Having a kid is one of the best things that have happened to me

A little more than five months ago, I became a father. I was pretty apprehensive about the whole thing at first because I didn’t know if I’d do well. In fact, I had had doubts about my capabilities as a parent for years before, but I am glad to report that having a kid is awesome and fulfilling and you should have kids as soon as possible.

Doubts

Here’s a semi-chronological list of my doubts, both personal and more philosophical, related to having children:

More on doubts

I feel like I want to go into slightly more detail about this.

Life is not just suffering

The moral calculus depends on your starting assumptions, but generally speaking, human life in the present doesn’t have negative utility (if it ever had that). You could convince me that some (semi-)sentient beings have negative utility and that it would be better for them if they were never born, but I don’t think that applies to humans in general.

Overpopulation

The issue du jour is demographic collapse now, so this is a pretty old one. Nevertheless, regressive progressives still stick to the idea that fewer humans is a good idea, and that we should somehow reduce the human population. This is academic at best, and genocidal at worst, and doesn’t generally fit with what I want humanity to do. I don’t want us to live sustainably as hunter-gatherers until the Sun becomes a red dwarf and eats our planet. I want us to reach for the stars and get to at least Kardashev 2, and ideally 3. Focusing on overpopulation doesn’t fit with my transhumanist ideology anyway so it’s a no-go from the start.

Would I even be a good father?

If there was a “Good Father” index which tracked the most important aspects of fatherhood, I think I would be at least above the median, and I hope I’d at least be in the top 25%.

By any sane metric, I’m doing just fine, so my criticism, while justified in some aspects, should not prevent me from parenthood.

Poor genetics

I’m just average, and that’s totally fine. While I do have some sympathy for mild eugenics (not compulsory… anything really), I really don’t think that I have anything to worry about. What, flat feet and eyesight that’s not even bad but just not perfect for a fighter jet pilot? What are we doing here, building a supersoldier? What kind of stupid reasoning would “I have poor genetics” even be in my case?

And in addition, I’m smart and a large portion of that is presumably genetic, and my partner is too, so it is a good thing for the world to propagate that trait.

Money

Actually legitimate. But good support networks allow - and should allow - people to have kids at a young age. I didn’t have that, so this was a legitimate concern at a certain point. You may be thinking that the concern was overblown - I insist that it was not. It’s not like I was middle class and wanted to be upper class before having kids. I was lower class, way lower. Now I’m middle class, so now it’s a solved problem.

Hobbies and interests

Sure you have to cut some things out, or just postpone them. This is fine. There was a time when I was anxious about not doing things right - as in, if you don’t put in X amount of hours each week, you’re wasting time. This is kinda adolescent thinking. It’s thinking informed by watching too much anime and thinking that you’re not embodying protagonist energy if you don’t train for {crazy number of hours} each day.

I haven’t made a video in months, maybe a full year, maybe more. That’s… ok. It’s just a hobby. I’ll come back to it. I’ll make time for creative pursuits somehow, at a later point. Kids teach you patience - not just because you have to be patient with them, you also have to be patient with yourself.

Random things that are great

Here’s a collection of unexpected good things (in addition to the general goodness of having kids):

  1. You put baby to sleep. You can now also take a nap! In fact, this is encouraged. Weirdly, having a baby can enhance your sleep habits.
  2. You put baby to sleep. You’re not sleepy so you don’t take a nap. Guess what, you can just chill alongside your sleeping baby and… think. There’s no pressure to do anything, in fact, you’re encouraged not to lest you wake the baby. So you can just think, or meditate, or both. I’ve put in more meditation hours since I’ve had the baby than in the years before that.
  3. You can walk around - in fact, you’re encouraged to. Walking with your kid is really good for the kid. Maybe in a sling, or maybe in a stroller.
  4. Also, if you’re trying to lose weight, maybe you can put on a heavy backpack. I’ve been consistently doing 20 kg 5k rucks over hilly terrain. This is very very good. I have also lost almost 9 kg since 1 Jan this year, so something must be going right.
  5. Perfect excuse for literally anything. Oh sorry, I can’t come - I have to take care of the baby.

Things nobody tells you about

  1. Nobody knows what they’re doing.
  2. The amount of poor thinking and misinformation related to parenting and childcare is astounding.
  3. No seriously, it’s really really bad. I’m used to being sensitive to people’s claims because I have some rationalist training (= I’ve read The Sequences) but holy shit does the parenting “community” have some bad epistemology.
  4. You always have guests. This can be a good or bad thing, but people are always coming and going.
  5. Dogs are really fun, but their barking habits really do clash with the baby’s sleeping habits.
  6. Puking yellow doesn’t mean you need to go to emergency services, despite what the NHS tells you. (Sometimes there’s just a bit of bile. It doesn’t mean that there’s a blockage.)
  7. Owlet oxygen monitors (and presumably oxygen monitors in general) just cause more anxiety, instead of less.

(I’ll try to update this list when I think of more examples)