Tell HN: The regret of parenting and how to handle it
Parenting is trending today on HN and I loved the comments. It inspired me to write about a thing I do well that I never thought about before.
Coming from someone who had these feeling from time to time, but almost never ponder on them, here is how I do it.
I noticed this is true not only in parenthood, but in everything else.
What worked for me in parenthood and marriage and sports:
1. Nip it in the bud. As soon as I start thinking about regrets I go and DO something positive now. I did have times when I pondered past (but that was in high-school and I had enough of a lesson that pondering won’t solve anything) 2. Loose hope it’ll get better (I’ve read about a POW in Vietnam war, he was like the longest captive pow in history. He said the guys who died or were in the worst condition first were the ones who hoped they’ll be out by Christmas or other important date) 3. Find joy in obstacles (the more unique obstacles you have the more unique perspective and gift you can give to your children and the world) 4. Hang out with your tribe even if it’s only virtually (whatever happens it’s nicer when you share it and you see other people have it similar) 5. Think about the future when it’s a high likelihood you will look at this moment and wish you’re back (it might help you put things into perspective)
One of these five is bound to help. If you have anything to add please do.
Also, if you like the post please check my weekly newsletter for remote-working parents in my profile. I cover a lot of relevant things there every week.
P.S. I know I'm coming in hot with the post. Raw and unedited. The only way to do it as a parent :)
196 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadThis is unnecessary dark. You will definitely be able to do those things when your kids grow up and leave your house. You will also most likely be able to do them much sooner - teenagers don't need constant help or supervision, and even earlier you can easily arange something with your spouse so that one of you can take a couple days off. 7-8 years old is probably a good treshold. Also, you will be able to engage your kid in a lot of your hobbies. Once you show them why you like them, chances are they'll like them too.
I can't lie that I never get a feeling like this, but it often just bounces of me as I have a similar thinking.
Thanks for the comment. Appreciate it.
It changes your life in a weird way. Stuff can be hard and still worthwhile.
― Woody Allen, Annie Hall
There are lot of places in the world where there is no expectation that the children will leave the nest.
The whole "I can't wait till my kids are 18 so I can kick them out and get my life back" is only a phenomenon in some cultures.
7 or 8 is probably a good threshold. My 8 year old can be left alone for a little while and not notice you missing.
I found if the hobby needs you to commit a fairly large block of time to get going it is probably not going to work.
I’m introducing things to him, but he’s work adverse. Any time he realizes it needs any sort of practice or effort it is a hard no. Work in progress.
I’ve always seemed to need less sleep than most, so I just used nighttime.
However, there are quite a few activities that are frowned upon or impossible with sleeping kids in the house, like guitar or drums.
I probably wouldn’t kayak in the dark either. I’m not very coordinated and they’d never find my body.
I have to shamelessly self-plug, as my parents told me - nobody's gonna do it for you :)
I have another friend who's a manager of 70 people at FANG, has 2 side companies. 2 kids at home. No idea how he does it.
I have another who works at FANG and from his facebook he seems to have have time for personal projects, and gaming, and guitar, and photography, while raising 3 kids.
One of my co-workers has 3 kids and yet managed to show off amazing side projects every 2-3 months.
I know several more.
I don't know what they do. I'm single and feel like I have time for nothing :P But it's clearly possible.
I know others that find a way to do fun stuff with their kids. In both sense. Some find kid friendly activities that they'd also enjoy. Being makers together for example. Others visit all their friends often and bring the kids. The kids are great and us friends love hanging out with them.
This, to me, is the real gamechanger. There is a often gigantic difference in family workload between the primary caretaker and the other parent (if any), even when they both work. Additionally, this workload is often wildly underestimated by secondary caretakers.
In my observations, a secondary caretaker will often think "I still drop off my kids in school, I read a story at night, I bring them to sports practice, I'm being a good parent.". And yes they are, they are helping and having great "quality time" with their kids.
But in terms of total time invested, if you actually count the hours (I have), it's a small fraction of a primary caretaker. Roughly between 1/3 and 1/2 for invested secondary caretakers, which makes a huge difference when we're talking about, say, 20 vs 40 or 60 hours per week.
Who feeds them? Dresses them up? Helps with homework? Stays home with them when they are sick? And that's without even touching on the mental workload.
i work from home. we spend plenty of time together. doing housework is family time.
there is no homework. if the kids come home with work that they need help with, then i'll have a talk with the teacher. homework is a practice that should be abolished. but if it is given, it should be tasks that the kids can do on their own in order to practice what they learned. if a child can not do their homework on their own, then by definition the teacher didn't teach them yet (or failed), and the homework was not appropriate. homework is not the place for the children to catch up what they didn't learn in school.
