Ah yes, the modern version of the “I hate my wife”-joke.
As a childless person myself, I can tell you that I rarely have the energy to “go have fun” after a long day of work. In fact, I prefer to just be at home and be a boring, basic bitch.
I can also tell you that almost every parent I know, and I know many because almost everyone my age have kids, are super active and do all kinds of fun things with their kids all the time. Especially those whose kids have gotten older and less dependent. It is a big, big, big misconception that parents never have fun. They do. A lot. They travel, go to parks and museums, theaters, circuses and talks with child entertainers. They take part in local community activities like sports and arts and whatever else is out there and they bond with the other parents who also wish to build a good community for the kids.
I have also seen how efficient parents are with time management. Not because they were born with that skill, but because they HAD to get good at it, so they pretty much never have a boring day ever. Are they tired and exhausted? Yes. Do they sometimes wish for a break from the kids? Also yes. But I would wager a guess that they all have lives that are tenthousand times more exciting than or many other childless people do. Not that it is a competition. Personally, I like the boring life where I get to do whatever I want without interruptions. I like that I get a break from other people because it overwhelms me to be around more than three people for long stretches of time. That just how I am and that is why I’m childless.
But I in no way feel superior to parents pr have this childish preconception that parents’ lives suck. You can only have that opinion if you’re never around people who have kids.
Sorry for being a party pooper, but I really, really hate this stupid joke and I hope it soon goes out of style and becomes something we look back at and cringe at in the same way we do with “I hate my wife”-jokes.
There are scientific studies which show that parents are overall less happy than adults without kids.
Of course parents still do a lot of stuff but it’s because most of the time it’s even more stressful to stay at home with the kids. And as you noticed it’s stuff mainly for the kids. Of course some things parents can enjoy as well. But the main thing about being a parent is that you can’t just do what YOU what, especially not spontaneously.
And the post was about vibe and chill, which is definitely something parents do a lot less than they would like to.
Sure, I think I can find studies that affirms my biases too if I really want to.
Personally, I don’t believe that parents are so miserable and childless people are so happy. Maybe at some stage in life that can be measured to be objectively true, but longterm, dude, I think the parents win the happiness lottery if the childless people choose to never move on from their 20s and grow up and take part in their community.
I invest time and money into my nieces and nephews and into my friends’ kids too. Because they are family and I care about them and their parents and it gives me joy to know that I’m a part of something either directly or indirectly, depending on circumstances. I do it because I know that there is also a day after tomorrow where I would become alone and forgotten and have no one to lean on if I don’t contribute and invest anything into the future, which in this case it other people’s children.
At some point, we have to remember that the world is bigger than ourselves and if we only invest in ourselves our whole lives, we will end up very very very alone.
You went too hard in the other direction. Sure parents aren’t miserable, but studies do show childless adults are happier. Maybe they’re less fulfilled? That’s hard to say if you never wanted kids. Also you can enjoy being around friends and make their lives better and invest in your community, not like kids, and still be very fulfilled. If you don’t enjoy kids that doesn’t impact your life negatively unless you don’t understand how to be happy on your own.
The thing is, as you grow older, your friends tend to have kids at some point and you kinda have to give a fuck about their kids if you hope to hold on to those friendships. That’s the point. If you invest into a community, kids are bound to be a part of that community at some point. Especially if that community wants to survive and not slowly and sadly die out on its own.
It’s not about who is better, it’s the total rejection of reality that I take issue with when it comes to smug childless people who look down on people who have kids. It’s like those people think that they will be 20 forever. That’s not how life works. Better to wake up and understand what it takes to be a part of society - which includes children - than to run around in denial for an entire life and then wake up one morning and realize that you allowed yourself to isolate yourself from society for no good reason. Now nobody knows you and nobody cares about you because you never cared to know them.
You don’t have to be a total fan of children, but if you hate kids and hate parents and look down on them and act like your childfree life is superior, you will end up having to deal with the consequences of that someday and it’s not going to be pretty.
I have done community service several times, like helping at a grange and helping at a retirement home, you can help the community in ways that don’t or very rarely involve kids. You can help a friend with their kid without wanting kids and thinking they should not have had them, I’d also help them fix a car I don’t think they should’ve bought. With overpopulation and severe effects of climate change I would look down on having kids, because this current path isn’t sustainable, but that’s not the kid’s fault so we should still help the kid.
I think if you truly believe that, you should read about all the people who have spent months or years in total solitude and remained fulfilled. Having kids or not does not determine your long term happiness, many people with kids are unhappy even when the kids are grown up, because they didn’t learn how to be happy. I would expect being childless just gives you more time to learn about yourself, but that’s just speculation.
