this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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Asklemmy
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I swore against having kids-for lots of reasons-, same as my wife. But accidents happened and we became parents. As the cliche goes "it is life changing".
It alters who you are and your idea of importance. There was stress, and exhausting times, but now they are adults they are my favourite people :)
It is a threshold moment situation, if you like your life how it is never have kids. If you have kids your life becomes different. No path is better than the other; just altered.
If there's one thing childfree people love, it's how there is always a parent ready to reply about how rewarding kids are.
I hear ya, but I don't mind - it's a discussion thread, after all! - and it's interesting to see a different perspective than my own.
That's very generous of you. In my experience, the perspective I replied to is the one that is most prevalent and you can't mention being happy without kids without somebody chiming in to say or imply how happy you would be if you had them. It gets really old.
Understood, that used to bother me too. After a while people realized I was firm and laid off. Other than a few occasional passive-aggressive comments from my mom about how she doesn't have grandchildren, nobody really says anything anymore.
Edit: whoops, that posted 3 times!
Thanks for being open. as i mentioned there is no right or wrong choice, just different
You got it, I'm a very firm believer in 'different strokes for different folks'!
As an unrelated side note: One thing that has been interesting is watching genes play out. My daughter smirks like her grandfather, and she has had maybe 5 days exposure to him in her lifetime. And my youngest rubs his feet together when stressed, like a self soothing routine, something his great-grandfather used to do, but he died before my son was born. We like to think we are all about choices and choose to be unique, But some invisible biology still controls things.
That's so funny, what a specific behavior! I really do wonder to what degree we're all just automatons behaving on the whims of our genes.
I mean, yeah. Only one of both groups had both experiences.
Child free people love to shit on an experience they know nothing about, sure parents are ready to reply to those.
Nobody is telling people to have children...
Oh yes, they are. Maybe not in this thread, but in real life.
I'm glad it worked out well for you! :)
Then you have kids growing up with shit parents... the threshold isn't worth it
it is a fair point. On another platform I got pummeled for suggesting that a terrible family that killed their young kids, had done them a favour; in that they didn't have to endure a lifetime of abuse, and also would not pass on the learned abuse pattern to the next gen. To cold a suggestion I guess.
We have one boy and it didn't really change our life that much. Some time running him to activities and overseeing homework and such, but our hobbies and friends didn't change.