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• 3 years - 111 posts - Latest - RSS
• Thread: 328 Goods vs 168 No Goods

1. Economist
   cf4e
   

   Might be rebelling against their parents who are very educated and think that (formal) education is important. Too much pressure to perform too perhaps.

   i'll admit there are days I wish I didn't have kids. mine have been a huge disappointment.
   we were semi-helicopter parents but not exactly tiger moms. but we did invest probably a quarter million in private school education, plus all sorts of time trying to help them succeed.
   at first I thought it was paying of for kid #1 when she got into an ivy league school. but she went on to get about a C+/B- average, couldn't even find a summer job last year, and is coming home after grauation to live with us.
   kid #2 is even worse. totally blew off high school and didn't even get into msot of his safety schools.
   both have had severe psychological issues. I'm sure that my being on the TT has contributed to it, but it's not as if we have been awful parents. I hate to say it, but I get more joy from my pets.
   of course I could never have known this ex ante, so if I had it to do over again I would still have kids, but it doesn't always work out well.
   and sure, things might get better. I've been tellin myself that for years
   

   very possible.

   I"ve also wondered whether they look at me and how exhausted/unhappy I am and think "I don't want your life"

   3 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

2. Economist
   7de5
   

   I know, as always, that EJMR is generally trolling, but there are many studies on this. Children increase the variance of reported happiness and life satisfaction, probably are a slight net positive (net negative) for self-reported life satisfaction for more (less) educated parents who do not divorce, broadly decrease husbands' reported satisfaction with their marriage, and broadly decrease wives' reported satisfaction with their career.

   The idea that children cause some massive increase or decrease in life outcomes, on average, is simply wrong, empirically. On the order of 25%+ of adults with college degrees in Western countries do not have children. It isn't terribly rare, but since everyone you knew as a kid were your parents or your friends' parents, you likely have a highly misleading idea of the prevalence of childlessness.

   3 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 0 Vlad !

3. Economist
   9524
   

   If one kid has a serious disability or illness most fathers cannot stand this and divorce. What a commitment!

   Most families are not affectionate at all, their parents married and had kids because they had to.

   Stigmatizing and group and stigmatizing them again because of the traits they have CAUSED by the stigmatization is wrong.

   i'll admit there are days I wish I didn't have kids. mine have been a huge disappointment.
   we were semi-helicopter parents but not exactly tiger moms. but we did invest probably a quarter million in private school education, plus all sorts of time trying to help them succeed.
   at first I thought it was paying of for kid #1 when she got into an ivy league school. but she went on to get about a C+/B- average, couldn't even find a summer job last year, and is coming home after grauation to live with us.
   kid #2 is even worse. totally blew off high school and didn't even get into msot of his safety schools.
   both have had severe psychological issues. I'm sure that my being on the TT has contributed to it, but it's not as if we have been awful parents. I hate to say it, but I get more joy from my pets.
   of course I could never have known this ex ante, so if I had it to do over again I would still have kids, but it doesn't always work out well.
   and sure, things might get better. I've been tellin myself that for years

   In the US your kids could be happy and not be poor at all having hundreds of rewarding jobs that are not necessarily beeing corporate lawyers or CEO's

   3 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !

4. Economist
   01e0
   

   There is literally nothing in your post about your children except their academic achievements or lack thereof. They're human beings, not walking CVs.
   It is eminently possible to be superficially good parents (spend money on them, pay a modest amount of attention, etc.) and nevertheless f**k them up far more than ones who are merely neglectful.

   Might be rebelling against their parents who are very educated and think that (formal) education is important. Too much pressure to perform too perhaps.

   i'll admit there are days I wish I didn't have kids. mine have been a huge disappointment.
   we were semi-helicopter parents but not exactly tiger moms. but we did invest probably a quarter million in private school education, plus all sorts of time trying to help them succeed.
   at first I thought it was paying of for kid #1 when she got into an ivy league school. but she went on to get about a C+/B- average, couldn't even find a summer job last year, and is coming home after grauation to live with us.
   kid #2 is even worse. totally blew off high school and didn't even get into msot of his safety schools.
   both have had severe psychological issues. I'm sure that my being on the TT has contributed to it, but it's not as if we have been awful parents. I hate to say it, but I get more joy from my pets.
   of course I could never have known this ex ante, so if I had it to do over again I would still have kids, but it doesn't always work out well.
   and sure, things might get better. I've been tellin myself that for years
   

   3 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !

