Asymmetrical Information

The world would be a much better place if more people took the time to understand the extreme level of commitment children require and the stress they add to one's life and co-parent relationship. Btw, my wife and I have two children, a just turned 23 year old and a soon to be 21 year old, and we are still together, our relationship having survived the physical and emotional stress.

Agreed that many of those comment-makers are louts, but the CT blogger isn't immune from blame. The first words you see scanning the CT post is "FUCK THEM." The CT blogger frames Megan's personal essay about as poorly as one could possibly frame it. The essay is heartfelt and sweet and intelligent. CT pulls out one small part of it and makes it seem bitter and polemical.

I really enjoy reading the blog of Megan Of Oakland (Formerly Of Sacramento), but assuming you're a guy and you've never read her blog, it'd be unlikely for you to build up any sympathy for a stranger who's just told you to go fuck off.

Crooked Timber is what happens when geeks go bad.

You're making the CT discussion out to be worse than it is. Many of the posters come off as living in an ideologized, post-60s culture that is completely alien to me. So the discussion is weird, but not particularly agrressive or rude.

Yeah, the way the Crooked Timber blogger framed Megan non-McArdle's post leads to a lot of misunderstanding. Excerpting in a manner which obsfuscates rather than illuminates is a common failing in all manner of blogging/punditry, and I'd say it is deliberate only about half the time.

In any case, I thought non-Mcardle's post was eminently reasonable. Men who denigrate women who openly express a strong desire for children very early in the dating relationship are children themselves. If a man doesn't share that desire, or doesn't know if he does, the reasonable thing to do is to politely let the woman know right away, and end the dating. A little honesty and common civility, from both parties, avoids a lot of bad feeling and hostility, and wasted time, down the road.

I've been a salesperson/entrepreneur most of my adult life, and one of the things I've learned through that experience is also applicable to personal relationships that result in marriage and/or children. There are some "sales" or relationships that should not be made or entered into, and being very forthright from the beginning of a relationship regarding one's expectations or desires is never a bad thing in and of itself. How one chooses to be forthright, of course, makes all the difference in the world.

There were sympathetic and unsympathetic comments in that post. The bad ones were frustrating, but I can't help but wonder if they believed the other linked post (in which I joke about my dating behavior) was serious. If they really believed I act like that, they would see me as having no self-awareness and treating men as instruments for having kids.

Fortunately, I came to Megan Non-McArdle's blog entries via Tyler Cowen, which makes all the difference in the world, apparently. Trieu is correct, the framing in CT is atrocious and has probably influenced the responses.

As for Megan's posts themselves- they are disarmingly honest and sweet.

I had the benefit of living with my brother and his wife for several years, from the time their children were babies until they were toddlers. I got to see first-hand the effect children have: the amount of work and attention required, the constant adjustments to child-driven reality, the anxiety of being responsible for a potent source of chaos. Fortunately my brother and sister-in-law are part slug, so they could sink into their domesticity as an inevitable (and happy) destiny rather than a lifelong burden.

I still love children, but I have a much better appreciation now for what it will mean if/when I have some of my own.

I have 4 children - all boys. About the only thing I can tell you from this side of the non-parent/parent line is this: it's harder than you can even imagine. It's good, but it's hard. The line that strikes me the most is this one:

I would like to have my whole weekends without scheduling in meeting some perfectly nice stranger.

Don't misunderstand me. I gladly give my time to my family. But humans don't function well without any down time. The effort required to find care for them is immense. My wife & I have been able to take one weekend out of town without them in the last 3 years. The next time we do that is (as of now) entirely unknown to me. We currently earmark 2 hours on Sundays as private time. Whereby I get 2 hours to do whatever I want, and she gets a different 2 hours to do the same. We have to do this. If we don't, we both get so nasty that we can't live with each other. But even finding 4 hours is next to impossible. It doesn't happen every weekend. I'd say at least once every three weekends, sometimes twice.

