It reminds me of the joke/meme that says (paraphrasing here) grown men have grand epiphanies that are things women discussed with their friends at a sleepover at age 10
I completely agree, but there is something about the way he writes that made me feel sad for him. Not in a complete on-his-side way, but just in that he is clearly unhappy and knows it, and I can appreciate how much that sucks. Maybe it’s his lack of rage? Sometimes in these type of stories, the author writes with this constant undertone of “fuck the world for doing this to me!” And here instead it sounds like grief for the life he used to have. And I have empathy for that, especially because the desire to avoid that exact feeling is what drove me to make the decision to not have kids. So I feel sad for him, even if he did it to himself.
That’s an interesting perspective because I feel like this is the thing you absolutely can’t say as a mother: that you have grief for the life you left behind. Women get crucified for voicing this opinion (even though it has no bearing on your love for your children) and a man gets an article in GQ.
Ahh, you are so right! That statement made me so mad, and I say that as a parent of one who recognizes how much harder it must be to have two. But he was probably happily enjoying his craved-for independence when he only had his first and his wife did everything.
I think it's true if both parents contribute equally. If I described my pre-kids and post-one child life, they would be extremely similar if I specifically excluded talking about anything related to my child. What I mean by that is one child added a lot to my plate, but nothing that important had to come off of it. I spent less time watching Netflix but I kept all my hobbies and was going out with my friends all the time (both with and without my baby). Once I had two I had to actually give up things from my pre-baby life, not just add parenting to my existing life.
I think the people bothered by this line are largely people who hit that point with their first and don't realize that's not typical. Most of those parents don't have an equal partner, have an abnormally difficult baby, or have self imposed roadblocks (exclusive breastfeeding, refusing babysitters, generally anxious parenting, etc).
Maybe you’re right that it’s more of a willed choice with one kid but we definitely experienced a big transformation in our lives with one. We loved the transformation so maybe it was partially self imposed but I still think he’s fundamentally wrong in this basic idea. There’s two other things worth noting — families with active involved grandparents living close by and families without. That makes a huge difference in preserving all those hobbies and couple activities whether you have one or two kids. Also, people describe how having two makes things easier when they get a little bit older as they have an always present playmate. I think those elements are under appreciated here.
I think it is also what you care about from your pre-kid life. My husband and I have the same kids and basically the same life. He thought the change from 0-1 was way bigger than 1-2 while I was unphased by 0-1 but took 1-2 very hard. My husband is an introvert and cared a lot about peace, quiet, and downtime at home. I am an extrovert and don't care at all about those things, I cared about my friends, hobbies, and social life.
We drew polar opposite conclusions from the same lived experience because we valued different things from our childless lives.
Thank you for saying this, as a parent of 1 with a very active partner and yet we are both slammed still 😂. Planning to get pregnant again next year too.
What changed for you logistically between one and two? Like, if you just brought kiddo 1 out with you why not with kiddo 2? Also, were these outings with friends during the day or the evenings? Do you work outside of the home?
Some of the big changes we found are—2 kids in 2 different schools. With different sets of friends. Different interests. Different activities. So both parents are often engaged, each with one kid, in some form of separate logistics. Neither of you is having downtime or able to work during these things.
Second kid for us also meant more illnesses from all these different sources. More missed days of work and so on.
That said I think basically—every family is different and it’s a bit silly to generalize about what happens with each kid.
Among what others have said, when there’s one baby/young child it’s a lot easier to haul them around and spend time pacifying them and still be able to engage with whatever activity. But even just wrangling and pacifying two (especially when they can set each other off, like one starts crying and now the other is overwhelmed, etc.), is so so much harder. And yeah you have two parents so you could split them up, but now you have to have two parents doing the same activity or both having separate activities that are baby/child-friendly that day, or one of you has to stay home (in which case, might as well leave them with both kids, so now instead of both parents going out only one is).
I’m not even a parent, just an auntie, and the difference between watching 1 kid under age 8 and multiple kids under that age is wild. You can reason with one kid, you can control their environment how they like, etc. Then throw in another kid, well now one will eventually get upset or start feeling “off” and it’s like their crankiness is a virus that infects all nearby kids! Somehow the 4 year old needing a nap will mean the 8 year old who’s not been napping for a year now also needs a nap and they’re both crying and acting like cranky 4 year olds, the 2 year old not liking their food will make everyone hate their food (that they normally like), every kid wants to do something different and is upset if they don’t get their way and anyone else does (even if it’s the 2 year old and they know damn well she’s gunna cry and ruin everyone’s time if we don’t pacify her first), etc., etc. And even when there’s another adult there, there’s still just only so much anybody can do once every kid is cranky, even if you get one to calm down the other still being cranky will have them cranky again in 2 minutes, so now somebody has to leave the activity with at least one kid (might as well go home and bring all kids).
I WFH due to a medical accomodation and my kids go to daycare while I work. Outings were always after work during the week or on weekends. The only people I know off during the daytime are teachers and thats only in the summer.
I can and do still take my kids to what I can. Its hard to describe the challenge because very situation is different. Any given event may be appropriate for my son and/or daughter. On any given day my son and/or daughter could be having a bad day (developmental leaps, teething, sickness, etc). Any given event has a set amount of space my family can occupy and a certain level of engagement required from me.
In order to take a child to a given event, the event must be appropriate for that particular child, the child must be in an amenable mood, physical space has to be allotted for their presence, and the amount of engagement I have to put into parenting cannot put me below the minimum threshold of engagement required for the activity. With 2 kids it is far more likely a given event won't be appropriate for one of them or that one of them will be in a bad mood that day. I can't seat 2 kids on my lap, so physical space is more likely to be an issue. Two kids require much more focus than one, so I may not be able to participate adequately while I was with one.
In my 10 years experience as a mom I have come across two types of parents:
(A) the parents who really struggled after their first, world turned upside down, but suddenly with two somehow everything felt more manageable and easier.
(B) the parents who really seamlessly transitioned with their first - what looked to be so effortless - but the second flipped their lives upside down.
He’s the second. I’ve met a lot of people who became first time parents and were like “it’s so easy!” Meanwhile, I was stressed to the gills without sleep and PPD. But when you watch the same people become parents a second time it’s a totally different experience.
What about (C) each child totally turned our lives upside down 😂
That’s my family lol. Love it. But each has their challenges. My first was hard because my wife and I had to sacrifice a lot of things we couldn’t do as much with young kids and it felt like the death of our pre child life.
Now we LOVE being parents but my oldest is having an insanely hard time adjusting to having a sibling and not having 100% attention from his mom all the time.
This came up in another article posted here about "how make families appealing again" where they didn't count people with one child as a proof that people still wanted to have children because appparently only 3+ kids proves that you are really a parent.
I shared my experience when my one-and-done cousin hears basically the same comments as me, someone who doesn't want to have children at all. Except it's a wide range of people—like her kid's teachers, doctors, other parents. So her life has changed immensely from when she was childfree, but she's left with that change alone.
In my family there's a habit to have bigger gaps between children and both my grandma and mum were told they weren't really mothers until they had more kids. But then when they had another child, they weren't really mothers either because they got too much help... Meanwhile they both had postpartum depression that could swing into psychosis based on their family history, my grandma's pelvic floor collapsed and caused her a hernia and my mum almost died.
So many people associate the correct motherhood with suffering and pain. (Especially if it's the mother suffering. 🫠)
As a mother of 3 kids, this is so objective false. You are worlds away from your childless friends, even with 1. Perhaps as they get older you’ll regain more freedom that resembles your previous life, but everything in your life, including your freedom and especially your perspective on things, fundamental changes when you have someone who depends on you.
I guess if you have one kid, it doesn't count! I have a 4-month old who's been feeding on and off since 3:30 AM. I never had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed anyone when I was childless but hey, what do I know
You would be surprised at the amount of dads who don't do shit until it's time to play with the kids. Mum has to be the one to dress them, clean them, get them up, keep them on task...
I have a boss at work who said something very similar when I asked how paternity leave went. He said "I had to do mom duties because she's taking care of the newborn" in reference for having to care for his first born 😐 I didn't even know what to say. Also, he took no paternity leave for his first kid and only took 3 weeks for this second kid because his wife needed a C+section. It's like damn, you really did very little work for the first.
It's wild. Like, do you not care about your wife and child at all?* My mom fondly reminisces about what an easy baby I was, how she was never even sleep deprived. She has forgotten my dad did all the night feedings... and all these decades later, is too much of a gentleman to remind her, though of course he told me his version of the life-with-the-newborn story where she couldn't overhear.
* Answer may very well be 'nope' which is very depressing.
I enjoyed the article but I have no idea what he was thinking with this line. I don't think any of my friends, child or childless, would agree with this.
Edit - I read it again. the line in question was very clumsy and no idea why a good writer would include it (because most people will agree it is not true and it takes away from the point here is making) - but in the context of what he was talking about - I understood that contex. Two toddlers close in age - that's setting up for a few years of VERY hard work for the parents.
I once saw someone say that everyone is an expert at managing one fewer children than they have. That feels true to me. We have twin toddlers, and any time we're split 1 parent to 1 child, the difficulty level ramps way down, and I can feel my nervous system relax. Even when we're 2 to 2 but in the same room, it can be very rough.
If that's what he's trying to say, I agree with you that it's a terrible way of communicating it. Any number of children is hard, and I would never say people with 1 kid are having the same experience as people with 0.
I've got two kids but have plenty of friends with one and I've never thought they had it "easy" at all!!! and never would they or I think 1 is closer to 0 than 2, lol.
And fuck the title. It's not what he goes on to say, so basically it's click-baiting readers, but also how does he think his second child will feel about that someday? Also I think it was quite telling that he acknowledged his wife didn't like when he'd mention her in his writing, yet was going to be doing so anyway.
If they are married and in an equal partnership, he's right. With one you can still do pretty much whatever you want because you never need more than 1 parent home at a time. You need to schedule more than childless people, but as long as you have a plan you can do whatever you want. That's no longer the case with 2.
I guess I'll be the lone defender of the author in that I understood what he meant by this. I'm in my 40s with no kids by choice, and saw my friends change a lot more when they had their second kids than after the first. This part of his article feels accurate to me from an outside perspective of the people I know: "With one, you even get to visit this old life from time to time.... With two, that old life is so completely gone it’s like it never even happened. It is a planet you cannot return to."
I think that line might be true of the baby/toddler years with two, but it’s not universal. I have only one kid but very little family/childcare help. I have friends with 2+ kids who are able to have a lot more kid-free time because they can drop the kids off at grandma’s for the weekend. I hate the idea of pitting parents against each other, because it’s all hard.
