I have considered this dilemma many times - do I regret having children? Would my life be simpler, free of regret? Would I be happier? I gave birth to four UNPLANNED children. I aborted a fifth “possible” child, for reasons I won’t go into here. But now, there is regret — who would that person/child have been? You see, three of my four live births only lived for varying periods. My first son died at 16 in a car accident. My only daughter died at 32 of medical issues coupled with a drug overdose. My third child died at 37 of an out & out drug overdose during the height of Covid. My fourth and last (LIVING) child is on the spectrum - very intelligent but lives with social difficulties. I have never, ever for one moment regretted the lives of my children, so, consequently, do not regret being a parent. My one regret, as stated, is NOT letting that fifth “being” BECOME. Every day, I outshine that annihilation of the spirit by loving my 16 years with Michael, my 32 years with Lisa, and my 37 years with David. I am 75 years old, now, and appreciate/love every minute spent with my living 39-year-old son. There is no accounting for the power of love.
I'd say the solution lies in granularity. Experiences that are miserable at each particular moment, like climbing Mt. Everest, could be deeply happy and meaningful overall. Indeed, that's typical of the most meaningful experiences, which is why people are often loath to repeat them. The key is abandoning the analytic assumption that a whole's goodness is just the sum total of the goodness of its parts.
I was an unloved child and I lived to see the fallout of having children you don’t want to a spouse you cannot have a functional relationship with. It was extremely messy - for children and parents alike, which is why I now work on exposing developmental trauma and how we can recover from it.
As a parent myself now, I understand to my bone how sometimes a crevice between child and parent can emerge and grow. I wish there was more we all did for parents to help them be better at the biggest job of their lives. Perhaps that something you could also write about?
I have never needed to consider whether I regret having my children. I work in a professional field with a long and notoriously grueling training process. I hated much of my training. But, having graduated all my training and now engaging in the actual work, I love my job. I believe it’s what I was meant to do.
Having children is very difficult. In terms of all consuming work it’s probably the most intense thing in a human can do, at least from the point of view of a mother (maybe different for a father). I am often frustrated and exhausted, but for me raising my children is a privilege just like being accepted into that grueling, professional training was a privilege.
What is happiness? Is it the feeling of joy in a moment? Is it looking back with a smile? Is it looking forward to your next years with delight? The pursuit of happiness is like trying to hold water in our hands. We can grasp and grasp, but eventually it’ll fall through our fingers. What gives our life meaning, what makes us satisfied with our lives, often requires sacrifice, hard work, and suffering.
I really love your images and metaphors. Well said! It`s not easy to describe these elusive processes but you`ve come very close! You`re a born and a true parent. A real incarnation of the essence of motherhood! hats off!
Tomorrow is my 78th birthday. I do not have children My story is complicated. When I was around 13 I decided I was never going to have children. Was that a response to what I witnessed between my parents or did I know something intuitively about myself and my physiology. I had plenty of opportunities to get pregnant because I lived in the time of 60s free love. Yes the pill became widely available, but there were many instances when I wasn't careful. I never had the "mother instinct" or "yearning" that many women talk about. There are times when I have tinges of regret, but those pass quickly. I am very satisfied with my life and have no real regrets about the choices I have made. Knowing yourself is key when it comes to the big decisions in life. Stripped of all attendent emotional aspects, whether or not to have children is a choice.
All I know is that I don't regret NOT having children. I knew when I was very young that I didn't want any, and I married a man who felt the same way, and he doesn't regret it either. We've been happily married for 51 years. We've seen too many of our family members screw up their kids, like some who commented here obviously did.
