December 2019  
  
Before I had kids, I was afraid of having kids. Up to that point I felt about
kids the way the young Augustine felt about living virtuously. I'd have been
sad to think I'd never have children. But did I want them now? No.  
  
If I had kids, I'd become a parent, and parents, as I'd known since I was a
kid, were uncool. They were dull and responsible and had no fun. And while
it's not surprising that kids would believe that, to be honest I hadn't seen
much as an adult to change my mind. Whenever I'd noticed parents with kids,
the kids seemed to be terrors, and the parents pathetic harried creatures,
even when they prevailed.  
  
When people had babies, I congratulated them enthusiastically, because that
seemed to be what one did. But I didn't feel it at all. "Better you than me,"
I was thinking.  
  
Now when people have babies I congratulate them enthusiastically and I mean
it. Especially the first one. I feel like they just got the best gift in the
world.  
  
What changed, of course, is that I had kids. Something I dreaded turned out to
be wonderful.  
  
Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that
happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone
flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but
toward all children. As I was driving my wife and new son home from the
hospital, I approached a crosswalk full of pedestrians, and I found myself
thinking "I have to be really careful of all these people. Every one of them
is someone's child!"  
  
So to some extent you can't trust me when I say having kids is great. To some
extent I'm like a religious cultist telling you that you'll be happy if you
join the cult too � but only because joining the cult will alter your mind in
a way that will make you happy to be a cult member.  
  
But not entirely. There were some things about having kids that I clearly got
wrong before I had them.  
  
For example, there was a huge amount of selection bias in my observations of
parents and children. Some parents may have noticed that I wrote "Whenever I'd
noticed parents with kids." Of course the times I noticed kids were when
things were going wrong. I only noticed them when they made noise. And where
was I when I noticed them? Ordinarily I never went to places with kids, so the
only times I encountered them were in shared bottlenecks like airplanes. Which
is not exactly a representative sample. Flying with a toddler is something
very few parents enjoy.  
  
What I didn't notice, because they tend to be much quieter, were all the great
moments parents had with kids. People don't talk about these much � the magic
is hard to put into words, and all other parents know about them anyway � but
one of the great things about having kids is that there are so many times when
you feel there is nowhere else you'd rather be, and nothing else you'd rather
be doing. You don't have to be doing anything special. You could just be going
somewhere together, or putting them to bed, or pushing them on the swings at
the park. But you wouldn't trade these moments for anything. One doesn't tend
to associate kids with peace, but that's what you feel. You don't need to look
any further than where you are right now.  
  
Before I had kids, I had moments of this kind of peace, but they were rarer.
With kids it can happen several times a day.  
  
My other source of data about kids was my own childhood, and that was
similarly misleading. I was pretty bad, and was always in trouble for
something or other. So it seemed to me that parenthood was essentially law
enforcement. I didn't realize there were good times too.  
  
I remember my mother telling me once when I was about 30 that she'd really
enjoyed having me and my sister. My god, I thought, this woman is a saint. She
not only endured all the pain we subjected her to, but actually enjoyed it?
Now I realize she was simply telling the truth.  
  
She said that one reason she liked having us was that we'd been interesting to
talk to. That took me by surprise when I had kids. You don't just love them.
They become your friends too. They're really interesting. And while I admit
small children are disastrously fond of repetition (anything worth doing once
is worth doing fifty times) it's often genuinely fun to play with them. That
surprised me too. Playing with a 2 year old was fun when I was 2 and
definitely not fun when I was 6. Why would it become fun again later? But it
does.  
  
There are of course times that are pure drudgery. Or worse still, terror.
Having kids is one of those intense types of experience that are hard to
imagine unless you've had them. But it is not, as I implicitly believed before
having kids, simply your DNA heading for the lifeboats.  
  
Some of my worries about having kids were right, though. They definitely make
you less productive. I know having kids makes some people get their act
together, but if your act was already together, you're going to have less time
to do it in. In particular, you're going to have to work to a schedule. Kids
have schedules. I'm not sure if it's because that's how kids are, or because
it's the only way to integrate their lives with adults', but once you have
kids, you tend to have to work on their schedule.  
  
You will have chunks of time to work. But you can't let work spill
promiscuously through your whole life, like I used to before I had kids.
You're going to have to work at the same time every day, whether inspiration
is flowing or not, and there are going to be times when you have to stop, even
if it is.  
  
I've been able to adapt to working this way. Work, like love, finds a way. If
there are only certain times it can happen, it happens at those times. So
while I don't get as much done as before I had kids, I get enough done.  
  
I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my
identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that
sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there weren't something
real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once you have kids, you're
probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself. And
attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the [_top idea in
your mind_](top.html). Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and
that means it will less often be some project you're working on.  
  
I have some hacks for sailing close to this wind. For example, when I write
essays, I think about what I'd want my kids to know. That drives me to get
things right. And when I was writing [_Bel_](bel.html), I told my kids that
once I finished it I'd take them to Africa. When you say that sort of thing to
a little kid, they treat it as a promise. Which meant I had to finish or I'd
be taking away their trip to Africa. Maybe if I'm really lucky such tricks
could put me net ahead. But the wind is there, no question.  
  
On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won't survive
having kids? Do you have so little to spare?  
  
And while having kids may be warping my present judgement, it hasn't
overwritten my memory. I remember perfectly well what life was like before.
Well enough to miss some things a lot, like the ability to take off for some
other country at a moment's notice. That was so great. Why did I never do
that?  
  
See what I did there? The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I
never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.  
  
I had plenty of happy times before I had kids. But if I count up happy
moments, not just potential happiness but actual happy moments, there are more
after kids than before. Now I practically have it on tap, almost any bedtime.  
  
People's experiences as parents vary a lot, and I know I've been lucky. But I
think the worries I had before having kids must be pretty common, and judging
by other parents' faces when they see their kids, so must the happiness that
kids bring.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Note**  
  
[1] Adults are sophisticated enough to see 2 year olds for the fascinatingly
complex characters they are, whereas to most 6 year olds, 2 year olds are just
defective 6 year olds.  
  
  
  
**Thanks** to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for
reading drafts of this.  
  

