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Notes -
Since this is this week's general parenting subthread, I was just recently thinking about how having kids automatically makes you more of a normie than you were before.
Normie in the sense that the society still considers the normal mode of being to be having kids at some point, sure (even if this is fraying) - but also in the sense that, no matter what your political opinions, cultural and subcultural communities, religiousness or irreligiousness, place of living, level of neurotypicality etc., your baby will still eat, crap, sleep, cry and have to be bathed and clothed the same way as all other babies everywhere, and you suddenly feel affliation (and have an eternal topic to discuss) with all the other parents (particularly with kids the same age as yours) everywhere, no matter their political opinions, cultural and subcultural communities, religiousness or irreligiousness, place of living, level of neurotypicality etc.
Of course much of the previous also requires more free time to maintain (participating in meetings, going to gigs etc.) than one also has as a parent, even if you're the parent not directly in charge of the kids' day-to-day life, ie. usually the man. And no matter how many punky kids' clothes etc. you might buy as an affection, beyond a certain age kids just won't wear them. I'm reminded of occasionally seeing, at a playground near our old place, a couple with a man and a woman wearing basically a full black metal getup short of a corpsepaint - and accompanied by a daughter with your typical pastel Frozen Elsa princess shirt and a similar dress.
Of course, there's also going to be differences in how likely one is to have children on the basis of politics, subculture, religiousness etc. I remember seeing a Finnish comic where the main character of the comic and a friend are out and about, observing that one frequently sees hippie couples with kids but almost never goths with kids, and why is that? (The comic ends with a passing beautiful goth woman showing sharp vampire teeth and saying that goths have other methods of reproduction...)
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