rather SHOULD they have children. It's a sensitive subject that could make or break a relationship.
Ha! Having children to get your mother(-in-law) off your back? At which point these grandparents now criticize the way you raise your kids at the same time spoiling them. Worth it? Maybe because, let me guess, the grandparents are willing to babysit or provide daycare so you can work.
The reason I'd have kids is for that connection only a father can have to his child and the joy a large extended family can bring as my children eventually have children and so on which is completely selfish. But I'd say there's nothing wrong with it in my eyes.
Aside from the cost of raising a child, the bulk of the data in that article was in the chart. Everything else was idle speculation over an arbitrary measurement of "happiness".
If they just kept giving Minsky the money like they should have, we could have strong AIs Terminatoring us right now, and we could just get it all over with.
Basic armchair psychology will tell you, nothing can make you happy. Your happiness is your own responsibility.
Not all parents may understand that having children may mean drastic changes to lifestyle, and may not have been prepared for the ~27 years of stress that having children bring on.
Oddly enough, having kids gives me a purpose in Society, that otherwise being a 36 year old man would not have. Too old to join the military, too young for end-of-life services, too set in my buying habits for marketing to care at all about me.
As the wise Stringer Bell once said, you're like a 40 degree day.
But being a dad, society is all about that: my lack of physique is called "dadbod" and women can profess to fetishize about it, my asanine advice to my kids are subject of a comedy twitter account, my no-more-give a dame attitude for fashion sense is celebrated, and I even have a national holiday to celebrate being a Dad--which gives me a legit excuse to do what I want to do (which for most dads involves cooking food on a grill for their families)
It does decline, but I think the 27 years is meant to include College, finding a job, a mate, a home - i.e. "launched" and independent. 27 seems to be a somewhat arbitrary number as is my list of "launched" criteria, but in the US kids can no longer be on their parents health-care plans after age 26. That's a significant milestone for many.
My wife and I debated having kids. By my mid 30's I felt like I was living a stupid life that was basically me sitting around watching sports at bars and waiting for the next cool video game to come out. My son gives me life immense meaning, but boy have the stress levels gone up. There's no "right" answer, just the choices you make and the ramifications of them. For me it was stressful life full of meaning, or easy life that felt empty and meaningless.
My friends with children after they've had a few drinks have all told my wife and I to not have children.
I know this is a small selection of college educated people with comfortable lifestyles, but when every single person I know discloses to me when they're in a truthful state that we're better off not having kids..it makes you think.
It does, but to me it says a lot more about how hedonistic and consumer focused the middle+ classes of western society are than of some sort of inherent negative associated with having children.
When people say kids are the most fulfilling thing in their life, is it because they are didn't have anything really fulfilling in their life before that?
I get fulfillment for my job some of the time - though its not the be all and end all in my life and it pissed me off sometimes too. I get a lot more from whitewater kayaking and mountain biking and generally being outdoors in my spare time. Some of my friends have had kids, and most have given up or seriously cut down on the amount that they devote to the sports they loved.
Did you have something that gave you a lot of fulfillment before you had kids?
> Did you have something that gave you a lot of fulfillment before you had kids?
Yes, and I still do. I am a soft dev, so job is quite fulfilling, I also like mountain hiking, friends, etc. But having a kid is something different, it is just not comparable regarding the level of satisfaction. For me the relationship with my kid is the most fulfilling thing a world can offer. (But of course I wouldnt believe that before I had one)
> When people say kids are the most fulfilling thing in their life, is it because they are didn't have anything really fulfilling in their life before that?
No.
> Did you have something that gave you a lot of fulfillment before you had kids?
Many things, and I still do.
But it's certainly a trade off, trying to live out media images of motherhood/fatherhood need to be avoided, and kids don't have to be the most fulfilling thing in anyone's life.
>> My friends with children after they've had a few drinks have all told my wife and I to not have children.
Because getting out to have drinks with friends becomes so rare. In that moment, you are fulfilling one of their social needs that has been so neglected it seems like the only thing that matters. What they're really saying is that by not having children you'll be able to continue as you are right then. Take it as a thank you from them for having that drink.
>> Maybe they're actually saying not to have children. I don't understand all the projection.
Thanks, I like your response. I thought I was just offering an alternative interpretation for why they said it, but maybe I need to get out more with friends ;-) OTOH I do not regret having children, nor do I advocate that people avoid having them.