I can assure You they are making a lot of compromises. Add a little bit of compounding around skills and resources and they achivements can look magical, but most of it its just smoke and mirrors. And of course there is outsourcing of everything that is not essential to their image (that include child upbringing also). It's amazing how much time You can get back when You have Your private valet and helicopter pilot on standby (I have witnessed this first hand).
On the flip side, for the people who are struggling, this might make them feel even worse about themselves.
How can we help them?
Do you know any examples of people who struggled, but then turned it around?
I guess these guys you mentioned struggled at one point right
The magic phrase is "I'll have to leave early to pick up the kids, you take care of this".
There is no need for a cactus to ponder about what a redwood tree is doing.
I don’t have kids, partly for this reason. (I don’t have family nearby who could help.)
Is this even allowed?
Having kids is the easy part, participation and actually being around in your kids life the more tricky one.
Not saying successful people are not on one side of the spectrum per se but IMHO there is not outsourcing or substitute for actually spending time with them and it is quiet easy to forget
PS: I love my kids, but I'm basically working/living at 50% of my capacity since I got my first, and that is really hard to swallow.
They probably pay a nanny or an au pair.
I used to work 100+ hours per week, and that got significantly reduced after having a kid. I have been mostly embracing fatherhood since I imagine after age 10 their interest in me will be negligible.
It is likely that, for these people, their hobbies and extra time are plowed into these productive pursuits. Which likely means they use none or very limited modern time syncs like TV, video games, sports, youtube/tiktok, facebook/internet forums, etc. It's actually pretty amazing how much time we waste on these things.
Additionally, someone who is dedicated can often find 15 minutes here and there on a commute or while running errands to listen to a segment on a podcast about an industry or technology. And when you can't do that sometimes just thinking things through in those moments, changing a diaper or in the checkout line. I'm amazed how much about starting a company is about thinking through everything carefully, so you don't waste as much time running about.
Finally, constraints force people to get creative to accomplish what is important to them. It's not uncommon for very productive people to also have large time constraints.
That's the secret. With some parents, when you find out you realize they probably aren't parents who spend much time with their kids.
I have a friend who founded a startup a year before becoming a dad. His spouse works for a startup as well. He lives in a different city so we rarely meet nowadays.
After about 2 years of listening to them talk about how adorable their kid is and all the time they spend with them, I found out that the kid is dropped off at daycare by mom at 8AM. Nanny picks the kid up from Daycare and puts him to bed at 8PM. Mom and dad basically only see their kid on weekends. Even then, dad is usually too busy and it's pretty obvious that the 3 year old kid has realized he can't rely on his dad for anything.
People can raise kids however they want. There are entire cultures and countries where kids are raised by maids and nannies because population density is high and labor is cheap. But they are more honest about who is raising the kids and that's why they can work 12 hour days and focus on their careers or themselves above all else.
Somebody has to have the time take care of those kids.
First, you might have more than one child, so it might take a while between the birth of the oldest one and the time the youngest one is 1.5 years old.
Second, having a full-time job + commute + eating + running errands + actually spending time with your children + X is not only time consuming, it is also very tiring. Of course it depends on how old you are when you become a parent - and only a few years can make a big difference - but I can tell you, after a full day, you're toast when the kids are in bed.
I'm regularly getting up very early so I can be done with my day job early in order to maximize the time I get to spend with my children. But that means that in the hours I have "off", I wouldn't be capable of working on, say, a hobby video game the way I used to be able to when I was in my 20s or even 30s and single.
The 1-3 hours that I have to spend being fucking fried and incapacitated after concluding another packed, overly-long workday are, likewise, "my time." Such a blessing.
Exercise? lol
Shopping? Need to plan for it.
Cooking? Near impossible if the other parent is not around.
Very early in my career i worked a job with a 1 hour each way commute. Quit it after a year and never again applied to a job that was more than 30mins from my house - best decision I ever made
Of course then covid came and now I work remotely with 0 mins commute.
Grocery shopping, cooking, household chores take up maybe 1 hour max per day for me, average probably more like 30mins
Paradoxically, that releases the door to new kinds of success you couldn't imagine before.
The parent who can let go of their old self gracefully, and drop many ambitions (which in retrospect seem childish) is able to transform.
Those who cling to the desire to remain "able to stay up all night playing with new technologies" will surely find regret and fail to take advantage of the enormous perspective change that parenthood bestows.
All major life decisions you make changes who you are. That's what makes them "major".
> The parent who can let go of their old self gracefully, and drop many ambitions (which in retrospect seem childish) is able to transform.