I think back to what our life was like before we had children, and I just can't figure out what we did with all of the time. I don't remember what we did with the 70-ish hours EVERY WEEK that weren't dedicated to sleep and work.

Being a parent is good. It's rewarding. It's weird. It's fascinating. It's a bunch of things - good and bad. But it's required me to completely rethink what I had thought was important before being a parent. It is easily the most demanding job I have had to this point in my life.

Bad framing of Megan's post on Crooked Timber doesn't justify the nasty comments. Anyone who took the effort to read her entire post would have a very different understanding as compared to those who read just the excerpt. Which leads to two possible conclusions WRT the nasty comments:

1. Anyone who read just the excerpt and posted a nasty comment is an idiot, for jumping to conclusions based on what's obviously a small part of the whole post.

2. Anyone who read the entire post and still posted a nasty comment is pure low-life slime.

Posts to a blog entry are much more valuable if they're made early. The earlier the post, the more likely it is to be read, since it's at the top. Once you get past about post 15-ish, mostly the only people left reading them are the people who are involved in the discussion. This tends to incent reading only the excerpt and getting your comment in quickly so that it will be read. It also tends to incent contrarian responses, since the only way you really know if you've been read is if you can see that someone replied.

I like some of the commenting systems (like slashdot or digg) that allow for voting on the value of the comment. It still creates incentive to be an earlier commenter, but it's lessoned. And it disincents nastiness.

I went to law school at night, and worked 8-10 hours in a law firm during the day. Weekends were consumed with studying. I did this for 4 years. It thought that was a "boot camp" experience that stretched my limits.

It was a vacation compared to raising children, especially given that the stakes with children are much, much higher. You are so right that it will strain even a good marriage. And, if you take it seriously, you will have to rethink a lot.

But if you honestly want to be a more serious, patient, thoughtful, and loving person, there is no better regimen than truly and irrevocably devoting yourself to the care of another human being.

I'm holding my second as I write this; five days old, her little head fits in the crook of my elbow, and her bottom rests in my hand. She's sleeping; she's adorable. Mama's sleeping upstairs.

I never understood a lot of things until they arrived. I never understood how self-absorbed I was, or how small the concessions I imagined I was making for other people really were.

Children aren't an accessory or a strain: they're probably the biggest thing you'll ever do, and they're the lesson that brings childhood to an end. Learning to care for them teaches you what your parents did for you, and prepares you for the responsibility of caring for them when they're too elderly to care for themselves.

Hazel and mjh have it dead on.

My wife and I have raised three boys. Now that they are older, we finally have some free time to ourselves, but I remember when two hours of free time a week simply did not happen. You can find a baby sitter for one and even two. Baby sitters for three are as rare as hen's teeth.

I do not have a lot of sympathy for Megan non-Mcardle.

She made choices in her life. There is nothing wrong with the choices she made. But now, she is not happy with the results of those choices. Did she not know that she was going to grow old? Did she not know that it is increasingly difficult (but not impossible) to find an ideal mate the older you get? But especially when you are looking to have children at that age?

She may not have PLANNED to be 35 and looking for a mate, but that is the result of the decisions that she has made her entire life.

I'm not surprised. She shouldn't be, either.

"...which I thought would stir sympathy in the heart of any sentient human being. "

For there to be sympathy, there needs to be a corresponding feeling in the sympathizer. The closest most people (including most women) come to feeling that intense of a biological need that is unmet is sexual frustration. If someone wrote a long, passionate essay about their sexual frustration, it would probably have triggered an even more unpleasant set of responses.

Instead of sympathizing, we analyze. Consider other deeply emotional situations if others analyzed us rather than sympathyzed with us. When a loved one dies, someone who couldn't understand our feelings would suggest disposing of the corpse in a cheap and sanitary fashion, possibly involving a "Hefty Cinch Sack. The difference is that almost all adults have an emotional reaction to death. We all have a reference point. We can sympathize.

I didn't interpret non-McArdle's post as a request for sympathy.

