Comic Strips

Yeah. Not having retired family in hood health nearby is an issue. Someone had to move for their career. Or died. Or is too fragile. Or still working.

Nearly need polygamy for the economic certainty.

It's really straightforward to understand, there's no "third places" for kids and kids are generally undesired in US society. It used to be, even if you weren't religious, you had community because everyone in the neighborhood looked out for each other's kids.

It's a lot easier when you're not outnumbered by kids and can swap with other adults, even if it's 30 minutes to get a shower. Everyone is so isolated these days, it's much more difficult to build support like that unless you are religious or have family involvement.

I'm definitely not having kids for this reason, and many more. I'm doing I'd say okay right now. I'm stable ish. Why would I want to change that at all? I see my peers having kids and immediately they can't afford to even go out to eat, and don't have time to get a beer once every 4 months. They chose that, I don't hold them against it, but why would I risk where I am for that?

I have twins.

Can confirm. totally accurate

While they are <5 years old yea

But let me tell you, once you cross that magical school threshold things get significantly easier. Though you'll have to deal with more and more social type problems, but those are easy IMO as it's mostly just talking with them

Each year after that is easier...at least until the teen years, but again that's more social/attitude type problems, at least you can just leave a 15 year old at home by themselves and go socialize by yourself and stuff

It definitely can. It took me 5 years after my kids were born to feel relatively normal again. 5 years is a long time to feel like you're essentially trapped in your home. Granted, covid certainly didn't help with that, but the pressure to act like everything is amazing all the time never made sense to me.

Kids are hard. There's good moments too but as a percentage of your time they are more rare than the bad. Your brain does a good job of filtering out the bad when you look back on those times but that doesn't make it easier to deal with in the moment.

The urge to cum inside is the siren song of many

Sounds like a kind of crazy blanket statement for actual researchers to make but then again sociology research.. well..

According to this study, after adjusting for income, having children is actually associated with higher happiness and well-being.

From a Psychology Today article that summarizes it:

However, household income may not be a good indicator of financial stress. A family with low income that lives in an area with a low cost of living might experience less financial stress than a family with a higher income that lives in an area with a much higher cost of living. Therefore, the researchers conducted an additional analysis in which they included a direct measure of whether or not the family experienced difficulties in paying bills in the last year. This analysis showed that difficulties in paying bills represented a central influence factor for the relation of having children and parental well-being. When the researchers statistically controlled for financial difficulties, having children was actually related to greater well-being in parents.

The study also said that people with children felt more fulfilled over all 🤷‍♀️

They measured basically immediate happiness and long term happiness. In immediate happiness, the child free group won. In longterm happiness, the parents won. Did a lot of research into that before deciding to have a baby.

Just gotta decide what works best for you and your life style

It is because people are different.

Not living in the USA most definitely helps. The age of your kids makes a difference. My youngest is 16 months old and in his phase where he has no awareness of danger and sleeps like shit still and my gas tank is empty 24/7 by the shitty quality of sleep with the constant mental energy spent making sure he doesn't kill himself. And that is when everyone is healthy.

I would litterally kill for them, but it is easy to understand why people feel like they do, especially with the current economic and societal context.

Oh that's easy. When you have kids, you stop having time for those hobbies. So you don't have to worry about spending money on them anymore.

Simple: the moment you have a child, you stop being the person who had hobbies and interests and become a parent, a single-minded organism that exists solely to make sure your children make it to maturity in good shape. Your Spotify Wrapped becomes Baby Shark, your guitar or mountain bike or whatever gets ebayed to make room for a nursery, and travel plans become fiction, written around a character who is no longer you, a stolid lump of responsibility.

Married 18 years, no kids. I think I drink something like 36+ ounces of coffee a day. Myth disproven, I guess.

I assure you, many of us were drinking copious amounts of coffee before kids, too.

Actually, I held a baby once. It wasn't hard at all. It was actually super squishy.

My two year old has been two for the past 5 years...

I mean… in a way… that’s a win for equality