I feel somewhat queezy about the bluntness of the question: Do children make you happy, in that the rather wide-spread tendency to focus on palpable, immediate pleasure or gratification returns in our society may compromise people's ability to weigh the deeper, more lasting "returns". It may also encourage parents struggling with the pragmatic challenges of parenting to adopt a more self-centered or unmotivated attitude toward parenting, telling themselves: "My rights, my needs are being side-stepped." The me-first attitude in modern life is wide-spread and growing, it would appear. This may have devastating consequences for vulnerable members of our so-called enlightened society - children. I like and endorse the change in view-point in the questions in studies which focus on the longer term "returns", the sense of having an anchor, a purpose, a source of fulfillment. Woe betide a culture where that awareness is eclipsed! I think it's important to be aware of the potential impact on participants of studies such as the less subtly framed ones in terms of future commitment to parenting. An analogous study or question ought to be posed, I feel, at the time of sampling - simply to enable people to recognize what's at stake. "Do you find fulfilment in your professional duties?" Many of course don't, but for those who have the luxury of working in fields - research, academic, creative, etc. - that ARE fulfilling - it may sharpen the focus on the fact that no serious commitment with long-term fulfillment benefits is without its costs in terms of immediate gratification. Everything worth anything costs labor, effort, time and requires sacrifice. I think there needs to be a greater awareness of the impact of studies such as these. The message they may send to young parents struggling to find time for relaxation may have long-term negative consequences. Our world needs to be fed by studies and scientific endeavors which SHARPEN people's awareness of these dynamics rather than weaken or undermine them. Thank you, however, for the exhaustive coverage of the topic. It shows in a glaring way how important it is to ask the right questions, to access more core dynamics in play and arrive at more credible results, but - now - I would add also to prevent potential fallout from questions which misdirect participants' foci and alter core values and principles which slowly erode our collaborative, community- and love-oriented common purposes and foci.
I get the "argument by attachment." You can't wish the kid could be free of the bone disease because that's wishing for the non-existence of the person you love.
But why should this reasoning be confined to decisions about parenthood? Unless you hate yourself, you should feel the same way about all major life decisions, no? Do I wish I'd gone to a university that was more merciful and laid-back, instead of the intense and unsupportive pressure-cooker I attended? I could say yes. But those years shaped me profoundly. A supposedly better experience in academia I might have made me a happier or more accomplished person today, but I would not be me. Ditto for divorce -- it's a painful experience but if I had not wed my ex and lived through the marriage, I'd be someone else. So how can I regret it? Only if I detest myself so much that I can say, in effect, "I wish that I did not exist."
I guess I think of regret as an emotion for the ephemeral daily experiences at the surface of social life. I regret skipping your party. I regret that mean thing I said this morning. It's not a feeling people most can stand to have about their lives in toto.
Sure, some people truly loathe themselves and the life they have built. But I think a more typical human impulse is to defend the notion that you turned out OK. That can, of course, go wrong ("yep, we killed millions of innocents when I worked for Darth Vader, but I got to travel all over"). It can also I think help to explain the low percentage of people saying they regret having children.
yes, regret is not a fathomable response to anything as meaningful, lasting, deep, poignant, deeply impactful as having children, going through a marriage, taking part in the grind, the endurance push, and the self-revelation of a rigorous academic program. I like your examples and I wholeheartedly agree. Again, I detect a failure of nuance in some descriptors current in "scientific research".
I expect that "fear of judgment" is one small part of why parents are reluctant to say they regret having a child. But the other one is huge! It's not just about regretting children; it's about regretting *this child*.
This child right here — the one that I love with all my heart — I regret having *this* child. It is tantamount to saying "Actually, no. I don't love this child. I wish she were dead."
No one is going to say that. Not even silently to themselves in the dark of the night.
“More than that, it’s not just that you feel compelled to say that you are happy they exist—you are happy they exist. After all, you love them.”
Brilliant. I wrote about the life-changing magic of saying “I love you” more often (that is, affirming more existence) here: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/love
I think Elizabeth II said that. Definitely applies to parenting. And photos function as memory. If you invest in your kids they feel it, the love is there, and the struggles just deepen the overall bond... adding to meaning and purpose in your one life. It's obviously not all joy, but it's not a math equation- the parts (moments) add up to something so much larger. Nothing can possibly compare, in my experience. No amount of happy "carefree" moments will create the pride, joy, and meaning of raising kids through pain and disappointment and sticking with it to witness the redemption and even the small triumphs that come over the years. Life is long. Still, if people have a different purpose they want to pursue in life, they should not feel obligated to have kids. If it feels foremost like an obligation then it's probably not for them. So many amazing people in history did not have kids and spent their energy on something else. To me, personally, there is no bigger purpose I can fathom. But everyone is different.
I'm sure the endowment effect is very strong when having kids. If you can develop an irrational liking for a mug over a few minutes (just because it's yours) I think creating an entire human is on another level.
I think the question of regretting having children is poorly posed for exactly the reasons Alexa Haley lays out above.
The traditional returns to having children (supply of labor to make family economics work among the poor; securing of dynastic holdings among the rich) either largely don’t apply today, or else (aid to elderly from offspring; continuation of family line) are often not at the front of mind of the busy middle-aged people who tend to be asked about this in surveys.
