In the end, I ended up thinking to myself, "you know, if you're panicking so much at the loss of your freedoms, and trying to find ways to bend the 'rules' so that you can have children and still have all those freedoms, maybe you're not the best candidate for being a parent". If you FIRE, and then use money to put your child in daycare all day, or get an au pair (per @arebelspy comment), is choosing to be a parent a good choice? I'm not condemning, or stating the answer; rather, I'm stating it's a conversation worth having within the FIRE community, as well as personally (and with your partner).
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It's a fuzzy line between right and wrong, and money acts as the vehicle to enable. And of course, it's a grey area; it could be argued that parents with more going on in their life can be better parents to some degree (but obviously there is a point where it becomes malproductive. Cue the classic cases of parents that pay more attention to their job than their children). And some activities can be enhanced with a child... and some activities are made miserable with a child.
There are two basic reasons not to have kids: it will make you less happy, and you wouldn't be a good parent. I will stand as evidence that's entirely possible for kids to make you happier, even if you don't want to be a stay at home parent. I love my kids a lot! They provide boundless joy! They definitely contribute positively to my wellbeing! They are definitely worth the sacrifices of free time and sleep. Obviously there are people who are happiest not having kids at all. There are also people who are happiest having kids, but also having a good chunk of time each week away from them.
So to the other possibility, that it's bad for kids to be born to a parent who doesn't want to stay at home full time. Luckily, there are loads of studies showing that high quality daycare settings are neutral-to-good for kids. This shouldn't be remotely surprising. The model of full-time care by a parent in the nuclear family home is actually pretty unusual as a way to organize childrearing, if we look across historical and cultural contexts. Most cultures have relied heavily on non-parental figures to do a good chunk of the work of childrearing. This takes a wide variety of forms, including shared childrearing among mothers with similarly aged children, childrearing by grandparents, and often significant labor from older siblings (sometimes starting at what are, to contemporary US sensibilities, shockingly young ages).
Kids need strong attachments to consistent caregivers. That is entirely compatible with spending 40-45 hours/week in a high-quality daycare, or with a nanny or babysitter. My kids have strong and secure attachments to both me and my husband, and they also spend lots of time with other loving and competent adults. They have good lives. Not perfect, but the imperfections are in no way a result of the fact that they are in daycare.
Look, I have to admit that it's pretty enraging to have someone tell me that they think I'm "not the best candidate for being a parent." You are suggesting that I'm harming the people I care most about in this world, based on some pretty uninformed assumptions.
Looks like I missed this response, so time for me to catch up.
I thought I made it pretty clear that I wasn't accusing anyone of being a shitty parent. That interpretation is on you.
The point of my response was to get people to think outside the box. It consider the possibility that your way of life isn't optimal, and to think of what tweaks can be done to make it more optimal. In regards to parenting, I was looking for outside-the-norm ideas on how to raise a child. Ideally, ones that maximize the freedom of the parent. In addition, I wanted to discuss how this impacts the successful of the parenting on the whole, and whether it is therefore a good idea overall.
For example, one step might be to send your kids to day care, in order to give more time to work, or for other personal pursuits. A second step, might be to send your kids to summer camp all summer... then you have a summer mostly to yourself! A third step might be to send your kids to boarding school all year round. Total freedom almost!
At what point does this become 'bad' for the child? It probably depends on the child, the parent, and lots of other variables. I'm trying to encourage the discussion, especially between parents. But I'd hope they can be open-minded to the possibility that paths other than their own are ok too, and maybe even better. Maybe not seeing your kids much is a good thing, because it gives you more time to pursue non-child pursuits, which in term develops you into a more fulfilled person, who then has more to share with the child when you do see them. Or, maybe that's all bullshit. Or, maybe it varies person to person. Or maybe it doesn't.
Personally, I'm actually very open-minded on parenting topics; I don't really judge people. Rather, I support an objective, academic pursuit of knowledge.
Despite your self-description, you are not remotely engaging in an academic pursuit of knowledge here; that involves systematic inquiry (there's actual research on this subject, lots of it!), not just idly playing the devil's advocate. I spend a lot of time getting my college students to stop that kind of argumentation.
Here's one reason: it treats people's lives as though it's an interesting puzzle for you to solve, rather than a real and complex experience. You literally suggested that someone in my specific position (financially able to stay home with my kid, but choosing not to) might have made the wrong choice in become a parent, because I'm making choices that are bad for my kids. You'll notice that I was not the only poster who found it insulting; and if you're actually interested in any of this, I think you should take that seriously. It might tell you something about the experience of parenting.
Here's another: your I'm-just-asking-not-judging speculations reinforce pre-existing power relations in contemporary American society, particularly for women. Working mothers hear suggestions that they should probably just stay home with their kids all the time. Your post is the third time this month someone has suggested for no good reason that my life choices are harming my kids. It's not an outside-the-box discussion; it is the box. And frankly, it's boring.
Finally, if you want to have a productive discussion of parenting, you should start from the assumption that parents have, in general, thought deeply both about their choice to have kids, and about how to raise the kids they've chosen to have. If you want to talk about the limits of good parenting, and not have parents get insulted, you're going to have to start talking as though we've actually thought this stuff through already.
We will have to agree to disagree. I already put on the mickey-mouse gloves in the first post you responded to. If you go back to my original post, the part with ‘not the best candidate’, you will see that i am talking about myself, not you or others. Again, it’sreally up to you to decide if my personal thought line is one you want to apply to yourself. You mnetioned others were insulted too, but others also chimed in to disagree. Its nice that you have students that you teach things to, but that does not make you an authority figure here. I’m not going to dumb down the conversation further. It begins to get difficult to have discussions when you’re tip toeing aroung topics, making sure not to accidentally insult someone. For example, this is derailing the conversation. I will try not actively insult people, but i simply disagree.
For the record, i am in support of having daycare/relatives/others help out. I also dont think women should be pressured to stay home, at all, and certainly not more than men are. The fact the you are insinuating that i am supporting the other side is ....surprising.
My actual interests are in how far you can push this (having others care for your child) before it starts being bad for the child, and how to define this. I am not an expert in this area, i cannot at this time link you to academic studies. But if you have them, i’d love to read (review articles are best for non-experts like me). When i stated academic, i meant ‘free thinking’, or in pursuit of open conversation to find the answer to my question, without being hindered by obstacles such as political correctness. Asking questions, playing devils advocate, etc... is very much part of the academic process. It is the first step in discourse. You have condemned me and we have hardly even gotten started.
Rather than have this be a personal argument between you and me, how about we convert it into a fruitful discussion onthe topic of parenting? If you can link me to studies analyzing parenting effectiveness vs time spent with child, or amount of daycare (etc...) i will take a read. I honestly am not looking to prove that people that put their kids in daycare are bad people. The wrold is replete with contrary examples. At some point i’ll start a little research myself, but i figured i’d post on a thread with parents actively commenting in, and that that would be a more rapid way to address the question.
As an aside, i didnt decid against children because i didnt want to use daycare. In all likelihood, i would use daycare if i had kids. And, even then (FIREd with kids in daycare) i wondered if i would still feel like i was giving up too much freedom. This is what drove my internal narrative to think “maybe I am not the right candidate”. At no point did i say “maybe others aren’t the right candidate”.