Disclaimer: I don’t have kids, won’t have them anytime soon (i.e. not in the next 5 years), and until relatively recently didn’t want them at all.
The best comparison I can make is that raising a child is like making a painting. It’s work, but it’s rewarding if done well. You create a human being, and hopefully impart them with good values and set them on a path to a happy life, and it’s a very personal experience.
Personally, I don’t have any drive to have kids, not one that’s comparable to hunger or sexual attraction.
I’d like that personal painting experience if it went well and I have experienced glimpses of it with some kids not of my own.
Unfortunately it’s not clear to me at all how much success of the project could be of my own doing, and I’ve seen enough examples of when things go horribly wrong despite of optimally seeming conditions. I wonder what kinds of studies could be done on the subject of parenting skills and parental satisfaction on the results of upbringing that aren’t hugely biased.
ETA: my five year old step brother just barged into my room (holiday at my folks). “You always get new knowledge in this room.”, he said, and I was compelled to pour that little vessel full again.
Disclaimer: I don’t have kids, won’t have them anytime soon (i.e. not in the next 5 years), and until relatively recently didn’t want them at all.
The best comparison I can make is that raising a child is like making a painting. It’s work, but it’s rewarding if done well. You create a human being, and hopefully impart them with good values and set them on a path to a happy life, and it’s a very personal experience.
Personally, I don’t have any drive to have kids, not one that’s comparable to hunger or sexual attraction.
I’d like that personal painting experience if it went well and I have experienced glimpses of it with some kids not of my own.
Unfortunately it’s not clear to me at all how much success of the project could be of my own doing, and I’ve seen enough examples of when things go horribly wrong despite of optimally seeming conditions. I wonder what kinds of studies could be done on the subject of parenting skills and parental satisfaction on the results of upbringing that aren’t hugely biased.
ETA: my five year old step brother just barged into my room (holiday at my folks). “You always get new knowledge in this room.”, he said, and I was compelled to pour that little vessel full again.