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Notes -
Copying over @RenOS's post from the old thread because I want to talk about it:
Let’s assume you’re a car mechanic. You love your job, even though it is dirty, hot and physically straining. You go through a bookshop, and stumble over one book in particular: “Why being a car mechanic is great”. It explains the importance of the job for society, it talks about the perks, and so on. You look up the guy who wrote it and yep, he runs a car shop. You buy the book and recommend it to many of your friends, maybe even some teens who might consider the path.
Fast forward, the writer is on some talkshow. Somebody asks him how he handles all the grease. He reacts, uh no, of course he doesn’t get greasy, that’s his staff. He just really likes talking with customers. Maybe he does one car once in a while, if the work isn’t too hard and the car is really nice.
I can’t help but think this after reading Scott’s latest book review of “Selfish reasons to have more kids”. No, we don’t have nannies and housekeepers. In fact, almost nobody we know has them. Some have a cleaning lady coming … once per week, for an hour or so. Tbh, this significantly lowered my opinion of both Scott and Caplan. If you want a vision of a more fertile, sustainable future for the general population, it should not involve having your own personal staff. Two hours is nothing.
And I find this especially frustrating since I think it’s really not necessary; Yes having small kids is really exhausting - after putting the kids to bed around 8-9, my personal routine is to clean the house for two hours until 10-11 every day, and then directly go to bed with maybe an audiobook on (but often I’m too tired for even that, and enjoy falling to sleep directly) - but it’s doable, and the older the kids are, the less work they are, at least in terms of man-hours. The worst is usually over after around 3 yo. And the time before that in the afternoon can be a lot of fun.
At least for me, one of the biggest draws of kids is that it’s, to use poetic terms, “a glimpse of the infinite” that is available for everyone. Everyone wants to leave something behind, political activism is sold on making a change, careers are sold on becoming a (girl-)boss managing others. Yet, the perceptive (or, less charitably, those capable of basic arithmetic) will notice that only a tiny sliver of the population can ever cause the kind of innovation that really changes culture, or who can come into positions of substantial power over others.
Kids, however, everyone can have them. And they really are their own little person (especially my stubborn little bastards). And they will have kids as well, who will also carry forward some part of yourself. I’m not just talking genetics here, though that is a large part, the same will go for how you raise them. Unless you leave that to the nannies, I guess, but that’s your own fault.
I wouldn’t have written this since it’s mostly venting tbh, but I’ve seen some here mentioning wanting to discuss it, so I thought may as well start. What do you think?
Dad of five kids here -- I had exactly the same reaction you did. I hadn't read Bryan's book, but I had really hoped that he figured out some ways to be a good parent in a way that was sustainable, practical, and life-giving ... but if the answer is "oh I only take care of the kids 1-2 hours a day and hire out the rest" then fuck that, for real.
As someone who is parenting five kids (one of whom has significant special needs) and has done so through some very poor and hard years, consider this a starting place for actual tips:
If you have time for an addendum, I’d be interested in hearing what your wife has to say, since it sounds like she was doing the lion’s (lioness’s?) share of the in-person raising. Or not! Might be wrong on my read.
For instance, mine gets a lot of mileage out of the library, playgrounds, stroller walks with friends, pretty much anything where she can chat with other women and let children be children.
Good question; just understand that you're getting my estimation of her opinion since she doesn't really spend time on the internet at all.
We talk about this a lot and she'd be in strong agreement with all of those bullet points. I think she'd really emphasize that trying to go it alone as a mother (or any parent, really) is a recipe for disaster -- she's spent a lot of effort cultivating a strong friend group and they have really worked to engineer a system of kid-swaps, playdates, evenings out for the moms (while the dads watch the kids), having expectations that if you need help you can just show up at a friend's house and ask "Hey, can you watch the kids for two hours?" and the friend will make a serious effort to accommodate. That requires a lot of vulnerability! It's difficult to ask for help and you constantly feel like you're being a burden to the people around you; there's probably some embarrassment that you couldn't hack it by yourself. This is something my wife and her friends have had to work on with deliberate effort and I think they've built something really beautiful as a result.
This is a problem with society's broader expectations of parents, in my mind. There is a weird sense in which we both expect too much of parents and too little. You're expected to somehow juggle being a parent with being a careerist -- which is only possible in certain specific settings; there are always tradeoffs. You're held to high expectations for carting kids around to activities, paying for the latest thing, playing with your kids constantly -- all of which, to my mind, are tangential to what actual good parenting looks like. At the same time, I think parents are not held to a high enough standard for loving their spouse, working on their marriage, and fostering a loving household.
The family is the fundamental unit of community -- the best way to help your own kids experience a wonderful and loving life is not to become their friend (you are their parent, do not confuse the two) -- it's to give them siblings. The best way to parent is to make friendships with other families and to give (and receive!) help freely.
My wife does do the majority of the in-person raising -- hard to get around that, since I work and she does not (she's a stay-at-home nurse for our special needs kid, so her situation is kind of unique). But she supplements that with active friendships with other moms and has really built a robust community of support and help. I think she would point approvingly to the way I ensure that I always come home on time, actively help with cleanup, give her breaks in the evenings, handle cooking and cleaning when practical, etc. -- but there's also a sense in which trying to keep score wrt work (at home or otherwise) is a bit of a fool's errand. Once you've started keeping score, your marriage is in serious trouble. Our principle (wisdom passed down from my grandmother), which I have mentioned here before and remains the best advice I have for marriage, is make sacrifices and make them generously.
Well elaborated. Thank you!
I agree with most of what you’ve said, so I’ll just riff on a few of the differences or gaps.
In my mind, part of what’s great about kids is spending time with them. That loving, intimate relationship is hard to get outside of family, and it’s built up through closeness and time, just like in a marriage. And while some of that time is spent in obligations, like the family dinner (not always thrilling, always very important), it’s good to spend time together doing something you both enjoy. Playing, in short. Much of my closeness with my own father - and we are very close, I have sought and followed his guidance on some of the most important decisions of my life, and I’ve independently directed myself at considerable expense to bring me physically close to him so that he can stay in my own life and so I can care for him as he ages - comes from the time we spent together in my youth, playing in all kinds of ways, and talking about the world, and learning all number of things. That time was deeply worthwhile, and I’m trying to raise my daughter (more on the way, God willing) the same way.
At the same time, the parent is obviously not responsible for the child’s entertainment, but instead their wellbeing. (My dad: “If someone complains that they’re bored, I can’t help but think: you really have no imagination, do you?”) And what’s best for the child is that they have plenty of places to find whatever they want and need outside of you, such as from themselves. The love of a parent doesn’t need to be smothering and all-encompassing to be felt. It just needs to be warm and present.
And I have a great time with my toddler, and play with her plenty, and leave her to others plenty, or to her own devices, and by the measures I value she seems to be growing up well indeed. Couldn’t be happier.
I agree with you about spending time with kids -- I love playing with them, reading to them, doing crazy games with them, etc. As my kids get older, I'm taking them out to hike or climb or teaching them board games etc. But I also don't hesitate to tell them "no" if they want me to play a game with them and I'm working on dinner and I think modern parenting has this failure mode where you actually spend too much time with your kids and not enough time letting them develop independently ... and then you can actually use that time to help with housework or reading a book you enjoy or what have you.
(and, of course, there's some "should you reverse any advice you hear" stuff going on where some parents need to be told "do not give kids a fucking phone, put yours away, and actually be present for your kid")
This, 100%.
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