It’s always a bit surreal to see people insist “As a childless adult, I get to have hobbies while you don’t” when - as a childed adult - I find myself picking up hobbies I’d never even considered before kids.
My little guy stumbles on things and gets into them, needs some help, and suddenly we’re both neck-deep in a jigsaw puzzle or a TV series or a train kit or a pile of half-painted miniatures.
I think its more that those hobbies are thrust upon you by the child. Your willingness to engage with them smooths it all out. Not everyone has patience for kid friendly activities and some find them incredibly boring.
For instance… I work in childcare. Almost all of my personal favorite activities are very non-child friendly… (then again I also engaged with many of my favorite non-child-friendly pass times way younger than most people would be comfortable with…) I find most sanitized “kid friendly” activities pretty unbearably boring.
The kids themselves are fine though. And if anything I think they’d agree with me. If I busted out a super violent video game or something they’d probably cool with it. It’d be my fellow counselors and parents who’d take issue.
If anything my experience with kids almost softened my desire to get sterilized and cement my child free life. Kids seem fine to me. Its just all the social restrictions and expectations around them and obviously the energy, money, and time commitment. (Also I’m a soft-anti-natalist.)
Not everyone has patience for kid friendly activities and some find them incredibly boring.
In my experience, kids love to imitate whatever their parents are doing. But they struggle to operate at an adult level. So you provide them with kid-friendly activities to bridge that gap with an eye towards full participation as they get older.
When my son was 1-year-old, I couldn’t put a baseball glove on him and toss a baseball around. But I could kick a rubber ball back and forth. I could get him to throw his ball into his toy box. I could roll a ball to him and have him pick it up, then two-hand throw it back. I’d do this with an eye to the future. And then he got older and stronger and more dexterous, and we could elevate what he tried to do.
I get that this isn’t the most stimulating for the adult. But, at some level, you need to enjoy being around your kids generally speaking. Otherwise, I’ll spot you that having kids is going to be miserable. At another level, learning how to teach is its own hobby and challenge. Experimenting with what your child can do is interesting. Reading about the next milestones and testing whether your kid can do them is exciting. Watching your kid improve over time is fascinating.
If that’s not for you… okay, fine. Maybe you take your kid to daycare and let them figure it out. And you just treat your kid like an appliance - fed, rested, healthy, etc. I’ll spot you that this isn’t very fun (on its face, anyway).
If I busted out a super violent video game or something they’d probably cool with it. It’d be my fellow counselors and parents who’d take issue.
I mean, I don’t see an enormous difference between Splatoon and Team Fortress. I got Sonic: The Hedgehog collection for my son, and we can play it without any serious fear of trauma (although he has thrown the controller a few times). You can curb the degree of gore and still keep all the elements that make an activity fun.
If anything my experience with kids almost softened my desire to get sterilized and cement my child free life.
More power to you. Just crazy to see people blot their own childhoods from their heads and insist you simply can’t have fun under the age of 20.
Adults Im talking to are like “I have no spare time or do anything interesting, my children consumes me completely”. I say fuck no to that. I have personal growth to pursue.
Adults Im talking to are like
It’s funny, because I hear this from childless adults all the time, as well. More often than not, they’re complaining about being overworked (and underpaid) at the office. The parents I know more commonly complain that they don’t get enough time with their kids, bemoaning how much time (and money) go to day cares and after school activities, while they’re stuck working weekends or extra shifts to make ends meet.
Sounds like you come from the fascist regimes of america.
Texas is a hell of a state
A lot of people don’t understand what it takes to raise children, completely overlooking what you just listed. You seem to be a good parent, which is rare.
Same.
Also I get to share my hobbies with them. We got a d&d group, we paint minis and play video games together. Which is stuff I’d do anyways.
I also picked up inline skating as my kids do that all the time and just standing there while they skate was boring.
Plus I still got hobbies as does my wife. Yes there is less time but we have each other’s backs so everyone can have some time for their own interests like once or twice a week.