Note to self, consider weather speculation is actually projection.
My friends with children after they've had a few drinks have all told my wife and I to not have children.
Part of the question is, "Over what time horizon?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050597). Many people with very young kids say it's the pits, but ones with older ones seem to do much better. And many people over age 45 or so who don't have kids seem to wish that they'd had kids.
I'm guessing that there's also a strong "grass is greener" element. In discussions about what to do in high school or college, half the responses always say "Study harder!" and half say "Party more!", with both sides seemingly recommending the thing they didn't do.
I get drunk every so often (when my kid isn't around) and I still I love the little bugger and wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I don't suggest people to be parents (some folks won't be happy with that choice) but you must run in very weird circles if every parent friend you have tells you not to have kids when they are tipsy.
There is definitely a pressure to lie and say everything about kids is great all of the time; that is clearly not the case.
I would say that "small" happiness is less due to the huge amount of work and stress. On the flip side "large" happiness (or fulfillment) is higher. Whether that makes sense is a very personal decision.
I'm also very early in the journey. I have no idea how it will turn out in 15 years. I am happy that I'll have someone to hand things down to. I'm also happy some of my genes will survive even if all other evidence I existed disappears.
As a father, I still cant believe how someone might be happier without children, or kids have not made him happier... it is a most fulfilling thing to have a relationship with ones own kid. I also do not personally know anyone who said kids didnt make him happier. I am from Europe, not USA, but it is unlikely people are that different there.
> I am from Europe, not USA, but it is unlikely people are that different there.
You would be surprised. Americans receive very strong lifelong messaging about how they should live their life to optimize for immediate comfort. Having and raising children definitely causes strain on one's ability to fulfill the lifestyle that has been marketed to them.
Ha, we definitely do. But we also receive lifelong conditioning that raising children should be a central part of one's life. It's pretty easy to convince yourself to be skeptical of this Kool Aid that everyone seems to be drinking.
It may make you happier, but at what cost? Having children is a monumentally massive physical, emotional, financial, and psychological investment. What if there's a problem in the womb and they're born with a physical defect? What if there's a problem at birth and my spouse is now physically scarred for life? What if I get divorced and my wife now legally fucks me out of everything I own, and grooms the children to despise me (something that has become so common in family court that there's a term for it: parental alienation syndrome)? What if a couple years down the road they turn out to be highly autistic? What if they get hit by a bus in their 16th year? What if they turn into a drug addict when they're 19 and never speak to me again?
The "what ifs" can go on forever. At some point one has to rationalize whether or not all of this is worth it, to invest so much of oneself into another human being without first considering themselves.
Ok. But I still believe it is worth it. Anything bad can happen to ones life even without having kids. Despite the risks it is worth it. But of course, it requires to have a good partner who supports family values.
This is the argument I used with the 2 doctors that refused to perform a vasectomy on me when I was age 25.
The hereditary history of physical and mental illnesses that run in my family, the economic/environmental projection for the rest of this century as well as the hypotheticals that you listed tip the scales in entirety towards the costs rather than the benefits.
None of the nebulous, ineffable personal fulfillments that parents speak of have ever sounded like a basis for a good moral argument for forcing a new life into this world.
That's called 'FUD' and it drives lots of decisions. What if ... all of those are small possibilities even added up?
Instead let me ask, What if you, as a thoughtful and responsible person do not raise another thoughtful and responsible individual? And instead leave it to the thoughtless and irresponsible. We have to live with that too.
The outcome without kids is 100% up to me though. With kids, one can still raise them to the best of their abilities and still turn out awful for one reason or another.
The second part to that is a different question entirely, and one that goes beyond just one's own happiness.
Bad things can happen without kids. Life is full of risks and unknowns you just have to focus on the upside. Having kids is no different - except the upside can be phenomenal.
Children don't make you happier but they do make you develop as a person. I enjoy the company of my children and it saddens me how keen most parents are to offload theirs onto minimum-wage carers (ironically at great expense).
I've often wondered if this response really means "I regret having children, it was a mistake" OR "I've now experienced the path of having children. Even though it was good, I'd like to experience that other path".
They should have asked people without kids "If you could do it all over again, would you have kids this time"?
