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I had a friend who I was close with for many years, she always had high aspirations, talked to me almost daily about all of the things she wanted to do. Things were like having large career aspirations, moving to a big city, seeing the world, traveling.
Then she got married, and bought a house 15 minutes from her parents, and had 3 kids, all within 5 years. Her career is a standard midwest white woman job and her travel consists of visiting family one state over and going to Disney World once every 5 years or so. We drifted apart, I did end up moving to a big city, I chose a career and travel over having kids, but I think about her every once in a while.
Were those choices hers? Were they compromises? Did society pressure her into a certain life, or did she truly want to change her life for it? Were the things she talked about just dreams, or did she not believe she could accomplish them. I don't feel pity or anger, but I do wonder why she made the choices she did. I guess I hope she's happy and that she lives her life without regrets. Everyone who chooses that life says adamantly they never regretted it, but do they really mean it? No regrets at all?
100% they do mean it.
I never really wanted kids. But me and a friend had too much to drink one night and I was a dad at 22. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I'm 30 and have 3.
People tend to focus on what you give up and not what you gain. Parenting presents a huge amount of moments and activities and feelings that you would never get otherwise.
Both paths are good. Just different.
I wouldn't trade the first time my daughter said I love you for anything in the world. Or even the first time she smiled. You could offer me any amount of money or holidays and I wouldn't go back and miss that.
I have a good support network so I can still go out when I want to. I could go on holidays without them if I wanted to. I could buy them less stuff and myself more. Nothing is stopping me.
But I wouldn't trade a moment of it.
You can only speak for yourself, there are plenty of people that do regret it
Definitely. And plenty who regret not doing it. Such is life.
"getoffmylan" 😂
I'm very glad you're happy where you are. Most people that have had kids have said this to me. But I do occasionally have the rare person who actually has kids but recommends I don't have them. One of the people that told this to me is incredibly sweet and motherly, even to me, but she seems to be able to look past the feel good hormones and realize that it's not something a lot of people should be doing.
When I visit family members or friends who have kids, it honestly seems like a living nightmare. Not that their children are shitty kids, but just the amount of constant work and attention they need and how you can never do anything for yourself ever again. And you have to do this until they grow up and maybe move out. I can barely even take care of myself mentally or physically. Doing that for multiple human beings sounds like literal torture. I will have people tell me they love raising kids while at the same time they have come into work on only few hours sleep because something happened with the kids in the middle of the night.
I'm convinced the only reason why people get hooked on the whole having kids things is because of some sort of hormonal thing. Observing everything from the outside, it just looks like everyone has Stockholm syndrome or brain slugs.
I hope you don't find this offensive and I'm sure you're a great dad. I know your kids are lucky to have you and we do still need at least SOME people to be willing to be parents for the sake of the human race. But yeah idk.
It's definitely not for everyone. And it depends a lot on your support network. I could pretty easily get someone to have them with a little bit of notice. I still regularly go out and away.
But that is also a kind of selection bias. Kids tend to get hyper and show off when they have guests. You're potentially seeing them at their worst a lot of the time.
They're also in bed relatively early so you often have your evenings free. So not much more time than if you worked full time with a long commute.
A lot of people that want to travel can't handle the hard stuff. It seems more about how you deal with that than how you deal with the good stuff.
Same with careers. Lot of people chase the good stuff then realise all the bad shit makes it terrible. I also noticed a few women who really want to be high in their career to stick it to the man. They either really sexist people or they find out that no one actually cares and that all the guys that have made it to the top worked really hard and put a lot of hours in. Suddenly they realise that what they will have to do too and they completely lose interest.
Being a house wife has a lot of perks and limited downsides, if you don't mind the downsides it's really really appealing.