Having Kids

Having Kids. An essay by Paul Graham, December 2019.

Afraid of having kids

Before he had children, Graham dreaded the idea. Like young Augustine putting off virtue, he wanted kids someday. Just not yet.

Since childhood he'd seen parents as uncool: boring, dutiful, joyless. And the families he noticed as an adult looked grim: wild kids, worn-out parents.

So when people had babies, he congratulated them warmly, because that's what you do. But privately he was thinking: glad it's not me.

A switch flips

Now when someone has a baby, he congratulates them and means it. To him, they've just been handed the greatest gift there is.

What changed? He had kids, and what he'd feared became a joy. Partly that's chemistry: when his first child arrived, a switch flipped.

Suddenly he felt protective of every child. Driving his wife and newborn son home, he came to a crowded crosswalk and thought: “Every one of them is someone's child!”

So, he admits, don't fully trust him here. He's like a cult member who says joining will make you happy, because joining rewires you.

A skewed sample

But only partly. Some of his old beliefs were plain mistakes. For one, he only noticed kids when they were loud.

And he saw them mostly on planes, since he avoided places with kids. A toddler on a flight? Hardly a fair sample.

What he missed were the quiet moments: a walk together, bedtime, pushing a swing. Times when you wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Kids aren't what you'd link with calm, yet peace is what you feel. He'd had moments like that before, but rarely. Now they can come several times a day.

What his mother knew

His other evidence was his own childhood. He was always in trouble, so parenting looked like law enforcement. He never saw the good times.

At about thirty, he heard his mother say she'd really enjoyed raising him and his sister. What a saint, he thought. Now he knows she meant it.

She'd also found them good company. He found the same: kids become your friends. And playing with them is real fun, even the fiftieth time.

Odd, isn't it? Playing with a two-year-old is fun at two, dull at six, and fun again as a parent, when you can see how complex toddlers are.

The real costs

It isn't all joy. Some of it is drudgery, some is terror. But it isn't what he'd assumed: your genes saving themselves at your expense.

Some fears were right, though. Kids make you less productive. And you end up working on their schedule.

His work used to spill into every hour. Now it gets fixed hours each day. Inspired or not, you start, and when time's up, you stop.

He adapted. Work squeezes into whatever hours it's given. He gets less done than before, but he gets enough done.

Less ambitious?

Harder to admit: kids may make you less ambitious. Ambition is part of who he is, and saying so makes him squirm. Which suggests there's something to it.

You'll care about your kids more than yourself, and attention is zero-sum. Often the top idea in your mind will be them, not your work.

He has tricks. He writes essays as if for his own kids, which pushes him to get things right. And he promised them a trip to Africa once he finished Bel.

With luck, such tricks might even put him ahead. But the headwind is real. Then again, what kind of ambition can't survive having kids?

Counting happy moments

Kids may color his judgment, but not his memory. He misses things, like flying off to another country on a whim. So why did he never do it?

See what happened? Most of the freedom he had before kids, he never used. It cost him loneliness, and mostly sat idle.

He was happy before, too. But count actual happy moments, not just the chance of them, and there are more now. Almost any bedtime will do.

Every family is different, and he knows he's been lucky. But his old fears must be common, and judging by parents' faces, so is the joy.

In short

Much of his dread came from a skewed sample.

The best parts are quiet, and come several times a day.

Real costs: less time, set hours, maybe less ambition.

Count actual happy moments: there are more with kids.

The original is short, and better than this. Read it: paulgraham.com/kids.html