Because any fault of theirs feels like a fault of yours, but you learn that you cannot fix faults of theirs like you can (try to) fix faults of yours. You learn to become a parent, a teacher, a guide, a kind of friend, in the most deeply connected relationship you’ll ever have. A relationship that exposes you to every fault of yourself, while you feel the deepest love for and connection with your children. A connection that’s not even always reciprocated. Parenting is the true Aristotelian politeia.
It is kinda weird, because you feel so much more tired all the time. Yet at the same time you have so much more motivation to do _everything_. It is like I feel 50% more tired, yet 200% more engaged with everything I do. It really makes your life a lot more meaningful.
Before I would waste so much time engaging on video games / internet-browsing / TV-youtube / etc and just not enjoying the time I spent. It felt very meaningless, like why even bother working? I have (had) savings to go take several years of sabbatical if I wanted.
When I actually boot up a video game today I actually enjoy it. And that is all on top of normal stuff you hear about having kids.
I’m surprised this hasn’t come up yet: Because by being a parent, you become responsible for someone else’s life besides your own, permanently and beyond the transactional or contractual sense of a job or a passion project. It is a life experience unmatched by anything else (though I think that being a teacher or the caretaker of children in an orphanage come close). You get free reign over the shaping of a person who will touch the lives of others, and the good or the bad that becomes of it is the consequence of your own values and way of existence.
Not disputing you either—I once said I will never have children, too—but indeed and as with other life decisions, you should stay childless while you find the meaning of it incomprehensible. It’s not for people who are not ready to stop thinking about themselves.
Because it's evolutionarily favourable - the same reason sex feels good. One is instantaneous pleasure, and the other is sustained doses of feelings of satisfaction, because they optimise for different things; but ultimately you can understand them easily if you think about how core they are to what evolution favours.
Ever built something and felt proud of it? Like 'that was cool' or 'that was neat'. It's like a never ending source of that feeling. Most things you do in life just don't last that long, but raising kids lasts a really long time.
Yes. I keep getting that feeling everyday with my work as of now. And I also got a PhD after fighting a lot of hardship including huge opposition from my parents to the effect of having lost contact with them. But what you said does ring a bell in that, I need to be constantly doing my work in getting that feeling. (apart from my PhD which every once in a while makes me go wheeeee).
I guess with kids, its like my PhD but a constant source instead of static fading in time?
Agree with the sibling comment. As a new father, nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - can describe the love, adoration and reverence that parents feel for their children. To be understood, it must be experienced. There is simply no other way.
Thanks for the answer. And I understand that. But for me, that answer is potentially a very biased answer. Is it a feeling that comes naturally or is it forced in the sense that you realise you are everything for the kid and the kid is everything for you and both you the kid have no other choice.
Talking to a lot of people (bit you) i felt it was more the latter.
Babies have no guile or instinct to deceive; they literally can't even conceive of doing so because their worldview just isn't developed enough. So when your baby cries, you can have absolute faith that it's because there's some problem that needs solving or need that is unmet, and then you can go and solve the problem, fill the need, and the baby is happy. And when the baby's happy, you have absolute faith that it's because you were there doing the thing. There's no pretense to the relationship at all, and it's a sort of unusual honesty that can be really hard to find in relationships where both parties understand basic facts like "there is a world of people outside myself" and "people don't have special insight into my interior being and I can give them information that doesn't fully reflect the state of the world".
So that kind of honest exchange does a lot to foster love and adoration from you to the child, and the fact that you're there providing food, shelter, comfort et all to the baby fosters love and adoration from them to you.
My kid is just under 18 months old now. He's old enough to have distinct ideas about what he wants to do, and when he wants to do it, and he's old enough to understand that not getting to do the thing that he wants is really upsetting, so he cries. That's hard sometimes. But if I'm relaxing on the couch and he brings a book over to me, I can know with absolute faith that it's because right now, what he wants more than anything in the world is to sit in my lap and have me read a book to him, and that feels amazing. When he goes and hides behind the kitchen island and then jumps out, it's because the thing he wants to do more than anything else is play peekaboo with me, and that feels amazing too.
Let me paraphrase a scene from “Lessons in Chemistry”.
The main character confesses that twice she has wanted to give up her child for adoption. Another mom laughs... "Twenty times would still make you an amateur."
It didn't come naturally for me. Babies aren't much fun. There were plenty of times I wondered why everybody else finds being a parent fulfilling and here I am trying not to swear at a crying six month old at 1 am.
Toddlers though... toddlers are fun. Not always, but a lot of the time. Once both of my kids cleared the baby stage I finally would describe myself as a proud parent, mostly happy.
Now we are empty nesters and both of my kids live far away and are doing great. With the space that leaves I've spent some time thinking about myself as a dad and boy do I have a lot of regrets. I don't think I was very good at it.
I understand now why so many people who weren't the greatest parents get very excited about grandchildren. I know if that happens for me, I'm going to be a much better grandparent than I ever was parent.