Your point about grandma's underlines for me that a lot of these issues also come down to 'what external support network do you have?' A couple with 3 kids who has 2 sets of hands-on grandparents will be in better shape than a couple wth 1 kid and no regular help from family.
Agreed. Also, this was a long tabling read that really felt like the author was steeped in self-importance and a complete lack of self-awareness.
As someone without kids the amount of “childless” in the article really started to feel offensive to me. I’m not less a child. I’m still a complete human without one. Honestly I feel more child free than anything. Free of the work, attention, time, and emotional connection that a child does contribute.
Yeah this is so offensive lol. It implies people with one kid are less of a parent. I'm OAD with a 6 year old and my life is so different from my few remaining friends without children.. most of those relationships fizzled out a bit and I've made few new friends who don't have kids because it's so much harder to hang out and it's harder to find common ground and find things to talk about. However I've made a ton of mom friends (most with 2 kids) because that's where our lives are.
Also OAD with a 6-year-old and totally agree! I feel like I live in a different universe than my childless friends. I feel like the people that make the most noise about how having only one isn’t “really” parenting, are the people who secretly regret having more than one.
hah I’m a mother of one kid and I always say this. Once our kid hit 5 it was MUCH closer to having zero kids than it was having two kids. I think the author is speaking to the surrender to family life most people with more than one kid have to do. My life is completely different than people I know with multiple children. I am able to be much more selfish with my time, money, and space than I would be otherwise.
This guy keeps going on and on about how hard it is to be a parent of two, but it also sounds like he hated being a parent of one, does this guy even like his sons at all? The constant references to like "Oh I haven't had a thought to myself" "Oh with two kids now we can't walk away" "There was so much tantalizing things from the old life"
Girl sounds like he wants to literally up and walk out of his kids lives lol
Ngl it's really strange to read this article for me as a woman when there's a lot of pressure to have kids and then never complain about anything, including medical trauma and the physical aftermath. People will downplay the toll pregnancy takes on you body and life as something you are built for and women have always done it while postpartum psychosis and depression get demonised. Even if you are sure that you don't want to have children at all, that decision will get invalidated, so you can't win.
And men just get to write articles like this???? Istg when we played a pretend-family in kindergarten with girls, we had a better understanding what motherhood entails. 😭
Edit: And poor children. Imagine you find you dad's article when you are older.
I’m a woman past the age of being pressured to have kids.
My male friends are more open about the experience of having kids than my female friends. The other day me (childless woman) and a work friend (dude with 2 kids) were trying to troubleshoot how he could make his one kid stay in bed. I don’t know shit about this, but really neither does he, so I guess I was just helping him brainstorm.
I think women are expected to know how to do it all, how to do it perfectly, and to do it without complaining or finding themselves at a loss. Men don’t have that same expectation, so you end up with this weird situation where men get to be regular imperfect humans and women are expected to be perfect moms first and humans second.
The female friends I have with kids don’t share their struggles. With me, they often don’t talk about their kids unless it’s sort of incidental. I think it’s probably two-fold. They’re probably surrounded by moms and appreciate the opportunity to be with someone who isn’t so they can talk about adult things, and also that they expect to be judged if they complain or indicate that they have a problem.
The only conclusion I can reach is that we made a mistake by dehumanizing parents, and especially mothers, by expecting them to be someone else when they become a parent.
It’s a lot of fucking pressure to be expected to be perfect at something and to do it without complaining or ever being at a loss.
This is exactly the stuff I talk about when I say there should be more resources telling people it's okay to not have kids. And no, a few resources compared to the millions that say to have kids aren't going to somehow make humanity die out.
There are so many people who only think about the cutesy hallmark moments of raising a child. The teaching them to ride a bike, the first day of school, fun family outings. They tend to forget kids are annoying, gross, messy, and don't know how to do literally anything they aren't taught. And there will be 10-20 gross annoying and exhausting moments to every 1 cutesy movie moment. And not every human is going to consider that ratio worth it. A lot of people get blindsided by the reality and let it turn them resentful of the children they chose to create.
I agree. I feel bad for people who are on the fence. It’s truly a gamble to have children when you aren’t sure. And for some, no amount of reassurance may provide a concrete answer.
Babysitting nieces and nephews as practice isn’t the same. Reading another person’s experience may not be it because some people make unfortunate parenting choices. A spouse can be the one proving the pressure, then when the child is born their expectations shift and the other parent carries the burden.
Society is only verrrry slowly allowing open discussion about parenthood. People are going to have to get better at making their own decisions because I doubt choosing to remain childfree will ever be as embraced as becoming a parent, even though it should be.
I think people having to have roommates for longer and longer does help people realize the downsides. And help with how society has kind of killed social support networks for parents in turn. I live in a split level with friends who have kids and we get to hear the worst of it. Kids just love to screech for literally no reason, for example. Just like, randomly. They're great in small doses though.
> Girl sounds like he wants to literally up and walk out of his kids lives lol
I'm reminded of a quote from a survivor that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Something along the lines of, "About halfway down, you realize that all of your problems -- except the current one of hurtling toward the water -- are solvable."
Dude already jumped and is he realizing, only two years in, that he never really wanted to have kids and that yes, it's actually an option you don't have to take. But just like the jumper, you gotta finish out this ride with the choices you've made. Some might only have a few seconds and a couple hundred feet while others have 16 years.
I feel like because he and his wife did IVF (I read his take on that too, and it is equally vague/vapid as this one), it’s sunk cost fallacy. Only like you said, and unlike a business endeavor that’s failing, there’s no way of deciding to no longer be a parent that doesn’t make him (look like) the worst person in the world.
I've got a 3 & 5 year old & yes it is HARD but the older they get the more I've felt I can connect with my "old life" - I go out with friends more now, we go to more concerts, we go back to our old favorite bars, etc. this guy isn't trying very hard if he feels that much longing for his ~old life~.
> I've got a 3 & 5 year old & yes it is HARD but the older they get the more I've felt I can connect with my "old life"
Uh, what? I would expect that for tweens (ie, leave them alone at the house or even invite them out to all-ages shows, etc.) but 3 and 5 is still hella young. Might be different if you have two sets of grandparents that live close by and are willing and able to watch them all the time, I suppose. But none of the parents I knew were going back out to concerts and bars when they had multiple toddlers running around the house.
I'm the parent of a 2-year-old. I know plenty of parents of 3- and 5-year-olds who have go to a concert or bar once or twice a month while a babysitter watches the kids for the evening.
I don't do it because I crave alone time at home rather than social time out of the house--super introvert here--but there's zero reason to be judgmental about it. The person you're replying to didn't say she's out every night or something.
lol no we don't have any grandparents near by. if they are in town visiting, they'll watch the kids while we go out once or twice. I'm talking about getting babysitters and not feeling overly anxious/guilty/etc about leaving them for a few hours. I'm talking like once a month. and I've got friends with multiple small children who are able to do it much more frequently than us.
sorry you don't have that experience! it's nice!
Whether or not the writer had a say in the headline (which may have been chosen without his approval by an editor or sub-editor) it is a fucking terrible sentence for his younger child to be able to find later in life. And printed above a photo of himself as a supposed life-ruiner.
I'll be generous as a parent of 1, the kind of parent that the author thinks has a super-easy life. Sometimes parents will have relatively smooth sailing with their first child only to be hit with postpartum depression after their second child or later. I have no doubt that 2 children are more work and add even more complexity, but the way he talks about the early days with his second makes me think there's something more going on.
As a young child I saw my aunts go from one child to two. The difference was obvious. And the fact that they were family meant the polite, public face didn’t exist- they were vocal about how much harder it was. Both aunts gave birth to their own versions of Dennis the Menace.
It was significant enough that I knew I would only have one child. And that’s exactly what I did.
I started off with twins so I don’t have a singleton experience to compare to. However I would say the biggest problems when going up to two kids is sensory overload, logistics (like with travel), and in-fighting. Those aren’t life-ruining changes of course.
I think your explanation really hits the nail on the head. Something else had to have changed for him to feel this way.
I have a friend who decided to have kids later in life. A few years after she had her second kid, she told me one night "I had no idea being a parent was so hard! Nobody tells you that!" and I said, nicely as I could, "What do you mean? Every parent I talk to only tells me how hard it is."
As someone without kids, it looks to me like it takes a certain delusional bravery to decide to have them. And yet, it is really hard. So at some point every parent has to hit that moment of "WOW, this is still so much harder than I imagined."
I try to be kind, I try to commiserate some. And yet, I'm always thinking in the back of my mind "Have you been listening to what everyone has been telling you forever about having kids?"
Cie la vie. Kudos to all the people who do bravely decide to do it. It looks hard as heck from the outside, but I am glad there are little kids running around who I can dote on and play with and encourage and then go home with my partner and we sleep the deep sleep of the childless.
I think the parts that are hard are different for each parent. So when you hear a parent talk about how hard it is, you’ll hear an example or two maybe but you don’t get the full picture until you really experience it. Also, every kid is so different.
Many people talk about the exhaustion and lack of sleep. As a parent of an almost 2 year old, that was nowhere near the hardest part, and it was a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. Our kid is the best sleeper ever and now sleeps 12 hours straight from 7-7 each night.
But I was not at all prepared for how I had to constantly be on when he was awake. And I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of screaming and crying. I felt like I was being tortured on days he screamed a bunch, even happy screams. I have two siblings who are a lot younger than me, so I cared for them a bunch and do not remember them crying and screaming this much.
yea I always say the 2 things people never talk about are:
The sheer relentlessness of parenting. There are no days off. It's hard to digest what parenting 24/7/365 feels like at year 8 or 9 or 10 and so on. Like you said, how "on" you have to be for years. And they change constantly so you can't just learn how to do it and chug along.
And also that you have to basically experience a full childhood, again, as an adult. I personally love this part, because my first go at childhood was terrible. But no one thinks about how you have to do the entire childhood with them - every children's museum and playdate and sports game and library reading time and attending the school events etc. I imagine a lot of parents don't like this part. It's where I see a lot of my friends bailing, like hiring sitters on weekends to avoid these types of events. Which personally isn't ok to me as a regular thing, you chose to have the kid, you gotta commit.
I love my kids and personally I am built for it, personality wise, financially etc. Even so, no one ever really talked about what parenting was like beyond having a baby to me, kinda crazy
I saw a Reddit post once where someone asked how much less free time they’d have when they became a parent. Like, if they have four hours per day now, would they have half as much once their kid was born? lol.
