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Comment by antman123 | Hacker News Reader

get married and have kids

I don't think people should have kids because they otherwise lack meaning, but it's absolutely true that kids change you in ways you would never have believed. If you think you might want kids but aren't sure, just do it.

> have kids because they otherwise lack meaning

That's how life on earth worked for 3 billion years. I think that assuming humans are somehow above that is unwise. We're not.

I think, until very recently, people had kids because the sex is good.

Not to dismiss child labor laws. But kids until some 100 years ago were useful, free labor to help around the house or even with your business. The financial incentive of having a kid now is an astronomical investment.

> I don't think people should have kids because they otherwise lack meaning

I'm past the age where I can (or rather should have) kids and I have to say, the past decade or so I'm more and more thinking that people SHOULD have kids to have (more) meaning in their life. Put it another way, I've begun thinking that having children is a nice way to have a default baseline of meaning in your life. I really see that with all my friends, who all have kids.

I'm married with three kids! And that's great! But like I say in the post, I still know I'm capable of making a bigger positive impact on the world, so that's how I focus my political work!

This solves it for most, but secular society has lost any structural capability to succeed in this.

Marriage rates have dropped over 70%.

There are extremely thriving sub-communities in places though. Graft on to those.

> This solves it for most, but secular society has lost any structural capability to succeed in this.

Can you explain how you see a causation between religion and marriage success?

Religion realigns order, people look up in the same direction instead of past each other when contemplating meaning.

Many religions still have pre-arranged marriages. Easy way to solve the issue of having to look attractive in an app.

Cool, lemme just pitch on Tinder "30 and am between jobs, need happiness". Problem solved!

It's interesting that you get downvoted for what is, from a historical perspective, a very down-to-earth reasonable take.

I don't have kids but I am at the age where more and more of my friends are having kids, there definitely does seem to be something there. They are exhausted but most definitely have a renewed spark of sorts.

Unfortunately this is difficult to A/B test. So I'd avoid having kids to fix burn out.

I mean marriage is a global concept but it feels like the US makes a huge deal about it.

Like two people can't be together without being married.

But mostly it's a low effort low with quality comment that adds zero value and implicitly passes judgment on those who are not married and don't have kids.

As if married people with kids are the happiest people in the world lol.

> I mean marriage is a global concept but it feels like the US makes a huge deal about it.

I should have made that part clearer but my comment was solely on the kids part of their statement. I don't think marriage is inherently different from any other long-term partnership when it comes "existentially starving".

> As if married people with kids are the happiest people in the world lol.

That's not what I meant at all. The article is about how burnout is a catchall that hides that at our core we actually struggle for meaning. "When facing the existential vacuum, there's only one way out - up, towards your highest purpose". Children do in a lot of way give meaning to your life, suddenly you have a reason for suffering. It's a hell of a stretch to call that happiness, but it's definitely something.

Kids with two parents are far less likely to get into crime and have mental health problems, so there is that.

(Before anyone gets onto me I lived in a single parent household for years.)

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