"I didn't interpret non-McArdle's post as a request for sympathy" - Will Alen

I'm curious. What did you interpret it as?

I think of about half of original writing as requests for sympathy - a desire to evoke a feeling of kinship in others. I could never write a blog or a novel because I just don't have a strong enough desire (or ability) to identify what others feel and how to reach it. Most of my writing is in reaction to others - because they have struck a chord with me. I find such an ability to be impressive, and wish I had it.

I hope you didn't think I confused sympathy with pity.

I'm going to take this post as an opportunity. Megan-non-McArdle (MNM) has a strict policy on her blog against compliments, so this is not really something I can say THERE.

The post she wrote brought tears to my eyes, and I wish her the best, and I admire her for not compromising or using deceptions. She seems like a genuinely good person, and I hope she carries those premium genes of hers forward into the next generation with somebody truly deserving.

I checked out the CT thread and was neither not shocked or angry. I just wasn't interested at all. Most of the commenters, good and bad, were really commenting at a very vague impression that bore little resemblance to the more finely tuned illusion that we REGULAR readers have. So it just seemed meaningless.

Njorl, I guess it is a bit of a semantic puzzle. Sympathy and empathy are closely related, and it may be my error that I too closely associate sympathy with pity.

A cri di cour indeed. Wish I could fold you in my arms as a surrogate daughter (I do have one same age, same location, same existential dilemma) pat you comfortingly, and say, "there, there. It'll be alright." And it will. You'll find Mr. Right and have his babies, or you won't. You'll go sperm donor, adoption or foster parent or you won't. Or, God forbid you'll be smashed like a bug tomorrow. All you have is today. So today cry your plaintive cry, know you are doing what you need to do now to find Mr. Right, and find the blessings of this day. No promises, other than "it'll be ok." And it will.

"We all have the strength to withstand the misfortune of others."
~ La Rochefoucauld

I would add, when the misfortune is not too terrible, we love piling on.

Well, yeah but this doesn't address the other side of the problem.

Left to their own devices without children, 99% of the human race has no idea what to do with their time. Thus, the society of narcissism and childishness.

Let's face it. You don't have anything better to do than have children. When you're 20 years old, you convince yourself that the childish self-involvement is really exciting. And you're wrong.

I understand why Jane/Megan decsribed little kids as "screaming, tedious, and indescribably needy." And I understand why some parents have chimed in to say they agree. But as the father of two very little kids (two girls, one age 2 years and one age 4 months), I think you're sort of overstating the bad parts.

The first three months are pretty awful: no question. You get up a lot in the night, you deal with a lot of screaming, you get spit on. But after that, it gets a lot better, and the neediness and tedium are, in my view, pretty well balanced out by the cuteness and silliness that kids have. Seeing the joy my two-year-old takes in simple things like dandelions makes up for her poutiness.

Every stage of life has its plusses and minuses. I enjoyed being free as a bird when I was single, but hated the loneliness of it at times. I enjoyed nice dinners and cultural events with my wife before we had kids, but found that life empty at times. I like the fun my daughters bring to my life now, even though I resent the lack of sleep and lack of down time.

Time was when people sort of just expected that they would get married and would have kids. Making these things choices makes them seem a lot harder than they are.

"I like the fun my daughters bring to my life now, even though I resent the lack of sleep and lack of down time."

I think it is a matter of taste. I remember going out to clubs and listening to bands and drinking and it seemed like fun. It seems like it would be tedious now to do it even once a week. On the other hand, counting things with my son or singing and dancing with my daughter never gets boring. Well, not for me. They get bored with it.

The InstaPutz: MEGAN MCARDLE HAS THOUGHTS on children and marriage. The gene pool needs you, Megan!

Translation: I want to have sex with you.

I have a 7 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. I can't for the life of me remember what I did before they arrived. They continually fill me with wonder and amazement. Now that the time when they will leave actually seems to be approaching, I actually consider having another one. Yes they are difficult at times and demand a lot of time. But for once in my life I actually feel like I am not just counting days.

Geez.

