Haha this immediately reminded me of this scene from White Lotus Season 3
Wrong comm?
Having to maintain a population is a kinda bizarr (hopefully not racist) concept. Humanities problem is not that we’re dying out because there aren’t enough humans …
Bless you🙌🙌
You ever see the futurama episode what that slug was forced to party all the time.
It’s like that
Sometimes I think parents forget that they CHOSE to have kids. There’s always a choice. Even having sex with protection has a risk that people assume.
It’s always a bit surreal to see people insist “As a childless adult, I get to have hobbies while you don’t” when - as a childed adult - I find myself picking up hobbies I’d never even considered before kids.
My little guy stumbles on things and gets into them, needs some help, and suddenly we’re both neck-deep in a jigsaw puzzle or a TV series or a train kit or a pile of half-painted miniatures.
Adults Im talking to are like “I have no spare time or do anything interesting, my children consumes me completely”. I say fuck no to that. I have personal growth to pursue.
Adults Im talking to are like
It’s funny, because I hear this from childless adults all the time, as well. More often than not, they’re complaining about being overworked (and underpaid) at the office. The parents I know more commonly complain that they don’t get enough time with their kids, bemoaning how much time (and money) go to day cares and after school activities, while they’re stuck working weekends or extra shifts to make ends meet.
A lot of people don’t understand what it takes to raise children, completely overlooking what you just listed. You seem to be a good parent, which is rare.
No, we do. It’s why we opted not to have any. We want to do what we want to do. Not whatever our children are into.
Same.
Also I get to share my hobbies with them. We got a d&d group, we paint minis and play video games together. Which is stuff I’d do anyways.
I also picked up inline skating as my kids do that all the time and just standing there while they skate was boring.
Plus I still got hobbies as does my wife. Yes there is less time but we have each other’s backs so everyone can have some time for their own interests like once or twice a week.
Warhammer moment:
WHAT IS OUR DUTY?!
I had children young and watched my peers have social lives, etc. But now, on this side of things, they’re just getting started with little ones and my kids are driving. It’s coming. MUHAHAHA
And may I add, you probably had more patience and more energy having had kids young.
As a childless adult, it’s my duty to be part of other people’s lives and support families by being a trusted adult (trusted by parents and kids) and be a good role model for others’ kids.
Why? Because we live in a society. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s adults. There are, unfortunately, a lot of terrible social influences out there, and parents can’t battle society alone. Young boys and girls need to learn and develop healthy relationships with men and women alike, beyond just their parents, in order to have something to model themselves after and to learn how to treat others with love and respect.
And this is especially so for singletons. A lot of the bad and warped ideas about “relationships” and even self-esteem comes from unhealthy views of romantic relationships. Ideas like if you’re not good enough if you don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend. Or ideas that men and women cannot “only” be friends (objectification of other sex). Ideas that men are owed relationships and sex by women (incels). Ideas that it’s better to be with a bad partner than to be single (abuse).
Parents can’t fight all of that on their own.
Well said.
Thank you so much for saying this. It’s refreshing to hear this coming from someone else. We are divided in so many ways and need to bring the spirit of community back - the things you mention are critical steps in that direction.
I absolutely envy every family that has you in their lives. Please never stop thinking that way because we desperately need people like you. Not as a free baby sitter or lunch provider, but as a role model and influence. We really cannot do it all by ourselves.
As a man with 2 young kids, yes. Yes you do. It’s an obligation for you to enjoy the free time as much as you can. I rely on my childless friends to fill me in on what’s happening in the cultured world, because for me my life is nothing but Bluey, Paw Patrol, and Cocomelon.
That only lasts so long. My kids do their own thing, I do my own thing, and we do things together. I love hanging out with them and enjoying our shared interests. I know someday they won’t want to/be able to spend that time together, so I take advantage while I can.
I second that. The time when their interests bore you to death is so damn small. The time they need a diaper or breastfeed is so damn small. It is intense and hard, but then, just some steps down the road, you just sit there rewatching Sailor Moon instead of Peppa Pig and spending time together becomes actually cool and interesting and it feels like you have a great person around. You read great books together instead of looking at books that go like “this is a caterpillar. It likes apples. The caterpillar bites into an apple.” You make up stories. You draw together. You roughhouse. You just… hang out.