Basically, we mostly ask people fully immersed in the cost side of the reproductive transaction to say how they feel about it before they experience the most profound benefits that the decision returns. And still only 7% report regret! So what percent of octogenarians playing with their grandkids at their daughters’ homes where they’re being allowed to live and receive home health care partly paid for by their sons do we think report regret?
…A side point on the question of the 7% reporting regret potentially being a false result on the low side;
Is it odd (or not the case) that psychology or political science haven’t produced something close to a definitive set of answers to questions around (dis)honesty in survey responses *in general*? On some level you would think the industry would have a pretty good sense of when and how they get inaccurate results from different kinds of surveys at this point, wouldn’t you? What factors lead to what kinds of and how much inaccurate response?
My qualms also have to do with a kind of single-mindedness and oversimplification in the framing of questionnaires which, yes, are necessary to control for too large a spread of possible factors producing the noted results. ( Simplification in the articulation of questions and factors to be surveyed being necessary to control for too large a spread of possible causative factors and hence mud in the water for the clinical interpreter.) BUT and this is a large but : I find the stream-lined questions sometimes 1. too simplistic and limited with the result that nuances are lost - I guess a necessary and calculated loss, simply accepted as unavoidable by current scientific practice. and 2. the nodes addressed in the rather linearly formatted question-nexus build a kind of density and rapport which can influence people after the fact. They have their own kind of critical mass and exert gravitational influence, to use a metaphor. A series of rather too pointed and oversimplified questions will build a halo or horizon of interpretive value for the responder of the questions, encouraging negative views on phenomena and engagements that ought NEVER, categorically NEVER be framed in this manner - for ethical reasons! Because of the failure to point out during the questionnaire that the questions are limited, partial in their descriptive purpose and hence have a tendency to cast light and shadow on the terrain of probing in different ways and in skewed ways than reality itself does - the upshot is that people can and often do walk away with a skewed image of the significance and meaning of the phenomena under survey. "Parents have a right to be unhappy about fractious moments in their engagements with their children. " - that`s an easy take-away after filling out a questionnaire that focuses too exclusively on the immediate short-term signs of frustration, unhappiness, etc. in the parenting experience. These are critical intervention moments by authorized, respected agents and authorities which leave a lasting imprint in people`s minds - an not always for the good. It is time that these dynamics are uncovered and rectified. We are entering an era of fracturing of common purpose and communal sharing of civic responsibilities, we have never experienced before to this alarming degree. Everything plays its part, from consumerism run rampant to .... yes, to this kind of practice. And yet science and its tools are a beacon of progress. Let`s refine the tools and use them with greater care and circumspection ! Thank you all for your comments, by the way. All very interesting contributions!
These comments have no bearing on the right of and importance for individuals to determine their own unique paths - either with or without children - their interest in or commitment to parenting BEFORE the fait accompli. It`s wonderful to hear so many steering their lives and destinies with open eyes and rejecting a course that many simply fall into unthinkingly or with skewed expectations. But my comments DO bear on protocols within the scientific community and the need for awareness of fall-out and inadvertent feed-back on serious life issues by and from tools not yet sufficiently fine-tuned. I suggest that survey tools be refined to preclude these kinds of negative repercussions. Science is an important and substantial pillar of cultural and civic progress, there`s no doubt about it. But advances are slow and steady and there`s always room for improvement. This study throws, I feel, a glaring light on some of the potential problems that have been overlooked. It remains, then, to work out the glitches and smooth out the wrinkles where problems still remain. ... an ongoing process. There`s no shame in this. it is, after all, the life-blood and raison d'être of science. There is only shame in refusing to recognize the possible repercussions of insufficiently reviewed and fine-tuned tools. I believe in progress and in collaborative input from many. This is a wonderful forum within which to explore possible avenues of improvement. Thank you for providing it!!!!
Evolution has programmed us to want to spread out genes, regardless of the impact on our happiness. (Indeed, content organisms are wiped out of the gene pool.) One of the chapters I've gotten the most feedback on is "Fight the Power Part 1:“To breed or not to breed”" because many people have never heard it was OK to question having kids. And parents are rarely able to objectively judge their past decisions.
I think it would be good to ask the question, not of 45 year olds, but of 85 year olds. How many people in the nursing home would regret having had children. What are the most important things to them?
