Again, I sort of wish that was also my experience, because that would mean I’d have had to endure it less often.
There was this particular female chemist who was just unbelievable… she nearly killed her own dog giving it human medicines, and just ran roughshod over anyone who tried to explain what was wrong with that…
Not that I’ve encountered any shortage of aggressively, egregiously ignorant men, mind you.
“There is a paradox at the heart of the happiness question.”
I’d say… And the very best of luck to every living Human in finding it.
Well you have to be realistic, that happens. And it’s hard when it happens too late, because by then you’re stuck with them!!! 
Anyone else here have experience with the suddenly-enlightened parent? It’s like, now that I have a kid I’m just so much more conscious of the world and how important it is that we provide a good future for the next generation. I’m so much more selfless and responsible and I know what’s best for you and everyone.
Or is that a rare condition?
Also a choice bit of non-thinking I hear a lot, “women make less money because they have kids.” Yeah, because men don’t have kids.
It helps if you realize the ‘biological ticking clock’ is really a social pressure ticking clock (there was no effective contraception till the last couple thousand years, so there was never a need for one). As a guy I don’t get much pressure from guys - and if we’re just with the guys, some envy. Most don’t regret having kids, but they do understand. It’s cool, I can deal with their kids (fine in limited doses), and they don’t pressure me. We don’t hang with anyone who’s religiously conservative, so that might be different there.
But holy crap the pressure women put on each other, and the older you get the worse it gets. They’ve all bought into that you’re incomplete as a woman without producing a baby, brood mare that you are, and if you miss out on this you will always regret it. And then they work on you to try to convince her. This is a big reason we’ve stopped hanging out with some couples with children. Not for me, but because they won’t f@#4ing leave her alone. Of course there’s little you can do about the relatives you want to stay in touch with… 
Just hang on for menopause!
I read this as, “won’t farting leave her alone”. Which made 12 year old Japhroaig giggle.
I’m surprised anyone born after 1960 gives a damn anymore.
‘You know what would make you happy, dear?’ * POOT *
I think that’s partly because when the kid is born both parents are lobotomized with hormones to keep you from killing it. This is where you get the ‘wow, this is the most spiritual and amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.’ Yeah, because you’re awash in feel good drugs. 25-33% of your thinking capacity out the window between this and the sleep deprivation. Eventually for most it fades and they get the rest of their brain back. Childless people can do the same thing with recreational drugs, of course - dudes completely fried on pot sometimes develop the same symptoms.
When we, and our friends, hit our forties, there was some desperation by a couple of women to have children. The ever quoted biological clock and so on. It just was important to them. It wasn’t outside pressure. People around them would comment about being past all that now. Just accept and move on.
But it mattered to them. One had a bub at the age of 50.
Jesus Christ on an orange peel! Some of thse questions aren’t even about raising kids.
“you’re not a real woman until you’ve given birth?”
Tell that to my mom! She’s never given birth. My brother and I are adopted. Just tell her she’s not a real woman because she hasn’t given birth. Then brace for the quickest left hook you’ve ever seen.
I still think that’s societal conditioning (you can’t escape it), but that’d be hard to test without some really unethical experiments or society changing to not fetishize it. The lady I was talking about is in her 40s, feeling no urges, but of course YMMV.
Japan’s interestingly halfway there - women are expected to have kids, but if you have one it’s mostly understood that your life as anything else but the mom is over. Kiss your career goodbye. And if you’re a guy, you’re just the money fountain for the wife and kids. So they’re having far fewer kids. Obviously that’s not really a model I’d recommend, though.
I need to send that card to the wife…
Oh, look what just popped up - apparently having two kids isn’t even enough.
I would have thought that if evolutionary psychology were true then this would be the most natural question in the world.
There is an urge to yell “I am being oppressed!” from both sides. Both sides acting the victim, and it’s kind of miserable.
I can get surly–really surly–and if I hear that question again this holiday season my answer will be, “when are you paying off that mortgage you had to take after you slept with my wife’s dad and ended my wife’s parents marriage? Yeah? Then”
I’m loads of fun. That’s why they keep me locked in the kitchen with a bottle of absinthe.
At least the turkey is being helpful, bringing along the umbrella. Just look at those storm clouds.
Holy shit, thank you. I get so sick of kid-raising fads. People act like you can do all the right things and raise some kind of… invincible athletic superbrain- I guess. As a society we have strong evidence to support good prenatal and breastfeeding, and obviously children should not be abused, but after that just accept that parents will fuck up their kids somehow. Most kids are going to grow up normal no matter what you do. I’ve also noticed that these notions of proper baby repair and maintenance just stink of middle-class delusions of upward mobility. Most working class parents I know love their kids and try their best, but they don’t seem so desperate to have their kids claw their way to the top.
ETA: More to the overall point. We evolved to like having kids (not just making them). But we also evolved before the means of production and survival were exclusive to a small percentage of the population. That adds a strain. Anthropologically, we know that early humans didn’t work forty-hours a week.
Half of them will still be below average…
