Interesting article. I think part of the issue is education. We get lots of education and resources to help us not have children. But the logistics of finding a partner, maybe marrying, maybe buying property, and then starting to have children is ignored. You very suddenly reach an age as a man where you realise these things are all going to take time and that might be time you don't have. Or time your partner doesn't have. At a certain age, if you're still dating, you might need to start to date women slightly younger than yourself too, and before long you've aged out - you're too old to date a women still of child-bearing age. I've noticed in friends once they hit their thirties, things start to move quickly. New relationships no longer last 4 years before ending - they're engaged after 12 months and married within 24 months. The 'deadline' and pressure can be a good thing for some people. Others will make mistakes. So I think it's a mix of not understanding how early you need to start on the road to having children, mixed with the paradox of choice where people don't want to 'give up' all of their options and then leave it too late. I definitely think the number of childless men who regret it will grow massively with Millennials and Gen Z.
It's similar to how people are now fatter and sicker despite access to more information and options vs prior generations. The limited choices before "happened to" line up to what is for many a healthier diet and exercise pattern.
Similar with kids - there's less pressure to have kids now and easier excuses not to - but that road takes you to not a good place in the long run.
I agree with your last statement and with my close friends, I do try to broach this subject occasionally.
I think there are many people who genuinely don’t want with kid. But there are many other people who just don’t really seem to have a good perspective on the timeline for these things. This is especially true with men. The idea that you can simply date younger strikes me as a bit foolish- I’ve got a ten year age split with my husband, I’m by no means against it, but I think these age differences come with issues of their own. I think 27 -33, both people around the same age. Is going the sweet spot for most people even it comes to children.
The reality is: the decision to start a family it isn’t just about you. It’s also about your future grand kids. And while 40 might seem like it’s the right time for some…it’s rarely ideal in the grand scheme of things- that puts you at a strong chance of having health issues while your kids start families of their own. But meeting your grandkids if your kids make that same choice. It’s best I think to be at that phase in life when your kids are a bit more settled.
On the other hand I think normalising most men marrying 30 year olds at 45 opens society up for a variety of problems. And that seems obvious to me even if I don’t think it’s true for everyone- or my relationship. That on a larger scale…it would cause problems. And perhaps aggravate things for the younger generation of men quite considerably.
Both genders let themselves get lulled into "I still have time, nowadays it's different" WAY too much. They're not just completely ignoring the normal decline of fertility ratios with age just because they see some other people getting their first children in their 30s or even 40s. They're also ignoring fertility ratios declining even stronger due to environmental factors.
Just because so many people are successfully postponing children doesn't mean it gets any easier after the age of 30 or your children are going to be as healthy as others. Statistically the probability of chromosome defects roughly increases by one factor for every year parents are older than 25. ~7 times higher at 35, 15 times at 40.
If you are generally open to having children, the best time is in your mid-20s. You still have much more options, support and energy and your children will be healthier. By the time you're out of the education system and your career takes off, your children are already in school and mostly taken care of. That also makes you much more attractive to employers. Nobody likes a 30-something who's been a reliable employee for the last years and might even be up for a promotion to a higher role, but now suddenly has kids and will be tired and unreliable for the next ten years.
[*If not in the USA, read "Old geezer". Credit: Aachen]
Many varieties of "I really regret that I [did|didn't] do X when I was younger" occur in older humans.
The stereotype of young men wanting to avoid all the work and commitment of setting down, marrying, and raising children is older than the pyramids. It is obviously not true of all young men, but there's very seldom been a shortage. Sure, their feelings may change as they grow older - but a young man whose main motive for marriage is "so I don't regret not having kids when I'm old" strikes me as a young man who the young women should avoid.
In some cases, I get the sense that "I really regret not having children" is mostly a way of articulating "I am old and socially disconnected and feel lonely and depressed". In the modern world - where kids generally grow up and move far away for jobs - having had children would probably not help much with that.
I feel like most young men have always wanted to extend their youth and avoid the responsibility that family life would bring. However, until recently (with easy access to birth control, abortion, and proper education) this wasn't really possible. You would accidentally have a child and be forced into the lifestyle you were trying to avoid. And most of the time things worked out and you were forced into a situation that's probably better for you rather than delaying it until it's too late. Now that we have 'choice' things are more difficult because you need to actually commit to something life changing. For most people it's impossible to know the 'right time' to do that or for them to have the courage necessary to take the change.