What did Shakespeare have Hamlet say about one excuse for not taking action:

Or a craven scruple from thinking too precisely on the event? A thought, when quartered,is one part wisdom and ever three part coward.

Look, people, having kids is no big deal, if you just plan on raising kids and not bringing some perfect human into the world. Just enjoy the children. They will be independent of you (if you raise them right) before you know it. Kids grow up fine without having the perfect parents, too, so just relax. Everybody gets raised by amateurs.

All I can say is that the people who are whining about how raising children is "...the hardest job they ever had in their lives ..." must have had REALLY, REALLY cushy lives before they became parents. Your Yuppie-ness is showing, folks!!

I grew up in the 1950's on a (mostly) non-mechanized family farm, and let me assure you that changing diapers is one HELL of a lot more pleasant than cleaning stables; and taking kids to soccer practice in an air-conditioned minivan is a HELL of a lot easier than baling hay in July.

I'm in my mid sixties, and I've raised 4 children from two marriages (And YES!, I've done my fair share of the child-raising -- especially in the first few years of the second marriage when I was in my late forty's and my wife was in her early twenty's and still in college, and I was basically being the house-husband.)

My youngest is eleven now, and if it weren't for the fact that my wife came down with fibromyalgia a few years ago, we'd be planning on at least one more.

Having little children and having teenagers are two different things. I'm good at the former, really lousy at the latter and like it even less. If I knew what a pain in the ass it was going to be, I would have stopped at one. (With the real irony being that that one was a nightmare.)

(Of course, I can't imagine life without the monsters and the closer I get to ridding my house of the last of them, the more I don't mind being a dad.)

My reactions to both Megans and some of the comments [I wrote the other Megan her own comment] is that rearing children is difficult, but all the more so if you aren't willing to let your life change. Yes they are needy. But they need YOU and no-one else. And when you show them how to make a mentos fountain, they don't care if you saw it on TV. It is tiring with respect to lazy sunday mornings, because they are likely to get you out of bed at the crack of dawn. It IS expensive, think of it as payback to your parents. People have gone through it before, otherwise you wouldn't be here now.

It IS handy to do all of that with a partner, but I'm sure some of us for whatever reason were raised by only one parent... and it worked out eventually.

On the other hand it isn't the only thing around. There are pros and cons as always. I hope neither of the Megans decides to make things happen in desperation. It should be a decision to make rather than a need forced upon you...

D

it sounds like all the people who said kids are the hardest thing ever have at least 3. My parents had a policy that I think was very wise "The children shall at no point out number the parents."
It seems like a good policy to me.

However I think it would take some serious financial incentive for me to consider going through pregnancy, childbirth plus 18 years of fighting. If I wanted someone to resent for the next 18 years move back in with my parents.

Between reading the comments on this thread and finding out today what an Epistosomy(sp?) is I have to seriously question WHY anyone has children?

Parents who complain that having children is "hard" really baffle me... I have two little kids, and I'll have at least two more. There is NOTHING hard about having kids. Every single second is filled with absolute bliss, a bliss which is incomprehensible to those without children. I have sacrificed nothing.

Reagan fan: of course actions have consequences. Also, human beings are fallible, make mistakes, and regret them. It's perfectly possible to sympathize with a person, even one whose choices have not always been 'perfect'. Sheesh. I'm with Megan (McCardle) on this one.

Some of you people are just cold.

*The male/female divide on this sort of topic is mildly fascinating, as these things go. I predict some comment about 'if she weren't so picky and had just settled down earlier' to be posted in 5,4, 3,2,1... :)

What a luxurious, decadent society we have become when having children is considered a lifestyle choice rather than a reason for being.

Have people thought about how it could be that every culture and era of human history considered children to be desired and expected?

Also: have people thought about what other differences exist between the social milieu of this thread and contemporary pro-natal milieus?

Any woman who is over 30 who does not have at least 1 child is indeed a spinster, most likely because she is incompatible with most decent men. Men who are interested in marrying and raising a family don't choose this kind of woman. Let's just say they're a practical synonym for kleenex.

