I'm also always struck by how much latitude Meghan gives to confessional writing, no matter how masturbatory, ineffectual, hollow, or pointless it is. Just because someone's >cognizant< enough of their behavior to write about it doesn't mean they're "aware" -- or that they're not being insufferable. Confessing to something loathsome doesn't necessarily make the act of confessing any less loathsome! And certainly not artistically noble by default, just because the presentation is artfully done. And no, I don't think all confessional writing needs to be self-indulgent or parasitic by nature.
If the author of that piece were even slightly aware (or if he had just fucking talked to other parents), he would understand that the tension between parenting duties and one's other duties is constant, particularly for men. (Not that mothers don't feel that tension too, but there's less stigma with a mom showing up at Target with 3 kids on a Wednesday afternoon -- no one looks at her and says "What is she doing here? She should be accomplishing more!")
That essayist's experience is not remarkable in the slightest, other than the fact that he comes across as jelly-spined and non-commital, which is exactly the kind of feverish navel-gazing The New York Times sells to its audience like a giant crack factory, endlessly churning to keep up with the demands of its zombie-eyed upper-middle class audience that just cannot get ENOUGH of their own learned helplessness bottled and sold back to them in the these performative burps disguised as essays. 🤮🤮🤮🤮
Here, I think Sarah has a great point -- i.e: how 'bout HAVING A POINT when sitting down at the keyboard that amounts to something more than just lathering oneself up in hand-wringing ennui. My god, that stuff is so fucking TIRED. And it does have a detrimental social effect: it normalizes a corrosive spinelessness that runs rampant through polite society today. The author can't even COMMIT to a decisive feeling! Yikes, no wonder ISIS and China want to kill us.
The most charitable reading of the piece is to kind of reverse-infer that what dude is really expressing is his doubts over whether he was the most worthy candidate to become a dad. THAT would make perfect sense. But to dis-imagine the existence of one's own child -- yes, that's what "regret" infers -- is almost abominable. It comes across as adolescent.
The author also signals his central problem by saying optimism is an adaptive safety mechanism. No wonder he's drowning in his milquetoast "regret" -- he's rationalized himself out of one of the core fulfillments of being a parent -- indeed, of being HUMAN, which is: learning to go with this massive wave that compels you in the service of something far bigger than yourself. That's more than what he mistakenly identifies as "optimism." That's fucking called PURPOSE, which he clearly lacks -- BOTH in his career AND in his parenting.
Eventually, after getting pulled under and feeling like you're drowning, you learn to climb your drenched, battered self on top of the wave and hold your balance on the surfboard enough to get your other stuff done. It's often not pretty. The tension is constant. You get knocked off the surfboard non-stop. Kids and work alike get on your fucking nerves. You feel like you can barely even have a thought to yourself. And yet... it's where we belong. There's immense fulfillment and even joy in that struggle, in being lashed by that wave.
Not to be a dick, but people who've never had kids can't speak to that experience. So they can imagine that parents can kind of walk back to the fork in the road and play-out the act of choosing differently in their minds because, for the person who opted not to have kids, they already chose the one fork in the road. But it doesn't work like that for parents.
People who've had kids generally can't imagine the road they didn't take because the sense of being ON an inexorable path becomes so clearly defined. Even for a lot of shitty parents, there's a flicker of a higher duty. Parents >can<, however, speak to what life was like before they became parents. Only a feckless, narcissistic dipshit would even entertain the idea of "if only I hadn't taken this path." Gimme a break. It's not the kid that made this dude a person who isn't equipped to seize his own destiny.
correction: My kid isn't a teenager yet. Maybe at that point it's perfectly routine for parents to be like "What have I done? I wish I could send you back." But an infant? I actually feel bad for the author of that piece.
“That essayist’s experience is not remarkable in the slightest, other than the fact that he comes across as jelly-spined and non-committal, which is exactly the kind of feverish navel-gazing the New York Times sells to its audience like a giant crack factory.” - 💯. I didn’t think this piece was revelatory or insightful or surprising. Middle-aged man ambivalent about having children has a child and discovers he doesn’t always love parenthood: Quelle surprise! What bugged me most was that he wrote it when his kid is only a toddler! Maybe save your regret story when your kid is grown up and you’ve actually gone through all parenting stages? His beautiful sentences couldn’t disguise the immaturity of the piece.
I mean, any of us could've re-written his piece as follows:
Against my misgivings, I decided to become a dad. I must say, I find it quite fulfilling, but I'm also plagued by doubts as to whether I'm suited for the job. I feel my work nipping at my attention, And when I feel myself zoning out, preccupied with my next deadline while I'm supposed to be playing with this 18-month old infant and NOT enraptured by every little thing she does, I get the creeping suspicion: Did I make the right choice for me >or< my daughter?