Is it wealth? Is it things owned? Is the happiness a serial hoarder feels when they get a new thing the same as the happiness of seeing your first child born?
I’m starting to think we’ve gone too far when it comes to validating feelings.
I guess you just ask someone how happy they are in general.
Edit: I found the study (see my other response) and they used this:
To assess life satisfaction, respondents were asked, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” They were asked to indicate their satisfaction with life using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (dissatisfied) to 10 (satisfied). This measure has been shown to have appropriate external validity and has been widely used in cross-cultural studies of life satisfaction
You have a society that really likes ultra processed food. I mean really likes ultra processed food, to the point of addiction. There are other things that society is addicted to, but we’ll fixate on food for now.
Let’s say you take ultra processed food away from that society. Or any other harmful addictive thing. What do you think happens to their overall satisfaction in life?
It is the objectively correct decision (at least before enough regulations are put in place that ‘ultra processed’ doesn’t also mean ‘packed with chemicals’). Let’s say you assess life satisfaction after an event like this. What would their answers be? Would they be true or would they just be the thrashings of addicts?
My point is that I think if you ask a heroin addict if they’re satisfied with life, their answer will depend on how long it’s been since a needle has gone in their arm. I don’t think the average person is actually capable of guaging their level of satisfaction in life, not to say that the average person is a heroin addict.
I don’t think the average person is actually capable of guaging their level of satisfaction in life
One could argue they’re the only ones who can gauge it.
But there’s definitely a struggle to separate the symptoms of happiness from the conditions of happiness.
Like, if happiness is just a chemical, then OD on it and you’ve successfully maximized the raw score. But if you asked someone in advance if that’s how they want to live their lives, I don’t think you’d get many eager for it.
Unfortunately a lot of times it’s not a joke. These people genuinely think they’re superior to parents, and a lot of them genuinely hate kids and those who chose to have them. It’s a rotten mindset to it’s core that built on hatred of preconceived stereotypes. It’s something that’s irrational in both logic and the emotions that it evokes. It’s literally a new form of bigotry.
People like you should be the default. You made your choice and you respect other people who made theirs. You understand other people have their own reasons that are different than yours. That’s normal, that’s healthy. It means you’re secure enough in the decisions you’ve made to not go around trying to justify it to yourself by pretending you’re better than other people. As much as I would like to believe that people like you are the silent majority, I’m finding that more and more difficult to believe with just how prevalent these smug childless people are becoming in society.
Ah yes, the modern version of the “I hate my wife”-joke.
As a childless person myself, I can tell you that I rarely have the energy to “go have fun” after a long day of work. In fact, I prefer to just be at home and be a boring, basic bitch.
I can also tell you that almost every parent I know, and I know many because almost everyone my age have kids, are super active and do all kinds of fun things with their kids all the time. Especially those whose kids have gotten older and less dependent. It is a big, big, big misconception that parents never have fun. They do. A lot. They travel, go to parks and museums, theaters, circuses and talks with child entertainers. They take part in local community activities like sports and arts and whatever else is out there and they bond with the other parents who also wish to build a good community for the kids.
I have also seen how efficient parents are with time management. Not because they were born with that skill, but because they HAD to get good at it, so they pretty much never have a boring day ever. Are they tired and exhausted? Yes. Do they sometimes wish for a break from the kids? Also yes. But I would wager a guess that they all have lives that are tenthousand times more exciting than or many other childless people do. Not that it is a competition. Personally, I like the boring life where I get to do whatever I want without interruptions. I like that I get a break from other people because it overwhelms me to be around more than three people for long stretches of time. That just how I am and that is why I’m childless.
But I in no way feel superior to parents pr have this childish preconception that parents’ lives suck. You can only have that opinion if you’re never around people who have kids.
Sorry for being a party pooper, but I really, really hate this stupid joke and I hope it soon goes out of style and becomes something we look back at and cringe at in the same way we do with “I hate my wife”-jokes.
There are scientific studies which show that parents are overall less happy than adults without kids.
Of course parents still do a lot of stuff but it’s because most of the time it’s even more stressful to stay at home with the kids. And as you noticed it’s stuff mainly for the kids. Of course some things parents can enjoy as well. But the main thing about being a parent is that you can’t just do what YOU what, especially not spontaneously.
And the post was about vibe and chill, which is definitely something parents do a lot less than they would like to.
Sure, I think I can find studies that affirms my biases too if I really want to.
Personally, I don’t believe that parents are so miserable and childless people are so happy. Maybe at some stage in life that can be measured to be objectively true, but longterm, dude, I think the parents win the happiness lottery if the childless people choose to never move on from their 20s and grow up and take part in their community. I invest time and money into my nieces and nephews and into my friends’ kids too. Because they are family and I care about them and their parents and it gives me joy to know that I’m a part of something either directly or indirectly, depending on circumstances. I do it because I know that there is also a day after tomorrow where I would become alone and forgotten and have no one to lean on if I don’t contribute and invest anything into the future, which in this case it other people’s children.