Wow yeah you really hit the nail on the head for me. My wife and I weren't trying to have kids but we weren't trying not to have kids either, if you get my drift. Looking back on it, if we had been "smart" about deciding when the right time would happen, we might never have had kids.
Having kids is hands-down the best thing I've ever done but also the hardest. Not because of the amount of work, because it's really not that much work. It's more of the dramatically uncomfortable shift in perspective: Realizing I'm not the main character in this story. It still hits me sometimes.
My experience was that you will never feel "ready" to have kids, you just close your eyes and go for it.
I think it is a good idea to look at finances and relationship health; but beyond that I'm not sure much else matters.
It's almost the same as marriage - and your comment is insightful in that when given the choice humans will almost never choose to change, being "selfish" feels great while you are doing it.
i think the smart thing to do is to have kids when you are 20 and then enjoy life when you are 40. at that time you are much better off financially (unless you live in a country where you have to pay for your kids education maybe) which gives you a lot more freedom to explore your interests.
> but a young man whose main motive for marriage is "so I don't regret not having kids when I'm old"
I had a spit take here. When people say they regret not doing something, they are talking about regretting not everything that came along with doing that thing, not just avoiding the emotion of regret later in life.
You could rephrase that into "a young man whose main motive for marriage is to have a loving, fulfilling family which they would prefer much more than staying single, esp later in life" and it's a pretty anodyne take on why anyone gets married and starts a family.
When someone says they regret not quitting smoking 30 years ago or starting to exercise daily, are they just talking about avoiding the emotion of regret in 30 years?
> When people say they regret not doing something, they are talking about regretting not everything that came along with doing that thing, not just avoiding the emotion of regret later in life.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding but isn’t that what regret it? The not having everything (or most things) that come along with having done the thing?
> When someone says they regret not quitting smoking 30 years ago or starting to exercise daily, are they just talking about avoiding the emotion of regret in 30 years?
I think this is exactly right. They regret not having all the benefits of having made these choices thirty years prior, and so the feeling of regret is the umbrella term for what they are trying to avoid.
In short I think you and OP are saying the same thing but you are arguing that the term regret is narrower. I don’t think that’s right.
> You could rephrase that into "a young man whose main motive for marriage is to have a loving, fulfilling family which they would prefer much more than staying single, esp later in life"
There is zero guarantee that a family will turn out right, let alone "loving, fulfilling" so this is just a loaded perspective of an issue that has nothing to do with your own world view.
On the one side, it feels like people stay "immature" for longer; instead of starting their careers in their teens and a family not long after, people stay in school until their mid-twenties.
Then, what does it take to start a family? Stability. People need a stable income, a living wage, and a place they can call home.
If people complain about birth rates, pay people a living wage when they enter the workforce, and make it so people can afford to own a house (that they can live in for the rest of their life if they want to) from their mid twenties onwards on a single income.
People can't build a future now, because they worry about the next paycheck.
Not really. Starting a family is a leap in the dark. Always was, always will be. The only difference today is that people (may) have a lower risk tolerance, and a tendency to plan everything in advance. I had my first son with no house and no income. I just did the best I could, and things fell into place as I needed them.
> where kids generally grow up and move far away for jobs - having had children would probably not help much with that.
Companionship was never a part of why I fathered children. And in hindsight, raising my daughters was the most meaningful thing I did in this life.
I'm just suggesting that there may be other motives for parenting.
Big Brothers and Sisters of America is an organization that pairs men up with boys who are in single-mother families (and I guess now women with single-father girls). (I was a "little brother" when I was young.)
I am not sure about whether a single male is eligible (I don't see why not?) but AFS and other "foreign exchange student" organizations might be another avenue to "parenting" of a sort. I also found the 10 months or so I spent being a host parent to be very rewarding.
As the title says, it's not about not wanting kids, it's about thinking it will happen automatically.
Some guys think that relationships magically start in a romantic setting, like shown in Hollywood movies. Reality is: if you want something, you should actively purchase it.
So if you don't want kids: fine, enjoy the freedoms it will offer.
