So are the others in this thread exaggerating the negatives? Or is it more that those difficulties are fairly short-term, and in the longer run don't really matter / are forgotten? Say, like preparing for and sitting a difficult exam, or going to the dentist, etc.
As a dad myself (2.5 yr old and an almost 1 year old), the negatives do not seem to be exaggerated at all. Going to work as a software engineer is the easiest part of my day, by far. What is not always mentioned are the wonderful parts of it, which is hard to describe. Scott Hanselman wrote something where he said that having kids is 49% awful and 51% amazing, and that 1% makes all the difference, and it really hits the nail on the head. I also think its worth putting into perspective that every week it gets a tiny bit easier. I'm happy I no longer have crying babies in the house, and soon my oldest will be potty trained. It sounds cliche but it is the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done.
It does get easier as they get more independent, I have slowly clawed back time for sleep, now slowly getting time to exercise again, soon again I will have time for some hobbies again! I do hope to have some shared hobbies with my boys though!
> So are the others in this thread exaggerating the negatives?
The negatives are real but they are outweighed by overwhelming positives. In my experience, there was a new level of satisfaction achieved after becoming a father that made it worth every sacrifice.
Maybe, maybe not. Every situation is unique. My wife and I have 11 week old twins. We went from 0 to 2, so we have no baseline. But, it's been a joy. Challenging? Yes. Absolutely and without a doubt the most challenging thing that I have ever done in my life. That brings about a number of rewards on it's own, even aside from the children themselves.
It doesn't have to be chaos and it doesn't have to be torture. It's all fairly subjective and I don't want to type out a novel. But, I do want to give you a bit of a different perspective.
I am very busy tending to these babies, keeping our home maintained, working, tending to our dogs, etc... I handle 50% of our feedings entirely by myself (feeding for us is code for: change baby, feed baby, burp baby, soothe baby, get baby onto their next activity or put down for a nap or sleep, and this is times 2 for our situation). We're walking the twins in the morning and the evening. We're bathing a baby every night, so they get a bath every other day right now. We play with them during the day and we read to them at night before bed.
Yet, I slept for just under 7 hours straight last night. My wife slept for 4 hours, pumped, and then went back to sleep. She leaves me a note on the bathroom counter every night so that I know if I need to wake her up or not. I can hear that she is waking up now and so after this comment I am going to head upstairs and I'll be feeding both of the twins again by myself while she pumps and we get ready for that morning walk. I also worked out twice this week and since Sunday have gone for 2 hour-long runs. I have another run today, whenever I can find the spare hour. Another workout tomorrow. Saturday is a day off. We'll play with the twins as much as they'll have it. We don't really have any help in the house, it's overwhelmingly just my wife and I. We're making things work and things are working well. I've been told by people IRL not to say these sorts of things out loud. I've been told to "stop bragging" about how my infants sleep at night. So, personally, I've found that I don't really care to say much about it.
edit/ I'd do well to note that I work full-time remote and that makes a world of difference in our outcomes. If I had to commute to an office, no doubt that I'd be exercising much less and we'd not be eating very well right now.
Most of the others commenting here have seem to have small children, so of course their feedback is going to highlight all the ways in which their lives have changed.
To offer a counter-point, my daughter is 18 and off to college (literally dropping her off this saturday), and my son is 15. With each moment that passes from the time they are born, things get easier ... sleep? improves. complete and utter dependency? they learn to wipe their own bum. So, all the things that _seem_ really bad that people are reporting here are, ultimately, rather temporary.
That's not to say there aren't new challenges that come once they get older, and some challenges aren't experienced by everyone (I feel incredibly lucky and blessed that I haven't had any behavioral issues with my kids). So ... yeah ... they're not little parasites forever, just keep that in mind :P
I cant speak to having much experience with this myself as my first kid just hit 6 months.
I feel like the stress is much higher than it would be without kids, but the rewards are higher as well. Managed well it can be more than worth it, but doing it when you aren't prepared makes it hurt that much more.
The negatives are bad, sure, but it's like someone complaining about how bad college was and past work experiences were; the bad usually help you to learn the good. I wouldn't trade my 4-year old son for anything in the world.
Yes, they are exaggerating the negatives - as a father of three I can honestly say that parenthood is wonderful and fulfilling. My only regret is that we didn't have a fourth child!
