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Comment by andywood | Hacker News Reader

This post has me wondering about the health of my figurative soul. Not because it didn't move me - it did. The last sentence definitely brought tears to my eyes when I first read it, and then again when I thought of it again.

No, the reason it has me worried is because although I have people I care about, I don't think I love anybody so much that I'd rather spend time with them than work/learn/create things. When I think about starting a family, I worry about how much I'll regret not being able to devote my full energy to building intellectual edifices out of math, bits, and music. But I see most people here saying the opposite.

I'm trying to tell myself that this is only because I don't have kids. Surely, if I had kids, my whole perspective would change, and I'd become a more complete human being, right?

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I felt like you until my daughter was born. She was unplanned but it was the best thing to ever happen to me. Yes, you do become a more complete person and your perspective changes; simple as that. I don't know if that's just nature rewiring to think like that, to be a different person, losing the old one on the way. Maybe that's an impossible question to answer since either perspective is inherently biased. But I am a better person for it. I have grown in a way that would never happen if I remained childless, and I am a happier person for it.

I have a 10-month-old son, and I also didn't get kids at all until he was born (and honestly, it was until he was about 4 or 5 months old until I really got it). But I think it's unfair to say having kids makes you a more complete person. Without a doubt, it makes you a different person, but I firmly believe it's possible to live an equally fulfilling life without ever having kids.

Having kids essentially just drastically reorganizes your priorities, some for the better and some for the worse. I think the moral of the article that was linked to was to spend more (and hopefully most) of your time doing what makes you happy. Whether that is creating something out of your genes or out of your mind matters not.

I get the same feeling out of his letter. He doesn't claim any regret for time not spent with family. Instead he wishes his daughters to rejoice in the things they enjoy. For some that is family, others your ideas, or maybe even a combination of the two.

I feel the same way. The weird thing to me (observing from a distance), is that having kids is in a way, a projection of those things you're already doing, just in a physical form. But I don't have kids, so I don't know for sure, that's just what it seems to be - projection of ego that can capture your attention, instead, because it seems like a bigger thing to "build" than some webapp.

Yes, when I've discussed this with people I've often referred to the things I create as "my version of kids" or "my idea of a legacy". I never thought of it in terms of projection of ego, but that seems spot on.

Except you don't "build" a kid, and they don't turn out the way you expect they will before you have them. I've found that their interests, passions, and abilities seem to have little to do with what I'd like them to be, and are mostly either innate or governed by mechanisms I don't understand. I have three kids and they are all quite distinct individuals despite being raised in basically the same environment by the same parents.

Not only that. All your kids have quite similar set of genes. And yet they are still different.

I think when all things are tallied you would find they end up pretty close to a combination of you and your wife. There are just parts of you that you don't realize are the way they are.

Assuming you're not too old to take this advice -- you can just wait it out. In the meantime, follow your interests.

Perhaps eventually you will feel differently, or random chance will step in to decide for you that it's time to have a kid.

But in the meantime, if you're doing something worthwhile, you do not have to rush away to check the "kid" box.

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