+1. I also felt this huge gap between knowing (intellectually) what parenting is and actually experiencing it. It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently. I think I can perceive fairly accurately whether someone my age is a parent after just a few minutes of general conversation (obviously, without having to visit adjacent topics).
I experienced this so strongly I spent some time actually writing a poem (in Spanish) about it: https://alejo.ch/39l
> It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently.
As a childless person, the inverse is equally true. I have wildly different levels of obligation and constraint - and that difference typically becomes obvious very very quickly. I don't say that as a better/worse, just different.
Once you have kids you quickly discover that you get forced into it. You have to engage. If you don't, they scream. They get in trouble at school. They are unhappy and it breaks your heart. Once you have no choice but to do something, you will find it's better to find meaning in it. Meaning is ultimately something you create for yourself.
> I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
I don't think it's something to think or reason about. You feel it (or don't, in some cases). As an atheist, I suppose this is how truly religious people feel about their religion: it brings them joy and meaning. (And much like in some religions, you sometimes feel you're beholden to a demanding, whimsical god!).
You can ask that question about a lot of things whether it's one entrepeneurial baby or their nature conservation effort which reveals it to be somewhat meaningless question.
Also as a parent, I still don't understand. I have two kids and regret it. They suck all the time and energy from my life. I give my all to be a great parent to them, and I would never let them know that I regret having kids, but if I could wind the clock back I almost certainly would. I feel like I'm throwing the most valuable years of my life in a wood chipper.
It's difficult to explain ... an intensely personal experience. Every child is different. Every parent is different. Every culture has their own way of doing things ... yet children are the one universally shared thing that binds our giant collective together ...
When I am holding Henry and I tickle him, I can feel him laughing all the way to his toes. And I realize, my God, I had forgotten ... how unbelievably wonderful it is that any of us exist at all.
Here I am with this tiny, warm body so close to me, breathing so fast he can barely catch up, sharing his newfound joy of simply being alive with me. The sublime joy of this moment, and all the other milestones – the first smile, the first laugh, the first 'dada' or 'mama' ... The highs are so incredibly high that you'll get vertigo and wonder if you can ever reach that feeling again. But you peak ever higher and higher, with dizzying regularity ... a constant rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows.
I'd modify that to once you have kids, you might understand. It's for sure not a given and there are a lot of really terrible people out there who probably shouldn't have the kids they do.
I'd like to object to this hopefully unintentional suggestion that failing to understand it means you're a terrible person.
I don't think I'm a terrible person. My kids are healthy, mostly happy, seem to be well adjusted. I support their physical needs, do my best to support their emotional needs. I read to them, changed their diapers, taught them how to ride a bicycle, help them with their homework, kiss them goodnight. But I still don't understand. I know most parents have this whatever it is, but I'm still wondering.
Except... a million reasons where they will either not understand, or they should have not become a parent.
The problem with the "The Most Infuriating Answer" is that it entirely neglects facts, and only those say it who do have a good experience with it.
Happy for you, internet stranger. Just like I am happy for all of those around me: you all are the ones who do good parenting.
In case you also want to become a better person in general, I recommend to stop being condescending, and not to say this ever again to anyone. You hurt more than you think you are wise.
I don't see OP's comment as condescending but I'm also not in these "should have not become a parent" shoes to tell, for sure. Insensitive? Perhaps. On a discussion board, it is hard to know who you're talking to. OP likely assumed some "persona" (different to those that might find it hurtful) before they wrote the comment.
> You hurt more than you think you are wise
We are all fighting some demon or the other. I appreciate you for bringing forth the kind most of us are (fortunate enough to be) oblivious to. Ignorance is bliss.
The irony of this fact should be front and center to everyone and thus people saying it should have this forced to be capitalized with exclamation points.
Similar, all invocations of "calm down" should be in all caps with exclamation points. Never in history has telling someone whose upset to "calm down" actually led to them calming down.
I mean, ok, they might just understand or they might hate their children with a fiery passion and never miss and opportunity to vocalize it and ruin innocent lives like my parents did?
>Why? Noy disputing you but I am childless yet primarily I cannot think why bringing up a kid would be significant or meaningful.
Its because they are more important than anything else to a parent. You are invested in their outcome more than anything else. I don’t see how this isn’t obvious.
You can tell me why it isn’t obvious to you. Or is it obvious?
I would like to hear you articulate why you believe bringing up a kid is neither significant nor meaningful? The time commitment and emotional bond alone makes pretty trivially proves it is, don’t you think?
Someone without children asks an apparent good faith question about why parenting is more significant and meaningful [than other pursuits]
An answer is provided, but with an "isn't it obvious?" at the end
On the one hand, one could argue that the question wouldn't have been asked if it were obvious (which would be an equally unnecessary riposte), but it might be worth reflecting on what that part adds to the conversation or whether it's a habit, especially in the context of parenting
Like once I have a kid, then that kid has to be the most significant part of my life. But before that, why?