At some point, we have to remember that the world is bigger than ourselves and if we only invest in ourselves our whole lives, we will end up very very very alone.
You went too hard in the other direction. Sure parents aren’t miserable, but studies do show childless adults are happier. Maybe they’re less fulfilled? That’s hard to say if you never wanted kids. Also you can enjoy being around friends and make their lives better and invest in your community, not like kids, and still be very fulfilled. If you don’t enjoy kids that doesn’t impact your life negatively unless you don’t understand how to be happy on your own.
The thing is, as you grow older, your friends tend to have kids at some point and you kinda have to give a fuck about their kids if you hope to hold on to those friendships. That’s the point. If you invest into a community, kids are bound to be a part of that community at some point. Especially if that community wants to survive and not slowly and sadly die out on its own.
It’s not about who is better, it’s the total rejection of reality that I take issue with when it comes to smug childless people who look down on people who have kids. It’s like those people think that they will be 20 forever. That’s not how life works. Better to wake up and understand what it takes to be a part of society - which includes children - than to run around in denial for an entire life and then wake up one morning and realize that you allowed yourself to isolate yourself from society for no good reason. Now nobody knows you and nobody cares about you because you never cared to know them.
You don’t have to be a total fan of children, but if you hate kids and hate parents and look down on them and act like your childfree life is superior, you will end up having to deal with the consequences of that someday and it’s not going to be pretty.
I have done community service several times, like helping at a grange and helping at a retirement home, you can help the community in ways that don’t or very rarely involve kids. You can help a friend with their kid without wanting kids and thinking they should not have had them, I’d also help them fix a car I don’t think they should’ve bought. With overpopulation and severe effects of climate change I would look down on having kids, because this current path isn’t sustainable, but that’s not the kid’s fault so we should still help the kid.
I think if you truly believe that, you should read about all the people who have spent months or years in total solitude and remained fulfilled. Having kids or not does not determine your long term happiness, many people with kids are unhappy even when the kids are grown up, because they didn’t learn how to be happy. I would expect being childless just gives you more time to learn about yourself, but that’s just speculation.
By what metric do we judge happiness?
Is it wealth? Is it things owned? Is the happiness a serial hoarder feels when they get a new thing the same as the happiness of seeing your first child born?
I’m starting to think we’ve gone too far when it comes to validating feelings.
I guess you just ask someone how happy they are in general.
Edit: I found the study (see my other response) and they used this:
To assess life satisfaction, respondents were asked, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” They were asked to indicate their satisfaction with life using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (dissatisfied) to 10 (satisfied). This measure has been shown to have appropriate external validity and has been widely used in cross-cultural studies of life satisfaction
Ok, let me create a separate hypothetical:
You have a society that really likes ultra processed food. I mean really likes ultra processed food, to the point of addiction. There are other things that society is addicted to, but we’ll fixate on food for now.
Let’s say you take ultra processed food away from that society. Or any other harmful addictive thing. What do you think happens to their overall satisfaction in life?
It is the objectively correct decision (at least before enough regulations are put in place that ‘ultra processed’ doesn’t also mean ‘packed with chemicals’). Let’s say you assess life satisfaction after an event like this. What would their answers be? Would they be true or would they just be the thrashings of addicts?
My point is that I think if you ask a heroin addict if they’re satisfied with life, their answer will depend on how long it’s been since a needle has gone in their arm. I don’t think the average person is actually capable of guaging their level of satisfaction in life, not to say that the average person is a heroin addict.
One could argue they’re the only ones who can gauge it.
But there’s definitely a struggle to separate the symptoms of happiness from the conditions of happiness.
Like, if happiness is just a chemical, then OD on it and you’ve successfully maximized the raw score. But if you asked someone in advance if that’s how they want to live their lives, I don’t think you’d get many eager for it.
Unfortunately a lot of times it’s not a joke. These people genuinely think they’re superior to parents, and a lot of them genuinely hate kids and those who chose to have them. It’s a rotten mindset to it’s core that built on hatred of preconceived stereotypes. It’s something that’s irrational in both logic and the emotions that it evokes. It’s literally a new form of bigotry.
People like you should be the default. You made your choice and you respect other people who made theirs. You understand other people have their own reasons that are different than yours. That’s normal, that’s healthy. It means you’re secure enough in the decisions you’ve made to not go around trying to justify it to yourself by pretending you’re better than other people. As much as I would like to believe that people like you are the silent majority, I’m finding that more and more difficult to believe with just how prevalent these smug childless people are becoming in society.