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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2512 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 1, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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My wife and I are thinking of having kids, but we’re both somewhat on the fence. My wife leans more into the NO camp and I lean a bit more into the YES camp.

Factors to consider:

  1. I have family nearby but the relationship between them and my wife is not great. My mother in particular is kind of insane. Her family is in a state that’s about a 10-hour drive away.
  2. Financially we are stable upper-middle class (I work in Big Tech and she has a stable fake email job) but no housing that we actually own (we rent out an apartment my mother owns). My wife wants a bigger place for kids but housing prices are insane (we can afford it though) and I think buying a house at the same time we have kids would stress the budget a bit more than I’m comfortable with.
  3. I always saw myself having kids but I’m not sure I can really commit to losing all of my independence and free time. I tend to need a lot of down time from my job and I don’t know if I can handle being always “on” with a kid in the mix.
  4. Seeing some other younger family members in the extended family become absolute pieces of shit as they enter adulthood (lazy, no ambition to get a good job, sit at home on their phones all day, hang out and just do drugs constantly) despite coming from relatively stable middle-class homes and no real traumatic issues has me seriously considering if it’s worth pouring myself into children only for them to end up as human lay-abouts who parasite off of my hard work (honestly seems like a 50/50 chance based off of my extended family). My wife’s only sister is also a horrendous mentally-ill psychopath who is addicted to drugs and hates the world for existing, lives on welfare, hates my wife’s parents for no reason despite them being decent, hard-working, and good people who gave them a good home and lots of love. You likely know this type of person, just human garbage. And all of this despite her parents giving them a good middle-class life in a good school district in suburban America (the easiest place in the world to grow up).
  5. Terrified of having a severely disabled (like non-verbal autism) child which seems like a tremendous ordeal for little reward.

All of that said, I love kids and wish I could share a lot of my interests and pass down traditions and see the world through new fresh eyes and have a family to give me meaning as I get older. But seeing how it often (seriously, a 50/50 shot in my extended family) turns out horrifically, I’m not sure it’s worth rolling the dice.

Can I solicit some feedback from mottizens on if you have kids, do you regret it, how is it working out?

I enjoy being a dad even though it's been horrible for my life by all measurable indicators. Free time, health, marriage, finances, everything's much worse now. I'd still do it again. @naraburns covers the details of it. You're not actually a real human being connected to the human world you seemingly inhabit until you've become a parent. My wife regrets it, but my wife also still clings to her pre-parent identity as a hedonist who exists to consume product and gratify herself for the rest of her life.

1 I have family nearby but the relationship between them and my wife is not great. My mother in particular is kind of insane. Her family is in a state that’s about a 10-hour drive away.

Not having a grandma on standby will be a problem, and you will have it noticeably harder than parents who do. But you have money, so you can hire help or make do by working less.

2 [Housing]

Stop worrying. A baby doesn't need a big house. Having an extra room won't be an advantage at all until the child is a few years older.

3 I always saw myself having kids but I’m not sure I can really commit to losing all of my independence and free time. I tend to need a lot of down time from my job and I don’t know if I can handle being always “on” with a kid in the mix.

You can. Or rather, the person you will become under greater pressure can. The more years you've spent independent, without constant responsibility for others, with lots of free time in which to do as you please, the harder the adjustment will be, but you will sweat out a lot of inefficiencies and time-wasting behavior, you will shed many of your lowest priorities, and it will work out. You are not a delicate flower, or a creature made for leisure. To lean on the evo-psych armchair, something like that would never have survived.

4 [Risk of Faiilure]

Yeah, this might be a problem. It's always a gamble how kids turn out, and having bad genetics or a family history of problems doesn't help the odds. That said, it's your job to learn from the mistakes of your forebears. What could they have done to not screw up your relatives? What would you have done in their shoes? You will raise zero kids better than they did if you don't have any.

5 Terrified of having a severely disabled (like non-verbal autism) child which seems like a tremendous ordeal for little reward.

It might happen. It's unlikely. Everything in life is a gamble, but the odds are in your favor here. I know several families who have dealt with this kind of issue, and they all took massive damage over it, no matter how much of a smile they put on, and I wish there were some way to, to put it crassly, put such kids out of everyone's misery. But somehow the parents themselves seem not to think that way. Even that can be dealt with. But again, to repeat, it's unlikely.

Stop worrying. A baby doesn't need a big house. Having an extra room won't be an advantage at all until the child is a few years older.

It is actually an advantage if the grandparents are willing to stay and help with the baby

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