If you want a relationship and/or family, don't sit on your ass until it will magically appear to you. Go get it!
The reality is that for an average guy, earning a stable long-term relationship in the Tinder era is an enormous amount of work, to the point that many find this challenge insurmountable (at least 5% more men, than women, as we can see from the article).
There are many men that I know that simply are consumed by the necessity to make ends meet that they barely have any time to go out and meet new people (women specifically).
Also, on top of that, women are far less approachable these days, which increases the effort even further.
The elites don’t want you to know this but the regrets at old age are free you can take them home I have 458 regrets.
Much of it can be "path not taken" but you have to work hard to distinguish actual real regret (which will involve understanding why the choices were made, and what about the choices was wrong (e.g., "I underestimated the work vs reward") vs the "nobody wants to talk to me now, if I had kids I could force them to."
Why is wanting to do X now so you don’t regret not doing X later not a valid reason for wanting to do X? I want to eat lunch now so I’m not hungry later. I want to study hard now so I don’t regret not studying later. Aren’t most motivations essentially based on the possibility of future regret?
(For anyone else not in the know: Geezer being USA slang for an old man apparently, or in Brittain just any man... I assume it's supposed to be the former)
// I get the sense that "I really regret not having children" is mostly a way of articulating "I am old and socially disconnected and feel lonely and depressed"
This seems like a superficial take. Placating your sadness is a benefit, not the goal, of having kids. You can pop a Prozac and alleviate your sorrows, that's not the same as the deep satisfaction of looking back on a lifetime of meaningful time with your kids and hopefully seeing them grow into good adults and parents themselves.
> a young man whose main motive for marriage is "so I don't regret not having kids when I'm old"
I was having dinner with my wife's parents, along with some folks from our common church. A congregant asked how I came to join up. I nodded to my in-laws and said 'I knocked up their daughter'.*
Which is how a lot of young men got into the parenting racket (and church).
The large majority of Americans live within 50 miles of where they grew up. And this number has been steadily ticking up. Geographic mobility is the lowest it’s ever been in the post war period.
> When that is not by choice, regret can grow into pain.
This thinking is flawed. Here's the solution and your road to happiness. Foster the ability to accept, be grateful and by that weaken tendencies to regret. Because _this_ is the only difference between people who regret when they are old (or pretty much any other time in their life) and those who don't. That's all. What you practice is what you become. You practice regretting and you don't have children => you'll regret that. You practice regretting and you do have children => you'll either regret that or something else.
It's that simple.
> he tries to stay indoors and ignore the family celebrations outside.
there you have it - that's the attitude which has you likely end up lonely. he just keeps up the old pattern without reflecting. why not participate in one way or another. he doesn't have a son or daughter but he can have positive interactions. instead - he stays indoors to protect himself emotionally.
> So many ambushes and triggers for my anguish.
it's ambushes and triggers. looking for reasons of your pain outside of yourself is human and normal - we all do it - but it's often not going to make positive difference.
...
won't bother reading on - this article is lacking any deeper reflection and almost reads like a government ordered attempt to disseminate FUD in men to manipulate the birth rate positively.
> But a single man adopting is considered as pervert
Is this evidence or assumption? Not challenging too hard just wondering if you've actually been called or treated like a perv or if it's something you assume will occur
It is theoretically possible as a single male, but there are many more restrictions - in practice its very very rare. For example, see these requirements for a very large international adoption agency: [1]. In my experience there is, as OP describes, a strong stigma against single males, not just that they are considered perverts, but also that they are considered incapable of taking on this responsibility alone, not nurturing enough, too career-focused, etc.
Not sure by bt4u's comment is dead, but I've had that exact situation happen to me. Been accused of trying to steal a child while taking my son to the playground. It is an actual thing and it sucks.
Whenever I see a comment like that I always wonder how it's possible that someone might actually challenge what we all know well and experienced multiple times throughout our adult lives.
Trolling or genuine question from a person that never witnessed what everyone else did?
It will absolutely occur. Men who take their kids to the playground by themselves are often confronted (by moms of other kids).
At some point things are so obvious that not many people are going to bother finding a peer reviewed study to cite. Maybe they should but they won't.
i actually think fostering should have a higher barrier because foster kids usually come from difficult situations and eventually go back to their parents and they need to be raised and taken care of in a way that enables that. for adoption it should be more like: you are capable to be parents, here is your kid. off you go.
