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I'm going to take a general sentiment in a previous thread somewhat further.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that having kids is the biggest and most successful disinformation campaign society has pulled on itself in all of history. Having kids is one of the worst things you can do to your short term happiness, up there with getting addicted to heroin or getting in a motorcycle accident. Whatever things you might have enjoyed in life before them is completely gone, for the rest of your life. Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible. Eating, sleeping, farting, shitting, drinking, etc. will each be a torturous ordeal that you will have to deal with multiple times per day. It's backbreaking, thankless, and absolutely positively unfulfilling. After having kids you will finally understand the men who work 18 hour days every day despite having kids. They're actually doing it because of the kids. Because work obligations are the only excuse they can give themselves to let them spend less time dealing with kids and instead doing something relaxing like writing TPS reports or updating excel spreadsheets. Getting into the office and getting a stack of work from your boss is sweet relief compared to the torture of taking care of the kids.
I'm pretty sure the lie around it has persisted for so long because of the corresponding hard social stigma against saying you absolutely fucking hate taking care of the kids. Anyone who even hints at that idea is going to get completely crucified in the comments section. It's like the Havel's greengrocer, where if he doesn't put up the sign with the approved message, he's going to get hauled off to the gulag. Except for parents the punishment will be worse.
Anyways I find it likely that the cratering of birthrates across the entire world is a mass viral sensation where the lie is breaking down. Likely fuelled by social media as well as other factors, people are finally realizing en masse (though not openly admitting it yet) that it seriously just sucks. Even the welfare queens and third world brown hordes realize that this is true for them too. And they're understandably picking the hedonism option.
And no I don't hate or dislike kids. Kids are great, as long as they're someone else's, and their parents are around to jump in and take care of it as soon as something goes wrong.
I have four kids. I like hanging out with and taking care of my kids. It gets more fun after they turn 1, then even more after they turn 7, then still more after 10.
It's really not that bad. It's hard, but so is training for a marathon, learning violin, studying Chinese, learning to sail, reading literary fiction, really anything worthwhile in life. I personally do not think a life of video games, Netflix, international vacations to the rest of the now-Disnified tourist-friendly world, concerts, craft beer bar visits, escape rooms, or whatever single millennials my age are doing these days would be very fulfilling for me personally. I actually WFH expressly because I want to help my wife (a SAHM) cook, clean, and take care of the kids. We also do part time homeschooling and plan to switch to full homeschooling soon. Neither of us had to do any of this, we both have careers and made enough money to pay for daycare and still have disposable income. We chose to. I promise you we are not doing it under duress.
Also, there isn't really a stigma against saying you don't want to have kids anymore. Everyone in my entire company AFAIK has 0-2 kids. Probably 70% of coworkers over 30 are childless. Not having kids is the normal default now. Having kids at all is slightly unusual. Having enough kids that you must orient your life around raising them instead of throwing them into daycare is on par with being a Scientologist or something. People clearly think I'm a little insane. But I've also been surprised at the small minority who express admiration and jealousy. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
How do you do part time homeschooling? Can you explain how that works? I thought it was an either or kind of thing?
I didn't phrase it well. It's really just supplemental education at home, no exams or registration with the government. Just extra reading and study in addition to what theyre doing at school. Currently just religion, English, and history.
It might be worth looking for exams your kids can sit, if they're learning more regardless, to get some recognition for it. My son studied a bunch of math on his own during Covid, but then was bored silly when all his school would offer him was at his grade level. Fortunately the local University has a Credit-By-Exam process for high school subjects, and a decent Algebra I score was enough to get him jumped to Geometry the next year.
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Ahh I see, gotcha. Good stuff. We want to homeschool ourselves so we’ll see how it goes. Good luck going full time into it.
Thanks. I will try to report back after a year. Maybe do a small write-up in the Small Questions thread.
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