I have no kids and I’m still as miserable.
Did you used to go places?
Maybe it’s time to have kids and share the misery
pfft. friends with kids have to get public assistance which is constantly reduced and taken away. I don’t have kids but I have a roof over my wife and I’s head. For now anyway.
Meh, there’s enough of a biological drive to have children there’s no need to pressure people into it socially. It’s condescending to assume someone else will follow your same “growth” trajectory.
Often it’s more about validating your own situation unfortunately
Oh I accept that it feels like a very normal thing to say. It’s just that we should avoid acting upon them.
“I had no children. I haven’t transmitted the legacy of our misery to any creature”— Machado de Assis (1881)
Christ this is dark. I’m not a parent and I feel like this.
The Internet used to be such a neat place. Why is it so shit ever since like 2020? Or is that just the whole world? Since 2017 maybe.
I had a thought yesterday: it sucks that after you die, you can’t come back. AND that time just keeps flowing for everybody else after you’re gone. What a great gift to be alive, at all, though. Why do some people feel the need to make it as shitty as possible for others?
The Internet used to be such a neat place.
You just used to be younger and hanging out in forums with other younger people, with brighter and more optimistic outlooks.
Now you’re discovering the Boomer Web, where everyone bitches and whines and despairs and complains.
I had a thought yesterday: it sucks that after you die, you can’t come back. AND that time just keeps flowing for everybody else after you’re gone.
You’re still here. We don’t go anywhere when we die. We return to the soil and become integrated into something new. Our memories fade away, but we’re still the same raw dough we sprang from. And our planet is rich with life. The thing that is you will become a million other things that are someone, in time. And they’ll become a million million other things. And on and on, into eternity.
Why do some people feel the need to make it as shitty as possible for others?
Brain chemicals, mostly.
I had a thought yesterday: it sucks that after you die, you can’t come back. AND that time just keeps flowing for everybody else after you’re gone. What a great gift to be alive, at all, though.
That is a profound thought which many people don’t independently get to.
I honestly did not get to it independently either. It took reading a a lot on Indigineous precepts and accepting time as cyclical rather than linear to see life that way. Modern life treats existence like there’s a progress bar over our heads and I think many people derive a sense of frustration with the world from that.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for self improvement. I just think its important not to have a crabs in a bucket mentality because thst is harmful to oneself and others.
There are other issues at play here, wage slavery and the despair that brings on, but the goal should be to escape that which limits our world view.
When I was starting high school and going through registration with my mom, we were standing in line behind another kid and his mom that I knew pretty well from middle school.
My mom starts talking to his mom about how she now has one child each in elementary, middle school, and high school this year, and it’s going to be overwhelming.
What my mom didn’t know is that she was talking to the mom of a legendary family of like seven kids. The guy I went to school with was the second youngest of the bunch. In elementary school, one of his older brothers stopped by the class and talked about his time in boot camp. We had middle aged teachers who had gone to school with his older siblings. My mom did not pick her battle well on that one.
Whenever someone tells me about their kids I’m like, I’m happy for you, but have you seen literally anything humanity has done for the last half century?
Being a parent is the best. You wouldn’t understand.
I really wouldn’t, and I also won’t care to.
Then its good you dont have kids. I dont know why this gets turned into a debate so often. If you want kids, have them. If you dont, dont have them.
Damn, people. It aint hard.
That’s what she said… which is why she doesn’t have any kids.
I know. Im not arguing against her. Im using her comment as a case in point.
When did I turn into a woman?
No kids
Men can also not have kids
Honestly as a father I agree that being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life but, I’m also so fucking tired of the “it’s hell” joke.
My older dughter is now a teenager with all the trouble that entails and the selfishness she has but still there are no words to describe how much she helps when needed, how hard of a pilar she is to me, how caring and loving she is…Oh wait there is one…
Family
🥹
At least kids eventually leave, with pets you get to watch them slowly waste away and die in the most expensive ways possible.
Kids can be like that too
Damn… dark.
I mean it is the truth. Bad things can happen to people, and people should put more thought into that before having kids
They get mad because I “don’t have responsibilities” and it’s not a conversation just people shouting at me
I absolutely adore my kiddo and find meaning in my role as a dad that I did in very few other things I’ve done in life.
That said, it definitely does change your life in a way where you will not be able to prioritize the things that are just for you anymore. I am both deeply happy to have become a parent and simultaneously very glad that my wife and I waited and got our finances in order and traveled and lived our life as a couple for almost a decade before we decided to be parents. For parents whose story wasn’t quite as deliberate, I can imagine a lot of conflicting feelings.