The relentlessness of parenting was what gets me. Each phase--and they're all just little eras--was easy on its own, but the fact that once one little era is over another one starts.
Yes, and you touch on another thing, that each parent is also so different. Some love the newborn phase, others don’t. Some love the kids activities, others don’t. Some hate it all. Some love it all and have multiple kids.
I see so many parents complaining about the park and how boring it is. When people asked me what I was excited about when having my first one of my top answers was playgrounds. We have a book where we mark off the ones we have been to, we travel for them, I am in playground review groups. I love playgrounds. I have as much fun at 35 as I did at 5 and I am going to be so sad when my kids outgrow them. I cannot relate at all to the bored playground parents.
I know. Of course there are days where I wish I could watch shows on the couch unencumbered, but then I choose to be grateful that I'm forced to be outside in fresh air, socializing
The relentlessness is one of those things I thought I was prepared to handle, but it is so different to know it logically vs actually live it. Like no amount of knowing to expect it could really prepare me for how it feels to be so tired and know there's no reprieve coming.
Exactly. It would be impossible to tell potential parents what it’s like. I wish there was some sort of course or something parents could take before getting pregnant to be like here is what to expect lol.
That said, idk how old your kids are, but there is a tipping point where it goes to more fun and joy vs. “work.” When your youngest is more kindergarten age, it’s less taxing. They eat more, wipe their own butts, etc. and they are talking so you can actually have conversations and play card games with them. And you don’t have to climb up the slide with them and so on. I could the big kid ages forever, seriously.
Bless you for saying this! He's 3.5 so I already see some things getting easier. There are so many fun parts about this age but I'm looking forward to more independence and skills.
That could be partially people's lack of truly thinking about it though. Because to me when I was with kids, even nephew for 3 hours, it drained me so much that it absolutely crossed my mind that you need to be on for a whole lot more and that idea seemed dreadful.
And seeing parents take kids to kid museums and parks, I thought that this is not what I want to be doing as an adult. I find it boring. I already did that, while at the same time knowing that it would be the right thing for the kid's growth.
Or dealing with schools, making sure they get a good education.... Dealing with potential dangerous influences. Teens and drinking, how things can go wrong etc etc etc...
I had the bad sleeper, so that was pure torture that lasted two years and my brain still doesn’t remember how to sleep properly. So now every time I feel exhausted and think about how hard motherhood is, I shift my perspective by thinking that at least no one is waking me up every 30 minutes all night long.
So I definitely agree that the hardship varies a lot depending on the child, and the parent. We all have our weaknesses as well.
Word. The sleep deprivation stuff honestly isn’t that horrible for us. It just is what it is. But some people have a really hard time with it.
My son is 3 and is having a hard time adjusting to us having a newborn and not having all the attention anymore, and he just screams and melts down all the time now. It’s really hard and my friends don’t seem to have had quite a hard time with this aspect of parenting as us. But they’ve had their own struggles. But this is, so far, the hardest time of parenting
I think a big issue, for Americans at least, is so many adults having basically no familiarity with children before diving into becoming parents. There's a reason plenty of teachers never wanted or had any kids of their own.
Personally, I adore kids. And I do not want any. So it's beyond weird to me how many people don't seem to particularly like kids, yet become parents.
It’s true! I think it’s partly because huge families are gone (not as many younger siblings or cousins to care for), and partly because we don’t give older kids those responsibilities anymore anyway.
Anecdotally, I had to watch my two youngest siblings when I was 12. My husband was never around kids until we had ours. I came in with a way more realistic view of parenthood than he did.
Exactly! I was a live in nanny for a single dad with three boys that were each a year apart. I started when they were 4 months, 1, and 2, and left when they were all in preschool/kindergarten. So I feel prepared for most aspects of parenting: 24 hour a day of being "on", illness, being outnumbered, discipline, awkward questions, the way cries hit you at 3 am when you passed your limit hours ago etc. I am way more prepared for kids than the average person. But I also know for a fact that when I have my own children, I will discover new, novel ways of being overwhelmed!
It’s more like people don’t explain the type of hard. I haven’t read the article yet, but the hardest parts of parenting aren’t the most commonly griped about. It isn’t the sleepless nights. It’s the overwhelming exhaustion and anxiety that come from loving someone so much you want every area of their lives to run smoothly and without pain.
I just read it. I’m two weeks postpartum with babies #4 and #5… this guy is a clown and cannot multitask to save his life.
If you spend any time in the pregnancy subs you will see at least one post a week bemoaning that people are warning about how hard it is. Some people genuinely do not want to know.
Obviously knowing about it and experiencing it are completely different. I've definitely thought "I had no idea how hard this is" but not that no one TOLD me. It's just that telling is not sufficient. Also not every parent has the same resources. I know some parents who also don't know how hard it is lol.
I grew up with a much younger sister so I spent a lot time on childcare (albeit just assisting my parents) and have had people get really genuinely angry with me when I say I don’t think I’m responsible enough to have kids and that it’s very hard work that takes over your life a little. I think for a lot of people, they just think internally “skill issue” when parents talk about how it’s hard, and they reflect very little on how much effort their own parents spent on them.
If it's a skill issue there's still the problem that it's not one singular skill, it's like 20. Like I can handle the overstimulation like a champ, I have Zen levels of patience. The monotony of the newborn phase killed me though. Being able to keep my house clean and errands done is really challenging for me. I'm not good at all of it and I don't think most people are.
Like for me I fully admit that it is a skill issue to a large degree. I know I’m not equipped for it.
If there was some freak accident of fate (my brother has kids, both he and the mother died, and our parents are unable to take custody for health reasons), I’d step up instead of having them go into the foster care system. But it would be a major sacrifice I would prefer to avoid under ideal circumstances.
I’m tempted to roll my eyes (inwardly) when they say that. Perhaps they think everyone else is exaggerating? That they’ll do a better job? That might be the accurate response but they don’t want to say it out loud.
People can tell you all day that it is "hard". That you won't sleep again. That you'll have anxiety about their wellbeing for the rest of your life. That you won't have time for yourself. You can hear it and try to imagine it as much as you can but you won't know the true meaning and feel of it until you are in it. There is nothing anyone can say to you that can adequately prepare you.
The same is true about all the positives. They are so much better than you are able to know before you have them.
It's an experience that can't be likened to anything else.
This is it. No one, truly no one, can make you understand the mental and physical drain that lack of sleep takes on you. And you can never catch up.
And, if you're the birthing parent, no one can explain to you the way you'll feel when your hormones have gone haywire postpartum. Nevermind if you have PPD or PPA.
I also don’t have kids. But there is a missing piece to your comment… while, yes, parents tell you it’s hard, they 100% of the time tell you how worth it it is. childless people get the message that if you don’t have kids, which is the most wonderful thing to ever happen to you, you’re missing out. I’m glad I ignored that message as I’m very happy with my life.
The only place people are honest about regretting having kids is r/regretfulparents because parents would be absolutely villified if they stated this out loud to another person.
I'm not bitter about having kids, I'm annoyed that nobody told me how much executive function it would take and I had them late and was diagnosed with ADHD late. My mum said " we didn't know we only knew autism was like Rain Man. I thought you'd grow out of it".
Even if I knew and I knew that son 1 would have AuDHD I still would have had them.
As a parent, I can explain their reasoning. Before I became a parent, I both saw with my own eyes and heard other parents say how hard it was to be a parent. However, I had also done a lot of hard things in my childfree adult life. So I compared their hard to my hard. I figured how different cold one hard thing be from another hard thing? Turns out, very different. It sounds kind of silly to write out, but you simply can't conceptualize what you don't know. It's just one of those cognitive distortions, one that probably exists bec it helps continue life on earth. I also think this gap in knowledge/understanding is the reason there's such a rift between parents and the child free.
You are levelling an awful lot of criticism about something you haven’t experienced; you really can’t fathom how radically kids change your life until you have them. Your friend isn’t stupid, she just didn’t know because she’d never done it, and then she had kids, and learned. What you focus on is how hard you’ve heard it is, and you’ll never experience the joys. It’s not that one choice is morally superior to the other, it’s just not a choice you made, and that’s fine.
My point is that I did try to fathom just how phenomenally hard it is. And I chose to not have kids because of it. I took what parents said seriously.
I think more people should consider that it's far, far, far harder than they can imagine.
My friend isn't stupid, not at all. But she did mostly focus on the positive parts before having kids. I still feel for compassion for her. I still try to help out as a friend.
"And when that door closes, and you are on the other side of it from your children? I want all of you to have two kids, just to have this feeling. Walking out into the night with a song in your heart loud enough to drown out whatever is happening behind that door you just closed."
yeah yikes indeed!! I also have two little kids close in age & I enjoy nights out without them too, but there is no "drowning out" what I leave behind, lol. I'm usually irrationally anxious & hoping everything will go smoothly without me & am happy to get home to them at the end of the night!!
I actually enjoyed this article even while not agreeing with its premise. Two does change the dynamic however I’ll say now when my kids are seven and four things are SOOOOO much easier. I have hobbies again. I sleep through the night again. No more diapers. Also one kid was actually worse than two for me because a) he was six months old during Covid and b) he was a more challenging toddler and baby than his sister.
The reason why parents keep writing about how hard it is to be a parent is the same reason people keep writing about falling in love and grieving; it’s a profound experience. It reshapes your life but also has so much joy in it and it’s hard to wrap your brain around how something that is so challenging can also be so fulfilling.
Yes and I think he did a great job describing that. The way he talked about the joy of just observing one child learn and grow and be human rings very true to me.
Btw, I have two kids but they're 15 years apart so were never kids at the same time. I had it very easy in that regard, I know!
I kinda understand what he meant by the childless adult and the one child parent having more in common vs two parent.
Out of sheer luck I wasn’t the frazzled parent running on little sleep and looking rough. Let me be clear- this is the running joke parents tell about themselves, this isn’t me being snarky.
With one, you can still easily do brunch and lunch with friends. Childcare is significantly easier to negotiate. You’re less likely to feel like you’re missing out on what your friends are doing. You may not need a new bigger car after one child. I suppose it comes down to flexibility and mobility.
