And, Kevin, the joy and pain never stops. I do not remember all the pain of the child rearing, but I had lots of happy memories from 2 loving, wonderful kids. And, as they are now adults, I have 2 wonderful friends who know me at my best and at my worst – and they still love me immensely. There is no better payoff than that. Also, I still feel pain when they have troubles or can’t manage well. However, all the fun, laughter, joy is a reward for what little pain I suffered with them, then and now. I am even shocked sometimes at what wonderful people I birthed. It sure didn’t all come from me and my husband. Some of it came from within them and how they took the training we gave them.

You can have a good life doing only for yourself, but you will also miss out on so many joys. And, thanks to all the pee, poop stories, I was able to spend several years caring for older adults and not feel grossed out by all I had to do for them. I was glad to have the experience to be able to earn money while caring for others. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

And, believe me, life with only joys and no sorrows or hard work, would get very boring. To enjoy, you have to know the difference between sorrow and joy to be able to know lasting happiness. And, I am old enough to know this from experience. 73 is such a wonderful age and I am enjoying it immensely.

You say that it’s all about enjoying this life. Fair enough. Do you feel any obligation to help others? Do you feel that your enjoyment can come at the expense of others? My guess about your answers would be no to both, but I’m curious.

Also, about having kids. Yes, there is a lot of work involved. However, there are also a lot of benefits. The funniest things I have ever heard in my life have come out of the mouths of my kids. The happiest moments of my life have involved my kids. You clearly get it about the work and sacrifice involved, but you sound as if you don’t know or don’t believe the upsides. It’s not all about the poop. There are a lot of fabulous careers and lifestyles that took a lot of hard work and sacrifice to achieve. I don’t suppose you would say that they aren’t worth it because they aren’t all roses and sunshine. I’m not saying that everyone should have kids whether they like it or not, or that your life will be inferior to mine because you have never had kids, but you are way off the mark when you assume that every parent is going to regret having kids and that it is JUST 18 years of misery.

I don’t have kids so my life isn’t ruined (yet) according to your standards. But there are a lot of parents around me and somehow they managed to have children and *still* have a great life. Go figure.

Now if taking care of children is not your (and your wife’s) thing, that’s fine. You’re free to do whatever you want with your life, but don’t mock those who take a different path than yours.

Still I hope that between two hedonistic activities you don’t forget to thank your parents for giving birth to the “ungrateful, self-absorbed brat” you’ve become. Come to think of it, thank the helicopter pilot’s parents too. And Lost cast’s and crew’s parents because without them there would have been no TV show and you and your wife would have had no reason to go and drink beers on some Hawaiian beach.

“Carol called you boring, but I think a better word would be self-absorbed.”

Who else should I be “absorbed” with?

“Your life is about hedonistic values.”

If there is a God, then He gave me life such that I should enjoy it, not waste it away in some vain pursuit of pious devotion to an imaginary friend. I do not believe there is an afterlife that demands we waste this ACTUAL life pursuing suffering and misery such that after we die, we get to REALLY experience pleasure. I believe this life is all there is, so we should make the most of it – and wasting 20 years raising some ingrateful, self-absorbed brat does not factor into that, in my opinion.

“What feels good? What makes me happy? What can I do to help me and reduce my stress?”

Watching TV. Drinking a beer. Rubbing my wife’s feet. Sleeping in. There are many, many answers to that question. But cleaning someone else’s poop off my bathroom floor is nowhere on that list.

“Parenting knocks the hedonism right out of most people”

A fantastic reason to not have kids.

“Life is so much better when lived in true service to others.”

Absolutely, 100% disagree.

Life is at its best when it is lived giving one’s self pleasure. That’s what God (if he exists) wants.

“It’s possible to do that without kids, but you have to consciously choose it all the time.”

I believe the opposite. I believe live is much, much harder to enjoy when encumbered by self-centered, ego-centric children. Life is most enjoyable when you live out your days spending gradually larger and larger percentages of your days doing what YOU want, and not what your “boss” or your “children” want.

“Unless you’re an awful parent, it is very natural to sacrifice for your children with great love and acceptance.”

I absolutely agree that if you’ve made the mistake of becoming a parent, that you must devote yourself to that endeavor fully and 100%. But not only do I do NOT think that is the only path to happiness, I think the best path to happiness is to avoid having children altogether. I think people with kids are simply trying to make the best of a bad situation. I believe they may have deliberately gotten pregnant thinking it would have its rewards, but at the end of the day, 18 years later, most people will regret that decision, even if they won’t admit it.

“Our first baby was a surprise, but one that we needed. Having to think about his needs first transformed our marriage and our lives for the better.”