What kinda self-serving sophistry is this? I can easily argue that the world would benefit a whole lot more if people remained childishly curious. It is the moment you let go of that child inside that you die if you ask me. Stay curious, stay hungry and keep improving. That's just a no-brainer. The idea that dropping ambitions is somehow a transformative experience to strive toward is such a weird thing to say.
> Those who cling to the desire to remain "able to stay up all night playing with new technologies" will surely find regret and fail to take advantage of the enormous perspective change that parenthood bestows.
What perspectives are these exactly? this reads to me like self-aggrandizing at best. Are you gonna tell me that people can't possibly have an understanding for "what truly matters in life" unless they have kids? What about the perspective you lose by becoming a parent and giving up on your dreams? It is a trade-off you are making. You are losing one perspective to gain another. But the idea that "people who chose otherwise will surely find regret" is just laughable. How could you possibly know that? You can't really run the experiment N times to compare the results? I can literally copy the text of your post and make the opposite argument.
In summary, let me see if I got this right: expanding your horizons by constantly learning and _acquiring new perspectives_ is considered a childish ambition that must be shed in order to metamorph into a parent so that you can take advantage of your newly _acquired perspective_... How do you square this circle exactly?
Meh. I'm married, bought multiple houses, moved country. I don't know how many major life decisions you can make but none of them have changed me in the way merely expecting a child already has. I expect when they're born will reveal the next 90% of that transition.
As the parent comment says, they are just different and everyone has their own way of processing major events.
You could have ambition to change the world, help your fellow humans, cure diseases, whatever. Those are noble.
You could also view life as a journey of self discovery. In that case, having children can help discover your true self. Or is it your true self? How do you know?
Or maybe children are God’s gift, and it’s your religious responsibility to have children so that they can experience God’s world.
Or it’s a biological trick to ensure survival of the species. That is a scientific but unfulfilling answer.
There is no right or wrong answer.
All the parents in Silicon Valley would like to have a word with you.
Trust me - having kids doesn’t dissuade everyone from pursuing riches as you seem to claim. If anything - I see people stress harder than before because now they have to succeed and so do their children. The families who don’t stress as much are those who already had success - they already got their tens of millions.
Original post mentions staying in touch with other parents who are in the same situation as yourself, and it indeed helps a lot — eventually everyone start chatting about things like children’s sleep problems, chickenpox, school fees, car seat brands, or whatever, which helps normalizing the difficulty you’re going through.
Trying hard to hang out with your old childless friends, on the other hand (if you can afford their schedule), is a road to hell.
All non-parents will regret the decision?
Lol.
Also, if parents don't feel that way, are they lesser parents?
This is worse than listening to the rust evangelicals.
To rephrase the core message: once one decides to become a parent (the kid is born, it’s irreversible), one has access to opportunities for new types of experiences and emotional fulfillment. Acknowledging that, and taking advantage of it, is a powerful way to have a positive experience as a parent.
Here’s an analogy: you decide to move from an apartment in the city to a nice house out near the mountains. At the nice new house, you realize you can’t order in Thai food, you can’t pop down to the corner store for a coffee and muffin, you can’t decide to go see a show at the last minute. A lot of the conveniences and advantages of the big city are gone.
But you can see the stars at night. You can walk in the woods and see deer. You can be mountain biking or skiing in 30 minutes from your door. New opportunities, different experiences are there for you. Accessing and appreciating those experiences is the key to enjoying your new living arrangements.
Some people miss the old city stuff too much, or under-appreciate the new stuff, and they move back closer to the city after a year or two.
Stepping out of the metaphor… that’s not really an option with a kid. Parenthood is a decision you can’t reverse. So it’s even more important to work on finding and enjoying what is new and different in life as a parent.
That does not imply that everyone should have kids. More like: advice for those who already do.
My wife and I recently had our first, and so far this is the perspective I've been trying to adopt, which has helped.
It's not like you lose your ambitions completely, but there are new constraints. You no longer get to indulge in the excesses of youth, but it's OK, because taking care of a new life is simply a significantly higher priority. It's a liberating feeling.
I was worried before having a kid that I would be so bogged down with childcare that it would be impossible for me to get anything done at work. But I heard from a number of people that after having kids they were forced to develop better time-management skills. This has definitely been happening for me. I find it much easier to stay on task when I'm working on something, since I know the time available is so limited. After a while, the impulse to experiment and be free-wheeling has diminished a bit, and I've had fun purposefully moving through things.
The impulse "stay up all night and play" is definitely a youthful one. People want to stay young forever, which is certainly one way to go, but it's important to understand that there are real reasons many people are happy to move on to the next phase of life where they give those things up.