I have considered this dilemma many times - do I regret having children? Would my life be simpler, free of regret? Would I be happier? I gave birth to four UNPLANNED children. I aborted a fifth “possible” child, for reasons I won’t go into here. But now, there is regret — who would that person/child have been? You see, three of my four live births only lived for varying periods. My first son died at 16 in a car accident. My only daughter died at 32 of medical issues coupled with a drug overdose. My third child died at 37 of an out & out drug overdose during the height of Covid. My fourth and last (LIVING) child is on the spectrum - very intelligent but lives with social difficulties. I have never, ever for one moment regretted the lives of my children, so, consequently, do not regret being a parent. My one regret, as stated, is NOT letting that fifth “being” BECOME. Every day, I outshine that annihilation of the spirit by loving my 16 years with Michael, my 32 years with Lisa, and my 37 years with David. I am 75 years old, now, and appreciate/love every minute spent with my living 39-year-old son. There is no accounting for the power of love.
I'd say the solution lies in granularity. Experiences that are miserable at each particular moment, like climbing Mt. Everest, could be deeply happy and meaningful overall. Indeed, that's typical of the most meaningful experiences, which is why people are often loath to repeat them. The key is abandoning the analytic assumption that a whole's goodness is just the sum total of the goodness of its parts.
Thank you, Paul, for exploring this topic.
I was an unloved child and I lived to see the fallout of having children you don’t want to a spouse you cannot have a functional relationship with. It was extremely messy - for children and parents alike, which is why I now work on exposing developmental trauma and how we can recover from it.
As a parent myself now, I understand to my bone how sometimes a crevice between child and parent can emerge and grow. I wish there was more we all did for parents to help them be better at the biggest job of their lives. Perhaps that something you could also write about?
All the best,
Adina
I have never needed to consider whether I regret having my children. I work in a professional field with a long and notoriously grueling training process. I hated much of my training. But, having graduated all my training and now engaging in the actual work, I love my job. I believe it’s what I was meant to do.
Having children is very difficult. In terms of all consuming work it’s probably the most intense thing in a human can do, at least from the point of view of a mother (maybe different for a father). I am often frustrated and exhausted, but for me raising my children is a privilege just like being accepted into that grueling, professional training was a privilege.
What is happiness? Is it the feeling of joy in a moment? Is it looking back with a smile? Is it looking forward to your next years with delight? The pursuit of happiness is like trying to hold water in our hands. We can grasp and grasp, but eventually it’ll fall through our fingers. What gives our life meaning, what makes us satisfied with our lives, often requires sacrifice, hard work, and suffering.
I really love your images and metaphors. Well said! It`s not easy to describe these elusive processes but you`ve come very close! You`re a born and a true parent. A real incarnation of the essence of motherhood! hats off!
If your initial question is "What's in it for me?"- you are probably not going to like parenthood.
Tomorrow is my 78th birthday. I do not have children My story is complicated. When I was around 13 I decided I was never going to have children. Was that a response to what I witnessed between my parents or did I know something intuitively about myself and my physiology. I had plenty of opportunities to get pregnant because I lived in the time of 60s free love. Yes the pill became widely available, but there were many instances when I wasn't careful. I never had the "mother instinct" or "yearning" that many women talk about. There are times when I have tinges of regret, but those pass quickly. I am very satisfied with my life and have no real regrets about the choices I have made. Knowing yourself is key when it comes to the big decisions in life. Stripped of all attendent emotional aspects, whether or not to have children is a choice.
All I know is that I don't regret NOT having children. I knew when I was very young that I didn't want any, and I married a man who felt the same way, and he doesn't regret it either. We've been happily married for 51 years. We've seen too many of our family members screw up their kids, like some who commented here obviously did.
Pepper you and I have similar stories...no regret here either.