5. Economist
   cf4e
   

   well someone's gotta take care of me when I'm old and grey. they are not stepping up

   3 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !

6. Economist
   a59a
   

   Having kids forces you to practice a ton of virtues including patience and sacrifice, and it helps you prioritize what really matters in your life. If anything affects you at the pearly gates, those things certainly will.

   so does working as a nurse or firefighter, but you chose to be an economist...

   3 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

7. Economist
   6300
   

   OP, I didn't read most of this thread, but I felt just like you before having children. I thought it's the next logical step but it looks pretty miserable. After having my first baby I realized that it is/has been the joy of my life. I never could have anticipated how happy it makes me. So this is one of those decisions that you make with very imperfect information about how you will react to parenthood. Good luck.

   -Female Assoc Prof with a teenager and pre-teen

   3 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 0 Vlad !

8. Economist
   ff14
   

   I've had many friends enter parenthood reluctantly, and many friends who deeply desired children. Almost all of them are happy, good parents.

   I think whether or not children are the best decision for you depends a lot more on what happens after the children come along than before. And of course you have no idea! But if the marriage stays together and the kids are healthy (no severe mental illness or autism) parenthood seems to make most of my friends happier than they were before. Divorce and single-parenting, or a severely ill/autistic child, and obviously things get harder.

   I chose not to have kids, but I think I would have been just as happy if I had children. Do I regret my decision? Not at all. I could probably take in a niece or nephew any day (my siblings have more kids than they can reasonable handle) and I still chose not to do it. Is that selfish? Maybe, but who does it harm? My sister-in-law had three children and abandoned them - that's the kind of mistake thinking selflessness will just arrive with the children will get you. Being a parent doesn't automatically qualify you for sainthood, as most children can attest.

   3 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 0 Vlad !

9. Economist
   9a65
   

   I think it depends on your personality and your stochastic kid draw.

   Easygoing personality + great kid > easygoing personality + terrible kid > type-A personality great-kid > no kids > type-A personality terrible kid.

   If you have an easygoing personality, it's definitely worth it. If you're a type-A personality, then you better hope you get a good draw.

   3 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !

10. Economist
    ef54
    

    Genetics must be a part of it. I wanted kids from as young as I can remember. I have three kids. They make me very happy. They are not all easy, a full range of personalities. I like the challenge. I also get excellent teaching ratings and also often view my students much like my kids which helps me to be patient and have empathy for my students. I’ll admit kids reduce my research productivity but not too much. I’m doing well. My value assessment is that multiple kids may have lowered my ultimate tenure level prestige by about 20 ranks. I took a reset. I think one kid doesn’t really lower prestige as one is easy and manageable between two adults. Overall I think my happiness from multiple kids far outweighs a higher ranking university. I also still travel a bunch as it’s part of the job. But better than a childless person I come home to lots of hugs and questions about my travel rather than an empty home.

    3 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !

11. Economist
    1ccb
    

    I have a six month old right now and it's the best thing about my life.

    I was a mega strive hard academically focused person (think, working through the night to get a confidence interval right to fourth decimal on a footnote statistic) and was worried about the kid taking up too much of my time.

    Now I know that it's not that the kid produces too much work (though they ARE extremely time consuming, especially if you are a participatory father or basically any mother) but it's the outside option that they represent that is dangerous.

    There is simply nothing more fun than to play with my baby, talk to her, cuddle her, dang even changing diapers is fine to fun bc of all the love hormones.

    The reason I am not doing enough work is bc I found something better.

    3 years ago # QUOTE 3 Volod 0 Vlad !

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