Thanks for writing this, so far have been enjoying the posts greatly! I spent a long time working through this decision myself, and I think Julia's account is helpful and honest. For those who are considering this change themselves, leaving a few notes!
1. "nine of the 10 most impactful people had children" point caught my eye, and I'm not sure it's accurate for the point that this article is trying to make. Almost all people on the list are men, in eras when wives did the pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and nearly all the childrearing. The accurate version of the fact is that impactful men had children whose costs someone else absorbed.
The same pattern shows up today. I recently watched Ali Abdaal's video about becoming a dad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLdtdiJu7DE and for a man with his resources, hired help included, having a child seems to barely dent his output (he did openly acknowledge his privilege in the video). But if you look at his wife Izzy's account of the same period, it's obvious that pregnancy and birth greatly affected her productivity and she had a hard time accepting it. My best friend recently had a baby and told me the same thing: pregnancy alone significantly reduced her ability to work, well before the baby arrived. If you read the comments on Ali's video you will see that people with fewer resources than Ali have had a much harder time looking after young children.
To be clear, if having children is something you want, that's a completely legitimate choice, for women too, even if it means having less impact (likely temporarily). But posts like this should be honest about who bears the cost. "Your wellbeing won't change on average" hides a large difference in whose wellbeing changes, and that price falls mostly on the person carrying the child and is the primary carer for them.
2. I think Julia's point about having children not being the right choice for some people and your point about some people regretting their children is worth looking into. When I looked it up, research showed that there are some top reasons people regret it (e.g. lack of paid/community help, mental health support, financial constraints, etc), and I found it very insightful to make my own decision whether to have kids or not. I think that if you really want to have children, it's helpful to think about whether you have the kind of set-up that would make the negatives less intense and allow you to enjoy the experience more.
One last thing I'd say is after researching this topic for a while, it seems like the experience of having children is very varied across different people, so my conclusion is that it depends so greatly on how you and your partner are and what kind of child you will end up getting, that as you said in the video, it's hard for anyone else to know in advance what your life would be like. But you and your partner can make some predictions based on your circumstances and research to help you decide.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out and for sharing your insights!
I agree that the 9/10 gemini query is pretty handwavy and inaccurate. I had hoped to capture the resources needed and tradeoffs in the first section but I fully agree that the article makes it look pretty one-sided still and reflects my bias (male and not a father). I'll make sure to bring a more balanced view when we tackle this topic again next year!
I'm sure you have seen this post already during your research but for those reading these comments and thinking especially about the impact angle, I found this article of a couple's decision making around that topic insightful
Thanks for writing this, so far have been enjoying the posts greatly! I spent a long time working through this decision myself, and I think Julia's account is helpful and honest. For those who are considering this change themselves, leaving a few notes!
1. "nine of the 10 most impactful people had children" point caught my eye, and I'm not sure it's accurate for the point that this article is trying to make. Almost all people on the list are men, in eras when wives did the pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and nearly all the childrearing. The accurate version of the fact is that impactful men had children whose costs someone else absorbed.
The same pattern shows up today. I recently watched Ali Abdaal's video about becoming a dad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLdtdiJu7DE and for a man with his resources, hired help included, having a child seems to barely dent his output (he did openly acknowledge his privilege in the video). But if you look at his wife Izzy's account of the same period, it's obvious that pregnancy and birth greatly affected her productivity and she had a hard time accepting it. My best friend recently had a baby and told me the same thing: pregnancy alone significantly reduced her ability to work, well before the baby arrived. If you read the comments on Ali's video you will see that people with fewer resources than Ali have had a much harder time looking after young children.
To be clear, if having children is something you want, that's a completely legitimate choice, for women too, even if it means having less impact (likely temporarily). But posts like this should be honest about who bears the cost. "Your wellbeing won't change on average" hides a large difference in whose wellbeing changes, and that price falls mostly on the person carrying the child and is the primary carer for them.
2. I think Julia's point about having children not being the right choice for some people and your point about some people regretting their children is worth looking into. When I looked it up, research showed that there are some top reasons people regret it (e.g. lack of paid/community help, mental health support, financial constraints, etc), and I found it very insightful to make my own decision whether to have kids or not. I think that if you really want to have children, it's helpful to think about whether you have the kind of set-up that would make the negatives less intense and allow you to enjoy the experience more.
One last thing I'd say is after researching this topic for a while, it seems like the experience of having children is very varied across different people, so my conclusion is that it depends so greatly on how you and your partner are and what kind of child you will end up getting, that as you said in the video, it's hard for anyone else to know in advance what your life would be like. But you and your partner can make some predictions based on your circumstances and research to help you decide.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out and for sharing your insights!
I agree that the 9/10 gemini query is pretty handwavy and inaccurate. I had hoped to capture the resources needed and tradeoffs in the first section but I fully agree that the article makes it look pretty one-sided still and reflects my bias (male and not a father). I'll make sure to bring a more balanced view when we tackle this topic again next year!
I'm sure you have seen this post already during your research but for those reading these comments and thinking especially about the impact angle, I found this article of a couple's decision making around that topic insightful
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YYnjHt5YzuHSH7oRR/kids-or-no-kids