I think a big part of it is that a lot of people think that having kids is expected of them. I applaud the people who know what they want and follow through no matter what expectations are put on them. Be it with not getting married or not having kids (or vice versa). I wanted kids and so did my wife, our views were the same and we ended up having two kids. It has brought immense happiness to me (and sleep deprivation). I wish I could see them more but I value the time I have with them when I'm home from work. I would never tell anyone they have to have kids or get married. I can share my experiences but how the hell am I supposed to know what makes you happy, you need to find that out and stick to it.
I'm curious to see how they surveyed for "happiness". As a parent the initial years are rough just providing care. In the thick of it if someone comes and asks, "are you happy?", the answer is irrelevant (I understand that the question won't be as direct, but the outcome will be similar). IMHO the best question is, "if you could go back in time would you still decide to have children?".
> IMHO the best question is, "if you could go back in time would you still decide to have children?".
No way you'd get a straight answer to that since it's way, way too close to "do you wish your kids were dead?" It'd probably be tough to come up with any question that probes that sentiment that wouldn't be strongly affected by that problem.
My answer would be "go back in time and decide to have these children? 100% yes, no reservations. Go back in time but no guarantee (or even likelihood) that the kids will be the same? Probably would not want kids." Maybe shifting the question to focus in the direction of that second part would help, though I doubt it'd be enough to make it useful.
Yes. It should be more inline with , "Go back in time but no guarantee that the kids will be the same". Though it will be better than, "are you happy?", it might still not provide a good result because many would have convinced themselves that they need to have kids because "that is how it works".
I found several problems with the article, and the conclusions of the study. Basic science says correlation != causation, but the study clearly set out with a specific bias in mind.
Case in point, this quote:
“We know that these problems have been endemic for decades now, and we’ve watched the maternal employment rate in the U.S. steadily erode relative to other countries.”
A higher maternal employment rate is now a yardstick for societal health? If that's not evidence of a clear bias on the part of the researchers I don't know what is. The personal fulfillment and societal value of working moms vs stay-at-home moms is a matter that can be debated, but to display such clear bias toward the latter as the 'correct' option makes one question all of the study's conclusions.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 197 ms ] threadI have a child, and I really enjoy learning. And we here at HN love the Feynman style "you want to learn, then be able to teach" paradigm.
I want to say I am often inspired by far smarter parents than me here, as my son is still less than 5. But I doubt I can catch up to teach him robotics. One man here once quipped he and his son were bonding over the shared development of typed programming language.
When my son reacts to input and adapts, he is the ultimate compiler, and I am part of one scraggly development team. When you look at parenting this way, I find it to be that cheesy "most rewarding achievement of your life" commentary far less trite and I feel it internally and beam with pride.
I would love to hear counter-arguments, but HN has show me anecdotes where I feel I am reading, coincidentally, the parenting tips of future world leaders and specifically movers and shakers in the CS world by virtue of how they inspire their kids.
Now whether you want to argue about marital satisfaction being a good proxy for happiness, which is a loosey-goosey term, is another question.
Like most things, I suspect it's an opinion that's formed and then never reflected on unless something major comes along to force a correction of it.
As an aside to this, there's a lot that society and governance can do to make life easier for parents both in the short and long term. Places that do that make the statement more likely to be true, as the article suggests.
And further subsidize child-bearing? Property taxes already directly fund public schools in most localities in the US.
This actually isn't true; while abortion (both the act and its legality) are condemned in strong terms by the Catholic hierarchy, opinion polling has consistently shown the US Catholic community has roughly the same distribution of views on abortion and its legality as the general public.
Further splitting hairs, what they actual broke down was weekly Mass attenders vs. others, not weekly communicants. Those aren't the same thing.
But, yes, unsurprisingly, adherence to authority on the one point correlates with adherence to authority on the other.
Not in my experience. My kid cost me money, but quality of life increased a lot since everything is now much more enjoyable. Also, kids do not pay back their parents with money, but they pay back much more with their love, and making life much more enjoyable for the parents.
Like for example the headline of this very article. I guess it was not written by the author.
Individualism is good; I'd never want the other extreme. I think Asian cultures subvert the individual to the group far too much. But the extreme individualism of the U.S. has led to an ever more selfish, narcissistic and cold society, where material gain and personal comfort trumps everything.
