Morgan Dontanville
United States
Brooklyn
New York
Plate of Shrimp.
Here we are folks, the dream we all dream of.
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quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact.
Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids...
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Will Mellor
United Kingdom
London
ENGLAND
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A friend of mine recently said he was thinking of having children, any advice yadda yadda (I have 2) ... I told him kids are great when you have a) got a surplus of money and b) done everything you ever wanted in life.
Having kids SHOULD be worse unless your life wasn't worth bothering with... To add to the "when you are tired of London you are tired of life" I would add "when you are tired of life then have kids".
Totally understand why people don't have them and they people I know that don't are the happiest people I know. Once you have kids you need to care about many things that usually you don't care about (education system, health system, crime, drug abusers etc... Generally stuff that you have long since figured out one way or another... I guess its "LEVEL 2" of life in an 8bit era game where level 1 was far better.
That said when your child giggles its a pretty cool feeling too so its not all bad news.
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Morgan Dontanville
United States
Brooklyn
New York
Plate of Shrimp.
Here we are folks, the dream we all dream of.
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sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids...
I should also add I was working three jobs and going to school.
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Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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sisteray wrote: sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids... I should also add I was working three jobs and going to school.
You could have had the kids during your spare time. Ah, this young generation. 
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sisteray wrote: sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids... I should also add I was working three jobs and going to school.
I remember working to put myself through college and not having enough gas money to run the A/C on my commute to the university, in South Florida, in the summer. Definitely not a good time to have children and I didn't.
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Lance
United States
Moorhead
Minnesota
The coolest best thing I have ever done in my life is being a father
Caleb, the best 6 month old little brother ever
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EgorjLileli wrote: sisteray wrote: sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids... I should also add I was working three jobs and going to school. I remember working to put myself through college and not having enough gas money to run the A/C on my commute to the university, in South Florida, in the summer. Definitely not a good time to have children and I didn't.
Wait...you didn't have windows that rolled down? Because when I grew up I couldn't AFFORD a car with air conditioning...or a radio...or for most of teenage and college life, a car.
Good ol' bus pass...you never failed me.
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"Spartan spawn, sworn, raised for warring."
United States
Beaufort
South Carolina
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EgorjLileli wrote:
I remember working to put myself through college and not having enough gas money to run the A/C on my commute to the university, in South Florida, in the summer. Definitely not a good time to have children and I didn't.
Completely random (but hey this is Chit Chat) and I apparently am going to learn something new today. Running ones AC in a vehicle uses more gas than if you dont run it?
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Sylvester Deluxe
United States
Aurora
Colorado
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Luftwaffe Flak wrote:
Completely random (but hey this is Chit Chat) and I apparently am going to learn something new today. Running ones AC in a vehicle uses more gas than if you dont run it?
Yes. It basically engages a compressor hooked into your engine. It was more noticable on older cars for two reasons:
a) efficiency wasn't as good then.
b) Whether you know it or not, often the AC is on most the time in cars now. My '03 Frontier, '03 Sentra, and '05 Xterra would kick on the AC whenever we ran the front defrosters. The 'auto' setting in the '07 Solara would turn on the AC automatically to dehumidify the air.
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Jon M
United Kingdom
Hitchin
Herts
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ill6 wrote: A friend of mine recently said he was thinking of having children, any advice yadda yadda (I have 2) ... I told him kids are great when you have a) got a surplus of money and b) done everything you ever wanted in life.
Having kids SHOULD be worse unless your life wasn't worth bothering with... To add to the "when you are tired of London you are tired of life" I would add "when you are tired of life then have kids".
...
What if one of the things you wanted to do in life was see your child's face when Darth Vader tells Luke "I am your father"
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Will Mellor
United Kingdom
London
ENGLAND
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Funny you should ask - my daughter picked up Star Wars and I did think "thats gonna be good" when they (her and my son) get to the right age.
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Stephen Shaw
United States
Cleveland
Ohio
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Quote: The sad fact is that we are highly adept at rationalizing our decisions, whatever they are. Much of this condescending babble about how people who don't have children are somehow defective or incomplete has no basis in fact, and sounds suspiciously like a desperate attempt to validate one's own life decisions.
