On the actual subject of kids I may have an unpopular opinion (and I don’t mean this as a nock on people who don’t have kids). I believe it is next to impossible (at least in the current state of the 1st world) to fully grow up without becoming a parent. There is an aspect of maturity that comes from the total devotion and responsibility to another human that seems unachievable through other means. It always weirds me out a little bit talking to friends and co workers that are older than me without kids and getting the sense of immaturity from their self focused life and worldview.
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One could say this about something like fighting in a war. People who go through hardships generally have different perspectives. Making a judgement on which perspective is “better” seems a bit unjustified, they are just different. Maybe you are not assuming that mature is better than immature?
Maybe you’re one of the exceptions. I’m happy things have gone well for you.
There are also many societal and communal ideals mothers often feel they must attain that cannot be said for men. It’s easier said than done to simply ignore those. Girls are raised from a very early age to practice caring for children and often expected to have and be excellent with kids.
Many people are selfish, childfree or not. It’s also easy to find people who have kids for selfish reasons.
I would think that something like war could be a similar experience, but I don’t personally know. I also would think that it isn’t that type of experience for many people who go through it.
And correct, I’m not assigning value to maturity. There is always something so alluring to not growing up (who didn’t want to live in neverland?). Children are even largely valuable because they aren’t mature. I’m just pointing out there is an aspect to life you will most likely miss without children.
It’s funny because growing up and maturing is largely about sacrificing possibility for development. It’s a trade off. Children are full of possibility and lack development and a mature adult is the opposite. To develop and get better at a sport, eventually you have to stop training and playing other sports. And far enough down that path you lose the possibility of taking other things to the elite level. Life is the same way. Having a child is one of the largest sacrifices you can make. Everything becomes tied to the child. Jobs, travel, money, sleep, relationships, friends. Most possibilities go out the window, but it isn’t without payback. I wouldn’t trade either of my kids for a billion dollars, but what would you sacrifice in your life for a billion dollars? I truly get to experience the wonders of childhood (even on a deeper level) with my kids than I did as a child. The zoo is new and wondrous. Swing sets are fun again. I recently experienced the triumph of riding a bike for the first time without training wheels at 38 years old.
Experiences are life and maybe the greatest dose of experience is children.
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This is true, but it’s rare to find adults without children who have as de-self-centralized world view as many people who are parents.
Fully agree with that. I’m only 21 and I’ve only been a parent for a little less than 5 months but I’ve thought this since I was fairly young. My family is pretty split between people who have kids by the ages of 25 (mixture of healthy/unhealthy relationships with their partners though) and people who make it past 30, or maybe even closer to 40 before having them.
There’s just a difference. Hard to explain but I don’t feel like anything can really compare to being directly responsible for the life of a human being. Unless you’re my girlfriend’s cousin who is a “dog-mom.”
I believe @Frank_C would agree, too, since I think he said something along these lines in my log. But he tends to stay out these threads.
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I suppose we have different experiences.
There are also societal and communal ideals fathers often feel they must attain that cannot be said for women. Provided a man is raised correctly he will be expected to provide and protect, be disciplined, and be responsible. Is that an issue?
He might also be expected by women to be fit, funny, entertaining, thrilling, attractive, understanding, responsible, empathetic, good with children, popular, connected, come from a healthy or powerful family, have an advanced degree and a profession, have a hefty bank account, or any of the other items on the laundry lists of different kinds of women.
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I never said those things were not an issue. I very much feel that traditional patriarchal masculinity is damaging for both men and women.
A lot of this is beyond mere expectations though. Women do far more unpaid labor than men, even when both parents are employed full-time and have progressive attitudes.
Homer Simpson came from somewhere. He actually reminds me of some of the air-headed boomer dads I grew up around in garden apartments, parked in front of the TV or on a bench starting at 4:30 to 5:30, and not doing much else but eating until bedtime.
He is supposed to be the typical boomer dad, yes.
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I know.
However, I actually don’t think patriarchy is a damaging construct. And I’ve actually seen it work out quite well for some households abd communities firsthand.
The laundry list mentioned might be damaging to both in some cases though.
Is something wrong with this? Considering both no-fault and at-fault divorce is available in America, a woman unhappy with doing more unpaid work can simply leave her spouse unmatched in unpaid work.
Btw, I’m only offering a different perspective. Not trying to be antagonistic.
There is a huge biological influence on these rolls.
And yet women do the majority of the spending…
I’ve often found the earnings gap a funny statistic when (if you are concerned with equity of outcome) spending is far more important and it swings the opposite direction.
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I’ll also add that I think a certain female podcaster put something greatly: for a boy, nearly all of child-raising efforts should fall on the dad once the boy reaches twelve years old. I’m good with that for mine.
“Patriarchy” is really controlled by women at the fundamental level. Societal hierarchies can more or less be defined as men organized in such a way that the higher levels have improved access sexually to women. Women’s sextual preference is probably the most fundamental driver in the development of pretty much all animal hierarchies.
It’s one of the amazing things about gender and the free market. Markets are controlled by spending decisions, not earnings. What that means is that women drive the markets in the US and most of the free capitalist world.
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Yes, but we did away with polygamy long ago and a social construct of monogamy lead to higher levels of productivity in ordinary men and civil stability.
At troop of baboons can have the alpha males hogging women. There’s not how the West ran things for much of its existence.
Women still generally mate only across and up the current social hierarchies. Regardless of monogamy.
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Yeah. I think you got my point though.