Some women over thirty who do not have children are either 1) married without children 2) widows. And yes, there are the spinsters, too....

I do love children, and want to have them if and when I am with someone with whom I am so besotted that I long to personally carry his genes into the future.

There are three possibilities here:

(1) You're joking.

(2) You're wildly delusional about your ability to predict the future -- in this case, how well you'll get along with husband X forty years after you meet him -- but you'll recover from your fantasy when the biology kicks in, and realize it doesn't really matter very much. A marriage is what you make of it. It's good after 20 years if you put 20 years of good work into it, and not because it was magical to begin with.

(3) You're delusional and won't ever wake up, in which case you'll never have those children. Your "love" for children will remain what it is now: purely theoretical, with few to zero important practical implications.

As for the twentysomethings (maybe early thirtysomethings, too) who kvetch about how hard it is raising children -- give me a break. Hard compared to what? I've raised three to teenagers, and am just starting on the middle-age "bonus baby". I can think of lots of stuff that I've found harder. Watching my sister die. Being with my partner during her cancer diagnosis and treatment. Having to restart my career at age 40. The divorce.

I can think of lots of stuff I haven't, thank God, had to cope with that would be harder still. Losing my father without being able to be with him, the way he lost his father. Having to watch my son go to Iraq. Let's not even get into what might happen to him in Iraq, which plenty of men and women have had to deal with.

No one says raising children doesn't take a lot of time and energy. But anything worthwhile in life does. If you think raising children to age 12 or even 18 is really truly hard, I'd say you're not very well prepared mentally for life. Although it doesn't totally surprise me that many from current generations of Americans, the wealthiest and most pampered ever, should tend to think that way. Our great-grandfathers would be mostly ashamed of us, you know.

The cumulative effect of identical choices to put off or abandon child-rearing altogether in the EU has been a severe demographic decline in Spain, Italy, and France. A society that forgets how or cannot find reasons to reproduce itself commits a slow form of suicide.

One no longer hears the call of "duty" in discussions of raising children, but this was once common. Reducing this discussion to a mere calculus of maximizing individual desire, when multiplied over society as a whole, is ultimately destructive.

" ...I do love children, and want to have them if and when I am with someone with whom I am so besotted that I long to personally carry his genes into the future...."

"Hello?? Earth to Jane!!! When you have children, you are also carrying **YOUR** genes into the future -- not to mention those of your mother and your father and your grandparents. You make it sound like you'd just be doing a favor for some guy.

Is your self-esteem is so low that you don't think your own genes are worth carrying into the future? I find that hard to believe.

But the original point of this thread was that is was an intense individual desire of the poster Crooked Timber singled out to have a child.

Basically, many women work outside the home, take a long time schooling for that work, and then, at an age when it may become more difficult to have a child, start 'looking'. Somehow this relates to that whole protracted adolescence/young adulthood thing, I'm guessing.

First, some background. I have 4 kids, ranging from 12 to 20 months.

Child-rearing involves selflessness. If you can't imagine staying home 3 weekends out of 4 because your wee'uns want you home, don't have children. If you can't imagine having a preference to reading bedtime stories to your kids rather than watching the latest 'it' show on T.V., don't have kids. If you'd rather the center of your life be a career, dinner parties, the latest tech gadgets, yourself, etc., don't have kids.

Kids are a demanding, time-consuming commitment. For those who are willing to make this commitment, they are also an immensely satisfying experience. That we hope they benefit society in general is a part of the package. But I'll be damned if I treat them as part of a lifestyle choice. They are people who I am responsible for, who I am required to raise, and whose behavior reflects on me for good or ill.

Next objection.

For those ladies waiting for just the man who will set their hearts a-fluttering (and for those men with the same view), all I can say is that feelings change. Better to find someone who is realistic and mature (in addition to sharing similar interests). It's a rare marriage that doesn't start out starry-eyed, but too many of these still end bitterly.