Yes agree with this - the line in question was very clumsy and no idea why a good writer would include it, but in the context of what he was talking about - I understood that context for sure. Two toddlers close in age - that's setting up for a few years of VERY hard work for the parents.
wow, what a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a person i do not want to be friends with! I just hate the way he talks about his wife and children. its hard to describe, but it feels disdainful, especially toward his younger child for not "turning out the way they expected" or whatever. I bet this will be an awkward piece to talk about with said children in a couple decades 😶
that was SUCH a red flag to me. she doesnt like when you write about her? the hell did you say about your wife and the mother of your children to make her feel that way?! and why won't you CAN IT!!
i don't know why parents think that the perspective they have on how you actually have to focus on raising two small children and can't continue your childless life with them as props is such a unique and unheard of concept. i mean, this guy even admitted he came to his editor without an actual idea.
i already knew what people like him thought of us childless abominations, how we cannot even fathom how they suffer, but it's interesting that sentiment scales to "people with one child don't get it either!" the second those people have a second
i hope for his children's sake they never read this
there is the old refrain that if you think you want a child, you should get a dog, if you think you want a dog you should get a cat, and if you think you want a cat you're best off with a fish.
I said in another comment that I remain deeply annoyed about how it seems no one bothers to lend a hand to other human beings with kids to A) show you give a damn about your community, and B) see if you actually like and manage children well enough to have your own.
Like it's insane to me that for so many adults, the first diaper they've ever changed was that of their own child.
Well, in this day and age, when having children is a legitimate choice people can make, sometimes you're the first person in all your friends and family to have a child.
We have one kid and will v likely remain at one kid. I see him with his cousins and sometimes think we have done him an injustice not trying to have a sibling. Parts of this article defn hit me in the feels.
What hit me even more in the feels is his other article about IVF for his first son - https://www.gq.com/story/my-ivf-years
Parts of this article hit me hard but for a different reason. I had an older sister but she passed away a few years ago. The section discussing how only his joys will remember the floors or their mother in the morning made me quite sad as I feel that with loss of my sibling, I lost shared memories.
I’m currently debating if I want a second child. I’m not worried about the extra work or a lot of items mentioned in the article. I do think about if my personal grief holds me back. Just because I lost my sister doesn’t mean I don’t wish she never existed.
I’m so sorry for your loss. My mom died this year and one of the ways it broke my heart a bit was seeing her siblings grieve her. She had brain cancer and it was a hard death and her older brother called her everyday. Before she got ill, her older sister and her would talk most days and thinking about how my aunt no longer has that makes me cry.
It’s a real loss and grieving is so hard. I have never been more grateful for my brother this last year as our family went through this.
I realize the title is clickbaity nonsense, but I hope whoever chose it has a therapy fund going for Cy, because even facetious/trying to be ironic, that’ll be a nasty thing to read.
Yeah I'm the youngest child and I can say it was awful the things that were said about me by my family. I was doing entirely developmentally appropriate and expected stuff, but they had already experienced it all before I was even alive so were burned out on this normal process by the time I was here.
I realized a while ago that I never found folks who write this style of personal post online to very relatable. I think it is because most of them just have to be self-centered and egotistical. I have very rarely thought that my life and my thoughts are interesting enough to be worth consuming en masse. And to be clear-- I think I am plenty interesting to my actual friends and really enjoy my life, so I guess it is more that I don't think I'm particularly special.
All of this to say, you can see the self-centered and egotistical tendencies when online memoirists write about their marriages or their kids or their relationships in general. When you are pretty sure that you are cooler and better than most people, it is going to be hard to be in relationships that require you to compromise.
Completely agree. I found it extremely boring. He literally repeated multiple clichés and didn't add any original thoughts. I didn't even agree with his take; i have 2 kids and have most certainly retained my sense of self and connection with my old life- he's writing from the perspective of someone with a one year old trying to generalise that to having a second child. Terrible take!
I think people are taking this too seriously. People perceive aspects of parenting differently. I’ve heard some people say babies are easier than toddlers. I completely disagree. I prefer toddler stage to baby stage. And some people probably find one child vastly easier than two.
I thought the article was great and I’m surprised that the comments are so strongly negative- I have 1 child, a 3 year old girl, and feel I can relate to so much of what he said and felt he encapsulates both my trepidation at the idea of having a second, as well as capturing the reasons why someone would have a second despite how hard it is. Many people have told me that having a second is exponentially harder than having the first, and I believe them!
I liked it too. There are so many factors that make parenting different for everybody. I have two kids 5 years apart. I don’t think adding my son was as difficult as his experience because my daughter was already much more independent.
Why all the rage? The answer is simple: parents are cranky because parenting sucks. Add to that the general state of online criticism. Any view you disagree with in a movie/article/standup set must be met with bottomless indignation.
I agree, I thought it was hilarious and very true. I have one and am happy to be in the mid-way between old life and totally consumed; I see how it works with 2+ kids and it really is more than double the work. Let’s move to Paris!
I’m a mom of one and it doesn’t bother me. It only emphasizes that standing on my decision to only have one child was the best choice for me. And I had lots of pushback from in-laws about my decision.
I know plenty moms of one and the way this guy generalizes it based on his experience with his first child it’s not the same. No one denied having two kids is a challenge but I don’t like the tone of this article and can only hope his second son doesn’t find it.
Mother of two young kids with equally supportive partner. I really enjoyed this and related to it. Seems like I may be in the minority. Thanks for sharing!
The amount of backlash in these comments is honestly surprising! I don’t think this is meant to completely summarize his experience of being a parent, more just an exploration of his feelings of how having two kids changes the dynamics. Seems like he actually loves being a parent.
I feel like I can see this dynamic play out a lot. It’s the classic only child vs. siblings dynamic.
The second adds an entirely different dimension to the family even though it’s only one more child.
I’m also one of two children and I see nothing wrong with how he describes his youngest….
indigosweater | 14 hours ago
I appreciate the open conversation and honesty but this author seems like he realizes things way after other people do
certifiedlurker458 | 14 hours ago
It reminds me of the joke/meme that says (paraphrasing here) grown men have grand epiphanies that are things women discussed with their friends at a sleepover at age 10
SquidTheRidiculous | 9 hours ago
They're too busy calling each other gay for inconsequential things to discuss actual philosophical concepts.
Or their talk about philosophy starts and stops with "Boobs or ass?" In the Aristotelian tradition.
ThreePartSilence | 5 hours ago
I completely agree, but there is something about the way he writes that made me feel sad for him. Not in a complete on-his-side way, but just in that he is clearly unhappy and knows it, and I can appreciate how much that sucks. Maybe it’s his lack of rage? Sometimes in these type of stories, the author writes with this constant undertone of “fuck the world for doing this to me!” And here instead it sounds like grief for the life he used to have. And I have empathy for that, especially because the desire to avoid that exact feeling is what drove me to make the decision to not have kids. So I feel sad for him, even if he did it to himself.
LouCat10 | 4 hours ago
That’s an interesting perspective because I feel like this is the thing you absolutely can’t say as a mother: that you have grief for the life you left behind. Women get crucified for voicing this opinion (even though it has no bearing on your love for your children) and a man gets an article in GQ.
Blue_Oyster_Cat | 14 hours ago
Man discovers that parenting is hard work. Stop the presses.
sorrysofatagain | 15 hours ago
“ A parent with one child has more in common with a childless person than they have with a parent of two. “ ugh fuck this guy
PunctualDromedary | 12 hours ago
It’s true if you let the other parent do all the work with your first baby.
cagedwisdom8 | 11 hours ago
Bingo. My friend always says the second child is hardest on the father. He has more responsibility taking care of the first at that point.
fairlyobservant | 10 hours ago
Ahh, you are so right! That statement made me so mad, and I say that as a parent of one who recognizes how much harder it must be to have two. But he was probably happily enjoying his craved-for independence when he only had his first and his wife did everything.
Kikikididi | 10 hours ago
LOL you nailed it
DogOrDonut | 9 hours ago
I think it's true if both parents contribute equally. If I described my pre-kids and post-one child life, they would be extremely similar if I specifically excluded talking about anything related to my child. What I mean by that is one child added a lot to my plate, but nothing that important had to come off of it. I spent less time watching Netflix but I kept all my hobbies and was going out with my friends all the time (both with and without my baby). Once I had two I had to actually give up things from my pre-baby life, not just add parenting to my existing life.
I think the people bothered by this line are largely people who hit that point with their first and don't realize that's not typical. Most of those parents don't have an equal partner, have an abnormally difficult baby, or have self imposed roadblocks (exclusive breastfeeding, refusing babysitters, generally anxious parenting, etc).
fairlyobservant | 9 hours ago
Maybe you’re right that it’s more of a willed choice with one kid but we definitely experienced a big transformation in our lives with one. We loved the transformation so maybe it was partially self imposed but I still think he’s fundamentally wrong in this basic idea. There’s two other things worth noting — families with active involved grandparents living close by and families without. That makes a huge difference in preserving all those hobbies and couple activities whether you have one or two kids. Also, people describe how having two makes things easier when they get a little bit older as they have an always present playmate. I think those elements are under appreciated here.
DogOrDonut | 8 hours ago
I think it is also what you care about from your pre-kid life. My husband and I have the same kids and basically the same life. He thought the change from 0-1 was way bigger than 1-2 while I was unphased by 0-1 but took 1-2 very hard. My husband is an introvert and cared a lot about peace, quiet, and downtime at home. I am an extrovert and don't care at all about those things, I cared about my friends, hobbies, and social life.
We drew polar opposite conclusions from the same lived experience because we valued different things from our childless lives.
Chaotic_MintJulep | 6 hours ago
Thank you for saying this, as a parent of 1 with a very active partner and yet we are both slammed still 😂. Planning to get pregnant again next year too.
PsychosisSundays | 9 hours ago
What changed for you logistically between one and two? Like, if you just brought kiddo 1 out with you why not with kiddo 2? Also, were these outings with friends during the day or the evenings? Do you work outside of the home?
hayguccifrawg | 8 hours ago
Some of the big changes we found are—2 kids in 2 different schools. With different sets of friends. Different interests. Different activities. So both parents are often engaged, each with one kid, in some form of separate logistics. Neither of you is having downtime or able to work during these things.
Second kid for us also meant more illnesses from all these different sources. More missed days of work and so on.
That said I think basically—every family is different and it’s a bit silly to generalize about what happens with each kid.
GiantLesbian | 7 hours ago
Among what others have said, when there’s one baby/young child it’s a lot easier to haul them around and spend time pacifying them and still be able to engage with whatever activity. But even just wrangling and pacifying two (especially when they can set each other off, like one starts crying and now the other is overwhelmed, etc.), is so so much harder. And yeah you have two parents so you could split them up, but now you have to have two parents doing the same activity or both having separate activities that are baby/child-friendly that day, or one of you has to stay home (in which case, might as well leave them with both kids, so now instead of both parents going out only one is).