Yesterday I saw a man with his 5-year-old son out for a bike ride on the beach boardwalk. That little tiny boy was confidently adeptly riding his little bike balancing on two wheels like a full-on pro. I hope your kids get enough time away from the screen to enjoy life with skills like that too.
Who would downvote this lol? No kids, but also fully am tired of the us vs them mentality with cf versus childed. In today’s world there is usually a much greater sacrifice to have kids and to be able to afford or have a community to have date nights and such, but having children is still an adventure that many parents enjoy. You probably hear a lot from the complainers, though. Similar to married guys who sigh and call their wives the old woman… the happily married are silent af usually.
It’s the small thing we get for paying for all the many benefits parents enjoy.
Sounds good.
As an adult whose children are grown and I’m still as spry as age 20, I’m doing the same as OOP.
The good news: You’re a childless adult who can do fun things and just let the rest of the population keep the numbers up so civilization doesn’t collapse from rapid population decline.
The bad news: Everyone else has this idea also.
Take a look at the world population graph, they evidently don’t. You’re not doing enough fun stuff god dammit!
so civilization doesn’t collapse from rapid population decline
Would that really be a bad thing?
I mean, we’re all raging at this presidential administration for ending USAID which supplied food and medicine to developing nations and poverty-stricken regions without infrastructure, it will lead to the deaths of millions, for no other reason than they don’t have access and resources in many of the places the program served.
if populations collapse in too many industrialized nations too rapidly, many industries and shipping lanes and distribution channels will start to slow down and possibly even eventually close entirely, leading to much greater problems than even the absence of USAID or other programs. A lot of our modern infrastructure we depend on functions on a scale dependent on a certain level of production and labor.
A lowered population would absolutely help us with a lot of issues with scarcity and pollution, but we can’t get to those lowered population levels rapidly or that’s the same as any other apocalyptic event that will cause vast amounts of suffering.
Nah you’re missing the bigger picture. Sure, millions of people will die, but thousands of orphan children will have the opportunity to be forced to become sex slaves for Trump. That’s way more profitable than giving away free medicine.
I don’t think kids are the biggest barrier to enjoying your hobbies. They’re not latched at the tit 24/7 for decades. I think the bigger issue is people have unrealistic work loads/hours, aren’t paid enough, and have lost a lot of the support that used to exist.
Sure, when my kids were small I had a lot less free time, but I still had fun doing childish things. As they got older we ended up trying a lot of things I would not have attempted if it weren’t for them, especially outdoor sports. Now they’re both a bit older and more independent, I have more time to do my own thing. I work from home a few days a week and use that time to go to the gym. On weekends my wife and I take turns so I can go birdwatching - sometimes I take them with me. I’m about to start volunteering at a wildlife rescue in the coming weeks because I have more time on my hands. In a few more years they’ll be even more independent and probably less interested in hanging out with us as much, meaning even more free time.
I can understand having kids doesn’t appeal to everyone, and I don’t think people who don’t want kids should be berated into having them. I also recognise all of this is only possible because I have an extremely flexible work schedule and my wife and I earn a decent living. But to say that having kids is the reason people can’t enjoy their hobbies anymore is disingenuous at best.
The childless circles have this preconceived stereotype that life stops the moment you have kids for the next 20 years. What they don’t understand is that life doesn’t stop when you have kids, having kids is a part of life. Creating your own children, raising them, and watching them is in of itself a joy even if it is hard work. Parenting isn’t misery and having kids doesn’t mean you don’t have time to enjoy what you like.
Many don’t have a solid point of reference to work from. Maybe they’ve seen a movie or heard a new parents speak on the challenges of taking care of a newborn. The first year is definitely work.
After that things fall into place for the most part if the child was planned. You certainly need to have saved money and have people / family to help.
There is so much joy that comes with having a child that it can be hard to put into words.
Not only do you begin to see the world through their eyes (in a curious, more gentle and appreciative way) - which would be good for many adults - you also rediscover yourself.
You remember the way you saw the world when you were younger. You remember what made you tick. You remember what adulthood may have taken from you. Things that once may have even defined you. They bring it all back such that you see the path of your life to this point more clearly and perhaps even can chart its future course with more certainty.
I also have a much better relationship with my parents now. As immigrants raising three kids with essentially no help I have so much respect and appreciation for the sacrifices they made. I don’t think I would have ever truly understood the hardship they took on to have us in a country with more ideal economic opportunities if I didn’t have kids myself.