A friend asked me where we found the money to have five children to which I replied, "Children are very inexpensive to raise, but very expensive to spoil." When another friend asked how we dealt with the incredibly difficult task of raising our children I said, "Our parents managed, and all of their parents for thousands of generations managed. If you want to be a good parent it is easy". Now my wife is gone and I am a grandfather with time for my hobbies and even better, someone to share them with. The joy of having your grandson say, "Hi, paw paw, play train table with me?" is impossible for me to describe.

Any woman who is over 30 who does not have at least 1 child is indeed a spinster, most likely because she is incompatible with most decent men. Men who are interested in marrying and raising a family don't choose this kind of woman. Let's just say they're a practical synonym for kleenex.

ATTENTION, BITCHES!: The Virgin/Whore Dichotomy has been cancelled! Repeat, the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy has been cancelled! It is now the Madonna/Whore Dichotomy. All skanks who have managed to reproduce, report for sainthood. All childless cancer researchers, your new station is at the brothel.

Men: As you were.

That is all.

Well, of course I'm cold. I was raised by two older sisters.

There are two parts of this that formed my opinion. First, I don't see where she made any mistakes. She made choices. My best friend in school wanted to party his 20s away, get as much 'tail' as possible, then settle down after he turned 30 and maybe have a kid at aound 35. That is pretty much how his life has gone. I was married as a teenager and all my kids were born before I was 29. Either choice is perfectly acceptable. I pass judgment on no one. I see the same with Megan N-M. It looks like she has done pretty good for herself and if she finds the right guy and has a couple of kids, then I certainly wouldn't call her choices a mistake, either. If she doesn't, I'd call that unfortunate, and I would feel for her, but I wouldn't even call it a mistake then.

Secondly, the first half of her post was compelling. I know women (and men) who will never have children. I don't mean it in a snarky way when I say it is an itch that you just can't scratch. I feel for them. The second half of her post was how mad she was that the men in her 'acceptable' folder weren't interested in having kids. (This is where she started the whole Fark You! and You and You and You, Too! comments.)

She lost me at about the third F-You. I don't think she should have to hide her desire for children, but I damn sure don't blame any men who back away from that, either. That's not where men are at at that stage in their lives. A guy is thinking, "Hmmm..get married at 35...if we have two children, I'll be frighteningly close to paying off college loans with my Social Security checks."

It is hard to have sympathy for someone when they are so intent on blaming another--one who is CLEARLY not to blame (the new boyfriend)-- for the consequences of their own decisions.

Here we go again. To breed or not to breed.

Yes, the comments over on CT are rude and snarky, but I'm seeing a few snarky comments here as well.

Given that having kids is a serious decision not to be taken lightly, is it not reasonable for a person to give careful thought and contemplation when making the decision whether to have kids or not?

Why, then, the rude comments by some of you here towards those of us who have choosen not to have kids? Is it not possible that the fact we have made such a choice based on careful forethought indicates a responsible choice on our part?

Why would anyone right in the head even consider trying to push people who do not want kids into having them?

Megan-non-Jane wrote: " ... I would like to meet a guy and spend three or four years married to him doing fantastically fun things before I get pregnant. ... I would like to have the option to date men who don’t want kids or don’t want kids soon...."

I certainly don't want to be cruel to this girl/woman/lady/person (whatever she thinks of herself as), but somebody needs to politely point out to her that she's biologically old enough to be a grandmother (almost old enough, biologically, to be a great-grandmother) and yet she is displaying the emotional maturity of a young teenager.

She sounds like the female equivalent of Peter Pan. She sounds like Cinderella dreaming of Prince Charming, or maybe Juliet dreaming of Romeo. But, Gosh, Juliet was 13 or 14, not 35!!

And she is pretty much guaranteeing herself that she's not going to find the man she's looking for (and needs) because most men are looking for a mature mind in a teenaged body, and she is demonstrating the exact opposite: viz. An immature mind in a middle-aged body.