HN is a global forum spanning multiple countries and even more societal mores.
To your point though, "we" already failed as a society by not sufficienty scrutinising the bulk of adoptions to ostensibly stable 'ideal' families in decades past.
A number of these adoptions turned out fine, many did not.
I'm in the same boat. Just a shy kid who never got over it.
My grandfather died when I was three and I think it hit Dad hard. I was determined to find a woman and have children even if it meant doing so if not married. My Catholic parents were very against that it was unspoken but very obvious in their attitude.
My Dad died a few years ago so my plan fell apart. Now Mom is old so she is not long for this world either. But even so I am early 50s so unless I win a lot of money, get famous fast, find a foreign wife (who won't murder me), or somehow father a child I'm SOL.
It is depressing especially seeing in later life how family support is great to have. When I'm old I'll have nobody. And I mean just regular stuff having someone to drive you to appointments, help with home repairs, finances. There are a lot of scammers and bad people ready to pounce on elderly.
We need old time forced dances where a lot of us shy folks are forced to interact.
Spending a lot more time with my aging father, I see a certain joy and pride in him whenever we are doing things together, a feeling that I will myself never know.
Instead I chose career, travel and education early in life, and while I do not regret it.. Later in life I noticed that for me such accomplishments feel worth about 5 minutes of cold talk in social events, even more among those who warmly talk about their grandchildren and even great grandchildren.
Each of us have a limited time here, and we make choices that (hopefully) makes it worthwhile. Though perhaps, the choices I made left a feeling of emptiness..
// while I do not regret it... feel worth about 5 minutes of cold talk... the choices I made left a feeling of emptiness..
I appreciate your candor and vulnerability with us here. But I can't help but read a good amount of regret in your post, in line with the article.
As middle aged / older guys, there's significance to the message we send out. Perhaps someone reading your post will be inspired to pause and re evaluate their choice based on what you wrote. Thank yku.
I love teaching/interacting with the occasional good-natured, learning-sponge kids, but the stars haven't yet aligned to have kids of my own.
Now that I'm 50-ish, although I'm energetic and not yet noticeably graying, when I think about kids of my own, I have to consider:
* A dear friend adored her father, and when he died while she was in college, she was devastated. I could nurture a kid to be resilient in that possibility, but I don't like the idea of setting them up for that possibility to be not-unlikely.
* I'd want the other parent to be a life partner, and that probably means in a close age bracket. So biological clocks are a factor, at least for building from scratch. Or, if partner is significantly younger, that means we'd have to consider how much time we could have before the woman likely outlives the man, and where that would leave her.
That said, I haven't written off the idea of a family, and I'm paying every month to keep a life insurance policy, just in case there's someday a family who might need it.
I feel bad for the people that now want to have had children but didn't but as a father of two, if you didn't directly plan to have kids it might have been better that you didn't, kids take a lot of work, you have to be in the right place to do it.
I used to be the person that said "yeah, go have kids" and now I'm "only do it if you're completely sure its what you want" because if you're not it's the children suffering through it.
>> kids take a lot of work, you have to be in the right place to do it.
I think it's a certain type of personality that believes this. I know somebody who gets worried for certain friends/family having children because they don't own their house or have high paid jobs. They have a laundry list of todo's (mostly financial) before they will even consider having children. It's almost condescending but I choose to see it as more of an unnecessary fear/anxiety. People make do. People get knocked up, they get unemployed, they get help from friends and family where possible, and they love their kids just as much as the people who planned it on a Jira board.
I grew up poor and financial anxiety was real, I just couldn't fathom how people were living with it. I could barely tolerate it for myself, let alone bring kids into the world while being uncertain. It didn't feel like anything condescending, just a lack of understanding.
Now I'm very well off and could retire (fat fire equivalent) at 34 and I do want kids.
As someone who just had a kid, I agree. You don’t have to overthink it. At the end of the day all they need is a calorie surplus and shelter. That’s it. Everything else is a bonus. As a parent you can put as much or as little work into it as you like. Time is going to pass and they’ll grow older regardless. It’s not like a tech startup where you have to put work in or it’ll crash and burn.
