Kids - convince me they're worth it

tailwindhome

My view - having 4 kids (including 1 year old twins)

30 is a bad age to have your first kid.

You're too old to be 'young and stupid', you have tasted adult life without kids but are still too young to have done enough of the 'thing you want to do before you have kids.'

Having a kid means writing off 1 year of your life. It takes at least that to get back on track. Are you ready to do that yet?

You need to be sure that your relationship is ready for kids. Remember sleep deprivation is a recognised torture technique and you don't really know how strong any relationship is until is put under pressure.

Kids are great. Having them at the right stage in your life is key.

Making a baby hotel sex is awesome

stuaff

andrewjoseph wrote:

if you need convincing to have kids, then you probably shouldn't have any.

they are not an accessory, they are not an afterthought. They will change your life forever, for good or bad.

You either need to have kids to feel complete, or you don't.

+1. I don't want kids. Full stop. Any hypothetical woman-who's-somehow-interested-in-me would have to accept that.

rjsterry

Without wanting to get too puke-inducing, even a really crappy day at work followed by a terrible ride home (or even the Northern Line) can be instantly redeemed by a 'Daddy's home' smile from little M. Yes, it is hard work, but then most worthwhile things are.

bigmat

I didn't really know much about kids until I had one - hadn't spent any time with kids since I was a nipper myself. What has surprised me is how much I enjoy being a Dad. Blokes tend to look at things from a practical point of view and if you look at parenthood in that way (as per the original post) it doesn't look like a great deal. But the truth is kids are fantastic, they have ways of making you far happier than all the stuff that you do in your twenties that seems so important at the time - and which you can carry on doing if you really want to, but to be honest its nice to have an excuse not to bother. I'd reached a point where I was more likely to meet up with my mates at Richmond Park than down the pub, so having kids didn't seem like such a shock to the system as it might have done a few years earlier. I'd recommend it, but I guess its maybe not for everyone.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Before we had them, all I could see were the disadvantages, most of which you've listed (detailed responses set out below). The whole pregnancy thing, despite what you'll be persuaded to believe, is bottom line something someone else does, and there ain't much role for you.

Other people's kids are usually crap, and provide no effective incentive or advertisement for you to have your own.

Downsides of skipping kids:
- sooner or later your peer group will migrate from kidless to kidded up. Then you'll look like the Jaffa orange on the fruit stall.
- you will miss out on what can be rewarding experiences. I won't pretend teaching my girls to ride a bike or ski was much fun, but now they can do both, those activities are fun to do with them.
- you'll not get to see things through their eyes. Which is actually quite a loss.

On the age front, we had number 1 when I was 33. Looking back, squeezing them out earlier is better, as then the school/Uni fees get paid sooner, and you can aim to pack in work sooner.

Il Principe wrote:

Vomiting on you and your belongings, at home, in the shops, in the car, the cinema etc. - Baby vomit doesn't have the smelly/caustic properties of adult vomit. And the vomiting phase is quite short.
Pissing/crapping the bed/floor/car etc - Once in a blue moon.
Destroying your home, sticking toast in the Bluray player, putting their hands through framed photos, traipsing dirt everywhere - Again, very rare. Girls are better at avoiding this than boys, IMO
The massive lack of sleep Tick, but short term. 3-6m is standard
The spending entire weekends ferrying them about Dad's cabs doesn't kick in for a few years. We do a gymnastics run on Sat and a swimming club run on Sunday pm. But there are other parents involved, and lots of ride sharing. Not so bad.
The constant worry Tick. But there's always something to worry about, with or without kids
The enormous expense Tick
The ingratitude Teen phase. It passes
The arguments Teen phase. You should be able to win those.
The inability to just 'pop out' without taking a buggy and enough wipes/nappies/clothes/food to survive a nuclear holocaust Highly person specific. No reason why you can't travel light. Pack the baby bag as you would your saddle bag.
The lost cycling time Tick. Age and sloth will work that magic though
The lack of nookie :shock: See above.
The nightmare of finding/applying for/getting into decent schools Tick. No avoiding this one.
The inevitable experiments with drugs & alcohol Hmm. Not inevitable, though they will obv get hammered beyond the telling of it at some point. That's years away though.
The fear that they will go completely off the rails/need to be supported until you die Statistically unlikely. Discount this one heavily
No more sunday's spent watching footie and drinking wine Bzzzt. Wrong. UNtil you get the Sun pm swimming club run (see supra)
No more 'me' time basically until they've left home. Bzzzt. As one of my mates put it so well, from the day they're born, inch by inch you start to claw back your former life. Surprising how quickly it comes back though

The list is endless, and I struggle to see the pros - 'unconditional love?', I'm not convinced; you'll always love your kids more than they love you, and frankly a dog would be far less hassle!

Not so sure on the unconditional love thing. Parents can see faults in their kids from early doors. Kids take a lot longer to see faults in their parents.