I feel somewhat queezy about the bluntness of the question: Do children make you happy, in that the rather wide-spread tendency to focus on palpable, immediate pleasure or gratification returns in our society may compromise people's ability to weigh the deeper, more lasting "returns". It may also encourage parents struggling with the pragmatic challenges of parenting to adopt a more self-centered or unmotivated attitude toward parenting, telling themselves: "My rights, my needs are being side-stepped." The me-first attitude in modern life is wide-spread and growing, it would appear. This may have devastating consequences for vulnerable members of our so-called enlightened society - children. I like and endorse the change in view-point in the questions in studies which focus on the longer term "returns", the sense of having an anchor, a purpose, a source of fulfillment. Woe betide a culture where that awareness is eclipsed! I think it's important to be aware of the potential impact on participants of studies such as the less subtly framed ones in terms of future commitment to parenting. An analogous study or question ought to be posed, I feel, at the time of sampling - simply to enable people to recognize what's at stake. "Do you find fulfilment in your professional duties?" Many of course don't, but for those who have the luxury of working in fields - research, academic, creative, etc. - that ARE fulfilling - it may sharpen the focus on the fact that no serious commitment with long-term fulfillment benefits is without its costs in terms of immediate gratification. Everything worth anything costs labor, effort, time and requires sacrifice. I think there needs to be a greater awareness of the impact of studies such as these. The message they may send to young parents struggling to find time for relaxation may have long-term negative consequences. Our world needs to be fed by studies and scientific endeavors which SHARPEN people's awareness of these dynamics rather than weaken or undermine them. Thank you, however, for the exhaustive coverage of the topic. It shows in a glaring way how important it is to ask the right questions, to access more core dynamics in play and arrive at more credible results, but - now - I would add also to prevent potential fallout from questions which misdirect participants' foci and alter core values and principles which slowly erode our collaborative, community- and love-oriented common purposes and foci.
I get the "argument by attachment." You can't wish the kid could be free of the bone disease because that's wishing for the non-existence of the person you love.
But why should this reasoning be confined to decisions about parenthood? Unless you hate yourself, you should feel the same way about all major life decisions, no? Do I wish I'd gone to a university that was more merciful and laid-back, instead of the intense and unsupportive pressure-cooker I attended? I could say yes. But those years shaped me profoundly. A supposedly better experience in academia I might have made me a happier or more accomplished person today, but I would not be me. Ditto for divorce -- it's a painful experience but if I had not wed my ex and lived through the marriage, I'd be someone else. So how can I regret it? Only if I detest myself so much that I can say, in effect, "I wish that I did not exist."
I guess I think of regret as an emotion for the ephemeral daily experiences at the surface of social life. I regret skipping your party. I regret that mean thing I said this morning. It's not a feeling people most can stand to have about their lives in toto.
Sure, some people truly loathe themselves and the life they have built. But I think a more typical human impulse is to defend the notion that you turned out OK. That can, of course, go wrong ("yep, we killed millions of innocents when I worked for Darth Vader, but I got to travel all over"). It can also I think help to explain the low percentage of people saying they regret having children.
yes, regret is not a fathomable response to anything as meaningful, lasting, deep, poignant, deeply impactful as having children, going through a marriage, taking part in the grind, the endurance push, and the self-revelation of a rigorous academic program. I like your examples and I wholeheartedly agree. Again, I detect a failure of nuance in some descriptors current in "scientific research".
I expect that "fear of judgment" is one small part of why parents are reluctant to say they regret having a child. But the other one is huge! It's not just about regretting children; it's about regretting *this child*.
This child right here — the one that I love with all my heart — I regret having *this* child. It is tantamount to saying "Actually, no. I don't love this child. I wish she were dead."
No one is going to say that. Not even silently to themselves in the dark of the night.
“More than that, it’s not just that you feel compelled to say that you are happy they exist—you are happy they exist. After all, you love them.”
Brilliant. I wrote about the life-changing magic of saying “I love you” more often (that is, affirming more existence) here: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/love
"Memories are our second chance at happiness"
I think Elizabeth II said that. Definitely applies to parenting. And photos function as memory. If you invest in your kids they feel it, the love is there, and the struggles just deepen the overall bond... adding to meaning and purpose in your one life. It's obviously not all joy, but it's not a math equation- the parts (moments) add up to something so much larger. Nothing can possibly compare, in my experience. No amount of happy "carefree" moments will create the pride, joy, and meaning of raising kids through pain and disappointment and sticking with it to witness the redemption and even the small triumphs that come over the years. Life is long. Still, if people have a different purpose they want to pursue in life, they should not feel obligated to have kids. If it feels foremost like an obligation then it's probably not for them. So many amazing people in history did not have kids and spent their energy on something else. To me, personally, there is no bigger purpose I can fathom. But everyone is different.
I'm sure the endowment effect is very strong when having kids. If you can develop an irrational liking for a mug over a few minutes (just because it's yours) I think creating an entire human is on another level.
I think the question of regretting having children is poorly posed for exactly the reasons Alexa Haley lays out above.
The traditional returns to having children (supply of labor to make family economics work among the poor; securing of dynastic holdings among the rich) either largely don’t apply today, or else (aid to elderly from offspring; continuation of family line) are often not at the front of mind of the busy middle-aged people who tend to be asked about this in surveys.