I’m not even a parent, just an auntie, and the difference between watching 1 kid under age 8 and multiple kids under that age is wild. You can reason with one kid, you can control their environment how they like, etc. Then throw in another kid, well now one will eventually get upset or start feeling “off” and it’s like their crankiness is a virus that infects all nearby kids! Somehow the 4 year old needing a nap will mean the 8 year old who’s not been napping for a year now also needs a nap and they’re both crying and acting like cranky 4 year olds, the 2 year old not liking their food will make everyone hate their food (that they normally like), every kid wants to do something different and is upset if they don’t get their way and anyone else does (even if it’s the 2 year old and they know damn well she’s gunna cry and ruin everyone’s time if we don’t pacify her first), etc., etc. And even when there’s another adult there, there’s still just only so much anybody can do once every kid is cranky, even if you get one to calm down the other still being cranky will have them cranky again in 2 minutes, so now somebody has to leave the activity with at least one kid (might as well go home and bring all kids).
DogOrDonut | 8 hours ago
I WFH due to a medical accomodation and my kids go to daycare while I work. Outings were always after work during the week or on weekends. The only people I know off during the daytime are teachers and thats only in the summer.
I can and do still take my kids to what I can. Its hard to describe the challenge because very situation is different. Any given event may be appropriate for my son and/or daughter. On any given day my son and/or daughter could be having a bad day (developmental leaps, teething, sickness, etc). Any given event has a set amount of space my family can occupy and a certain level of engagement required from me.
In order to take a child to a given event, the event must be appropriate for that particular child, the child must be in an amenable mood, physical space has to be allotted for their presence, and the amount of engagement I have to put into parenting cannot put me below the minimum threshold of engagement required for the activity. With 2 kids it is far more likely a given event won't be appropriate for one of them or that one of them will be in a bad mood that day. I can't seat 2 kids on my lap, so physical space is more likely to be an issue. Two kids require much more focus than one, so I may not be able to participate adequately while I was with one.
carlydelphia | 6 hours ago
One kid is so much more portable. And affordable.
uksiddy | 10 hours ago
In my 10 years experience as a mom I have come across two types of parents:
(A) the parents who really struggled after their first, world turned upside down, but suddenly with two somehow everything felt more manageable and easier.
(B) the parents who really seamlessly transitioned with their first - what looked to be so effortless - but the second flipped their lives upside down.
He’s the second. I’ve met a lot of people who became first time parents and were like “it’s so easy!” Meanwhile, I was stressed to the gills without sleep and PPD. But when you watch the same people become parents a second time it’s a totally different experience.
pysouth | 9 hours ago
What about (C) each child totally turned our lives upside down 😂
That’s my family lol. Love it. But each has their challenges. My first was hard because my wife and I had to sacrifice a lot of things we couldn’t do as much with young kids and it felt like the death of our pre child life.
Now we LOVE being parents but my oldest is having an insanely hard time adjusting to having a sibling and not having 100% attention from his mom all the time.
cintyhinty | 15 hours ago
Didn’t you know? He’s the first person on earth to have two children???
DoubtAcademic4481 | 11 hours ago
Well he certainly seems to think so.
2ndChairKazoo | 5 hours ago
He even references this early into his essay, but good for him to dive right into it anyway!
rask0ln | 10 hours ago
This came up in another article posted here about "how make families appealing again" where they didn't count people with one child as a proof that people still wanted to have children because appparently only 3+ kids proves that you are really a parent.
I shared my experience when my one-and-done cousin hears basically the same comments as me, someone who doesn't want to have children at all. Except it's a wide range of people—like her kid's teachers, doctors, other parents. So her life has changed immensely from when she was childfree, but she's left with that change alone.
In my family there's a habit to have bigger gaps between children and both my grandma and mum were told they weren't really mothers until they had more kids. But then when they had another child, they weren't really mothers either because they got too much help... Meanwhile they both had postpartum depression that could swing into psychosis based on their family history, my grandma's pelvic floor collapsed and caused her a hernia and my mum almost died.
So many people associate the correct motherhood with suffering and pain. (Especially if it's the mother suffering. 🫠)
im_a_betch | 13 hours ago
As a mother of 3 kids, this is so objective false. You are worlds away from your childless friends, even with 1. Perhaps as they get older you’ll regain more freedom that resembles your previous life, but everything in your life, including your freedom and especially your perspective on things, fundamental changes when you have someone who depends on you.
txjennah | 13 hours ago
I guess if you have one kid, it doesn't count! I have a 4-month old who's been feeding on and off since 3:30 AM. I never had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed anyone when I was childless but hey, what do I know
running_hoagie | 9 hours ago
Right? My life is JUST LIKE how it was when I was childless! My 6-year old is just our small companion!
luckyrabbit28 | 14 hours ago
I can’t wrap my head around this statement. Is it because he’s a dad? Though I highly doubt most dads think like this
SquidTheRidiculous | 10 hours ago
You would be surprised at the amount of dads who don't do shit until it's time to play with the kids. Mum has to be the one to dress them, clean them, get them up, keep them on task...
2ndChairKazoo | 5 hours ago
Hence the trope about how some dads refer to caring for their own children as "babysitting."
snark-owl | 8 hours ago
I have a boss at work who said something very similar when I asked how paternity leave went. He said "I had to do mom duties because she's taking care of the newborn" in reference for having to care for his first born 😐 I didn't even know what to say. Also, he took no paternity leave for his first kid and only took 3 weeks for this second kid because his wife needed a C+section. It's like damn, you really did very little work for the first.
SixLegNag | 6 hours ago
It's wild. Like, do you not care about your wife and child at all?* My mom fondly reminisces about what an easy baby I was, how she was never even sleep deprived. She has forgotten my dad did all the night feedings... and all these decades later, is too much of a gentleman to remind her, though of course he told me his version of the life-with-the-newborn story where she couldn't overhear.
* Answer may very well be 'nope' which is very depressing.
Ok-Swan1152 | 14 hours ago
Seriously, where do people like this get off... They're delusional.
h-888 | 15 hours ago
I enjoyed the article but I have no idea what he was thinking with this line. I don't think any of my friends, child or childless, would agree with this.
Edit - I read it again. the line in question was very clumsy and no idea why a good writer would include it (because most people will agree it is not true and it takes away from the point here is making) - but in the context of what he was talking about - I understood that contex. Two toddlers close in age - that's setting up for a few years of VERY hard work for the parents.
cat-a-fact | 10 hours ago
I once saw someone say that everyone is an expert at managing one fewer children than they have. That feels true to me. We have twin toddlers, and any time we're split 1 parent to 1 child, the difficulty level ramps way down, and I can feel my nervous system relax. Even when we're 2 to 2 but in the same room, it can be very rough.
If that's what he's trying to say, I agree with you that it's a terrible way of communicating it. Any number of children is hard, and I would never say people with 1 kid are having the same experience as people with 0.
caa1313 | 10 hours ago
I've got two kids but have plenty of friends with one and I've never thought they had it "easy" at all!!! and never would they or I think 1 is closer to 0 than 2, lol.
2ndChairKazoo | 8 hours ago
And fuck the title. It's not what he goes on to say, so basically it's click-baiting readers, but also how does he think his second child will feel about that someday? Also I think it was quite telling that he acknowledged his wife didn't like when he'd mention her in his writing, yet was going to be doing so anyway.
carolyn_mae | 8 hours ago
Spoken like a true male partner who isn’t carrying his weight.
ladyluck754 | 12 hours ago
As someone who’s pregnant and OAD for a multitude of reasons once this baby is born, fuck that guy. One kid doesn’t make me less of a mom.
DogOrDonut | 10 hours ago
If they are married and in an equal partnership, he's right. With one you can still do pretty much whatever you want because you never need more than 1 parent home at a time. You need to schedule more than childless people, but as long as you have a plan you can do whatever you want. That's no longer the case with 2.
dr_sassypants | 11 hours ago
I guess I'll be the lone defender of the author in that I understood what he meant by this. I'm in my 40s with no kids by choice, and saw my friends change a lot more when they had their second kids than after the first. This part of his article feels accurate to me from an outside perspective of the people I know: "With one, you even get to visit this old life from time to time.... With two, that old life is so completely gone it’s like it never even happened. It is a planet you cannot return to."
LouCat10 | 9 hours ago
I think that line might be true of the baby/toddler years with two, but it’s not universal. I have only one kid but very little family/childcare help. I have friends with 2+ kids who are able to have a lot more kid-free time because they can drop the kids off at grandma’s for the weekend. I hate the idea of pitting parents against each other, because it’s all hard.
JenningsWigService | 5 hours ago
Your point about grandma's underlines for me that a lot of these issues also come down to 'what external support network do you have?' A couple with 3 kids who has 2 sets of hands-on grandparents will be in better shape than a couple wth 1 kid and no regular help from family.
Hellie1028 | 4 hours ago
Agreed. Also, this was a long tabling read that really felt like the author was steeped in self-importance and a complete lack of self-awareness.
As someone without kids the amount of “childless” in the article really started to feel offensive to me. I’m not less a child. I’m still a complete human without one. Honestly I feel more child free than anything. Free of the work, attention, time, and emotional connection that a child does contribute.
sorrysofatagain | 4 hours ago
I have a child and I think “childless” is so offensive. I actually couldn’t believe I saw it in print because it’s such an outdated term to me.
Hellie1028 | 4 hours ago
Thank you!
ChaltaHaiShellBRight | 14 hours ago
Right? 🙄
mayflour | 11 hours ago
Yeah this is so offensive lol. It implies people with one kid are less of a parent. I'm OAD with a 6 year old and my life is so different from my few remaining friends without children.. most of those relationships fizzled out a bit and I've made few new friends who don't have kids because it's so much harder to hang out and it's harder to find common ground and find things to talk about. However I've made a ton of mom friends (most with 2 kids) because that's where our lives are.
LouCat10 | 9 hours ago
Also OAD with a 6-year-old and totally agree! I feel like I live in a different universe than my childless friends. I feel like the people that make the most noise about how having only one isn’t “really” parenting, are the people who secretly regret having more than one.
LouCat10 | 10 hours ago
I absolutely hate that line
HarveyPeligro | 7 hours ago
hah I’m a mother of one kid and I always say this. Once our kid hit 5 it was MUCH closer to having zero kids than it was having two kids. I think the author is speaking to the surrender to family life most people with more than one kid have to do. My life is completely different than people I know with multiple children. I am able to be much more selfish with my time, money, and space than I would be otherwise.
running_hoagie | 9 hours ago
This annoyed me.