And dogs are just great (and not mutually exclusive with kids). But picking a soft dog sh!t up ain't no fun! I'll take the nappy change there, thanks. I've yet to find a dog that can sit ona khazi and wipe it's @rse.

Generally, I'd say if you do it, you won't regret it. I suspect there's a very small minority of men who genuinely do.

Clever Pun

DonDaddyD wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

he's not married, they're not even living together yet

I've been with my significant other for nearly 10 years now, if we (I mean she) choose(s) to have kids we'd get married as it's just easier that way. but as we're not religious there's no point in marriage imo

Ah marriage, thinking about it myself. However, my parents have yet to meet her parents and I've said that it ain't happening until this is done.

Nor have mine and frankly I don't care

greg66_tri_v2.0

Always Tyred wrote:

In the next government, there may be a tax advantage to marriage. Then I might be convinced.

Feck me, that reads like a line from Mills & Boon!

jedster

One thing I have to say. It stops being *uck me hard sex when you're trying for a baby. No 90degree angles when you're 'trying'.

I mean you're trying to create life, the deed suddenly becomes an act of grave responsiblity and maturity as oppose to an act of waton carnal filth with a slight physical pain filled with regret in the morning.

That's something that is going to be missed. Irresponsible sex. When she starts telling you the days you are going to do it because her womb is at the optimum setting. It's just not fun anymore.

Not my experience DDD. Are you speaking from personal experience? I didn't know you had been trying for kids. I definitely don't think it needs to be like that at your age. Just have a lot of sex.

What I will say is that we got pregnant fairly easily. I think if you leave it until the women is in her late 30s and she doesn't get pregnant easily then that does seem to get stressful. Then trying to conceive can become a very serious business in the way you suggest - the clock is ticking, etc.

itboffin

Have you ever observed adults who's children now grown up taking great joy in the fact that can spend money again on themselves and own nice stuff with no constant fear of it's impending destruction?

Sewinman

My mate and I hatched a plan - stay single until forties - party, fish, cycle etc. Then find some vacuous twenty something year old who likes hand-bags and the good life and start a family then.

il_principe

Some good (and honest) answers here, thanks peeps.

shoulder_of_orion

You forgot the "total accident" option in your poll...

Cychologist

When me and the missus started thinking about having our first I had some of the same concerns as the OP. However:

http://images18.fotki.com/v346/photos/9 ... 048-vi.jpg

I forgot all about that

C

el_presidente

andrewjoseph wrote:

You either need to have kids to feel complete, or you don't.

This is total bollocks, I had a perfectly happy, fulfilled and complete life when I was single, now I'm married with a 7-month old and my life is still happy, fulfilled and complete just in different ways.

If you analyse it on a purely logical basis i.e. expense / hassle / worry etc etc then you're never going to do it. But what are you, some kind of robot? Just do it! I'm 36 and to be honest I should have done it earlier.

Also I think all this "nothing is ever the same" talk is a bit of an exaggeration. Sure there's another little dude hanging round, he needs a fair bit of looking after, but with planning and a bit of compromise you can still do most things, just be a bit more patient and chilled out and it's all good.

DonDaddyD

jedster wrote:

One thing I have to say. It stops being *uck me hard sex when you're trying for a baby. No 90degree angles when you're 'trying'.

I mean you're trying to create life, the deed suddenly becomes an act of grave responsiblity and maturity as oppose to an act of waton carnal filth with a slight physical pain filled with regret in the morning.

That's something that is going to be missed. Irresponsible sex. When she starts telling you the days you are going to do it because her womb is at the optimum setting. It's just not fun anymore.

Not my experience DDD. Are you speaking from personal experience? I didn't know you had been trying for kids. I definitely don't think it needs to be like that at your age. Just have a lot of sex.

What I will say is that we got pregnant fairly easily. I think if you leave it until the women is in her late 30s and she doesn't get pregnant easily then that does seem to get stressful. Then trying to conceive can become a very serious business in the way you suggest - the clock is ticking, etc.

I'm not trying for kids.

I just know that for me it will stop being buck wild sex when my girlfriend starts aligning her womb with the phases of the moon.

Plus, do I really want my kids concieved thorugh some freakish sex act. Won't that affect how they turn out... 'Son of one crazy maniac' I could call him/her Kruger.

Sewinman

I feel cheated by that poll IP - I thought you were going to allow us to decide if you should have kids.

CiB

It's worth it when you poll in from work and they run to meet you at the door cos you're back. And loads of other things, like passing on your wisdom and knowledge of absolutely everything to a wide-eyed 4 year old, or teaching them how to get to 35 on Keepy-Uppy using both feet, or fixing the train set that will never ever work again cos it's broken. Loads of things. If you want rewards for your actions kids are the answer. And they're great, usually.

Don't wait for the right moment to have them - it never arrives.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Sewinman wrote:

My mate and I hatched a plan - stay single until forties - party, fish, cycle etc. Then find some vacuous twenty something year old who likes hand-bags and the good life and start a family then.

Hheheh. Great plan. Except...