You kind of HAVE to say that, don’t you. Do admit otherwise would be to admit that you’ve condemned youselves to 18 years of misery.

My wife and I are 34. We’ve avoided having kids (yay, Depoprovera!). We have no debt, we live in a 2600 sq. ft. house, and we’re going to Hawaii for 2 weeks this October. Life is pretty friggin’ good without kids.

Enjoy cleaning toddler crap off your bathroom floor. We’ll be in a helicopter, circling the volcanoes of Hawaii and drinking beers on the beach where “LOST” was filmed. If it makes you feel better, you can go ahead and tell yourself that we’re not *really* as happy as you.

This article and these comments made me laugh. Yesterday, my mom watched my two year old while I took my five your old to an appointment. I also have a seven year old and another on the way. Anyway, when I came to pick him up, my mom said, “Maybe I should have offered this before, but if you ever need a break or some time to sleep, you could bring all the kids over and I could watch them.” Which was nice, but SEVEN YEARS MOM!!! Oh well, she isn’t a little kid person, so the fact that she has babysat at all during the diaper years is fairly remarkable.

Really, people are coming to see YOU, not judge your housekeeping. And if they are there to judge your housekeeping, then throw them out! They don’t deserve to enjoy your company.

I’ll join everyone else in wishing your father a speedy and complete healing!

I know you are very strict with yourself to do things right and thoroughly. I truly admire your tenacity and resolve—it’s why I read your blog. I look to you for your insight on how best to tackle life and live up to your personal potential while also adhering to your values. You are my Simple Dollar Hero and I thank you very sincerely for all of your hard work. With that I can tell you that if there is ever a moment to embrace “good enough”—you are in it!

So since you asked, I am going to tell you how my husband and I get through our unexpected Sunamis which hit us rarely, but with ferocity when they do. We try our very best to exploit humor. Levity can deflate the most dire balloons of misery. I must admit it tends to be dark and sarcastic, but it makes us laugh and gives almost instant relief.

In the case of potty training, I asked my husband if it would be wrong to put the kids in a large cage in the yard JUST for a couple of weeks.

When my small business was audited, I told to him, “Who knew you were marrying a Capone, when you said “I do!” fifteen years ago?” On a particularly bad day, my husband asked how I was. I replied, “Due to the lack of firearms and hard alcohol on the premises, I am happy to announce that we have all survived.”

Although they are not our finest moments, and the things I blurt out are not especially becoming or politically correct, they are said in jest, and meant to convey the wisdom that “this too shall pass” in that impossible moment.

I hope you and your wife can find the bit of the twisted wit which laces difficult circumstances and capitalize on it. It’s the best medicine. And it allows us to forgo perfection, and embrace survival.

I wish you all the best in getting to the other side of this trying time. And our prayers are with your Dad.

I agree completely. You can always find bigger problems or disasters that trump someone else’s circumstances. But that shouldn’t diminish the importance of individual struggles. And anyone who doesn’t think that a new baby turns your world upside down is clueless. The first few weeks with a new person who you are responsible to care for is a profoundly beautiful but terribly difficult time. And to those who seek to minimize Trent’s struggles and belittle them – yes, please go away and don’t return until you learn to have a modicum of empathy for the struggles of other people.

Could he have said “Inconvenient/worrisome/hard circumstances in my life that feel like a disaster but are not technically a force of nature”?

It’s really dismissive to look at his life and say “not as big of a deal as the oil spill.”

Guess what? Doesn’t need to be. His life still matters even if an asteroid wipes out half the world’s population. He will still have to take care of his family and career.

Parenting knocks the hedonism right out of most people, and that is a good thing. Life is so much better when lived in true service to others. It’s possible to do that without kids, but you have to consciously choose it all the time. Unless you’re an awful parent, it is very natural to sacrifice for your children with great love and acceptance.

Our first baby was a surprise, but one that we needed. Having to think about his needs first transformed our marriage and our lives for the better.

In all fairness, that may be hard to believe when you hear about the constant stories about being sleep-deprived and having poop everywhere. We only have the one child so far, but that hasn’t been our experience. We sleep trained him from the beginning, nursed, cloth-diapered, no-tv, no processed food, etc. and it really, really wasn’t any harder than doing things by default.

And to Trent: We will pray for your dad and your family. For some reason, this post was really effective…maybe because you’re modeling how you use your discipline and skills in a crisis, vs. in the daily routine you have that is much less chaotic than most of us slackers? I like when you share something that is a genuine struggle, and then share how you are working through it. (Like the post about how you nearly bought headphones you didn’t really need, and then had to remind yourself to not buy random stuff.)

Don’t doubt it if you haven’t tried it.

Pax,
Michael