"Science says having a kid is one of the crappiest things that can happen to you"

Article. I don't care for that title, which removes the agency involved in reproduction (it isn't something that "happens" to you). But the basic point is something nobody here will take issue with.

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The researchers set out to understand the difference between the number of children people want, and the number they end up having. German people in particular say they want an average of two kids, and then only have one and a half. This statistic suggests that a huge number of people who want kids think better of it after they have that first one. Why would that be?

The study blames a "drop in well-being surrounding first birth," also known as "unhappiness."

How spectacularly crappy is it? Well, there was an average decline in happiness of 0.6 in a 10-point scale for divorce, 1 point for unemployment or a spouse's death, and 1.6 points for the birth of a first child. And this isn't a temporary thing based on wailing infants:

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The drop in the reported happiness of new parents is beyond the level you might expect from sleepless nights, and dealing with poopy diapers. In fact, somewhat alarmingly, the unhappiness didn't set in until the first and second year after the birth. And when it did, it was some major misery.

They should have asked us. Or listened to us. Or stopped bingoing us long enough to consider that we might know what we're talking about.

And they will resist the results of this study just as they do the previous ones...breeders can not accept this particular truth.

Meanwhile, every time it’s been studied it has been concluded that pets increase well-being. We crazy cat ladies aren’t so crazy after all.

The honesty is so refreshing. We can always hope a fence sitter will read this and opt out of Lifescript hell.

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The drop in the reported happiness of new parents is beyond the level you might expect from sleepless nights, and dealing with poopy diapers. In fact, somewhat alarmingly, the unhappiness didn't set in until the first and second year after the birth. And when it did, it was some major misery.

That's probably because the toddler stage is when they become more independent, learn to talk and proceed to say no to everything while simultaneously never listening to the same word. Babies are much more dependent and helpless, and aside from the crying all night and shit diapers, they are much more manageable because they just sit there and occasionally shit/piss/puke.

Toddler care often times involves those familiar sleepless nights and shit diapers, but amplified tenfold - sleepless nights because Junior doesn't want to go to sleep and it's a nightly four-hour battle trying to get the kid bathed, put into pajamas and settled into bed, and shit diapers because Mommy won't potty train the little asshole and he throws fits when he gets put into real underwear or wants to eat or play with his own shit and throws another fit when he's not allowed to.

This is on top of all the other horrible behavior toddlers already display. They don't call it the terrible twos for no reason, and it's also the age when brats are most ripe for PNAs - too old to be cute babies, too young to get dumped on a teacher all day, so the parents have no choice but to deal with them. And sometimes dealing with them involves leaving them in the family truckster in 90-degree weather for ten hours and saying you "forgot" them.

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Having kids has very little return value given all the work it takes to raise them. They cost a shitload of money, starting right at birth when you get a nice $15,000 or so bill for a hospital birth, which can go up very quickly for treatment of various complications. You have to deal with the kids' stupid bullshit all day and all night on top of working (sometimes two jobs), you have no social life or sex life, you feel and look fat and hideous, you have no energy or time for hobbies or just focusing on you, you have to make major efforts to raise them and use discipline and basically be on your toes constantly to make sure they aren't breaking shit or hurting themselves (and you keep doing that because it's not like you fix the problem once and it gets better like with 99% of problems), you have to make sure they do well in school and eat right and have their health needs seen to... and that's just if you have a totally normal, healthy child. All this shit gets much, much harder if you have a sick or fucked up kid. Of course, each generation of parents feels that fewer and fewer of these things are their jobs.

And all this caring is absolutely not worth it. Compare to tending to the needs of, say, a sick sibling or spouse. That's someone you (most likely) genuinely love. You've known them for a long time, you've developed an emotional attachment and there is some sort of affection there that can make even the hardest work worth it because you love them. Now imagine that same level of commitment to someone you don't really know who is a complete asshole, doesn't give a fuck about you, and you're not paid to deal with them and you can't get away from them. That's what it's like raising a kid. It's not a labor of love, it's a labor of necessity. You have this fuckin' kid, now you gotta deal with it even though you want to drown it in the toilet.

All for a couple of cute Kodak moments. It's like busting your ass seven days a week at a horrible underpaying job with an asshole boss so you can have one day off every five years and you spend that whole day off being anxious about having to go back to the grind for five more years. Nope, not fuckin' worth it. Yet I'm sure plenty of people were offended by this study that tells us precisely what we already knew.

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The honesty is so refreshing. We can always hope a fence sitter will read this and opt out of Lifescript hell.

I think this article is excellent for that reason. You're never going to convince a lot of people who cannot be reasoned with about their impending, life-changing decision. "But I just WANT ONE," but maybe someone out there will think.....why do I want to do this again? And who says I have to?

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Cambion
And all this caring is absolutely not worth it. Compare to tending to the needs of, say, a sick sibling or spouse. That's someone you (most likely) genuinely love. You've known them for a long time, you've developed an emotional attachment and there is some sort of affection there that can make even the hardest work worth it because you love them. Now imagine that same level of commitment to someone you don't really know who is a complete asshole, doesn't give a fuck about you, and you're not paid to deal with them and you can't get away from them. That's what it's like raising a kid. It's not a labor of love, it's a labor of necessity. You have this fuckin' kid, now you gotta deal with it even though you want to drown it in the toilet.

All for a couple of cute Kodak moments. It's like busting your ass seven days a week at a horrible underpaying job with an asshole boss so you can have one day off every five years and you spend that whole day off being anxious about having to go back to the grind for five more years. Nope, not fuckin' worth it. Yet I'm sure plenty of people were offended by this study that tells us precisely what we already knew.

Spot on...couldn't have said it better. This is exactly how I feel about the whole breeder deal too. And its perplexing to me, that all these bingoing shitheads out there simply don't get this simple logic. And sheepishly answer that its "different when its your own" or that the "magical hormones" will fix it all when the bastard comes crawling outta you. This idiocy makes me want to walk straight up a wall!!

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kittehpeoples
And they will resist the results of this study just as they do the previous ones...breeders can not accept this particular truth.

And sure, the breeders will never accept it. It's like the hobo smashing the mirror because it shows how filthy and disgusting he is.
If they's admit their poor life choices, that would mean no more bingoing us, no more bullying us, and finally admitting being jealous of us. And THAT is something the gigantic breeder ego CANNOT take

Cambion beat me to it...the delay is because toddlers and pre-schoolers just straight up suck. The end.

I've also read other research showing that marital discord hits its nadir when the kids are in their teens, and couples don't get back to their original level of happiness until the kids are grown.