This. The fact that the science tells us that having children makes people less happy, but the UNIVERSAL response from every parent I've ever met is that it's the HAPPIEST AND MOST GRATIFYING thing in existence smacks of severe cognitive dissonance. Even some of the vehement responses in this thread are a bit brow-raising in this regard. Interestingly, the article states, all of the folks involved in the study (sociologists/psychologists) say that they are sorry for those parents for whom the results are true. Every individual parent is happy for having children, but the median/mean parent is not? Impossible.
I'm quite sure that there are many parents on both sides of the bell curve, and I'm also sure that there are many parents that are truly objectively happier for having kids. But that is certainly not the mean or median.
It is simply taboo -- and I mean, the worst kind of taboo -- to admit publicly, or even to oneself, that having children makes one miserable. I truly believe that some folks feel miserable and have insight, but will never say it. I also think that even more parents feel miserable but have no insight because a very potent cognitive dissonance mechanism forbids it.
In addition, the dissonance is likely hard-wired from the millions of years that has led species to force procreation into the brains of the evolving and fighting-to-survive. In short, an innate drive to procreate and desire to nurture is a powerful evolutionary advantage in complex mammals that require prolonged postpartum support. If we were allowed to experience our misery in full effect, species would not have flourished. Infants would have been abandoned or never begotten.
I am not preaching, as a dude that does not have or want children. But I do find the studies more than a little vindicating in a world where the lack of procreation is seen as a pox.
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Sylvester Deluxe
United States
Aurora
Colorado
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sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids...
You know, I financed my college on getting married.
Those guys with 1-3 kids... financial aid out the wazoo.
Joke's on you? 
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UndeadViking wrote: EgorjLileli wrote: sisteray wrote: sisteray wrote: quozl wrote: kamchatka wrote: we were all waaaaaay better off when we couldn't feed ourselves, measure risk against reward, or behave responsibly.
I like having my rational faculties intact. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to give them to me. I know when I was a kid I could feed myself, measure risk against reward, behave responsibly, and my rational faculties were intact. Lucky. I remember when I was living off of a box of pancake mix with no electricity because I had to pay rent instead of power. Talk about not being ready for kids... I should also add I was working three jobs and going to school. I remember working to put myself through college and not having enough gas money to run the A/C on my commute to the university, in South Florida, in the summer. Definitely not a good time to have children and I didn't. Wait...you didn't have windows that rolled down? Because when I grew up I couldn't AFFORD a car with air conditioning...or a radio...or for most of teenage and college life, a car. Good ol' bus pass...you never failed me.
Luftwaffe Flak wrote:
Completely random (but hey this is Chit Chat) and I apparently am going to learn something new today. Running ones AC in a vehicle uses more gas than if you dont run it?
To answer both of you:
Lance: Yes, I had windows that rolled down, but I had to drive 40 minutes or more on the highway to get to school. I could afford a car because I started working full-time when I was 16 years old, plus I lived at home. The bus system was atrocious. It would take 3-4 hours to get to the university from my home with numerous transfers and that was one way.
Jon: Running a car over 40 mph with the A/C saves more gas than opening the windows. Since I was driving on the highway at around 55-60 mph, I could not open the windows. But I was so short of gas money that I drove without A/C as well, in order to be able to make it to school and back without having to pump gas.
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Kdad the Muck Dweller
United States
Kirkland
Washington
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sshawmd wrote:
In addition, the dissonance is likely hard-wired from the millions of years that has led species to force procreation into the brains of the evolving and fighting-to-survive. In short, an innate drive to procreate and desire to nurture is a powerful evolutionary advantage in complex mammals that require prolonged postpartum support. If we were allowed to experience our misery in full effect, species would not have flourished. Infants would have been abandoned or never begotten.
This could very well be true. That being said, all of happiness is just a drug dripped out by your brain and if my brain is handing out happy pills more than ever after having kids, I'm not going to argue with it. I won't even argue with it if someone tells me that it's a survival response hardwired into us as a species.
Yup. Sometimes things would be easier without kids, like going to the movies with my wife. But I do know I get things from being around them that I never did before having them, like rewatching and finding a new love for my favorite child hood movies with my kids. It's definitely different, but I feel better more often than before (seriously, I paid a lot of attention to this sort of thing before and after kids).
I know I'm happy being with them more than I was without them.
But maybe I'm just legitimately on the right hand side of a bell curve of some study or I'm more easily manipulated by mind altering survival hormones. Either way, I feel pretty good.
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Plate of Shrimp.