"Most people, when they hit thirty, are tempted to grab the person they are with and declare them the Love of Their Life." I know I will be. I'm 28 and I got married a year ago. I intend to be married to same when I turn 30. At some point during that year, I anticipate grabbing the person I am with and declaring her to be the love of my life. If I don't she'll be very upset.

I was twentysomething and working when I met an older fellow in Korea, who said something along the lines of "It's a lot easier to have children than it is to not have them and regret it later". I think he was unhappy at his earlier decision to remain childless. That wistful regret stcuk with me, even as I stayed on the fence.

At almost 40, my wife and I decided to take the plunge. The final decider was the alarm on her biological clock. I had earlier hated hanging with the people who defined their entire lives solely through their kids; there's only so much Fisher-Price talk I can stand.

Turns out you don't have to spend all your time talking Fisher-Price. Our first is two; the second is due in June. I think the worry of being fiftysomething at high school graduation will be a good price to pay for having kids in a family where we know who we are, our marriage is stable, and the money's doing okay. We made a good choice--and we lucked out and got a cute little person to hang out with. Lots of work; it's a non-trivial duty. In our case it's been well worth it so far.

I wish you the best of luck on your choice should it become an option.

I have two children and they respect my need for down time. Yes, they want me to play with them 24/7, but they can also be taught to take "no" for an answer. I don't expect them to do things they can't do, but amusing themselves while I read a book (reading books together in the living room is always good) or take a nap is perfectly acceptable.

I work a great deal with them, they are my #1 priority, they keep me from living like a single 21 year old, but I'm not 21 years old any more and I've outgrown those amusements anyway.

Just another Point of View. Thanks for the post.

I'm really confused now -- are you Megan McArdle or "Jane Galt", whose name is close to John Galt, hero of Atlas Shrugged? Written by anti-Libertarian libertarian Ayn Rand, who had no children, but did have an affair with Nathanial Brandon (who was cheating on his wife).

"Radical individualism" is incompatible with children.

Spare a thought for those with genetic conditions that make having children irresponsible.

Also spare a thought for those who are Intersexed, neither wholly male nor wholly female in body. There's a quarter of a million of them in the USA.

Finally spare a thought for those who are sterile, whether congenitally, or caused by injury or disease.

Not every person has to have every experience. If parenting seems so disagreeable, then don't parent. You will be better off. Also, you will not have children who come to understand that you regard them as a burden.

I wouldn't say having kids "strains" a relationship, so much as "changes" it.

The goal should not be to find the absolute most perfect boyfriend ever, packing in a margin of error for yourself so that when kids come along to screw things up you'll still have an acceptable relationship. The qualities that make someone a great boyfriend are not necessarily the same qualities that make someone great to co-parent with. So it's not so much that they need to be off the charts on the boyfriend criteria, as they need to also be above average in all those "dad" qualities that aren't relevant to your relationship yet.

And of course your relationship needs to be flexible enough that you can switch from lover mode to co-parent mode with minimal angst.

Translation: I want to have sex with you.

Not absolutly.

My wife and I have just paid an athletic 32 year old lawyer $10,000 for her eggs. Add in the agency fee and doctors, we're at $27k. (We got married in our 40's, but had one the regular way. We want a second and we can afford it.)

If Megan were on the market, we'd have paid top dollar for her.

Summed up:

"I'm 35, and have no babies! It hurts! And it's all men's/i> fault! F you! F you! And F you, too...!!!"

No thanks.

Summed up:

"I'm 35, and have no babies! It hurts! And it's all men's fault! F you! F you! And F you, too...!!!"

No thanks.

'Parents who complain that having children is "hard" really baffle me... I have two little kids, and I'll have at least two more. There is NOTHING hard about having kids. Every single second is filled with absolute bliss, a bliss which is incomprehensible to those without children. I have sacrificed nothing." Posted by PLC

Not everyone is so lucky. There are disabilities, hardships and death in store for some children, and parents have to deal with that. Life is emotional investment. You pour your heart into your kids, and sometimes terrible things happen.

