Who Here Has Children?

[Aaron p]

@RightHand LOL

 

 

I NEED MORE PPAAAWWAAAAA

Edited January 8 by Aaron p

[Siedah]

I have two - primary school age :-)

[Yimpa]

7 minutes ago, Siedah said:

I have two - primary school age :-)

Are they twins?

[leebus99]

I'm 36 with two kids, 6 and 4. 

Having children was the most growth inducing thing I've ever done. The experience, coupled with Covid and career failure totally broke me and I had no choice but to remake myself into something completely different. If I never had kids, I'd still be stuck neck deep in stage orange wealth/success obsessions and living a boring and empty life.

[DocWatts]

@Leo Gura I imagine that a poll would be more precise - but I do not have kids (I'm 37 if that's at all relevant or helpful). 

As an aside, I'm genuinely baffled as to how anyone in the United States who's not in the top quarter or so of the income bracket can afford to have kids.

Not an antinatalist by any means, but I would pause to consider the ethics of bringing a kid into the social upheaval we're likely to experience over the next few decades - between a collapsing middle class, a global resurgence of fascism, and the chaos of accelerating climate change, my expectation is for things to get much worse before they get better.

Edited January 16 by DocWatts

[Yimpa]

4 hours ago, leebus99 said:

I'm 36 with two kids, 6 and 4. 

Having children was the most growth inducing thing I've ever done. The experience, coupled with Covid and career failure totally broke me and I had no choice but to remake myself into something completely different.

What was your experience like raising a toddler and welcoming a new baby during the pandemic? And what helped you get through that intense time?

[leebus99]

6 hours ago, Yimpa said:

What was your experience like raising a toddler and welcoming a new baby during the pandemic? And what helped you get through that intense time?

Great question. It was absolutely awful to be honest. Being cut off completely from our support network was really difficult. I worked from home throughout the whole pandemic, so it felt like the 4 of us were imprisoned in our house most of the time.

The care from the hospital during the pregnancy was poor, and the limited appointments we did have my wife had to go on her own, including scans. They also decided my wife had gestational diabetes very late in the pregnancy, using a method that doesn't really make sense, so then wanted to induce her and messed us around with that, so the end stage of the pregnancy was tough. My really good friends who had a baby due a few weeks later ended up losing her during childbirth because complications had been missed during the pregnancy due to the poor care. It was definitely a terrible time to have young kids for a lot of people. After my son was born we started seeing our parents in a 'bubble', and that certainly made things a bit easier.

In terms of what helped me get through it all, very little to be honest! I really didn't cope very well at all. Sleep deprivation hit hard, because neither of our kids were sleeping for months. Eventually in early 2021 it all got to boiling point and I ended up going off work with stress. I had a couple of months off, started counselling then changed jobs. I just didn't have the right skills, knowledge or coping strategies to deal with all of that stuff hitting me at the same time. Once the 'dust had settled' I decided I would never let myself get in such a hole ever again, so started my self-improvement journey. Got into meditation and Buddhism, and through that found Actualized.org. Fast forward 4 years I'm now retraining to become a therapist, and I'm a very different person to who I was pre-Covid/pre-Kids.

[IronFoot]

No kids. Don’t plan on reproducing. When I’m more financially secure I plan to adopt if possible though. 

[Leo Gura]

On 1/16/2025 at 2:35 PM, DocWatts said:

@Leo Gura I imagine that a poll would be more precise - but I do not have kids (I'm 37 if that's at all relevant or helpful). 

As an aside, I'm genuinely baffled as to how anyone in the United States who's not in the top quarter or so of the income bracket can afford to have kids.

Not an antinatalist by any means, but I would pause to consider the ethics of bringing a kid into the social upheaval we're likely to experience over the next few decades - between a collapsing middle class, a global resurgence of fascism, and the chaos of accelerating climate change, my expectation is for things to get much worse before they get better.

Dude, broke people in Africa and India are having 5 kids at a time. Stop being a crybaby. If humans had your attitude mankind would have never lived past caveman days.

Edited January 18 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

On 1/3/2025 at 8:14 AM, jimwell said:

 But there is nothing wrong with this. Pets make life more meaningful and beautiful. 

Pets are little slaves.

Contemplate on your slaving ways.

Edited January 18 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

39 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Pets a little slaves.

Contemplate on your slaving ways.

I'm a proud slave owner

Yet your words make uncomfortable in a way I still have to figure out.

[Jowblob]

I used to be a spermdonor at a clinic to understand the meaning of life so i might have a few, after my god realization i don't want to have any children, children is just an idea of god.

[Daniel Balan]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Pets are little slaves.

Contemplate on your slaving ways.

That is total BS. I work my ass off year round to provide food for my animals. I produce their food on my arable land. They are feed better than I feed myself. I buy food for my cat and dogs sometimes by neglecting my own hunger, because I have very little money. I've also had cattle and pigs and I had to do daily cleaning of their living place and I have to give them food 2 times a day, food which I produce using my bare hands on the fields. Contemplate your own biases. @Leo Gura. Do these animals seem like they are my slaves? 

Edited January 18 by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Do these animals seem like they are my slaves? 

You are literally showing me pics of an animal prison/plantation while lecturing me about bias.

[Davino]

1 minute ago, RightHand said:

Would a dog envy a wolf?

I was contemplating a similar question. Being in the wild barely surviving and suffering daily for having your needs met is better than a symbiotic relationship with another animal (human in this case).

[Daniel Balan]

Without the fence, my poultry would be killed by stray dogs and other predators like foxes and polecats. Beyond the fence, I have crop fields, and if the hens, ducks, and goose roamed freely, they'd destroy my crops—potatoes, wheat, soybeans, corn—before they could mature. I rely on these crops to feed the animals I raise, so the fence is necessary to protect both them and my crops. 
But I couldn't expect you to understand survival as someone who never worked a day in their life in the scorching summer preparing hay stacks or to manually weed out the crops that are necessary for the survival of the poultry and livestock. Keep living in your fairy tale bubble. 

Edited January 18 by Daniel Balan

[AION]

We humans live on a farm too. It is the country you live in.

[Daniel Balan]

The fence is what keeps the animals alive! Without it, they would all be gone in a week. And without me " The slave owner" They'd die in 3 days. I give them water and food 3 times a day. I can barely live my house for more that 5 hours. I am much more a slave to them than they are a slave to me.

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Without the fence, my poultry would be killed by stray dogs and other predators like foxes and polecats. Beyond the fence, I have crop fields, and if the hens, ducks, and goose roamed freely, they'd destroy my crops—potatoes, wheat, soybeans, corn—before they could mature. I rely on these crops to feed the animals I raise, so the fence is necessary to protect both them and my crops. 
But I couldn't expect you to understand survival as someone who never worked a day in their life in the scorching summer preparing hay stacks or to manually weed out the crops that are necessary for the survival of the poultry and livestock. Keep living in your fairy tale bubble. 

Survival is indeed a nasty business. Now you can appreciate why slavery was invented.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

I am much more a slave to them than they are a slave to me.

The master becomes the slave, enslaved by his own invention.