MasterpieceTimely144 | 12 hours ago
This guy keeps going on and on about how hard it is to be a parent of two, but it also sounds like he hated being a parent of one, does this guy even like his sons at all? The constant references to like "Oh I haven't had a thought to myself" "Oh with two kids now we can't walk away" "There was so much tantalizing things from the old life"
Girl sounds like he wants to literally up and walk out of his kids lives lol
rask0ln | 10 hours ago
Ngl it's really strange to read this article for me as a woman when there's a lot of pressure to have kids and then never complain about anything, including medical trauma and the physical aftermath. People will downplay the toll pregnancy takes on you body and life as something you are built for and women have always done it while postpartum psychosis and depression get demonised. Even if you are sure that you don't want to have children at all, that decision will get invalidated, so you can't win.
And men just get to write articles like this???? Istg when we played a pretend-family in kindergarten with girls, we had a better understanding what motherhood entails. 😭
Edit: And poor children. Imagine you find you dad's article when you are older.
shakeyshake1 | 9 hours ago
I’m a woman past the age of being pressured to have kids.
My male friends are more open about the experience of having kids than my female friends. The other day me (childless woman) and a work friend (dude with 2 kids) were trying to troubleshoot how he could make his one kid stay in bed. I don’t know shit about this, but really neither does he, so I guess I was just helping him brainstorm.
I think women are expected to know how to do it all, how to do it perfectly, and to do it without complaining or finding themselves at a loss. Men don’t have that same expectation, so you end up with this weird situation where men get to be regular imperfect humans and women are expected to be perfect moms first and humans second.
The female friends I have with kids don’t share their struggles. With me, they often don’t talk about their kids unless it’s sort of incidental. I think it’s probably two-fold. They’re probably surrounded by moms and appreciate the opportunity to be with someone who isn’t so they can talk about adult things, and also that they expect to be judged if they complain or indicate that they have a problem.
The only conclusion I can reach is that we made a mistake by dehumanizing parents, and especially mothers, by expecting them to be someone else when they become a parent.
It’s a lot of fucking pressure to be expected to be perfect at something and to do it without complaining or ever being at a loss.
SquidTheRidiculous | 10 hours ago
This is exactly the stuff I talk about when I say there should be more resources telling people it's okay to not have kids. And no, a few resources compared to the millions that say to have kids aren't going to somehow make humanity die out.
There are so many people who only think about the cutesy hallmark moments of raising a child. The teaching them to ride a bike, the first day of school, fun family outings. They tend to forget kids are annoying, gross, messy, and don't know how to do literally anything they aren't taught. And there will be 10-20 gross annoying and exhausting moments to every 1 cutesy movie moment. And not every human is going to consider that ratio worth it. A lot of people get blindsided by the reality and let it turn them resentful of the children they chose to create.
Powerful-Patient-765 | 6 hours ago
r/regretfulparents
PunnyPrinter | 5 hours ago
I agree. I feel bad for people who are on the fence. It’s truly a gamble to have children when you aren’t sure. And for some, no amount of reassurance may provide a concrete answer.
Babysitting nieces and nephews as practice isn’t the same. Reading another person’s experience may not be it because some people make unfortunate parenting choices. A spouse can be the one proving the pressure, then when the child is born their expectations shift and the other parent carries the burden.
Society is only verrrry slowly allowing open discussion about parenthood. People are going to have to get better at making their own decisions because I doubt choosing to remain childfree will ever be as embraced as becoming a parent, even though it should be.
SquidTheRidiculous | 5 hours ago
I think people having to have roommates for longer and longer does help people realize the downsides. And help with how society has kind of killed social support networks for parents in turn. I live in a split level with friends who have kids and we get to hear the worst of it. Kids just love to screech for literally no reason, for example. Just like, randomly. They're great in small doses though.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 9 hours ago
> Girl sounds like he wants to literally up and walk out of his kids lives lol
I'm reminded of a quote from a survivor that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Something along the lines of, "About halfway down, you realize that all of your problems -- except the current one of hurtling toward the water -- are solvable."
Dude already jumped and is he realizing, only two years in, that he never really wanted to have kids and that yes, it's actually an option you don't have to take. But just like the jumper, you gotta finish out this ride with the choices you've made. Some might only have a few seconds and a couple hundred feet while others have 16 years.
enceinte-uno | 8 hours ago
I feel like because he and his wife did IVF (I read his take on that too, and it is equally vague/vapid as this one), it’s sunk cost fallacy. Only like you said, and unlike a business endeavor that’s failing, there’s no way of deciding to no longer be a parent that doesn’t make him (look like) the worst person in the world.
caa1313 | 10 hours ago
I've got a 3 & 5 year old & yes it is HARD but the older they get the more I've felt I can connect with my "old life" - I go out with friends more now, we go to more concerts, we go back to our old favorite bars, etc. this guy isn't trying very hard if he feels that much longing for his ~old life~.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 9 hours ago
> I've got a 3 & 5 year old & yes it is HARD but the older they get the more I've felt I can connect with my "old life"
Uh, what? I would expect that for tweens (ie, leave them alone at the house or even invite them out to all-ages shows, etc.) but 3 and 5 is still hella young. Might be different if you have two sets of grandparents that live close by and are willing and able to watch them all the time, I suppose. But none of the parents I knew were going back out to concerts and bars when they had multiple toddlers running around the house.
lisa_lionheart84 | 8 hours ago
I'm the parent of a 2-year-old. I know plenty of parents of 3- and 5-year-olds who have go to a concert or bar once or twice a month while a babysitter watches the kids for the evening.
I don't do it because I crave alone time at home rather than social time out of the house--super introvert here--but there's zero reason to be judgmental about it. The person you're replying to didn't say she's out every night or something.
caa1313 | 8 hours ago
lol no we don't have any grandparents near by. if they are in town visiting, they'll watch the kids while we go out once or twice. I'm talking about getting babysitters and not feeling overly anxious/guilty/etc about leaving them for a few hours. I'm talking like once a month. and I've got friends with multiple small children who are able to do it much more frequently than us.
sorry you don't have that experience! it's nice!
PutTheDamnDogDown | 14 hours ago
Whether or not the writer had a say in the headline (which may have been chosen without his approval by an editor or sub-editor) it is a fucking terrible sentence for his younger child to be able to find later in life. And printed above a photo of himself as a supposed life-ruiner.
ServiceReal2042 | 10 hours ago
The headline is so bad. The majority of the article suggests his life being turned upside down… which yes… but not that that his life is ruined.
Jodhpur1016 | 10 hours ago
Hard agree
ChaltaHaiShellBRight | 14 hours ago
I'll be generous as a parent of 1, the kind of parent that the author thinks has a super-easy life. Sometimes parents will have relatively smooth sailing with their first child only to be hit with postpartum depression after their second child or later. I have no doubt that 2 children are more work and add even more complexity, but the way he talks about the early days with his second makes me think there's something more going on.
PunnyPrinter | 13 hours ago
As a young child I saw my aunts go from one child to two. The difference was obvious. And the fact that they were family meant the polite, public face didn’t exist- they were vocal about how much harder it was. Both aunts gave birth to their own versions of Dennis the Menace.
It was significant enough that I knew I would only have one child. And that’s exactly what I did.
danceswsheep | 6 hours ago
I started off with twins so I don’t have a singleton experience to compare to. However I would say the biggest problems when going up to two kids is sensory overload, logistics (like with travel), and in-fighting. Those aren’t life-ruining changes of course.
I think your explanation really hits the nail on the head. Something else had to have changed for him to feel this way.
InnerKookaburra | 13 hours ago
I have a friend who decided to have kids later in life. A few years after she had her second kid, she told me one night "I had no idea being a parent was so hard! Nobody tells you that!" and I said, nicely as I could, "What do you mean? Every parent I talk to only tells me how hard it is."
As someone without kids, it looks to me like it takes a certain delusional bravery to decide to have them. And yet, it is really hard. So at some point every parent has to hit that moment of "WOW, this is still so much harder than I imagined."
I try to be kind, I try to commiserate some. And yet, I'm always thinking in the back of my mind "Have you been listening to what everyone has been telling you forever about having kids?"
Cie la vie. Kudos to all the people who do bravely decide to do it. It looks hard as heck from the outside, but I am glad there are little kids running around who I can dote on and play with and encourage and then go home with my partner and we sleep the deep sleep of the childless.
womenaremyfavguy | 11 hours ago
I think the parts that are hard are different for each parent. So when you hear a parent talk about how hard it is, you’ll hear an example or two maybe but you don’t get the full picture until you really experience it. Also, every kid is so different.
Many people talk about the exhaustion and lack of sleep. As a parent of an almost 2 year old, that was nowhere near the hardest part, and it was a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. Our kid is the best sleeper ever and now sleeps 12 hours straight from 7-7 each night.
But I was not at all prepared for how I had to constantly be on when he was awake. And I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of screaming and crying. I felt like I was being tortured on days he screamed a bunch, even happy screams. I have two siblings who are a lot younger than me, so I cared for them a bunch and do not remember them crying and screaming this much.
wishing_sprinkles | 10 hours ago
yea I always say the 2 things people never talk about are:
The sheer relentlessness of parenting. There are no days off. It's hard to digest what parenting 24/7/365 feels like at year 8 or 9 or 10 and so on. Like you said, how "on" you have to be for years. And they change constantly so you can't just learn how to do it and chug along.
And also that you have to basically experience a full childhood, again, as an adult. I personally love this part, because my first go at childhood was terrible. But no one thinks about how you have to do the entire childhood with them - every children's museum and playdate and sports game and library reading time and attending the school events etc. I imagine a lot of parents don't like this part. It's where I see a lot of my friends bailing, like hiring sitters on weekends to avoid these types of events. Which personally isn't ok to me as a regular thing, you chose to have the kid, you gotta commit.
I love my kids and personally I am built for it, personality wise, financially etc. Even so, no one ever really talked about what parenting was like beyond having a baby to me, kinda crazy
joanie77 | 10 hours ago
I saw a Reddit post once where someone asked how much less free time they’d have when they became a parent. Like, if they have four hours per day now, would they have half as much once their kid was born? lol.
running_hoagie | 9 hours ago
The relentlessness of parenting was what gets me. Each phase--and they're all just little eras--was easy on its own, but the fact that once one little era is over another one starts.
womenaremyfavguy | 9 hours ago
Yes, and you touch on another thing, that each parent is also so different. Some love the newborn phase, others don’t. Some love the kids activities, others don’t. Some hate it all. Some love it all and have multiple kids.