Agree 100% by adding “can” in there. The OP’s feelings are very similar to my own early on. I still have those nagging thoughts now and then but I know now what to focus on.
Fact is, young children are thankless, selfish, and inconsiderate little parasites that could give 2 shits about their parents desires. The parents that can look past all that and see the little spots of joy, look forward to the fun stuff like sharing a hobby, and letting go of your original picture of life seem to have the best experience with it.
That perspective change is NOT guaranteed, though. I know plenty of parents who seemed to naturally have this figured out right away. It’s taken me several years to even just see the light but I’m getting it now. We had a particularly tough first kid but she’s grown out of a lot of those challenges and we’re finding it easier to find the fun stuff together.
At the same time, this is one reason why I don't desire to have children of my own. I like having so much spontaneous freedom. The risk of having an unhealthy child is also non-zero, and well, once they come out, you can't exactly ctrl-z them.
a) stay healthy enough to be able to support my family
b) spend time with my child, since you cannot postpone this
c) care for those who really rely on me (parents)
There's usually not much left afterwards, but I still have long term friends who understand that I may be largely unavailable for a 10 year timespan.
I've got a side project I've been trying to work on, but there's just so much else that needs to be done: You've got to keep connections with family and friends, you've got to do your laundry and your taxes and your shopping, you've got to figure out what to do about schooling, and so on. And I can't tell you how many times I've managed to block of 3-4 hours on a Sunday afternoon / evening to do some proper hacking, only to have my son fall ill and have to spend that time getting him medicine or trying to help him fall asleep.
All that to say, it certainly is possible to have "side projects" other than your child, but as OP said, you really have to adjust your expectations down. :-)
Some things I do:
- I insist on getting some exercise done everyday (basically, walking the famous 10000 steps). Apart from the general benefits of exercise, not being in awful shape helps having more energy and therefore getting more things done. It's difficult to find time specifically for this so what I do is if I have a remote meeting where I'm not going to talk a lot (and most days I have one), I do the meeting while walking outside, connecting to it from my smartphone.
- While commuting to work by bus I do some Anki (I'm learning Chinese with it).
- I'm aware this is not within reach of everyone, but we hired someone to do a good chunk of the housework. When deciding if you should do this, consider that you are basically buying free time for yourself. How much is free time worth to you? For me, now that I have very little, it's worth a lot.
- Having only a little time to do something is no longer an excuse. If I have 15 minutes, I read a book for 15 minutes, no longer saying "I'll save it for when I have more uninterrupted time".
Discipline, boredom and acceptance cover many of the other challenges of parenthood.
We go together through the house and find good places for everything, figure out what they want to do with in-progress activities, etc.
When I started this practice, it took three people and twenty minutes to do five minutes worth of cleaning, but the kids get faster as they learn (a skill they might find useful in their own home, one day).
Or am I assuming too much and you are a single parent?
But kids grow up - it doesn't stay this way forever.
I recall my SO asking my relative's wife (mother of three) what to do if you're already out of energy and dinner is not ready.
"Some days there just won't be any dinner for you" was the reply.
I'm not a parent though (although planning to be), so am keen to know why that's wrong.
The only wrong approaches I can identify is beating yourself up about not preparing a decent meal for yourself and not eating at all.
Both me and my SO lost weight in the first months because we made the former mistake.
The webcomic SMBC says it well: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/before
Thank you for saying this. I strongly believe this is the right action until kids are older and start helping around the house. (Still trying to convince my SO though.)
Honestly, raising kids is not that hard if you give yourself permission to be not perfect. Order pizza, avoid using plates when you can, let yard overgrow a bit, hire cleaning service. Bail out of unwanted social obligations. In fact, trying to get approval of others is what makes parenting hard.
i think parenting is actually alright if you don't need to sleep. i have a pet theory that my son inherited my ability to get by on very little sleep and it can be pretty aggravating at times!
some hobbies are definitely no longer possible so if you are thinking of starting a family but consider the annual pilgrimage to tomorrowland or ultra (and all the trips ahem that go with it) mandatory then obviously, think twice. those i know who continue to do things like these with children clearly have someone to offload their parenting duties to- and that is something that you have to discuss with your partner before you move forward on such a huge event in your life.
This is patently absurd. The number of people who can get by on this level of sleep is probably less than the 0.01%
No, because I'm one of those people who makes every effort to not be a parent :)
(Not that I have a queue of people with any desire to partner with me in the parenting process ATM!)
