#I don t want to take your freedom full#
#I don t want to take your freedom plus#

You see your baby giggle for the first time or sob hysterically, and from then on, you see everyone you know differently.īecause you realize they were all babies once, totally dependent, totally tiny, totally adorbs. It makes you value the gift of a smile, of a budding personality. Being a parent makes you think of other children, which is to say, makes you less selfish. Which is to say, it makes you less selfish. It makes you notice them and think about their well-being.

It makes you aware of other children, for one. There are times when that kind of dependence on the well-being of someone else while being simultaneously responsible for said someone else's survival is just radically difficult to bear.īut it also changes you in extraordinary ways. Now, maybe that loss of independence sounds a little… awful. The world seemed like new, unrecognizable place - a place where the word “Mom” somehow applied to me, where a new soul now existed. It was love and bliss, and it was all-encompassing. I had never experienced that kind of euphoria, where I'd stay up just to watch her. Those first eight weeks of baby girl's life were not “fun” for me. Add to this the fact that my husband had to move to another country for work, and I happened to live hundreds of miles and multiple states away from family, and you know…

#I don t want to take your freedom plus#

Limited coffee, zero alcohol, added exhaustion, plus total body change? That was hard.īut it was nothing compared to taking care of an infant. I was kind of never really home, except to sleep.Īnd it had been really hard, adjusting to pregnancy. To dinners, bars, films, concerts, festivals, coffee shops, wherever. Let me explain: When my daughter was born, all my friends were single. And prep yourselves, because my next proposition is perhaps more radical: simply achieving “happiness” is also not, necessarily, indicative at all of a good life. You will be saying buh-bye to lots of fun and freedom when you become a parent.īut “fun” is not the only measure we should apply to our lives.

#I don t want to take your freedom full#

So, full disclosure, up front: You will be saying buh-bye to lots of fun and freedom when you become a parent. None of this is remotely possible with kids.

If a friend invites you over for a Netflix binge-fest, game on. Everything from spontaneous midnight movies to hitting up Hotwire's last-minute flight deal. I remember the days often and fondly (for the most part).Įven if you have an SO, being kid-free leaves millions of doors open. These tend to be inveterate snobs, but underneath that upturned nose is perhaps genuine sympathy for kids whose parents don't take very good care of them. Occasionally, you stumble across those who lament the lack of “tests” for procreation. And yet, these “good” people ruined their childhood. They love their parents and think their mom and dad are “good” people. Or they grew up in a dysfunctional household are were witness to and victims of terrible mothers and fathers.

I have girlfriends who don't want kids because it might interfere with their careers. So how could he, in good conscience, bring an innocent, helpless life into the world, only to royally screw said kid's life up with his own mess of baggage? He did not know for certain he would be a great dad. I also had a friend who is a philosophy fiend, and he told me he just couldn't risk it. I think he was referring to this, or this or this.įor more on the truth, but also BS of this, read on. One dude I knew, years ago, said he wasn't sure about having kids because “the research” suggests parenthood doesn't make you happy. I know there are a lot of parenting cynics out there.