Basically, we mostly ask people fully immersed in the cost side of the reproductive transaction to say how they feel about it before they experience the most profound benefits that the decision returns. And still only 7% report regret! So what percent of octogenarians playing with their grandkids at their daughters’ homes where they’re being allowed to live and receive home health care partly paid for by their sons do we think report regret?
…A side point on the question of the 7% reporting regret potentially being a false result on the low side;
Is it odd (or not the case) that psychology or political science haven’t produced something close to a definitive set of answers to questions around (dis)honesty in survey responses *in general*? On some level you would think the industry would have a pretty good sense of when and how they get inaccurate results from different kinds of surveys at this point, wouldn’t you? What factors lead to what kinds of and how much inaccurate response?
My qualms also have to do with a kind of single-mindedness and oversimplification in the framing of questionnaires which, yes, are necessary to control for too large a spread of possible factors producing the noted results. ( Simplification in the articulation of questions and factors to be surveyed being necessary to control for too large a spread of possible causative factors and hence mud in the water for the clinical interpreter.) BUT and this is a large but : I find the stream-lined questions sometimes 1. too simplistic and limited with the result that nuances are lost - I guess a necessary and calculated loss, simply accepted as unavoidable by current scientific practice. and 2. the nodes addressed in the rather linearly formatted question-nexus build a kind of density and rapport which can influence people after the fact. They have their own kind of critical mass and exert gravitational influence, to use a metaphor. A series of rather too pointed and oversimplified questions will build a halo or horizon of interpretive value for the responder of the questions, encouraging negative views on phenomena and engagements that ought NEVER, categorically NEVER be framed in this manner - for ethical reasons! Because of the failure to point out during the questionnaire that the questions are limited, partial in their descriptive purpose and hence have a tendency to cast light and shadow on the terrain of probing in different ways and in skewed ways than reality itself does - the upshot is that people can and often do walk away with a skewed image of the significance and meaning of the phenomena under survey. "Parents have a right to be unhappy about fractious moments in their engagements with their children. " - that`s an easy take-away after filling out a questionnaire that focuses too exclusively on the immediate short-term signs of frustration, unhappiness, etc. in the parenting experience. These are critical intervention moments by authorized, respected agents and authorities which leave a lasting imprint in people`s minds - an not always for the good. It is time that these dynamics are uncovered and rectified. We are entering an era of fracturing of common purpose and communal sharing of civic responsibilities, we have never experienced before to this alarming degree. Everything plays its part, from consumerism run rampant to .... yes, to this kind of practice. And yet science and its tools are a beacon of progress. Let`s refine the tools and use them with greater care and circumspection ! Thank you all for your comments, by the way. All very interesting contributions!
These comments have no bearing on the right of and importance for individuals to determine their own unique paths - either with or without children - their interest in or commitment to parenting BEFORE the fait accompli. It`s wonderful to hear so many steering their lives and destinies with open eyes and rejecting a course that many simply fall into unthinkingly or with skewed expectations. But my comments DO bear on protocols within the scientific community and the need for awareness of fall-out and inadvertent feed-back on serious life issues by and from tools not yet sufficiently fine-tuned. I suggest that survey tools be refined to preclude these kinds of negative repercussions. Science is an important and substantial pillar of cultural and civic progress, there`s no doubt about it. But advances are slow and steady and there`s always room for improvement. This study throws, I feel, a glaring light on some of the potential problems that have been overlooked. It remains, then, to work out the glitches and smooth out the wrinkles where problems still remain. ... an ongoing process. There`s no shame in this. it is, after all, the life-blood and raison d'être of science. There is only shame in refusing to recognize the possible repercussions of insufficiently reviewed and fine-tuned tools. I believe in progress and in collaborative input from many. This is a wonderful forum within which to explore possible avenues of improvement. Thank you for providing it!!!!
Thanks so much, Dr. Bloom.
Evolution has programmed us to want to spread out genes, regardless of the impact on our happiness. (Indeed, content organisms are wiped out of the gene pool.) One of the chapters I've gotten the most feedback on is "Fight the Power Part 1:“To breed or not to breed”" because many people have never heard it was OK to question having kids. And parents are rarely able to objectively judge their past decisions.
(The chapter leads with a quote from your pal Bob). https://bit.ly/3OcU2Kv. (PDF)
Good luck everyone.
I think it would be good to ask the question, not of 45 year olds, but of 85 year olds. How many people in the nursing home would regret having had children. What are the most important things to them?