These policies are not there to combat individualism, but to enable it with taxpaid support networks. Most of them are not poor aids, but state benefits that everyone enjoys, like the free or cheap high quality daycare used by the poor and rich alike.
When my wife worked, she missed our kids tremendously. Almost 75% of her take home went to day care. She was pretty miserable.
Now she stays home. She gets a lot of off-hand comments from other friends with kids about "how bored they would be if they stayed home". Or from friends without kids about "how they feel like they are doing something with their lives".
Now she feels like she isn't doing enough with her life.
Maybe she needs thicker skin, or maybe the societal pressure for women is immense.
Men working is expected by society. IME, the dads I know who stay home get more of an "awesome bro!" type response when they say they stay home.
I just feel like no matter what I do, I will feel happy with kids. No matter what my wife does, she feels like it isn't good enough.
[Edit: so many links to books! I've exhausted my audible credits for the month. Thanks for the support!]
I try to help her by mentioning how great she is with the kid, and by taking the kid places by myself so she can go see and do adult things.
It is tough, good luck.
Add in moving away from home and family to the mix as contributors for the lack of adult conversation too.
I have made it a point to suggest to my wife, if she ever chooses go out to find work at whatever point, that volunteer work would be the best. No financial pressures.
Societal Pressure on Women in the work place is immense.
Societal Pressure on Mothers is also immense.
They combine to make it exceptionally tough on Women. But mad props to those who have persevered despite that pressure--like my Mom and many other mothers out there.
> IME, the dads I know who stay home get more of an "awesome bro!"
If you are independently wealthy, sure. Otherwise, IME, you are considered a failure for not being able to provide for your family.
Even then I'd say that many men would face thinly veiled criticism or even ridicule behind their backs.
Our peers are for the most part American born and have a very different view. The moms obsess about missing out on their previous careers and living life as they did pre-children. They seem much less happy (as do their children).
In large parts of the world raising kids is "doing something with their lives", just not in the US.
I think it's an individual thing. Healthy boundaries are a good thing to have regardless of gender. It's important to learn not to give up things that are important to you regardless of the messages society sends, and that if society has a problem with that, that's society's problem and not yours. Society is pretty big, after all, and there's bound to be some portion of it that will accept your well-considered choices.
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood discusses this (https://www.amazon.com/All-Joy-No-Fun-Parenthood/dp/00620722...), among many other interesting topics.
I'd also observe that there are probably time-sensitive issues; much of the day-to-day stuff with small children is dreary, but the long-term prospects are quite good. I've heard lots of older people say that having adult children is great, because they're self-sustaining and yet emotionally close / connected.
Many long-term projects (probably including startups) have somewhat crappy day-to-day moments but high long-term satisfaction. And many short-term satisfactions (like eating ice cream) may have negative long-term consequences.
Bryan Caplan's book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think is also good on these topics, and he points out that much of the supposed happiness research is overblown or misused.
Any negative comment, any off-hand comment needs to be squashed immediately. Same thing happens with self-esteem issues I think. If the negative comments don't stop from 'friends' you have to make the sometimes tough choice to find better friends. I make sure to say with force how much she does, how helpless I'd be or what a mess I'd be without her help at home.
I think like yourself my mental state is strong enough that I choose lowering myself to lift her above the haters.
So either way, you find a way to be resentful or ashamed.
Go back to work and miss your child's first steps/words/laughs. Go back to work and someone else raises your children. Someone else uses your child to teach their child how to be a leader. Someone else (accidentally) gets called "mom".
Stay at home and barely manage to tread water financially compared to your dual-income friends. Stay at home and watch your career disappear (unless you chose one of those "never need to skill up" careers that're considered "safe" for women, like teaching). Stay at home and prepare for a lifetime of resentment about men being further ahead than you career-wise. Stay at home and propagate stereotypes.
I guess though, in the end, there's no doubt that someone that chose their career will regret it at some point in their lives, where you might be able to escape without regret having chosen to stay home.
The dual-income and DINKs (dual-income no kids) families will always win when appraised financially. Home, car, health. You have to work twice as hard for the same output on one income.
"Stay at home and propagate stereotypes" feels wrong these days. The stereotype and expectation seems to have both parents working and having one stay at home is bucking the trend.
All of the negatives seem to center around the individuals valuation of themselves based on outside opinions.
