<story><title>75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12</title><url>https://www.1000hoursoutside.com/blog/time-with-kids-before-age-12</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Defitio</author><text>In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life.&lt;p&gt;My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern?&lt;p&gt;Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them?&lt;p&gt;Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it?&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for me I&amp;#x27;m not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes.&lt;p&gt;Also I&amp;#x27;m not sure if I want to force another&amp;#x2F;new human through my experiences like going to school etc.&lt;p&gt;In dune the king new&amp;#x2F;realized that he can&amp;#x27;t do what is necessary but has to prepare his son to do so.&lt;p&gt;I have the opposite though: perhaps I need to not to have kids to stop the cycle of creating meaning through procreation.&lt;p&gt;Yes I overthink stuff and one way or the other I still think becoming a parent would be a life changing experience but besides all of the normal thoughts climate change comes on top of it.</text></item><item><author>natnatenathan</author><text>This is exactly my experience, probably from age 28 until I met my wife at ~34. My friends and I would go to all these bars, clubs, rock climbing trips. While I loved my friends and generally enjoyed doing those things, I felt this long-term malaise of meaningless. The loss of freedom getting married and then greater loss when having kids was unexpected and a jarring change. But it has made me such a better person. And even though it sucks going through the same chores every day or when my 4 and 6 year olds are in maximum procrastination mode. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t trade my worst day with them for my best day of freedom when I was younger. I&amp;#x27;ve never been more happy.</text></item><item><author>dionidium</author><text>If it makes you feel any better I delayed having kids and spent my 30s dating and hanging out and going to bars -- and it was terrible. I was never more depressed. I got tired of dating. I got tired of bars. I was lonely. My life had no meaning or direction. I had a nice career and could go anywhere and do anything I wanted, but it turns out none of that made me even a little bit happy.&lt;p&gt;I remember one summer making plans to go camping with three different groups of friends three weekends in a row and realizing at the end of it that all three weekends were exactly the same. Nothing new happens. You&amp;#x27;re not missing anything if you just stay home.&lt;p&gt;Happiness is extremely overrated. I had a lot of laughs in my 30s, but my life was a disaster. Now I&amp;#x27;m tired and busy and I don&amp;#x27;t go out and do &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; stuff very often, but I&amp;#x27;m much more satisfied. My biggest regret is that I waited so long to start my life. Brunch isn&amp;#x27;t life.</text></item><item><author>WheatMillington</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m necessarily having the same experience as you.... my advice to people who aren&amp;#x27;t sure if they want kids, is DON&amp;#x27;T. It&amp;#x27;s bloody hard, you sacrifice A LOT. Don&amp;#x27;t have kids unless you&amp;#x27;re very sure it&amp;#x27;s what you want.&lt;p&gt;I have 2 kids under 6 and I feel like I just don&amp;#x27;t have any time for any of my hobbies any more. I leave for work first thing, come home in the afternoon, and haven&amp;#x27;t had any time for myself until the kids are down at 7.30, and I&amp;#x27;m utterly wasted. Weekends are just chaos, yeah we can divide and conquer but that only goes so far.&lt;p&gt;As for enjoying hanging around with kids.... I don&amp;#x27;t know what age that starts, but I&amp;#x27;m 5 years and counting.&lt;p&gt;Honestly I&amp;#x27;m exhausted, and I&amp;#x27;m not gonna lie, I have some regret about having kids when I see the child free people around me, and how they&amp;#x27;re spending their 30s.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>One of the things I have a hard time conveying to non-parents is that the most time-intensive parts of parenting don&amp;#x27;t last forever.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve talked to a lot of young people who say they don&amp;#x27;t want kids because they think their personal lives will permanently halt the moment they have kids. I spend a lot of time trying to explain that:&lt;p&gt;1) I still spend a lot of time with friends and can do most of my personal hobbies&amp;#x2F;activities on weekends. My wife and I are good at sharing the load. You don&amp;#x27;t need 2 parents watching kids 100% of the time.&lt;p&gt;2) The sleepless nights and diaper changes are a mere blip on the scale of a lifetime with kids. You deal with it, then the kids grow up quicker than you think. Don&amp;#x27;t let the idea of the first few months&amp;#x2F;years define your entire decision for how you want to structure your family for the rest of your life.&lt;p&gt;3) You actually &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; hanging out with your own kids. I talk to a lot of people who are anchored to some negative experience they had 10 years ago babysitting for someone else&amp;#x27;s kids, as if that was representative of parenting life. It&amp;#x27;s not at all. At the end of the day, I actually rush to finish up my work so I can have more kid time. It&amp;#x27;s fun.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lee</author><text>&amp;gt; Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it?&lt;p&gt;It is totally this. We are biological creatures and we cannot escape that.&lt;p&gt;Love, sex, friendships, relationships, parenting, happiness, and so forth are all aspects of our biology.  We are not automatons living a purely rational life.  Satisfaction in life depends on those biological mechanisms and shouldn&amp;#x27;t be seen through a purely rational lens.&lt;p&gt;Kids aren&amp;#x27;t a scapegoat for a meaningful life. They do absolutely make life meaningful. Much in the same way eating a delicious meal brings pleasure. We depend on our biological wiring to feel such things.</text></comment>