DogOrDonut | 9 hours ago
I see so many parents complaining about the park and how boring it is. When people asked me what I was excited about when having my first one of my top answers was playgrounds. We have a book where we mark off the ones we have been to, we travel for them, I am in playground review groups. I love playgrounds. I have as much fun at 35 as I did at 5 and I am going to be so sad when my kids outgrow them. I cannot relate at all to the bored playground parents.
Hagridsbuttcrack66 | 7 hours ago
It always bothered me when my mom said taking us to playgrounds and miningolf and stuff like that was "your dad's thing".
I just don't understand what you're in it for if the fun part isn't fun for you.
Am I supposed to believe you love wiping asses and going to parent teacher conferences?
I have never wanted children, but I know I would at least enjoy the parks! I love that you go to so many different ones!
womenaremyfavguy | an hour ago
Lol my mom was one of those parents. She never played with us, period. She was in it for trauma dumping on us.
wishing_sprinkles | 8 hours ago
I know. Of course there are days where I wish I could watch shows on the couch unencumbered, but then I choose to be grateful that I'm forced to be outside in fresh air, socializing
element-woman | 6 hours ago
The relentlessness is one of those things I thought I was prepared to handle, but it is so different to know it logically vs actually live it. Like no amount of knowing to expect it could really prepare me for how it feels to be so tired and know there's no reprieve coming.
wishing_sprinkles | 5 hours ago
Exactly. It would be impossible to tell potential parents what it’s like. I wish there was some sort of course or something parents could take before getting pregnant to be like here is what to expect lol.
That said, idk how old your kids are, but there is a tipping point where it goes to more fun and joy vs. “work.” When your youngest is more kindergarten age, it’s less taxing. They eat more, wipe their own butts, etc. and they are talking so you can actually have conversations and play card games with them. And you don’t have to climb up the slide with them and so on. I could the big kid ages forever, seriously.
element-woman | 4 hours ago
Bless you for saying this! He's 3.5 so I already see some things getting easier. There are so many fun parts about this age but I'm looking forward to more independence and skills.
wishing_sprinkles | 2 hours ago
Oh, hang in there, it gets way easier! 2 more years and you’ll be the mom reading a book by the pool! Unless you start over with a new baby 😂
winterxwedding | 9 hours ago
The first Saturday I woke up as a parent, I almost cried, knowing I’d never really have a weekend again
Stoa1984 | 8 hours ago
That could be partially people's lack of truly thinking about it though. Because to me when I was with kids, even nephew for 3 hours, it drained me so much that it absolutely crossed my mind that you need to be on for a whole lot more and that idea seemed dreadful.
And seeing parents take kids to kid museums and parks, I thought that this is not what I want to be doing as an adult. I find it boring. I already did that, while at the same time knowing that it would be the right thing for the kid's growth.
Or dealing with schools, making sure they get a good education.... Dealing with potential dangerous influences. Teens and drinking, how things can go wrong etc etc etc...
Falafel80 | 11 hours ago
I had the bad sleeper, so that was pure torture that lasted two years and my brain still doesn’t remember how to sleep properly. So now every time I feel exhausted and think about how hard motherhood is, I shift my perspective by thinking that at least no one is waking me up every 30 minutes all night long.
So I definitely agree that the hardship varies a lot depending on the child, and the parent. We all have our weaknesses as well.
pysouth | 9 hours ago
Word. The sleep deprivation stuff honestly isn’t that horrible for us. It just is what it is. But some people have a really hard time with it.
My son is 3 and is having a hard time adjusting to us having a newborn and not having all the attention anymore, and he just screams and melts down all the time now. It’s really hard and my friends don’t seem to have had quite a hard time with this aspect of parenting as us. But they’ve had their own struggles. But this is, so far, the hardest time of parenting
womenaremyfavguy | 9 hours ago
Hang in there! I’m nervous about this, as I just found out I’m pregnant.
2ndChairKazoo | 9 hours ago
I think a big issue, for Americans at least, is so many adults having basically no familiarity with children before diving into becoming parents. There's a reason plenty of teachers never wanted or had any kids of their own.
Personally, I adore kids. And I do not want any. So it's beyond weird to me how many people don't seem to particularly like kids, yet become parents.
womenaremyfavguy | an hour ago
It’s true! I think it’s partly because huge families are gone (not as many younger siblings or cousins to care for), and partly because we don’t give older kids those responsibilities anymore anyway.
Anecdotally, I had to watch my two youngest siblings when I was 12. My husband was never around kids until we had ours. I came in with a way more realistic view of parenthood than he did.
keeplosingmypsswrds | 9 hours ago
Exactly! I was a live in nanny for a single dad with three boys that were each a year apart. I started when they were 4 months, 1, and 2, and left when they were all in preschool/kindergarten. So I feel prepared for most aspects of parenting: 24 hour a day of being "on", illness, being outnumbered, discipline, awkward questions, the way cries hit you at 3 am when you passed your limit hours ago etc. I am way more prepared for kids than the average person. But I also know for a fact that when I have my own children, I will discover new, novel ways of being overwhelmed!
anb0603 | 12 hours ago
It’s more like people don’t explain the type of hard. I haven’t read the article yet, but the hardest parts of parenting aren’t the most commonly griped about. It isn’t the sleepless nights. It’s the overwhelming exhaustion and anxiety that come from loving someone so much you want every area of their lives to run smoothly and without pain.
I just read it. I’m two weeks postpartum with babies #4 and #5… this guy is a clown and cannot multitask to save his life.
Abbacoverband | 10 hours ago
Congrats on the BOGO arrivals!
yes_please_ | 11 hours ago
If you spend any time in the pregnancy subs you will see at least one post a week bemoaning that people are warning about how hard it is. Some people genuinely do not want to know.
Obviously knowing about it and experiencing it are completely different. I've definitely thought "I had no idea how hard this is" but not that no one TOLD me. It's just that telling is not sufficient. Also not every parent has the same resources. I know some parents who also don't know how hard it is lol.
boiledtwice | 12 hours ago
I grew up with a much younger sister so I spent a lot time on childcare (albeit just assisting my parents) and have had people get really genuinely angry with me when I say I don’t think I’m responsible enough to have kids and that it’s very hard work that takes over your life a little. I think for a lot of people, they just think internally “skill issue” when parents talk about how it’s hard, and they reflect very little on how much effort their own parents spent on them.
yes_please_ | 11 hours ago
If it's a skill issue there's still the problem that it's not one singular skill, it's like 20. Like I can handle the overstimulation like a champ, I have Zen levels of patience. The monotony of the newborn phase killed me though. Being able to keep my house clean and errands done is really challenging for me. I'm not good at all of it and I don't think most people are.
DiplomaticCaper | 9 hours ago
Like for me I fully admit that it is a skill issue to a large degree. I know I’m not equipped for it.
If there was some freak accident of fate (my brother has kids, both he and the mother died, and our parents are unable to take custody for health reasons), I’d step up instead of having them go into the foster care system. But it would be a major sacrifice I would prefer to avoid under ideal circumstances.
PunnyPrinter | 13 hours ago
I’m tempted to roll my eyes (inwardly) when they say that. Perhaps they think everyone else is exaggerating? That they’ll do a better job? That might be the accurate response but they don’t want to say it out loud.
WinterJudgment302 | 8 hours ago
People can tell you all day that it is "hard". That you won't sleep again. That you'll have anxiety about their wellbeing for the rest of your life. That you won't have time for yourself. You can hear it and try to imagine it as much as you can but you won't know the true meaning and feel of it until you are in it. There is nothing anyone can say to you that can adequately prepare you.
The same is true about all the positives. They are so much better than you are able to know before you have them.
It's an experience that can't be likened to anything else.
feathergun | 4 hours ago
This is it. No one, truly no one, can make you understand the mental and physical drain that lack of sleep takes on you. And you can never catch up.
And, if you're the birthing parent, no one can explain to you the way you'll feel when your hormones have gone haywire postpartum. Nevermind if you have PPD or PPA.
Powerful-Patient-765 | 6 hours ago
I also don’t have kids. But there is a missing piece to your comment… while, yes, parents tell you it’s hard, they 100% of the time tell you how worth it it is. childless people get the message that if you don’t have kids, which is the most wonderful thing to ever happen to you, you’re missing out. I’m glad I ignored that message as I’m very happy with my life.
The only place people are honest about regretting having kids is r/regretfulparents because parents would be absolutely villified if they stated this out loud to another person.
desiladygamer84 | 12 hours ago
I'm not bitter about having kids, I'm annoyed that nobody told me how much executive function it would take and I had them late and was diagnosed with ADHD late. My mum said " we didn't know we only knew autism was like Rain Man. I thought you'd grow out of it".
Even if I knew and I knew that son 1 would have AuDHD I still would have had them.
Potential-Scholar359 | an hour ago
As a parent, I can explain their reasoning. Before I became a parent, I both saw with my own eyes and heard other parents say how hard it was to be a parent. However, I had also done a lot of hard things in my childfree adult life. So I compared their hard to my hard. I figured how different cold one hard thing be from another hard thing? Turns out, very different. It sounds kind of silly to write out, but you simply can't conceptualize what you don't know. It's just one of those cognitive distortions, one that probably exists bec it helps continue life on earth. I also think this gap in knowledge/understanding is the reason there's such a rift between parents and the child free.
tellmeitsagift | 11 hours ago
You are levelling an awful lot of criticism about something you haven’t experienced; you really can’t fathom how radically kids change your life until you have them. Your friend isn’t stupid, she just didn’t know because she’d never done it, and then she had kids, and learned. What you focus on is how hard you’ve heard it is, and you’ll never experience the joys. It’s not that one choice is morally superior to the other, it’s just not a choice you made, and that’s fine.
InnerKookaburra | 11 hours ago
My point is that I did try to fathom just how phenomenally hard it is. And I chose to not have kids because of it. I took what parents said seriously.
I think more people should consider that it's far, far, far harder than they can imagine.
My friend isn't stupid, not at all. But she did mostly focus on the positive parts before having kids. I still feel for compassion for her. I still try to help out as a friend.
karpaediem | 13 hours ago
"And when that door closes, and you are on the other side of it from your children? I want all of you to have two kids, just to have this feeling. Walking out into the night with a song in your heart loud enough to drown out whatever is happening behind that door you just closed."
