adamzerner's Shortform

Biff Wiff

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For the past week my girlfriend's sister has been visiting us along with her 1.5 year old baby. The baby is very cute and I've really enjoyed some of my time with her, but I've also found it pretty overwhelming and chaotic at times. Overall it's made me more confident that I don't want kids.

It's also made me think that it'd make a ton of sense for someone who does want kids to spend a week or so babysitting in order to ~~test~~ help test that assumption.

It seems hard to be confident that you do in fact want kids.
Anecdotally I feel like there are a fair amount of examples of people who have kids and end up regretting it, at least to a meaningful degree.
Babysitting for a week is a relatively cheap test.
The decision to have kids isn't really a reversible one (once they're born; most of the time).

Perhaps this makes more sense when you think about it more in the abstract. Like if you want to make a decision that is very, very important, hard to be confident about, not really reversible, and relatively cheap to test, it makes sense to test it.

I suppose finding someone to babysit for a week might be hard. The parents would need to trust you. So I guess ideally you'd be able to babysit for a family member or close friend. If that isn't possible, maybe a friend of a friend. Or a coworker.

If none of that works, I'm thinking something like Care.com. I suppose people hire caregivers on platforms like those when they go on vacation and stuff. It might be a little tough since you presumably don't have experience or a reputation as a caregiver, but professional caregivers manage to overcome this 0-to-1 problem and boostrap, so my guess is that with a little brainstorming and hustle, someone who wants to spend a week babysitting will find a way to do so.

I think babysitting a baby is not very informative about whether you would enjoy having kids. Having a kid is first and foremost about having the deepest and most meaningful emotional connection of your life.

Take that away and you just don't have a sensible test run. It's like finding out whether you like hiking by going up and down the stairs of your apartment building all morning.

Having kids is like having parents, except the emotional connection is stronger in the other direction. Would you rather have grown up in an orphanage if that had meant more time for your hobbies and other goals?

4Viliam1y

Yes. Babies are cute but also require a lot of stressful work. When they are your babies, an important part of the entire experience is knowing that this shall pass and that it is a necessary step towards having older children, which are less stressful. You also get some pleasure from watching the child grow up and gain skills, which won't happen much in a week.

8faul_sname1y

I think the baby stage is much more than 5% of the total hours that parents spend directly interacting with their kids. My cached memory of when I did a fermi estimate of this is that, if you're an UMC American, 25% of the hours you spend directly interacting with your kid are in the first 2.5 years, half in the first 6 years, 75% in the first 12 years (and 90%+ before they turn 18).