Well, I have 2 sons. 25 and 15. I am 45. If you want to have kids, just have them. Or if they happen, let them
happen.
Yes, they are a lot of work. Yes, they are a lot of commitment. Lots of sleepless nights, lots of extra work as you want to be a father and a provider. But so what? Its not very complicated work, just lots of it. And life is too beautiful to slack around, so you can just as well spend them with your kids.
// I used to be the person that said "yeah, go have kids" and now I'm "only do it if you're completely sure its what you want" because if you're not it's the children suffering through it.
I think more people are ready to be good parents despite doubts that your post implies. If you are completely broke, drug addicted, violent, etc - then yes you should work on those things first. Otherwise, if you're anything like a mainstream member of society you're probably ready and capable.
I found that my "ability" to be a dad switched the moment the kids arrived. Most of us do our best when the occasion demands it and being a dad elevates what is asked of you in the best of ways. Even things that would seem like nigh mares to a single version of myself (eg: changing diapers), feel totally fine - like I am doing exactly what I should be doing right now.
I don't think people should have kids very young, but if you're 25+ and you think you want kids some day, just let it happen.
Don't worry about being ready, because nothing can truly prepare you for it. You will never be ready for your first child because there's nothing you can do to train for it.
Readit News
Similar with kids - there's less pressure to have kids now and easier excuses not to - but that road takes you to not a good place in the long run.
The reality is: the decision to start a family it isn’t just about you. It’s also about your future grand kids. And while 40 might seem like it’s the right time for some…it’s rarely ideal in the grand scheme of things- that puts you at a strong chance of having health issues while your kids start families of their own. But meeting your grandkids if your kids make that same choice. It’s best I think to be at that phase in life when your kids are a bit more settled.
On the other hand I think normalising most men marrying 30 year olds at 45 opens society up for a variety of problems. And that seems obvious to me even if I don’t think it’s true for everyone- or my relationship. That on a larger scale…it would cause problems. And perhaps aggravate things for the younger generation of men quite considerably.
Just because so many people are successfully postponing children doesn't mean it gets any easier after the age of 30 or your children are going to be as healthy as others. Statistically the probability of chromosome defects roughly increases by one factor for every year parents are older than 25. ~7 times higher at 35, 15 times at 40.
If you are generally open to having children, the best time is in your mid-20s. You still have much more options, support and energy and your children will be healthier. By the time you're out of the education system and your career takes off, your children are already in school and mostly taken care of. That also makes you much more attractive to employers. Nobody likes a 30-something who's been a reliable employee for the last years and might even be up for a promotion to a higher role, but now suddenly has kids and will be tired and unreliable for the next ten years.
[*If not in the USA, read "Old geezer". Credit: Aachen]
Many varieties of "I really regret that I [did|didn't] do X when I was younger" occur in older humans.
The stereotype of young men wanting to avoid all the work and commitment of setting down, marrying, and raising children is older than the pyramids. It is obviously not true of all young men, but there's very seldom been a shortage. Sure, their feelings may change as they grow older - but a young man whose main motive for marriage is "so I don't regret not having kids when I'm old" strikes me as a young man who the young women should avoid.
In some cases, I get the sense that "I really regret not having children" is mostly a way of articulating "I am old and socially disconnected and feel lonely and depressed". In the modern world - where kids generally grow up and move far away for jobs - having had children would probably not help much with that.
Having kids is hands-down the best thing I've ever done but also the hardest. Not because of the amount of work, because it's really not that much work. It's more of the dramatically uncomfortable shift in perspective: Realizing I'm not the main character in this story. It still hits me sometimes.
I think it is a good idea to look at finances and relationship health; but beyond that I'm not sure much else matters.
It's almost the same as marriage - and your comment is insightful in that when given the choice humans will almost never choose to change, being "selfish" feels great while you are doing it.
I had a spit take here. When people say they regret not doing something, they are talking about regretting not everything that came along with doing that thing, not just avoiding the emotion of regret later in life.
You could rephrase that into "a young man whose main motive for marriage is to have a loving, fulfilling family which they would prefer much more than staying single, esp later in life" and it's a pretty anodyne take on why anyone gets married and starts a family.
