What I've learned from frank conversation with parents

some thoughts on a contentious subject

Note: the last time I talked about the subject of child-rearing in public, a couple of people contacted my wife and said some annoying things. If you have objections to any of this, talk to me, not to her—if you engage her about this topic because of this blog, I will be very displeased. If you feel the need to tell her something, you can ask me to forward the message, and I may or may not.

I started having frank conversations with parents over the last year, in order to get more clarity about whether I should have children. What happened surprised me. After speaking to many parents, I came away less convinced that having children was the right decision for me and my wife. This isn’t to say that we won’t—my current stance is that there are possible worlds where it makes sense, and possible worlds where it doesn’t. 

I didn’t do this because I wanted to write a blog about it. But, unfortunately, I go on Twitter sometimes, and I see shit like this, often from new parents with large social media followings.

Now, it’s part of evolutionary programming that new parents are especially bullish on parenting. That is probably a good thing, and I’m happy if they’re happy! And I, too, have said overly simplistic things on Twitter in order to farm dopamine.

However, this unequivocal “you must have kids” type messaging does not reflect the feelings of most mature parents I’ve spoken to, so I wanted to share what I’ve heard.

I’m not going to sprinkle this post with a bunch of caveat statements like “But parenting can be a transcendent joy also”—be aware that I know this, and am choosing to focus on something else.

Parental regret and ambivalence is likely more common than we think, and maybe it’s because of North American parenting

It is incredibly taboo to say that you regret having children, for good reason: It would probably be hard for anyone to hear that their parents regretted creating them, and also, kid-regret isn’t an adaptive meme for the continuance of our species. Thus, we should assume that it’s underreported, even on anonymous surveys. 

This is not my original thought. It’s what a parent pointed out to me, in the course of mentioning that they’re not thrilled that they had children. They weren’t in despair about it—the attitude was more like, “I’d choose not to, if I could go back in time.” And they mentioned knowing other parents who also felt the same way, despite having happy kids and a stable financial situation.

Since this conversation, I’ve tried to engage parents straightforwardly about whether they’ve experienced regret. And I’ve heard really surprising things from more than a few parents, amidst more joyful reports from others. Statements like: “It’s a real problem that having kids is overrated.” “I think I had to have children, and I’m happy I did, but I think you would be miserable.” “All the things you want from parenting—connection, legacy, love, service—you can get without children.”

Unless my conversations were totally unrepresentative, the uncomfortable truth seems to be that even among fortunate people, for a significant minority, parenting can be an actual sacrifice, like, not one you feel was personally worth it in the end—one that is only seen as worthwhile if you set aside the importance of your personal experience.

One interaction in particular sticks in my mind. I went to a doctor one day who reminded me of my wife—she was sharp, observant, curious, to-the-point, and matter-of-factly kind. During normal doctor-patient banter, she mentioned her husband and kids. I asked: “Weird question, but I’m thinking about having kids, and I want to talk to parents about it—would you be comfortable giving me your honest opinions about children?”

She set down her clipboard slowly and locked eyes with me.

“Do you need to have kids?” she said.

“Need is a funny word, what do you mean?”

“Does your wife clutch her womb in pain when she sees a baby?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you feel like kids are a requirement for you to live a meaningful life?”

“Nope.”

“Great. You’re free. Do not have kids.”

I assume my facial expression was one of surprise.

“Look,” she said, in response. “I needed to have kids. And I love my kids. But I say to my husband that I think my reproductive system betrayed me. There is no question I could’ve had a richer, fuller, more meaningful life without children. I lost almost everything about myself that I enjoyed, for a long time. Do you have siblings with children?”

“Yeah, on both sides.”

“That’s great. You can have wonderful, loving relationships with nieces and nephews, you can give them gratuitous kindness, and still have your own life.” 

This account was emblematic of a few anecdotes about parental regret I’d heard—the primary complaint wasn’t the children themselves, it was the structure of modern American parenting. Indeed, modern American parenting seems awful. Expectations are sky-high, most people are raising kids in areas where they can’t run free without supervision, most parents neither have extensive state support nor extensive social support, many (most?) schools are terrible.

Relevantly, many of the parents I spoke to who were happiest had non-mainstream parenting experiences—some combination of financial abundance, flexible work, a lot of social support, insistence on letting their children be independent, et cetera. This seems like a good thing to know if you’re having children. Many of the people reading this can create some lifestyle optionality, and can probably opt out of the default parenting path. 

The strongest “have kids” recommendation came from a friend who issued a strong caveat: “Just don’t be like North American parents, they are so stupid.” 

Parental satisfaction is not straightforward

When I meet parents that report high levels of satisfaction mid-parenting, they don’t seem like other happy people I know. Like: They are often bedraggled, stressed, annoyed. I observe joyful moments, but I also observe that these seemingly take up a small amount of their waking hours, especially for parents of younger children—much of the time, measured in total minutes, parenting seems like a slog.  

This doesn’t mean they’re lying. Looking back on my life, some of my periods of great satisfaction have been essentially uncomfortable. Like when I was working on my book: I was constantly anxious, often physically sick, understanding that I was fulfilling my childhood dream and yet that I was probably fucking it up somehow, that I was inadequate to the task I’d set myself. (I assume many parents could type the same clauses re: their kids.) And yet, I think of those years fondly, often.

None of this is an original observation. This is an excellent Twitter thread on the subject of the mixed nature of parental satisfaction, and you hear similar sentiments if you ask around. From my discussions, it seems like the median report is something like: parenting is the best and worst thing ever, transcendently fulfilling but also crushing.

Also, none of that seems like a bad thing to say, or really, a vote against children—difficult-but-meaningful experiences are necessary for a good life. But it does contradict messaging I sometimes see about having children along the lines of, “It’s a joy every day,” or “You’ll never regret it.” I think messaging like that either comes from lucky people who have unusual experiences, or is a lie. Either way, such messaging is probably a disservice to most people who are considering having children.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be about happiness

Some of the people I talked to who were most content about parenting did not view it as being about personal satisfaction. Instead, they had a frame of duty, either coming from religion or a prosocial sense that reproduction is simply what humans have to do. In this frame, whether it’s ultimately “worth it” from a personal perspective or not, you should reproduce—if you’re doing something else, it might be nice, but it’s not a proper life-shape. 

I see how this frame could be the source of a lot of endurance and meaning, which would be helpful for acts like parenting. But fundamentally this is not my frame on life. I see my life as a creative process: As a bubble of consciousness, I am free to make choices about what experiences will fill that bubble, and my choices are an attempt to balance many concerns, like fun, fulfillment, curiosity, service to others, and so on. Probably society would not work if everyone had this frame, and thus I’m not bothered by other people having different frames, or judging my frame inadequate. 

After these conversations, I have a kind of clarity, but not the kind I wanted

During many of these conversations, I laid out my particular non-standard life arrangement for parents, and asked: “If you were me, would you do it?” A few said no, a few said yes, but most of them said, I don’t know, sounds like it could go either way. Many of them pointed to the amount of variance involved: You can’t choose which kid you get, you don’t know how you’ll react to the unique stresses involved, or what effect it will have on your marriage. 

By having these conversations, I was hoping to be assured about which decision would ultimately lead to a better life. I now don’t think that assurance is possible. Probably, there will be real mourning to do if it doesn’t happen, and also if it does. That’s unfortunate, but it’s good to be clear-eyed about the horrifying ambiguity.

Photo credit goes to Robert Frank.