Those 20-something girlies will run you RAGGED. And then they'll spend your money so fast you'll be in the poorhouse before you can blink.

Then, when your hair falls out and your c0ck stops working, they'll trade you in for a better model, and take half of what they haven't already spent.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

el_presidente

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

CiB

DonDaddyD wrote:

jedster wrote:

One thing I have to say. It stops being *uck me hard sex when you're trying for a baby. No 90degree angles when you're 'trying'.

I mean you're trying to create life, the deed suddenly becomes an act of grave responsiblity and maturity as oppose to an act of waton carnal filth with a slight physical pain filled with regret in the morning.

That's something that is going to be missed. Irresponsible sex. When she starts telling you the days you are going to do it because her womb is at the optimum setting. It's just not fun anymore.

Not my experience DDD. Are you speaking from personal experience? I didn't know you had been trying for kids. I definitely don't think it needs to be like that at your age. Just have a lot of sex.

What I will say is that we got pregnant fairly easily. I think if you leave it until the women is in her late 30s and she doesn't get pregnant easily then that does seem to get stressful. Then trying to conceive can become a very serious business in the way you suggest - the clock is ticking, etc.

I'm not trying for kids.

I just know that for me it will stop being buck wild sex when my girlfriend starts aligning her womb with the phases of the moon.

Plus, do I really want my kids concieved thorugh some freakish sex act. Won't that affect how they turn out... 'Son of one crazy maniac' I could call him/her Kruger.

Just keep her topped up for a couple of weeks. It's a man's job and what you're there for in the end. Doesn't matter how you do it; nature will take over sooner than you think.

Coriander

One thing strikes me (as a childfree woman) - those disadvantages you list will happen, but I think in your head they're all happening at once. Whereas, in reality, by the time they are the principal customers of the Principe Taxi Service they are no longer vomiting everywhere or requiring you to carry a small wardrobe of spare clothes around with you. Similarly, as they grow out of sticking toast in the bluray thingie you start to get more time to yourself.

From observing my friends, the nightmare years last for about 5 or 6 years (which of course in the case of my 'godchildren' has meant 9 years for their parents as you go through that period with each child.

But, and it was a huge but, I played Puerto Rico with their parents last Saturday morning while the kids entertained themselves elsewhere. That was a first and I've never seen their mother so happy.

jedster

BTW,

moving back to very practical solutions (incidently a word to the wise about marriage, I may be a slow learner but it took me quite a long time to work out that when a woman is upset about something she is generally not remotely interested in a solution to that particular problem but actually looking for blind sympathy and a hug - if I had got this a bit earlier then our marriage would have likely involved fewer tears and more sex ):

Some of the problems you list can be solved by thinking carefully about where you live:
1. schools - just pay up and move somewhere where the state schools are great. It seems expensive at the time when you buy the house but the house keeps it's value
2. ferrying kids about - we chose to live on the edege of our town rather than in one of the surrounding (lovely) villiages. Partly because it should allow the kids to walk to school, to friends, back from the pub without Dad's taxi being involved. It's not just laziness, I think the self-sufficency will be good for them (too young at the moment)
3. buggies and all that faff - even worse when you have to load it into a car to go anywhere, living in a place where you can just walk out the door to a coffee bar/child frendly restarant/park/supermarket really helps

J

Clever Pun

el_presidente wrote:

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

gutted

DonDaddyD

Clever Pun wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

gutted

I haven't tried to get my girlfriend pregnant so I wouldn't know how difficult or easy it is.

jedster

From observing my friends, the nightmare years last for about 5 or 6 years

I reckon that's very pessimistic. It gets much easier after 6 months and then much easier again after 2 years. There is a point where they begin not to demand constant attention and that seems to be in the 2-3 year area. Obviously if you keep producing babies you'll be in that 2 year window a long time!

bigmat

DonDaddyD wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

gutted

I haven't tried to get my girlfriend pregnant so I wouldn't know how difficult or easy it is.

It'll be difficult - otherwise you'd have done it without trying

el_presidente

jedster wrote:

From observing my friends, the nightmare years last for about 5 or 6 years

I reckon that's very pessimistic. It gets much easier after 6 months and then much easier again after 2 years. There is a point where they begin not to demand constant attention and that seems to be in the 2-3 year area. Obviously if you keep producing babies you'll be in that 2 year window a long time!

"Nightmare years" is ridiculous . Sure it's hard work but by christ it's rewarding.

(disclaimer - 7 months experience only)

bails87

DonDaddyD wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

gutted

I haven't tried to get my girlfriend pregnant so I wouldn't know how difficult or easy it is.

Want me to have a pop at it and let you know?

Bassjunkieuk

What a perfect excuse to post this

What with DDD's constant comments about how fertile I must be for heading towards no.6!

UndercoverElephant

Clever Pun wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

It''s not always difficult to get preggers DDD. Not wishing to boast but let's just say I hit a home run on my first at-bat...

gutted

+1 Tried for the first two, both came first try. Absolutely gutted. Number three was after a single slip-up. Hence the trip to the vet's.