Yikes bro needs to go to therapy yesterday ffs
mrs_adhd | 12 hours ago
And pre-book it for his kids
karpaediem | 12 hours ago
For real, better have a trust fund set up for it at this point
caa1313 | 10 hours ago
yeah yikes indeed!! I also have two little kids close in age & I enjoy nights out without them too, but there is no "drowning out" what I leave behind, lol. I'm usually irrationally anxious & hoping everything will go smoothly without me & am happy to get home to them at the end of the night!!
batgirl20120 | 10 hours ago
I actually enjoyed this article even while not agreeing with its premise. Two does change the dynamic however I’ll say now when my kids are seven and four things are SOOOOO much easier. I have hobbies again. I sleep through the night again. No more diapers. Also one kid was actually worse than two for me because a) he was six months old during Covid and b) he was a more challenging toddler and baby than his sister.
The reason why parents keep writing about how hard it is to be a parent is the same reason people keep writing about falling in love and grieving; it’s a profound experience. It reshapes your life but also has so much joy in it and it’s hard to wrap your brain around how something that is so challenging can also be so fulfilling.
Gladyskravitz99 | 6 hours ago
Yes and I think he did a great job describing that. The way he talked about the joy of just observing one child learn and grow and be human rings very true to me.
Btw, I have two kids but they're 15 years apart so were never kids at the same time. I had it very easy in that regard, I know!
Awkward_Tick0 | 11 hours ago
This is Amanda Dobbins’s husband, the professional podcaster. Can’t imagine how stressful their lives must be.
PunnyPrinter | 13 hours ago
I kinda understand what he meant by the childless adult and the one child parent having more in common vs two parent.
Out of sheer luck I wasn’t the frazzled parent running on little sleep and looking rough. Let me be clear- this is the running joke parents tell about themselves, this isn’t me being snarky.
With one, you can still easily do brunch and lunch with friends. Childcare is significantly easier to negotiate. You’re less likely to feel like you’re missing out on what your friends are doing. You may not need a new bigger car after one child. I suppose it comes down to flexibility and mobility.
h-888 | 11 hours ago
Yes agree with this - the line in question was very clumsy and no idea why a good writer would include it, but in the context of what he was talking about - I understood that context for sure. Two toddlers close in age - that's setting up for a few years of VERY hard work for the parents.
aspiringandroid | 10 hours ago
wow, what a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a person i do not want to be friends with! I just hate the way he talks about his wife and children. its hard to describe, but it feels disdainful, especially toward his younger child for not "turning out the way they expected" or whatever. I bet this will be an awkward piece to talk about with said children in a couple decades 😶
tldr I am also team screw this guy
andthatswhyyoualways | 8 hours ago
As a single dad since both my kids were under two, I feel I have the authority to say this guy sucks.
2ndChairKazoo | 4 hours ago
And he says outright his wife doesn't like him mentioning her in his writing. So why is he?
aspiringandroid | 4 hours ago
that was SUCH a red flag to me. she doesnt like when you write about her? the hell did you say about your wife and the mother of your children to make her feel that way?! and why won't you CAN IT!!
lesbian__overlord | 10 hours ago
i don't know why parents think that the perspective they have on how you actually have to focus on raising two small children and can't continue your childless life with them as props is such a unique and unheard of concept. i mean, this guy even admitted he came to his editor without an actual idea.
i already knew what people like him thought of us childless abominations, how we cannot even fathom how they suffer, but it's interesting that sentiment scales to "people with one child don't get it either!" the second those people have a second
i hope for his children's sake they never read this
Shortymac09 | 9 hours ago
Too many people want kids like a toddler wants a puppy.
They have no idea how much work it actually is keeping a tiny human alive and raise them well.
lesbian__overlord | 8 hours ago
there is the old refrain that if you think you want a child, you should get a dog, if you think you want a dog you should get a cat, and if you think you want a cat you're best off with a fish.
2ndChairKazoo | 4 hours ago
I said in another comment that I remain deeply annoyed about how it seems no one bothers to lend a hand to other human beings with kids to A) show you give a damn about your community, and B) see if you actually like and manage children well enough to have your own.
Like it's insane to me that for so many adults, the first diaper they've ever changed was that of their own child.
feathergun | 3 hours ago
Well, in this day and age, when having children is a legitimate choice people can make, sometimes you're the first person in all your friends and family to have a child.
2ndChairKazoo | 2 hours ago
So...? You should have actually met a child before you bring one into this world.
BT4US | 10 hours ago
Man discovers parenting
Shazz777 | 8 hours ago
This whole article should have been an anonymous reddit post.
h-888 | 15 hours ago
Thanks for sharing.
We have one kid and will v likely remain at one kid. I see him with his cousins and sometimes think we have done him an injustice not trying to have a sibling. Parts of this article defn hit me in the feels.
What hit me even more in the feels is his other article about IVF for his first son - https://www.gq.com/story/my-ivf-years
mneale324 | 14 hours ago
Parts of this article hit me hard but for a different reason. I had an older sister but she passed away a few years ago. The section discussing how only his joys will remember the floors or their mother in the morning made me quite sad as I feel that with loss of my sibling, I lost shared memories.
I’m currently debating if I want a second child. I’m not worried about the extra work or a lot of items mentioned in the article. I do think about if my personal grief holds me back. Just because I lost my sister doesn’t mean I don’t wish she never existed.
batgirl20120 | 10 hours ago
I’m so sorry for your loss. My mom died this year and one of the ways it broke my heart a bit was seeing her siblings grieve her. She had brain cancer and it was a hard death and her older brother called her everyday. Before she got ill, her older sister and her would talk most days and thinking about how my aunt no longer has that makes me cry.
It’s a real loss and grieving is so hard. I have never been more grateful for my brother this last year as our family went through this.
enceinte-uno | 7 hours ago
I realize the title is clickbaity nonsense, but I hope whoever chose it has a therapy fund going for Cy, because even facetious/trying to be ironic, that’ll be a nasty thing to read.
2ndChairKazoo | 4 hours ago
Yeah I'm the youngest child and I can say it was awful the things that were said about me by my family. I was doing entirely developmentally appropriate and expected stuff, but they had already experienced it all before I was even alive so were burned out on this normal process by the time I was here.
kmz223 | 6 hours ago
I realized a while ago that I never found folks who write this style of personal post online to very relatable. I think it is because most of them just have to be self-centered and egotistical. I have very rarely thought that my life and my thoughts are interesting enough to be worth consuming en masse. And to be clear-- I think I am plenty interesting to my actual friends and really enjoy my life, so I guess it is more that I don't think I'm particularly special.
All of this to say, you can see the self-centered and egotistical tendencies when online memoirists write about their marriages or their kids or their relationships in general. When you are pretty sure that you are cooler and better than most people, it is going to be hard to be in relationships that require you to compromise.
EstablishmentSure216 | 2 hours ago
Completely agree. I found it extremely boring. He literally repeated multiple clichés and didn't add any original thoughts. I didn't even agree with his take; i have 2 kids and have most certainly retained my sense of self and connection with my old life- he's writing from the perspective of someone with a one year old trying to generalise that to having a second child. Terrible take!
Lost_Data_Mom | 11 hours ago
I think people are taking this too seriously. People perceive aspects of parenting differently. I’ve heard some people say babies are easier than toddlers. I completely disagree. I prefer toddler stage to baby stage. And some people probably find one child vastly easier than two.
tellmeitsagift | 11 hours ago
I thought the article was great and I’m surprised that the comments are so strongly negative- I have 1 child, a 3 year old girl, and feel I can relate to so much of what he said and felt he encapsulates both my trepidation at the idea of having a second, as well as capturing the reasons why someone would have a second despite how hard it is. Many people have told me that having a second is exponentially harder than having the first, and I believe them!
smellslikebadussy | 10 hours ago
The headline, while undoubtedly provocative, didn’t do the article any favors.
Lost_Data_Mom | 11 hours ago
I liked it too. There are so many factors that make parenting different for everybody. I have two kids 5 years apart. I don’t think adding my son was as difficult as his experience because my daughter was already much more independent.
tellmeitsagift | 10 hours ago
Feel much the same- I’d want our daughter to be 4 or 5 if we were to decide to get preg again! The age gap helps things for sure!
dreaming_of_beaches | 10 hours ago
Agree. The rage in the comments is curious, I read it as a fluff piece with a lot of self deprecating humor.
thefruitsofzellman | 7 hours ago
Why all the rage? The answer is simple: parents are cranky because parenting sucks. Add to that the general state of online criticism. Any view you disagree with in a movie/article/standup set must be met with bottomless indignation.
Responsible-Toe-1385 | 4 hours ago
I agree, I thought it was hilarious and very true. I have one and am happy to be in the mid-way between old life and totally consumed; I see how it works with 2+ kids and it really is more than double the work. Let’s move to Paris!
seiryuu-abi | 8 hours ago
I feel bad for parents of one that have to read this.
PunnyPrinter | 5 hours ago
I’m a mom of one and it doesn’t bother me. It only emphasizes that standing on my decision to only have one child was the best choice for me. And I had lots of pushback from in-laws about my decision.
Responsible-Toe-1385 | 4 hours ago
Same. I know it’s not the same and that’s why I’m not having another?
seiryuu-abi | 5 hours ago
I know plenty moms of one and the way this guy generalizes it based on his experience with his first child it’s not the same. No one denied having two kids is a challenge but I don’t like the tone of this article and can only hope his second son doesn’t find it.
kotletki | 7 hours ago
I’m a parent of one and I feel super validated reading this. I think it’s really well-written, too.
moon_blisser | 9 hours ago
This article rubs me the wrong way.
konomichan | 8 hours ago
Same
etsprout | 7 hours ago
I’m sorry but this man is insufferable.
carolyn_mae | 8 hours ago
This article is so self indulgent and tone deaf.
enceinte-uno | 3 hours ago
Agreed. Some articles should have been reddit posts and this is one of them.
Chile_Momma_38 | 13 hours ago
This guy should have never become a parent. He convinces himself he loves his children but he doesn’t.
maria57131 | 5 hours ago
Mother of two young kids with equally supportive partner. I really enjoyed this and related to it. Seems like I may be in the minority. Thanks for sharing!
boringbonding | 9 hours ago
Non-paywall link?
lpalf | 5 hours ago
Use internet archive
Quouar | 4 hours ago
Archive link: https://archive.is/h3Vut
boringbonding | 4 hours ago
The amount of backlash in these comments is honestly surprising! I don’t think this is meant to completely summarize his experience of being a parent, more just an exploration of his feelings of how having two kids changes the dynamics. Seems like he actually loves being a parent.
I feel like I can see this dynamic play out a lot. It’s the classic only child vs. siblings dynamic.
The second adds an entirely different dimension to the family even though it’s only one more child.
I’m also one of two children and I see nothing wrong with how he describes his youngest….
p4rty_sl0th | 11 hours ago
We are posting gq now?? Smh