I'm too close to giving real opinions so I'm bowing out of the thread. ARRGGHH!
Screw that. Don't judge your life by how others live.
My newest car is 12 years old. I have a wife, kids, and a good job and could easily have new cars every few years but instead I have no debt other than mortgage and I put the money into my retirement and college savings. I don't begrudge the choices of my friends who like to buy a lot of new things but I also don't feel any obligation to live the way they do.
Treading water financially is an accurate way to describe life in the Bay Area for families with a stay-at-home parent. The modest standard of living you describe about yourself significantly exceeds what could be expected for the median software developer in the Bay Area. Families with incomes below that would not be able to sustain their cash flow without a commute that exceeds 90 minutes or exposes them to unacceptably high levels of crime.
Our kids go to late stay programs at school because we both work, which means that if they want to do an after school activity like soccer, dance, scouts, etc that it's a "rush from late stay, change as fast as you can, go to activity."
We aren't trying to overload them or anything either, just aiming for 1 after school activity a couple of days a week.
I think 90% of the pressure is people trying to justify their life choices or requirements.
If you are working mom and you have to be for income sake or to pay student loans, you'll see stay at home mom's with a "must be nice" attitude.
If you're a working mom and you don't have to be, it's a "I'd be so bored" or "What do you do all day?" or "My job gives me purpose" because it reinforces your own life choices (whether you believe it or not).
If you're a stay at home mom because your job would just be paying for day care, it's going to be a feeling that you should be doing more.
If you're a stay at home mom because you choose to you should feel nothing but contentment with it because you made the choice.
This is a hard lesson that a lot of people, myself included, are experiencing because we've all been sold a different bill of goods our entire lives. There's even a book on it called The Two Income Trap.
The simplest way to filter out negative chatter is to identify whether somebody is trying to make themselves feel better about their own choices or not. That's 90% of the negative chatter that I observe.
It is. I think feminism left our culture with the belief that it is OK for a woman to opt in to do anything she wants. But we didn't also get the message that it's OK to opt out.
Want a career? Great! Want to raise kids? Great!
Want to not have a career? Bad! Want to not raise kids? Bad!
It's unfair. I've watched almost every single woman I know in my age bracket (late thirties today) struggle with this dilemma in her life at some point. Instead of feeling that they can do anything, they feel they have to do everything.
Not to be too harsh, but this is Calvinist BS.
Listening to great music isn't hard. Watching a great film isn't hard. Simply spending time with loved ones isn't hard.
All are, in my view, worthwhile.
Yes, there is a satisfaction in accomplishing something difficult. But that neither makes it inherently worthwhile, nor does it mean all worthwhile things are hard.
Of course there's adoption.
The reason I'd have kids is for that connection only a father can have to his child and the joy a large extended family can bring as my children eventually have children and so on which is completely selfish. But I'd say there's nothing wrong with it in my eyes.
Why is it that when there is so little money out there for real research, there always seems to be plenty floating around for BS like this?
Is this your first time reading a news publication or something?
If they just kept giving Minsky the money like they should have, we could have strong AIs Terminatoring us right now, and we could just get it all over with.
Not all parents may understand that having children may mean drastic changes to lifestyle, and may not have been prepared for the ~27 years of stress that having children bring on.
Oddly enough, having kids gives me a purpose in Society, that otherwise being a 36 year old man would not have. Too old to join the military, too young for end-of-life services, too set in my buying habits for marketing to care at all about me.
As the wise Stringer Bell once said, you're like a 40 degree day.
But being a dad, society is all about that: my lack of physique is called "dadbod" and women can profess to fetishize about it, my asanine advice to my kids are subject of a comedy twitter account, my no-more-give a dame attitude for fashion sense is celebrated, and I even have a national holiday to celebrate being a Dad--which gives me a legit excuse to do what I want to do (which for most dads involves cooking food on a grill for their families)
Except when it comes to family law, then the dad gets fucked into complete attrition.
I know this is a small selection of college educated people with comfortable lifestyles, but when every single person I know discloses to me when they're in a truthful state that we're better off not having kids..it makes you think.
It does, but to me it says a lot more about how hedonistic and consumer focused the middle+ classes of western society are than of some sort of inherent negative associated with having children.