I don’t think they are saying you gave up your life because of your children but that you shift your time towards other things. Rightfully so because having a child is a huge responsibility and people better live up to that.
But I don’t think you would have gotten into jigsaw puzzles and probably did something more alike the things You did before you had children.
Or maybe you are the exception to the (from what I can observe) the norm and haven’t given up any or most of your adult hobbies when having a child. If so, good on you!
In closing I would like to say that I respect people that want children, I understand some people want children and can’t have them (fertility, no partner, discrimination against non hetero) and I understand the anger they might feel when seeing this meme. I also understand those who don’t have children and are fine with it or even happy about it because they actively pursued this life concept. So to me that meme is funny without making fun of the other groups but (as ever joke needs) using them as a reference to make it funny in the first place.
Live long and prosper 🖖
What kind of miniatures?
He found the box of “Kingdom Death: Monster” board game figures I’d been sitting on since he was born.
Rad.
That’s a funny way to frame it 😄 At the end of the day, everyone’s just choosing the life that fits them best—and there’s room for all kinds of happiness.
everyone’s just choosing the life that fits them best
pressing X so hard rn
This is important and highlights some problems with trends in the modern world. At one point, we had an agreement that the average family would sacrifice 40 labor hours to the economy in return for enough resources to sustain a family. Now it’s 80.
Parents should have plenty of time to engage in childish pursuits alongside their kids. It’s natural, traditional, healthy and constructive to multi-generational, extended family households. I know that’s not what everyone wants, but I feel like it should at least be an option.
It should be okay for a person to work 20 hours per week. We have the technology to make that sustainable. If someone wants to work 80 to accumulate luxuries for themselves, I think that’s fine, too. What I hate is observing people being forced to live in poverty while working 40+ hours. I am aware that almost no one working full time is below the federal poverty limit, but that’s because it’s a nonsense metric. It’s unconscionable that anyone should have to live in poverty in the modern world, but it’s insane that full-time wages don’t necessarily cover the cost of living.
I believe this creates a situation which raises children without a sense of community outside of work, and now we’re watching them burn down the village as 70-year-olds. There’s a saying about how bad times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, and weak people create bad times. I don’t believe it for a second. Strong people and peoples are those with strong social bonds. They needn’t be biological. Screwed up families exist and it’s okay to get away and find a real family elsewhere.These communities create good times, which create even stronger people.
So therefore, go and do silly things with kids. Play Minecraft or Fortnite or kick-the-can or hide-and-seek, sing baby shark, or watch Bluey. Not just because our future depends on it, but because it’s fun. We are supposed to be happy as a minimum standard. Not all the time, but at least as an average. It’s not even the goal of life; it’s the method. We’re supposed to enjoy doing constructive things. That’s how positive reinforcement works, and the current system is not only failing to acknowledge that, but it’s diverging from it.
Go and be childish.
We also used to get to retire and do the childish hobbies for 15-20 years after our careers ended.
Our grandparents had dolls, model trains, antiques and organs to play.
You can’t give most of the shit away now, not just because tastes have changed, but I think because housing, employment and free time are all a fraction of what they were 40 years ago.
You ever see the futurama episode what that slug was forced to party all the time.
It’s like that
What if my hobby is breeding?
Go breed! Quickly. And furiously.
As a working parent, I ask that you consume my work product as you nobly chillax.
Chilfree for life, baby! My bloodline ends with me!
Thank you for your service. Please continue engage in weird, wonderful, time-absorbing hobbies in my honour.
I’m a currently childless man who may continue to be childless. Sometimes I think about teaching as a means to contribute to the betterment of society.
Sometimes I think parents forget that they CHOSE to have kids. There’s always a choice. Even having sex with protection has a risk that people assume.
You’re not wrong but please don’t rub it in 😥
Meh grass is always greener. I’m sure there are lots of stuff about having kids which are amazing.
Its true, but [politics incoming] it’s harder since the nuclear home resulted in the elimination of community, and both parents are forced to work to get by, and it only looks to be getting worse.