When someone says they regret not quitting smoking 30 years ago or starting to exercise daily, are they just talking about avoiding the emotion of regret in 30 years?
Perhaps I am misunderstanding but isn’t that what regret it? The not having everything (or most things) that come along with having done the thing?
> When someone says they regret not quitting smoking 30 years ago or starting to exercise daily, are they just talking about avoiding the emotion of regret in 30 years?
I think this is exactly right. They regret not having all the benefits of having made these choices thirty years prior, and so the feeling of regret is the umbrella term for what they are trying to avoid.
In short I think you and OP are saying the same thing but you are arguing that the term regret is narrower. I don’t think that’s right.
There is zero guarantee that a family will turn out right, let alone "loving, fulfilling" so this is just a loaded perspective of an issue that has nothing to do with your own world view.
On the one side, it feels like people stay "immature" for longer; instead of starting their careers in their teens and a family not long after, people stay in school until their mid-twenties.
Then, what does it take to start a family? Stability. People need a stable income, a living wage, and a place they can call home.
If people complain about birth rates, pay people a living wage when they enter the workforce, and make it so people can afford to own a house (that they can live in for the rest of their life if they want to) from their mid twenties onwards on a single income.
People can't build a future now, because they worry about the next paycheck.
Companionship was never a part of why I fathered children. And in hindsight, raising my daughters was the most meaningful thing I did in this life.
I'm just suggesting that there may be other motives for parenting.
Big Brothers and Sisters of America is an organization that pairs men up with boys who are in single-mother families (and I guess now women with single-father girls). (I was a "little brother" when I was young.)
I am not sure about whether a single male is eligible (I don't see why not?) but AFS and other "foreign exchange student" organizations might be another avenue to "parenting" of a sort. I also found the 10 months or so I spent being a host parent to be very rewarding.
Some guys think that relationships magically start in a romantic setting, like shown in Hollywood movies. Reality is: if you want something, you should actively purchase it.
So if you don't want kids: fine, enjoy the freedoms it will offer.
If you want a relationship and/or family, don't sit on your ass until it will magically appear to you. Go get it!
There are many men that I know that simply are consumed by the necessity to make ends meet that they barely have any time to go out and meet new people (women specifically).
Also, on top of that, women are far less approachable these days, which increases the effort even further.
Much of it can be "path not taken" but you have to work hard to distinguish actual real regret (which will involve understanding why the choices were made, and what about the choices was wrong (e.g., "I underestimated the work vs reward") vs the "nobody wants to talk to me now, if I had kids I could force them to."
This seems like a superficial take. Placating your sadness is a benefit, not the goal, of having kids. You can pop a Prozac and alleviate your sorrows, that's not the same as the deep satisfaction of looking back on a lifetime of meaningful time with your kids and hopefully seeing them grow into good adults and parents themselves.
I was having dinner with my wife's parents, along with some folks from our common church. A congregant asked how I came to join up. I nodded to my in-laws and said 'I knocked up their daughter'.*
Which is how a lot of young men got into the parenting racket (and church).
* to which my kids said 'Wow dad. Thanks.'
https://www.thirdway.org/report/stuck-in-place-what-lower-ge...
“In the 1950s, about 20% of the population moved every year. By 2017 that number had been cut virtually in half.”
This thinking is flawed. Here's the solution and your road to happiness. Foster the ability to accept, be grateful and by that weaken tendencies to regret. Because _this_ is the only difference between people who regret when they are old (or pretty much any other time in their life) and those who don't. That's all. What you practice is what you become. You practice regretting and you don't have children => you'll regret that. You practice regretting and you do have children => you'll either regret that or something else.
It's that simple.
> he tries to stay indoors and ignore the family celebrations outside.
there you have it - that's the attitude which has you likely end up lonely. he just keeps up the old pattern without reflecting. why not participate in one way or another. he doesn't have a son or daughter but he can have positive interactions. instead - he stays indoors to protect himself emotionally.
> So many ambushes and triggers for my anguish.
it's ambushes and triggers. looking for reasons of your pain outside of yourself is human and normal - we all do it - but it's often not going to make positive difference.
...
won't bother reading on - this article is lacking any deeper reflection and almost reads like a government ordered attempt to disseminate FUD in men to manipulate the birth rate positively.