I get fulfillment for my job some of the time - though its not the be all and end all in my life and it pissed me off sometimes too. I get a lot more from whitewater kayaking and mountain biking and generally being outdoors in my spare time. Some of my friends have had kids, and most have given up or seriously cut down on the amount that they devote to the sports they loved.
Did you have something that gave you a lot of fulfillment before you had kids?
Yes, and I still do. I am a soft dev, so job is quite fulfilling, I also like mountain hiking, friends, etc. But having a kid is something different, it is just not comparable regarding the level of satisfaction. For me the relationship with my kid is the most fulfilling thing a world can offer. (But of course I wouldnt believe that before I had one)
No.
> Did you have something that gave you a lot of fulfillment before you had kids?
Many things, and I still do.
But it's certainly a trade off, trying to live out media images of motherhood/fatherhood need to be avoided, and kids don't have to be the most fulfilling thing in anyone's life.
Because getting out to have drinks with friends becomes so rare. In that moment, you are fulfilling one of their social needs that has been so neglected it seems like the only thing that matters. What they're really saying is that by not having children you'll be able to continue as you are right then. Take it as a thank you from them for having that drink.
Maybe they're actually saying not to have children. I don't understand all the projection.
Thanks, I like your response. I thought I was just offering an alternative interpretation for why they said it, but maybe I need to get out more with friends ;-) OTOH I do not regret having children, nor do I advocate that people avoid having them.
Note to self, consider weather speculation is actually projection.
Part of the question is, "Over what time horizon?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050597). Many people with very young kids say it's the pits, but ones with older ones seem to do much better. And many people over age 45 or so who don't have kids seem to wish that they'd had kids.
I'm guessing that there's also a strong "grass is greener" element. In discussions about what to do in high school or college, half the responses always say "Study harder!" and half say "Party more!", with both sides seemingly recommending the thing they didn't do.
I would say that "small" happiness is less due to the huge amount of work and stress. On the flip side "large" happiness (or fulfillment) is higher. Whether that makes sense is a very personal decision.
I'm also very early in the journey. I have no idea how it will turn out in 15 years. I am happy that I'll have someone to hand things down to. I'm also happy some of my genes will survive even if all other evidence I existed disappears.
You would be surprised. Americans receive very strong lifelong messaging about how they should live their life to optimize for immediate comfort. Having and raising children definitely causes strain on one's ability to fulfill the lifestyle that has been marketed to them.
The "what ifs" can go on forever. At some point one has to rationalize whether or not all of this is worth it, to invest so much of oneself into another human being without first considering themselves.
The hereditary history of physical and mental illnesses that run in my family, the economic/environmental projection for the rest of this century as well as the hypotheticals that you listed tip the scales in entirety towards the costs rather than the benefits.
None of the nebulous, ineffable personal fulfillments that parents speak of have ever sounded like a basis for a good moral argument for forcing a new life into this world.
Instead let me ask, What if you, as a thoughtful and responsible person do not raise another thoughtful and responsible individual? And instead leave it to the thoughtless and irresponsible. We have to live with that too.
The second part to that is a different question entirely, and one that goes beyond just one's own happiness.
They should have asked people without kids "If you could do it all over again, would you have kids this time"?
https://blog.codinghorror.com/on-parenthood/
No way you'd get a straight answer to that since it's way, way too close to "do you wish your kids were dead?" It'd probably be tough to come up with any question that probes that sentiment that wouldn't be strongly affected by that problem.
My answer would be "go back in time and decide to have these children? 100% yes, no reservations. Go back in time but no guarantee (or even likelihood) that the kids will be the same? Probably would not want kids." Maybe shifting the question to focus in the direction of that second part would help, though I doubt it'd be enough to make it useful.
Case in point, this quote:
“We know that these problems have been endemic for decades now, and we’ve watched the maternal employment rate in the U.S. steadily erode relative to other countries.”
A higher maternal employment rate is now a yardstick for societal health? If that's not evidence of a clear bias on the part of the researchers I don't know what is. The personal fulfillment and societal value of working moms vs stay-at-home moms is a matter that can be debated, but to display such clear bias toward the latter as the 'correct' option makes one question all of the study's conclusions.
Try a grown-up instead. By which I mean, someone who has chosen to develop emotional intelligence.
Yes I can see the irony in what I'm saying. Thanks.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050678 and marked it off-topic.