Jeff E

My wife and I were in a very similar situation, and we decided to have the baby. He’s five months old now, so we haven’t experienced all of it, but we certainly didn’t regret it.

A couple of things we considered:
– In our case, my wife was able to takes several months off of work and then we were able to afford to hire my mother-in-law as a nanny. This is a big help for making the transition back to work.
– For me a big part of it is altruism. I feel grateful for what I have in my life and I’d like to give back. I like being alive and am thankful I was born, ane I want to give someone else that experience of existing. Sometimes I feel pressure to do something great in life, and this is a pretty great thing to do. I was ready for the idea that it wouldn’t be easy, but that it would be meaningful. Actually it hasn’t been as hard as I feared. Survey responses sometimes echo this, people typically say “quality of life” goes down but “meaning in life” goes up.
– The baby is a joy, he’s so curious and happy and cuddly. I look forward to teaching him things, and sharing new things with him. So I anticipate it will only get better from here on out.
– In terms of quality of life, the two things we have lost are sleep and free-time. Sleep deprivation I can handle pretty well. Sleep loss means extra vulnerable to forgetfulness and depression, but we have coped well. Losing free-time cut the least important things (some of the TV-watching, video game marathons) and left the most important things (family & friends visiting, going for a walk in the park etc). The time spent includes not only baby fun-time but a lot of small un-glamorous tasks (laundry, making formula, changing diapers etc) but if you’ve worked retail you can definitely handle it.
– My wife and I haven’t had any resentment or relationship troubles. We try to share the time and sleep deprivation as evenly as possible. We talk through baby strategies, but also trust each other. We make time for each other physically and romantically. We have one night a week, where we can do a date night (hiring our nanny or babysitter). If you have sex one night a week, you’re at par, and if you can manage another time a week you are ahead of the curve.
– My wife and I, somewhat coincidentally, both started new hobbies when she was pregnant. These are things that we do without each other often, so generally I cover the baby when she goes out and she covers the baby when I go out. There are some negotations over the allocation of time, but we are both kind of glad to have an outside outlet. Traditionally we’d do everything together, and still do a lot together, but something about the dynamic of early parenting seems to go well with alternating hobbies. It just kind of happened this way, so I don’t think there is anything essential about it.
– The appearance of the interior of our home has deteriorated. More random stuff, less floorspace, some maintence tasks we are behind on. Personally I can live with not having an instagram-able home, and we just take as something that goes along with the territory for a little bit. Not one of our friends or family members care. My wife and I try to do what we can to make the home better, but we give each other grace because we know we are priortizing other things.
– Some of my fellow liberals don’t want kids for environmental reasons. I also consider myself an environmentalist, but I disagree with this assessment. First, you can adopt. Secondly, the way we are going to avert climate change is building a new green future and you need people to build things. Thirdly, people are supposed to coexist with the environment, quitting on the people part doesn’t solve the problem in my opinion. Fourth, climate-change is very real and very bad, but doomsday scenarios are vastly-overstated: clearly nearly everyone’s lives will be better off 100 years from now than they were 100 years ago. I can’t get myself to a point where lives in history or lives in developing countries aren’t worth living.
– Back in history, nearly everyone was a farmer. Now, almost no one is and everyone’s labor is specialized. Similarly, do we really need our society for everyone to have the vocation of being a parent? In fact, we do not. There are many ways to contribute to society and support future generations. As for myself, I am a highly specialized scientist with no special skills oriented towards expertise in parenting. However, I am not just my work, and for me it is part of living a full life.

Mostly just wanted to add my personal story to “How School Rankings Work”. Absolutely school rankings are based on “how privileged is the typical student” and not “how much instructional value will I get if I send my kid here”.

I went to a high school that is rated 3/10 on GreatSchools, located in a poor predominately black neighborhood. It has a lot of struggling students, people who were in and out of juvenile detention, people with unplanned pregnancies, also many immigrants who were not fluent in English language. It was not “accredited” by the state because school test scores weren’t high enough. But all I needed was for it to offer AP classes with teachers that care – I ended up taking and passing eleven AP exams. I went to the best university in my state, turning down a full ride at another state university. I could have graduated early, but decided to double major and go to grad school. I now have my PhD in physics and work as a research scientist. I am not typical of my graduating class! But I really think my high school helped to make me who I am.