Though parenting isn't the only thing that can get in the way of late nights playing with new tech. As I'm getting older, all-nighters generally are getting harder, my running has spun into endurance event territory which requires a lot of training time and sleep in between, I do some martial arts too, my parents aren't getting any younger and if they need/want some care & attention that bumps other priorities, …, … Not having enough hours in the day or days in the month is something most people have to contend with in some way, shape, or form.
We implemented a routine of bedtime at 6:30pm and it liberated our evenings. The routine means in evenings one partner always has to stay in unless we call a babysitter, but that's a small price to pay for being able to go out, or stay in and follow your hobbies and passions.
Now, to be fair, we have a good sleeper (but not a good eater, seems like you only get one!), but routines of all kinds help, and I think they can help all kids. Stick to the routine, it pays dividends.
Single dad with a 5 year old son here. These are self imposed limitations that just aren’t real. For example, I joined a kayaking club when my son was 2, and bring him on kayaking trips about twice a month in a tandem kayak, with proper safety gear. And I am up right now reading on the Internet at night while he sleeps!
Whatever you wanted to do as a non parent, you can likely still do. Be creative, bring the kids along and integrate them, or make deals with other parents to share and trade childcare duties.
(I didn't want to have kids and ended up being a single parent. The part around 1.5 years old when I was taking care of my daughter by myself was rather rough. Like, how do you even take out the trash and other basic things? Despite everything, now I kind of lucked out in that my parents are helping me a lot)
For your example, I usually take out the trash together with him, we each hold half of the handle. It takes 10 minutes to get him dressed and willing to do this, but it works. I try to avoid TV and media, but will occasionally use it as a babysitter when I need to do something like a meeting or cook food. I do sometimes do zoom meetings with him, and cook food together with him. The more I can engage him in adult activities, the less bored he is, and the less he acts up, gets hurt, etc.
These sources had ideas that helped me the most: * Magda Gerber's RIE Philosophy (see https://www.janetlansbury.com), especially useful before age 3 * Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Dad" e-mail list (now also a book) * "Simplicity Parenting" by Kim Payne and Lisa Ross * "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan didn't have much specifically useful advice, but basically taught me to just relax and have fun as a parent, and not worry that I am messing everything up * The "Outdoor Boys" Youtube channel. This guy is a total badass, and brings his 3 boys on epic wilderness adventures alone
I don't have any family support, but did recently move in with an amazing girlfriend, that is willing to help trade off parenting duties.
I think there's a bit more nuance to this than this sentence might imply. Because hoping things will get better is betting on external circumstances to go your way.
It reminds me of of something similar I heard somewhere: everyone always thinks there will be more time for things later. There won't be, there will only be less time. And I do not mean that in a cynical "every day is one day closer to your death" kind of way, although that's technically true I suppose; there's research showing on average you'll have less time per week and everything. To have more time later you need to actively plan on and work towards making more time.
Ever since I've heard that I've been much more mindful of how and where I spend my time, of what I plan and what I don't.
So with that in mind, my take on this would be "don't expect things to get better on their own, see if and how you can actively work to make things better, but accept it if there is no possibility right now."
All false. Yes, there is a time like that, but then your kids will grow up and will go sailing and hacking with you, it's not never. Also yes, you'll learn to live with less sleep, for a while.
Anyway, what a funny crisis, at times where money is god, where individual happiness is searched for through product and service consumption, people don't even know why have kids anymore, what a great testimony about our civilisation's decline.
So, what are your reasons to have kids, oh supreme reproduction guru?
Go visit an old folks home and ask to hear about their lives. They don't talk about work accomplishments, they talk about their family and particularly their kids. When everything is put into perspective, that's what vast majority views as most important. It's hard-wired.
Nothing compares to having kids. Tremendously hard. I have lots of friends who don’t and yeah, they live the life but what they don’t have is so much richer
Covid forced a change on me whereby I was tied to home much more and started connecting with my kids better. And I’m very glad it happened with hindsight.
I actually feel like a selfish and stupid idiot now wanting to work (messing around with some new JS framework or whatever) when I could have been spending time with my children. Fortunately it happened early enough that it was still reparable. I would have bitterly regretted learning this lesson 10 years later.
Raising kids is hard and it can be a drag, but you are only in the thick of it for a few years, and you don’t have to totally park your life even during those years. Losing yourself totally would also be a bad life decision and likely bad for your marriage too.
Most people will in the end regret any path that did not involve spending more time with your kids, not all the other things.
Cranking out really cool code? Nahhh
Getting that project at work to get me a raise? Not really
For personal activities that you need to do because they recharge you and bring joy to your life (e.g. kayaking)? Well, you need to juggle schedules and keep doing them. And when the kids are old enough you now have a new partner to do hobbies with.