I feel like this cartoon was drawn by someone who doesn’t have kids. Or didn’t want them but got them.
Be fulfilled without kids or with them. Don’t be fulfilled by judging those who have chosen different from you.
My interpretation of this comic was that it is making fun of the parts of having a kid that they don’t tell you about, not that it was being judgemental towards anyone.
Sure, it is being hyperbolic, but hyperbole is common feature of humor.
The best birth control is other people’s children.
I gotta say, it’s been the exact opposite for me.
One couple has kids, and everyone passes around the baby making cooing faces. Six months later, half the block is pregnant.
Add in that there’s this reflexive desire in a big community of like-aged friends/family for our kids to be friends, too. My wife has eight or nine different cousins who are all her age. And we all had kids within a year or two of one another.
I used to agree but my hormones tell me otherwise.
Clapping ovaries, eh? That’s the noise that IT’S BABY-MAKING TIIIIIIME!
That’s “klapperende eierstokken” in Dutch, BTW.
when I see a cute baby smile at me, its like a sims moodlet. “I need one of those. Why dont I have one of those”. After 24 ish hours I remember babysitting and caring for my sibling and cousin, and quickly go back to normal. 30 and childless.
Real talk. I said the exact same thing and didn’t plan to have kids. My wife and I didn’t have kids until she was 36.
Babysitting a cousin is not the same as parenting your own kin. It’s completely different.
Depends heavily on how indepth that “babysitting is”. When that Abby sitting involves cooking two meals a day for them, taking them two and from school, changing their diapers at 3am and taking them to the doctor.
All because their parents are too drunk and at the bar instead of home… Well
I fucking babysat my cousins and it was more raising them then anything their parents did
It’s not about what you do that makes the difference. It’s just having your kin changes the dynamics.
With my son, I’m imprinting him with everything and teaching him how I want to. The random tasks(like diapers, feeding, etc) that needs to be done is just a requirement for this imprinting.
My entire life’s from how I was raised when I was a kid to adulthood is solely on my shoulders. Every decision is no longer about me. It’s for them. My entire life’s purpose is to have my kids grow up how I want them to grow up.
With babysitting someone else’s kid, it’s just a task. A snippet, a small part of the entire process.
At 47 and my wife recently birthing our 2nd child, my only regret is not having kids sooner.
I only sacrificed sleep a bit in the first 3 years until both my kids were sleeping through the night. In no time they are school age, then off to university. The people I often see represented by the women in the comic are those who are married to their jobs, not parents. If you don’t want kids, fine, don’t have them but many parents think their kids are one of the best parts of their lives. Things that are the most worthwhile in your life often take a bit of work or challenge.
We got the second kid when the first one was almost 4. It was pretty rough, we where just getting back our sleep, and went in 2+ years of irregular sleep. She is 2 and a half now and thankfully sleep is getting much better.
If you have a kid and thinking about a second one, I would recommend don’t wait 3+ years, or wait 5+ years so you have a bit of time to recover.
Father for 12 years here, never have I ever said anything even remotely close of this sort to any my non kids / single friends, is it an American thing?
American father here. Not as far as I know. I tell folks don’t have kids unless you’re 100% sure. Even then, get a pet first. I love my kid. But boy, do I sure believe folks should get all sorts of tests before they decide now.
Kids are hard man, especially if you didn’t have a good example growing up.
I hear you man, I was just always curious how often actually the issue comes up in a normal chill time with friends or even in a normal conversation with coworkers, unless people ask me specifically for advice, or ask about my kids, it’s not something that just comes up naturally…I’m here aren’t I? Trying to enjoy my time with you, nothing more, If I wanted to air out my frustrations, there’s definitely a time and a place
it helps to be enslaved to a system that forces you to spend an average of 8 hours a day working only to be classified as part time while getting no health benefits whatsoever despite there being essentially no government healthcare
*I’m including excessive commute and non-paid work as “working”
Maybe it’s cause they don’t get as much time off work to care for their kids as Europeans do?