<story><title>75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12</title><url>https://www.1000hoursoutside.com/blog/time-with-kids-before-age-12</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Defitio</author><text>In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life.&lt;p&gt;My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern?&lt;p&gt;Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them?&lt;p&gt;Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it?&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for me I&amp;#x27;m not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes.&lt;p&gt;Also I&amp;#x27;m not sure if I want to force another&amp;#x2F;new human through my experiences like going to school etc.&lt;p&gt;In dune the king new&amp;#x2F;realized that he can&amp;#x27;t do what is necessary but has to prepare his son to do so.&lt;p&gt;I have the opposite though: perhaps I need to not to have kids to stop the cycle of creating meaning through procreation.&lt;p&gt;Yes I overthink stuff and one way or the other I still think becoming a parent would be a life changing experience but besides all of the normal thoughts climate change comes on top of it.</text></item><item><author>natnatenathan</author><text>This is exactly my experience, probably from age 28 until I met my wife at ~34. My friends and I would go to all these bars, clubs, rock climbing trips. While I loved my friends and generally enjoyed doing those things, I felt this long-term malaise of meaningless. The loss of freedom getting married and then greater loss when having kids was unexpected and a jarring change. But it has made me such a better person. And even though it sucks going through the same chores every day or when my 4 and 6 year olds are in maximum procrastination mode. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t trade my worst day with them for my best day of freedom when I was younger. I&amp;#x27;ve never been more happy.</text></item><item><author>dionidium</author><text>If it makes you feel any better I delayed having kids and spent my 30s dating and hanging out and going to bars -- and it was terrible. I was never more depressed. I got tired of dating. I got tired of bars. I was lonely. My life had no meaning or direction. I had a nice career and could go anywhere and do anything I wanted, but it turns out none of that made me even a little bit happy.&lt;p&gt;I remember one summer making plans to go camping with three different groups of friends three weekends in a row and realizing at the end of it that all three weekends were exactly the same. Nothing new happens. You&amp;#x27;re not missing anything if you just stay home.&lt;p&gt;Happiness is extremely overrated. I had a lot of laughs in my 30s, but my life was a disaster. Now I&amp;#x27;m tired and busy and I don&amp;#x27;t go out and do &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; stuff very often, but I&amp;#x27;m much more satisfied. My biggest regret is that I waited so long to start my life. Brunch isn&amp;#x27;t life.</text></item><item><author>WheatMillington</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m necessarily having the same experience as you.... my advice to people who aren&amp;#x27;t sure if they want kids, is DON&amp;#x27;T. It&amp;#x27;s bloody hard, you sacrifice A LOT. Don&amp;#x27;t have kids unless you&amp;#x27;re very sure it&amp;#x27;s what you want.&lt;p&gt;I have 2 kids under 6 and I feel like I just don&amp;#x27;t have any time for any of my hobbies any more. I leave for work first thing, come home in the afternoon, and haven&amp;#x27;t had any time for myself until the kids are down at 7.30, and I&amp;#x27;m utterly wasted. Weekends are just chaos, yeah we can divide and conquer but that only goes so far.&lt;p&gt;As for enjoying hanging around with kids.... I don&amp;#x27;t know what age that starts, but I&amp;#x27;m 5 years and counting.&lt;p&gt;Honestly I&amp;#x27;m exhausted, and I&amp;#x27;m not gonna lie, I have some regret about having kids when I see the child free people around me, and how they&amp;#x27;re spending their 30s.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>One of the things I have a hard time conveying to non-parents is that the most time-intensive parts of parenting don&amp;#x27;t last forever.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve talked to a lot of young people who say they don&amp;#x27;t want kids because they think their personal lives will permanently halt the moment they have kids. I spend a lot of time trying to explain that:&lt;p&gt;1) I still spend a lot of time with friends and can do most of my personal hobbies&amp;#x2F;activities on weekends. My wife and I are good at sharing the load. You don&amp;#x27;t need 2 parents watching kids 100% of the time.&lt;p&gt;2) The sleepless nights and diaper changes are a mere blip on the scale of a lifetime with kids. You deal with it, then the kids grow up quicker than you think. Don&amp;#x27;t let the idea of the first few months&amp;#x2F;years define your entire decision for how you want to structure your family for the rest of your life.&lt;p&gt;3) You actually &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; hanging out with your own kids. I talk to a lot of people who are anchored to some negative experience they had 10 years ago babysitting for someone else&amp;#x27;s kids, as if that was representative of parenting life. It&amp;#x27;s not at all. At the end of the day, I actually rush to finish up my work so I can have more kid time. It&amp;#x27;s fun.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skinnymuch</author><text>If you can edit this. Edit out the “you” to “people”. It doesn’t look like an attack then. I see your comment is greying out so it’s getting downvotes.&lt;p&gt;Having diff perspectives is cool so it would be unfortunate for yours to get flagged because it seems too aggressive.</text></comment>