Comment by dismalaf
6 months ago
As someone with a young child, it definitely feels purposeful. Also the opposite of a chore, it's lots of fun and what I look forward to after a day of work.
And I'm someone who, for most of my adult life, thought I'd be childfree...
Well I've heard people say this. What about the ones that regret it? I know of one personal acquaintance of mine who confided that he regrets having his kid. He would under normal social circumstances not mention it, for obvious reasons.
The problem is that it's a one-way street if you decide to have a child. Now if only one had an option to 'trial-run-before-one-commits' that would be ideal. I suspect (but not sure) that most people will still opt not to have them.
Well, I do think children is maybe idealized a little. I'm probably pretty happy because I went into it having heard all of the negatives, decided I was ok with it and came out pleasantly surprised. Also too many people do it because of societal or family pressure.
Also some people will just always be unhappy. The grass is always greener syndrome.
Traditionally people would get a trial run by babysitting for relatives. Now that's becoming less common because families are smaller and more geographically distributed.
You can always give away the kid, the whole adoption industry is here to help. In some countries you can even sell your kids, but it is frowned upon in many Western societies. Finally, fostering is the trial run you are looking for.
Wish I had the rep to downvote a comment,
> you can always give away the kid
a child is not a goddamn pet or a commodity that you can just give away
> In some countries you can even sell your kids, but it is frowned upon in many Western societies
A common country where that happens is Pakistan/Afghanistan where young boys are sold to be prostitutes. I am GLAD it's frowned upon as it should be everywhere in the modern world.
> fostering is the trial run you are looking for
Again, children are not pets, fostering is the same as raising a biological child, if you're doing it any different and treating the child differently, in my opinion, it's tantamount to child abuse.
Frankly this comment lacks any humanity, and hopefully you choose not to have or foster children.
1 reply →