Then I went to my neighborhood pub and met with a friend whose oldest kid is just about to leave for college. My friend is really great about giving me a wide berth to vent, but after listening patiently as I went on for a good twenty minutes, he burst into laughter and said, "That all sounds about right to me!" And with that, this huge bubble of anxiety popped and I started laughing too. "It comes with the territory, kid," my friend continued. "But you're showing up, which gives you a leg up. And it must mean you want to be there, no?"
I thought about it, and my friend was right -- I mean, how many other important life decisions had I been a HUNDRED-percent sold on before I made them? With jobs, dwellings, relocations, etc, I'd still managed to jump, even if it wasn't always with both feet.
"Just wait," my friend added with a knowing smile, "till she's a teenager and you can't stand the sight of each other. Meanwhile, have another pint."
A wave of comfort washed over me -- like someone mercifully breaking the tension before an extraordinarily difficult, dirty job. When I got home, I found that all of the same anxieties were still there, except I was laughing at myself. With just a few words, my friend put me back in touch with the understanding that billions of others have walked this same exact path. I fell asleep in the chair in my study and woke up to my daughter screeching at 4:00 in the morning, which didn't go well with the beer headache I was nursing, but again I chuckled.
"This must be it," I thought as I watched my baby awkwardly but determinedly wobble her way across the room. "This must be what it is, right here -- she stumbles, and my wife and I stumble right there beside her, but we manage."
counterpoint (to myself:) What if we as a species NEED a certain segment of our population to remain childless?
There's an inherent condescension in the way parents think about non-parents. I mean I make no bones about it: I feel sorry for them. BUT...
What if that sense of conviction is the biologocal equivalent of Dawkins's "god delusion." I'm not a fan of Dawkins, and I would bet my life that he's wrong. But he could be right!
After all, parenting puts SERIOUS blinders on people, and the innate thrust to do right by our offspring and provide for them is SO strong that it >doesn't< actually help us make the best decisions.
I remember paying it by late 20s/early 30s and noticing how much people with kids just go on this autopilot kind of instinct. It seemed to me at the time -- and still does -- that the instinct to provide can cloud one's judgment to an enormous degree.
Things like kids being in "good" school districts and living in "safe" suburban neughborhoods are really only skin-deep attempts to satiate the parental need to feel like one is doing the right thing.
When we look around, there isn't much depth behind a lot of those decisions: Oh, so my kid is in a "good" school district by the most superficial metrics that I haven't really stopped to think-through? Check! My kid is safe but unhealthy being suffocated in an environment where they have to be driven everywhere and can't go anywhere on their own? Check!
Childless people have the mental clarity to cut through that in a way that parents don't. As parents, we're walking around with like a layer of rolled lard over our eyes, constantly clawing to satisfy this NEED, but we need people who can be sober about assessing that need for what it is.
I have to say I agree with Sarah, it’s appalling to think that Olivia will read that article or hear about it in future years, it’s just unnecessary and self-indulgent to write these kinds of pieces. It’s one of the things that get me about the modern world, how people feel they just have to express every feeling no matter what the cost because ‘my truth’ is so important. Just keep things private people or write it anonymously, but don’t sell out your family for a byline. It’s this kind of ‘spewing’ mentality that I’m sure has contributed to the mental health crisis. Life is uncomfortable and difficult a lot of the time, and often that pays off in terms of feelings of accomplishment and meaning, but people just don’t hear that, instead they hear constant discharge of unchecked emotions.
Olivia will be fine with the article. Her father clearly loves her. I always find this pearl clutching about how the child will feel when they learn that their parents wrote about the downsides of parenting borderline absurd. I know my parents didn't enjoy all aspects of parenting, Nor did I. It leads you to pass on a more realistic view of what being a parent is like. And I can assure you, no one in my extended family has been hurt by the knowledge that being a parent isn't 100% wonderful 100% of the time.
It's not pearl-clutching. "Being a parent isn't 100% wonderful 100% of the time" isn't THE SAME THING as being indulgent in this fashion. And just for context, one of MY parents once confessed to me that they were so grief-stricken at one point during my early childhood that they entertained thoughts of taking their own life AND killing me and my brother too. I was honored that they would share that with me.
So my objection here is with the intent and utility of this kind of presentation. Meghan can't off-handedly wave it off, like "pfft, the kid will be fine" because she's not in the position to make that choice about someone she cares that much about. Writing about one's own mother is difficult, sure, but she DOESN'T KNOW what she would or wouldn't be comfortable with regarding disclosures about her own child. You can't say these things until you're there.
The squinting to legitimize JD Vance's 180-degree turn really baffles me. What Sarah says about people's entire worldview falling out from under their feet after being blown to smithereens makes perfect sense, but surely we're not forgetting that politics is an arena that rewards full-of-shit'ism, are we? Why give someone in politics the benefit of the doubt? I mean, it's the ONE place we should be pro-actively cynical, no? Seems almost irresponsible to presume sincerity when politicians do this -- especially when they get away with it so flagrantly.
I disagree. His nascent electoral aspirations just happened to coincide with a heartfelt, sincere conversion to the MAGA cause. There’s no reason whatsoever to assume a connection between the two.
