[quote=scaredycat]what do we do that is so “selfless” for our kids, anyway? cook dinner? hell I was cooking dinner anyway, I just break off a piece. for a few years i gave them a bath and brushed their teeth, but that was fun, not selfless. It’s fun to give a kid a bath. . i gave them a ride to day care, but they couldn’t drive, and before that i used to have trouble getting up in t he morning, so that was more for me than them. i should be waking up earlier.. IN that vein, I wouldn’t have been able to keep a job without them as there would have been no particular point to continuing. So they helped me out with getting up in the morning and maintaining employment. Without them, I would have been drinking alone a lot more. Also, they’re hilarious and exquisitely interesting conversationalists. i cannot think of one lousy sacrifice ive made on their behalf.[/quote]
Good for you, scaredy. It sounds like you really need to thank your wife for giving you those children (including the third you initially didn’t want). 🙂
Of course, the sacrifices (or trade-offs, as many sacrifices can be viewed) depend on whether or not you’re the breadwinner or the primary caretaker (or both!), and what your career ambitions are/were before and after having kids. It depends on whether or not you liked to travel or not, and whether or not you had hobbies, etc. that you can’t really do once you have kids (because of time, money, danger, etc.). You have to admit scaredy, your sex life certainly takes a hit once kids enter the picture, and you no longer get to have those long, interesting conversations with other adults. You no longer have “free” time to hang out with friends or just sit and watch TV for a few hours during the day (some do, but some of us prefer not to have the TV on when the kids are around — yes, it’s an “option”).
All this is not to say that there are no benefits to having kids. If we didn’t derive pleasure from having kids, the human race would have died off long ago. But you can’t say that having kids doesn’t require sacrifice. Not even close.