Want to adopt some poor kid and give him/her a possibility to have a kind of a standard life and to help to open a door to the world :(
But a single man adopting is considered as pervert. So I am even bigger sad.
Is this evidence or assumption? Not challenging too hard just wondering if you've actually been called or treated like a perv or if it's something you assume will occur
[1] https://www.holtinternational.org/adoption/ See "Quick overview of parental eligibility requirements" section
Trolling or genuine question from a person that never witnessed what everyone else did?
To your point though, "we" already failed as a society by not sufficienty scrutinising the bulk of adoptions to ostensibly stable 'ideal' families in decades past.
A number of these adoptions turned out fine, many did not.
My grandfather died when I was three and I think it hit Dad hard. I was determined to find a woman and have children even if it meant doing so if not married. My Catholic parents were very against that it was unspoken but very obvious in their attitude.
My Dad died a few years ago so my plan fell apart. Now Mom is old so she is not long for this world either. But even so I am early 50s so unless I win a lot of money, get famous fast, find a foreign wife (who won't murder me), or somehow father a child I'm SOL.
It is depressing especially seeing in later life how family support is great to have. When I'm old I'll have nobody. And I mean just regular stuff having someone to drive you to appointments, help with home repairs, finances. There are a lot of scammers and bad people ready to pounce on elderly.
We need old time forced dances where a lot of us shy folks are forced to interact.
Instead I chose career, travel and education early in life, and while I do not regret it.. Later in life I noticed that for me such accomplishments feel worth about 5 minutes of cold talk in social events, even more among those who warmly talk about their grandchildren and even great grandchildren.
Each of us have a limited time here, and we make choices that (hopefully) makes it worthwhile. Though perhaps, the choices I made left a feeling of emptiness..
I appreciate your candor and vulnerability with us here. But I can't help but read a good amount of regret in your post, in line with the article.
As middle aged / older guys, there's significance to the message we send out. Perhaps someone reading your post will be inspired to pause and re evaluate their choice based on what you wrote. Thank yku.
Now that I'm 50-ish, although I'm energetic and not yet noticeably graying, when I think about kids of my own, I have to consider:
* A dear friend adored her father, and when he died while she was in college, she was devastated. I could nurture a kid to be resilient in that possibility, but I don't like the idea of setting them up for that possibility to be not-unlikely.
* I'd want the other parent to be a life partner, and that probably means in a close age bracket. So biological clocks are a factor, at least for building from scratch. Or, if partner is significantly younger, that means we'd have to consider how much time we could have before the woman likely outlives the man, and where that would leave her.
That said, I haven't written off the idea of a family, and I'm paying every month to keep a life insurance policy, just in case there's someday a family who might need it.
I used to be the person that said "yeah, go have kids" and now I'm "only do it if you're completely sure its what you want" because if you're not it's the children suffering through it.
I think it's a certain type of personality that believes this. I know somebody who gets worried for certain friends/family having children because they don't own their house or have high paid jobs. They have a laundry list of todo's (mostly financial) before they will even consider having children. It's almost condescending but I choose to see it as more of an unnecessary fear/anxiety. People make do. People get knocked up, they get unemployed, they get help from friends and family where possible, and they love their kids just as much as the people who planned it on a Jira board.
Now I'm very well off and could retire (fat fire equivalent) at 34 and I do want kids.
Yes, they are a lot of work. Yes, they are a lot of commitment. Lots of sleepless nights, lots of extra work as you want to be a father and a provider. But so what? Its not very complicated work, just lots of it. And life is too beautiful to slack around, so you can just as well spend them with your kids.
I think more people are ready to be good parents despite doubts that your post implies. If you are completely broke, drug addicted, violent, etc - then yes you should work on those things first. Otherwise, if you're anything like a mainstream member of society you're probably ready and capable.
I found that my "ability" to be a dad switched the moment the kids arrived. Most of us do our best when the occasion demands it and being a dad elevates what is asked of you in the best of ways. Even things that would seem like nigh mares to a single version of myself (eg: changing diapers), feel totally fine - like I am doing exactly what I should be doing right now.
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Don't worry about being ready, because nothing can truly prepare you for it. You will never be ready for your first child because there's nothing you can do to train for it.
Just do it.
I wish my parents had had this wisdom.
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