If parents go into it expecting only bliss, or even if they think the worst will just be work and sacrifice, they may be in for a rude awakening that they can't handle. Kids multiply joy and pain.

+++, kurt9. It is amazing sometimes how many people fail to consider that those who do not wish children probably have very good reasons for thinking so.

Richard: Er, well, there's a new profit model for blogging I hadn't thought of...

Seriously, though I do wonder about this (modern?) meme that if you can find the Right mate all will be well, and that if you have problems it's just incompatability. The successful relationships I know of are mostly people who accepted good (not Right) mates and a committment to work at it. I think on some level people know better, but other aspects of that whole meme seem very pervasive...

Devilbunny,

Although I don't have kids and, therefor, cannot comment on the experience of having them, 90% of the comments here seem perfectly reasonable.

There are good reasons for making either choice based on personal dreams and goals. Indeed, making any personal decision with long-term consequences without careful forethought and planning strikes me as being quite stupid and irrational.

It is the notion, held by 10% of the people here, that having kids should be a mandate rather a choice based on careful forethought and long-term planning that utterly senseless.

I never take advice from senseless, irrational people.

The world would be a better place if parents realized they must earn their children.

Parents have no right to expect their children to be educated, fed, or treated at anyone else's expense. That they enjoy such favors are GIFTS, that our legislatures could vote away without violating anyone's rights.

If parents had to actually earn their children, we wouldn't be so cavalier about producing them.

Brett,

That is a very good point.

I used to be opposed to adoption by gay parents until I had it pointed out to me that the average gay couple spends around $75K jumping through various hoops BEFORE getting the kid. One does not invest this kind of money, only to screw up the job, unless one is quite wealthy. As one gay couple pointed out, "We cannot get pregnant by accident in the back of a car".

I think the level of parential investment is a good metric of the commitment to do a good job of raising a kid.

Dear Megan:

Bishop Sheen's book title 'Three to get Married' may provide a useful metaphor. Lovers wish, before they commit, that their ardor won't cool. This may imply that there are 'three to get married' in the sense that, in an older Catholic word, concupiscence should be part of the alignment. Nothing brings an end to history of course, with or without marriage. In marriage what arises from ardor is often a baby however which brings, in a different, but also attachment provoking sphere 'three to get married.' It is like those medieval pictures of a Ptolemaic universe turning and a different sphere emerging. The sphere containing concupiscence has it's own clock and will return however and perhaps having more than one 'three to get married' may help the revolution of the spheres.

Bishop Sheen, humph.

Megan dear, turn thirty and then begin shopping for a good man to be a father.

Not really hard to do unless you make a big deal out of it. After all, you seem to have a rather boundless assortment of men here eager to listen to you. Otherwise, you only can be an extra in a Bergman film if you marry a brooding dense, intense, Scandie man from Minnesota or Trondheim. Those long silences would drive you nuts, especially after all of those New York/East Coast folks.

Kids are a lot of work, but then you didn't take but a moment of time to raise, did 'ja?

My mother does make a point to say- now it is your turn with more than a small bit of relish....

I have friends who are infertile, and, despite my husband's and my choice to remain childless, I do feel badly for them. They have a void that's unfulfilled. I can't, however, explain why I never wanted children--just that I knew at age 14 that I didn't. My biological clock just didn't tick at all. I wanted a warm, loving companion to snuggle with for life and grow old with, but no children. I told my husband this before he proposed to me and he understood that he might not necessarily be able to change my mind. Let me say that we do not, do not, do not hate children. We think they're adorable. We just prefer to be "uncle and aunt" and dote on our friends' children and get our kiddie fix that way. I kind of understand what grandparents mean now when they say how much they enjoy their grandchildren more than they did their children. They can send them home when they get tired of playing.

I am homeschooling three children, I have a chronic illness, my partner and I mostly hate each other, and I just moved across country and have no support system. Still, it's really not that hard. If raising children in the hardest thing you've ever done you're a big wuss.

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