It’s a childless person thing. Very much an outsider “I only see my friends when they’re looking for time out” perspective.
If you want to see this in spades, you can go through the back catalog of Penny Arcade. Pre-kids, there was a ton of this “Oh no! Kids are the worst! They get in the way of all my drunken debauchery and time-consuming hobbies.” Post-kids, its a tidal wave of “Look at what my son can do! Look at what my daughter is into!” and they’re going out of their way to make life as fun and fulfilling as possible for the next generation, because that’s what they know they craved at that age.
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I’ve heard similar from people, usually the “you’ll change your mind when you find the right person”. I am from the US.
The worst was a conversation I had with coworkers. I mentioned I didn’t want kids because it would be really hard on my body to be pregnant after a near fatal car crash (back broken and lost a major organ). One gal said she thinks all women should have a baby. So I said, if I change my mind I can always adopt. She said “I think all women should have their own baby, it makes you a real woman. Adopting isn’t the same as having your own, there is not the same level of love there”. Worst part, she said this in front of another coworker who was adopted from a not great situation into a very loving and supportive family.
She was a misogynistic asshat about other things too.
Wow, that’s just messed up, never really understood why people don’t just mind their own business, even if you 100% in great health and decided to not have kids, it’s absolutely still your own decision…why should you or anyone if that matters be judged for it.
I 100% agree with you. I’m extremely happy for friends who want and have kids and I’m extremely happy for friends who don’t want and don’t have kids. I do not keep people like her in my personal life and I was so happy when I switched teams.
She was very much into, you can only be a Real Womantm if you follow these guidelines:
- Make babies from your own body
- Marry a man
- Have long hair (she was even weirder about this part)
She would always say weird shit like that when looking directly at me; an unwed by choice, childless by choice, woman with a mohawk. She was just a bitter dick about a lot of stuff and big mess. In my experience, stuff like that usually comes from people who are generally unhappy with something in their own life, thankfully it’s not a common occurrence.
I’m starting to just be the person they want us to be because screw them. Like you said I’ve never seen any comic or media rubbing in the face of people with kids like these people without kids love to cry about. It’s watching a guy in the cuck chair cry. You put yourself there, quiet down.
Honestly as a father I agree that being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life but, I’m also so fucking tired of the “it’s hell” joke.
My older dughter is now a teenager with all the trouble that entails and the selfishness she has but still there are no words to describe how much she helps when needed, how hard of a pilar she is to me, how caring and loving she is…Oh wait there is one…
Family
🥹
Humans were never meant to take care of babies as couples or alone.
Research suggests that given the tradeoffs of our evolutionary path, we had to shift towards a collective parenting (call it tribe, clan, extended family, etc.)
The modern “individualization” of the person is what has convinced us that such parenting form is “normal” and bearable, and that if you feel overwhelmed, there is something wrong with you.
I dont know where i heard it, but “children should not have only 2 parents”. Meaning the grandparents, uncles, everyone else should parent the child somewhat.
The cliché quote is “it takes a village to raise a child” and I agree. In Western nuclear family culture, that “village” has largely been forgotten.
Most people who are “childfree”, or even anti-natalist, don’t hate children. In a more cooperative society, many would definitely slot into that mentor/cool adult role; myself included.
As a parent of two I really enjoy talking about this. It’s such a complex, nuanced topic. Yeah you sacrifice a lot, sleep, time, sanity, but you kinda unlock a whole new level of your life, in your mind. I wouldn’t want to change it back, ever.
Just yesterday I read about cultural neoteny. Our society is so safe, that people don’t have to mentally mature to full grown adults anymore. No famine, no war, no oppression, no violence to deal with (yet). We can stay teenagers forever, being unable to deal with criticism, lacking resilience, unwilling to take responsibilities, cultivating out sensitivities that then clash with other peoples sensitivity.