Raising kids is great (for many people), but it shouldn’t be your entire life. The unfortunate reality is that work and raising kids is the only life many people have access to.
It’s also not really the case that parents are “doing it to keep the population up” so the premise is wrong.
But it’s funny to imagine it that way
Well now I’m going to run it in! Neener neener neeeeener!
Jk. You are right though, we need wider community, and this capitalist hellscape has ruined a great many things, in addition to raising a family. I honestly have no clue how my parents, especially my mom did it.
I asked my parents exactly this.
They said something like
It was possible to live on one salary, so your mother could be a full time stay at home mom. This gave us the energy to be able to follow other passions
Basically 2 people with 2 full-time jobs between them have more energy than 2 people with 3 full time jobs between them.
Mom could volunteer and join clubs while I was at school. Dad could do marathons on the weekend. We could do family activities like camping or skiing because they weren’t exhausted by also having to do another 40 hours of work per week between them.
Yeah, but my mom worked full time (over, really, more than 40hrs plus a long commute) dad also worked full time, plus a teacher so lots of extra junk t at teachers have to do. Still, they raised me and were there for me.
Insane.
I’m assuming they also had more family and community than we have. And a lot less social pressure.
I had so much unsupervised time lol.
lol same on the unsupervised time.
If it helps, the kids become more fun once they’re potty trained.
I don’t think kids are the biggest barrier to enjoying your hobbies. They’re not latched at the tit 24/7 for decades. I think the bigger issue is people have unrealistic work loads/hours, aren’t paid enough, and have lost a lot of the support that used to exist.
Sure, when my kids were small I had a lot less free time, but I still had fun doing childish things. As they got older we ended up trying a lot of things I would not have attempted if it weren’t for them, especially outdoor sports. Now they’re both a bit older and more independent, I have more time to do my own thing. I work from home a few days a week and use that time to go to the gym. On weekends my wife and I take turns so I can go birdwatching - sometimes I take them with me. I’m about to start volunteering at a wildlife rescue in the coming weeks because I have more time on my hands. In a few more years they’ll be even more independent and probably less interested in hanging out with us as much, meaning even more free time.
I can understand having kids doesn’t appeal to everyone, and I don’t think people who don’t want kids should be berated into having them. I also recognise all of this is only possible because I have an extremely flexible work schedule and my wife and I earn a decent living. But to say that having kids is the reason people can’t enjoy their hobbies anymore is disingenuous at best.
The childless circles have this preconceived stereotype that life stops the moment you have kids for the next 20 years. What they don’t understand is that life doesn’t stop when you have kids, having kids is a part of life. Creating your own children, raising them, and watching them is in of itself a joy even if it is hard work. Parenting isn’t misery and having kids doesn’t mean you don’t have time to enjoy what you like.
Many don’t have a solid point of reference to work from. Maybe they’ve seen a movie or heard a new parents speak on the challenges of taking care of a newborn. The first year is definitely work.
After that things fall into place for the most part if the child was planned. You certainly need to have saved money and have people / family to help.
There is so much joy that comes with having a child that it can be hard to put into words.
Not only do you begin to see the world through their eyes (in a curious, more gentle and appreciative way) - which would be good for many adults - you also rediscover yourself.
You remember the way you saw the world when you were younger. You remember what made you tick. You remember what adulthood may have taken from you. Things that once may have even defined you. They bring it all back such that you see the path of your life to this point more clearly and perhaps even can chart its future course with more certainty.
I also have a much better relationship with my parents now. As immigrants raising three kids with essentially no help I have so much respect and appreciation for the sacrifices they made. I don’t think I would have ever truly understood the hardship they took on to have us in a country with more ideal economic opportunities if I didn’t have kids myself.
I had children young and watched my peers have social lives, etc. But now, on this side of things, they’re just getting started with little ones and my kids are driving. It’s coming. MUHAHAHA
Thank you for your service.
This is how I live my life.
