but the joy of childhood seems inextricable from a sense of hope for the future.
People have disagreed about the childhood experience, but—I suspect this is true of the parenthood experience. Like, the difficulty of parenting is frontloaded and the rewards (while they do start off high!) grow with time. You should try to estimate where the crossover point is, and then from there whether it makes sense to try to have kids now.
[Also, my guess is if you’re going to have kids, the sooner the better, in part because it’s more likely to pay off / rapid AI changes might require lots of attention, which will be less scarce the older your children are.]
People have disagreed about the childhood experience, but—I suspect this is true of the parenthood experience. Like, the difficulty of parenting is frontloaded and the rewards (while they do start off high!) grow with time. You should try to estimate where the crossover point is, and then from there whether it makes sense to try to have kids now.
[Also, my guess is if you’re going to have kids, the sooner the better, in part because it’s more likely to pay off / rapid AI changes might require lots of attention, which will be less scarce the older your children are.]