Again, this is not the place for a long conversations, but I can’t help but feel that the constant joke “look at those stupid parents giving up their lifes” may be a part of that. There is some truth to it though. I am a little burned out, I may have dropped some life goals along the way. But then again, what’s the purpose of being alive?But then again, what’s the purpose of being alive?
Apparently dragging people from peaceful nonexistence into existence without their consent so that during their lifetime they will endure a lot of suffering, admittedly experiencing some transient joys along the way but doomed to one day have to undergo the agony of getting sick and dying, after which everything that happened during their life will have been meaningless, given that one day (in the near or far future) there will be no humans left and so even how their life affected other people will have been for naught?
I mean, that does not seem like a great life purpose to me, but you do you I guess?
dragging people from peaceful nonexistence into existence without their consent
The male body gave consent to copy itself before ejaculating and the female body also consented to copy itself. Both copies agreed to merge and create a new copy —the child. So technically, we did consent to being born. (Except when the mother has been raped, or throughout the pregnancy was denied abortion because of some stupid law — a timeframe allowed for one party to withdraw that consent).
I don’t have kids but I still like to wonder about where planes are going
To get to the other side!
I would be absolutely destroyed if I had dumb little copy of me that I was required to take care of.
I understand now why my dad was so distant and eventually went away.
Having an insane mother helps, too.
Being a parent is the best. You wouldn’t understand.
At least kids eventually leave, with pets you get to watch them slowly waste away and die in the most expensive ways possible.
Kids can be like that too
Damn… dark.
I mean it is the truth. Bad things can happen to people, and people should put more thought into that before having kids
Having a kid will fill that void inside you of “wtf am I doing with my life”. At least for me it did, purpose and responsibility made me happy.
Offtopic, but after reading these comments, I’m so glad I first opened Lemmy today rather than Reddit. Thoughtful, varied discussion, instead of sifting through a ton of samey “joke” comments to maybe (if ever) find some nugget of humanistic or original thought, or get bored, doomscrolling and lose hope in humanity.
I just love this community, thank you all for being here.
I would recommend reading the Baby decision to people. It’s a very open minded examination, despite what the title might implicate also very open and supportive for childless/childfree mindset. Even touches topics like, just because you like kids, doesn’t mean you have to have them, you can teach, volunteer for after school activities, etc.
I think the single most important take away from it is that whether you decide to have kid(s) or not, you give something up.
You also have to go into it responsibly and it’s also okay to reevaluate as you go along, e.g. just because you wanted 3 kids before getting married, doesn’t mean you can’t take a moment to reevaluate after the first if you still want that.
Even touches topics like, just because you like kids, doesn’t mean you have to have them, you can teach, volunteer for after school activities, etc.
Plus parenting is a lifelong role. Your kids are gonna be 50 one day, and you’ll probably be alive for that.
Personally, I’ve never liked children (the age group), but I have always admired some of my friends’ relationships with their parents, and have always wanted adult children (that is, the relationship) of my own, so I had kids. And although my kids are pretty cool, I still mostly think other people’s kids are annoying, and have only softened my views on that front a little bit.
I do wonder if there’s ever been a generation or ever will be a generation of kids that grow up and don’t go, well at least I’m not going to make the mistakes of my parents.
I think everyone thinks everyone else’s kids are annoying because everyone else’s kids were brought up by parents that were trying to compensate for different traumas. The hands-off parents are trying to not be helicopter parents, and the helicopter parents are trying to not be absent parents.
In my experience annoying kids are always the fault of the parents.
I ended up garbling my comment on an edit, but I’ve fixed it now.
I meant to say that I admired the relationships several of my friends had with their parents, and I have always had a pretty good relationship with my own parents, so the idea of parenting has always been based on positive examples and role models in my life.
How would you define an annoying kid and what age range are we talking about?
I’m in a relationship with a woman that seems to have a healthy relationship with with both her mother and father, the two still being married after all these years.
I know that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but in my experience marriage is a very temporary thing, and rarely happy.