Skill issue. Kids are really not that hard if you take it seriously like any other job. Traveling is mostly dead though until they turn teen.
Hard disagree. Kids are different, have different needs, and behave differently. Parents also have a wide variety of support structures around them, which also has a huge impact on how difficult raising kids is.
There are people who will struggle to be good parent regardless of other factors, but that is not the only reason raising kids might be hard. I’m glad you haven’t had some of the struggles other people have, but you sound like the guy born on third who thought he got a home run.
Don’t understand your baseball metaphor, not an american.
…yeah, I actually should have left that part off. It was unnecessarily fussy of me, and I apologize for putting that in. I stand by the rest of what I said, but that part was an unnecessary personal attack.
In baseball, you can only score by getting past the opposing team without being tagged with the ball; which usually requires your teammates to keep them busy as you move from one safe base to the next. To start from third (last before scoring) and think you hit a home run is to start out almost done and think you did the whole thing without support.
Again, I apologize for putting that in - we have not had easy kids, and the “skill issue” comment hit a nerve.
My parents took my sister and I to China, Hawaii, Europe, as well as other vacations when I was like 10-14 or something. I knew it wasn’t normal when we were doing it, like my friends families weren’t doing this, but I didn’t realize how unusual it was until much later. I definitely respect them for not leaving us, the kids, out of it, and teaching us how to travel, but man it’s crazy to spend that much money on a kid that’ll only remember a fraction of the trip at best.
Tangentially, speaking of memory - in China specifically, I remember being kinda swarmed by locals taking selfies with us, as my sister and I were two blond white kids, which isn’t an everyday sight there. I still wonder if we’re in any photo albums.
i was hell incarnation but my sister was calm and playful. Each kids is a new experience.
Plus we travel nonstop until we were teens. Because we can finally tell mom no. I hate traveling so much now. 2 days road trips one way and forced to do homework in car. Miserable. Don’t get me started on planes.
Well this is a horrifying thread to read 3 months away from our first making an appearance
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Some people are amazing parents, it takes talent and compassion, I think you guys will do great, good luck
Its all true. The bags under the eyes. The stress. The moving your life into the closet. The rationing of self-care.
But the important thing is, it’s still the greatest joy. Babies take everything from you, and demand more, but its still a fucking bargain.
Edit - also congratulations and good luck!
I got to experience this with my brother, without the having a wife and child part.
Be careful. Life as an auntie/uncle can be a gateway to the kind of love and joy some folks around here consider… unnatural.
Pretty soon you’re buying them presents, taking them to the zoo, and giving up on late night drinking and watching old movies from a tiny TV at a shady bar, because you’re more invested in the kid’s soccer practice the next day. I know, I know, it sounds horrifyingly bleak. But it could happen to you!!!
You will be tired. But you’ll also be fulfilled in a way that nothing else in life can truly approximate.
There will be sleepless nights but your child will also imbue many of your wakeful hours with a joy you’ve never had before.
If you really open your mind and see the world from their perspective, you’ll come to appreciate things you’ve long taken for granted.
The first few months are pretty rote. Feed, diaper, nap every 2-3 hours. There’s not a lot of feedback. There’s still joy in the comfort you bring to them but man is it exhausting.
Eventually… that first time they smile at you or babble at you… it will stay with you. There are many facets to love but the love you’ll feel in that moment will be like nothing else you’ve experienced. Its like seeing the sun rise for the first time.
Father of 18 months. Wouldn’t change a thing.
He could also regret everything. Spiral into depression and find he is not fulfilled at all.
Leading to a total life spiral.
Iv had more then one friend better spouted off the whole. You’ll be fulfilled in ways you don’t know nonsense. Only for them to take their own f****** life because they couldn’t handle it leaving themselves dead their wife alone and their child fatherless.
Really f****** sick and tired of people claiming just absolute b******* with no understanding of the person they’re talking to.
We have no way to know if he actually will be a good parent if they’ll be fulfilled if they’ll hate it if they will hate their child if they’ll hate themselves if they’ll love their child. If they’ll love themselves, we don’t know them and spouting off. B******* does nothing. It’s too complex a topic for anyone myself or yourself to have any real grasp on for someone else. We can only speak for ourselves
So speak for yourself and not others
What was that movie about post partum depression and the nannie that comes over to help?
Tully by J reitman (2018)
Is it good? I’ve had it in the backlog for a while
I found it very good, fascinating, makes you feel a full range of emotions being confronted by such a natural yet heavy human experience.
