I do feel like you are somewhat overstating the difficulty level of raising kids. I have three kids, the youngest of which is only five and yet well out of the phase where she is making big messes and requiring constant “active” parenting. The meme that raising kids is incredibly hard is, perhaps, a pet peeve of mine. Childless people often talk about children as if they remain helpless babies for 10 years. In truth, with my three kids, there will have only three years out of my in-expectation-long-life where I had to deal with sleep disruption and baby-related calisthenics. Once you get through that time period, there are very few child-related obligations that aren’t more fun than whatever you would have been doing with your time anyway.
Another good reason to have kids that I don’t see mentioned often is that the child will predictably become your favorite person. Before you have had kids, the default is to view future possible children as “abstract potential humans” with no particular qualities, which means it is basically impossible to vividly imagine how much you will care about them. We are particularly bad at reasoning about predictable changes to what we care about. I think it is important to at least try—what you care about is going to inevitably drift over time, and if you’re not modeling yourself as a person who cares about different things over time, then you’re making an error. Having kids allows you to achieve a huge amount of “value” at a very cheap cost.
I do feel like you are somewhat overstating the difficulty level of raising kids. I have three kids, the youngest of which is only five and yet well out of the phase where she is making big messes and requiring constant “active” parenting. The meme that raising kids is incredibly hard is, perhaps, a pet peeve of mine. Childless people often talk about children as if they remain helpless babies for 10 years. In truth, with my three kids, there will have only three years out of my in-expectation-long-life where I had to deal with sleep disruption and baby-related calisthenics. Once you get through that time period, there are very few child-related obligations that aren’t more fun than whatever you would have been doing with your time anyway.
Another good reason to have kids that I don’t see mentioned often is that the child will predictably become your favorite person. Before you have had kids, the default is to view future possible children as “abstract potential humans” with no particular qualities, which means it is basically impossible to vividly imagine how much you will care about them. We are particularly bad at reasoning about predictable changes to what we care about. I think it is important to at least try—what you care about is going to inevitably drift over time, and if you’re not modeling yourself as a person who cares about different things over time, then you’re making an error. Having kids allows you to achieve a huge amount of “value” at a very cheap cost.