Ha! I love it. Yes, exactly. And this episode is Exhibit A for how even a brilliant, razor-sharp thinker can reason their way into being willfully, almost obtusely naive.
I’m surprised Sarah is so bent out of shape about that regret piece. Her concern about how the kid will feel strikes me as the kind of overprotective culture she normally rails against.
I bet the kid doesn’t read that piece until her twenties at the earliest. In the meantime he likely will write a dozen more pieces about how much he loves being a dad.
The father’s *job* is to crank out content, why would this one immediately float to the top of the pile?
Conan O’Brien talks a lot about how his kids have zero interest in his work, and most of his celebrity guests all say the same thing.
I really enjoyed their debate. I'm a little older than Meghan and didn't get married and have a kid until my 40s - so I had Meghan's experience for more than half my life and Sarah's experience for the other. I find myself going back and forth with who I agree with. I think motherhood matures you in unexpected ways - you HAVE to put others’ needs ahead of your own - it feels like a biological imperative. But single adulthood allows you to observe with some distance, which is valuable. Thank you.
Agreed. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I absolutely HATED how the parents I knew seemed to get completely swallowed-up in their identity as parents. I thought it was so lame -- almost repulsive -- how their entire selfhood seemed absorbed.
At the same time, I've known since I was a young kid that I wanted to become a parent someday. And when I >became< one, I was equally repulsed by the way I'd previously been unable to look past myself.
The way I see it now, "both of me" had a valid point. I mean, I try not to be "that dad" who just won't shut the fuck up about having a kid -- the same way I feel about people who constantly go on about their DOGS. (I love dogs, but come on.)
I'm sure my old self would roll his eyes in disapproval, but I would also tell my old self to step it the fuck up. An outside observer would be like "You're both right!" Or: "You both suck." Ultimately -- hopefully -- you at least slide a bit towards the middle.
I remember playing music with an extremely talented musician who'd become a parent and being so AGGRAVATED that he seemed to completely lose his fire to express that side of himself. He seemed neutered. Now I kind of get it. I mean, he doesn't play anymore, which is a real tragedy, but I'm not sure it's parenting that was to blame. I mean, I've recovered my ability to create.
It's not that it becomes "less important" per se. It's just not the ONLY thing that's important. It's as important to >me< as breathing, but >I< am now only important insofar as I can exist to support the sustenance of this other person who, frankly, IS more important than I am. And there's an enormous comfort in that -- which, oddly, makes my work better (I think!)
So... if my insatiable IMPERATIVE to create was like a spool of bright red thread, now that thread is woven into a fabric with another color. The bright-redness isn't what stands out so much, but the thread is still there. I take it way less seriously. Would I give up creating? I >can't<. Nor should I -- it wouldn't serve my kid anymore than it would serve to, like, not notice flowers or the blue sky.
But I'm no longer hurling myself at the altar of ART to make this really showy dramatic BLOOD SACRIFICE 😂. I'm just showing up there to doodle for a few hours before taking my kid on a bike ride. The shocking thing is that I get more done. I get a lot further because I'm not pressing so much. And it doesn't appear to be in conflict.
As an eldest daughter, I could see that my mother was often unhappy with her lot in life. She also loved her family and claimed that the life she had was what she had always wanted. Ambiguity is human. Two simultaneous feelings do occur. "I love you and you drive me crazy." So....does the old saying still stand? "If you don't have anything nice to say, better to say nothing at all." Writers write what some feel better left unsaid. I think the differing views on the article by the man with regret over becoming a parent is due to a generational gap. Sarah has so many interesting points of view, but Meghan's larger perspective is undeniable. It's simply a matter of more time living on earth. I think reminding younger people that life is full of tradeoffs is a worthy service. Offering other parents a bit of solidarity that some regret may be part of the package and does not make them a "bad" person.
Yes and no -- I don't think her position was meant to be literal. I think in the most basic practical sense, it's just a matter of artists going up to the page/ canvas/ whatever and asking themselves "what is my INTENTION here -- and how will this affect people?" By all means, write or record or paint whatever your muse inspires you to say/ do/ express -- I'm a creative person who writes and I'm also a first-Amendment absolutist. But there's a difference between legislating something and just employing a sense of basic decorum.
For years, when I would ask metal bands about their imagery of fucking corpses and dismembering people, they would immediately bristle and assume I was advocating censorship. And I'd be like "No. Nobody's saying you CAN'T say what you're saying. But I'm asking you: WHAT. ARE. YOU. SAYING???" Very few of them have ever had an answer that satisfied me. They mostly just huff off, as if somehow they're put out by being ASKED about the very thing they exploited to get attention.
I love that music, btw, but I don't think it's putting artists at a grave inconvenience to at least CONSIDER what they're saying -- outside of the bubble of parents blaming music for their kids going out and doing stupid or terrible things. Let's just take for granted that the blame conversation is off the table -- THEN what does that leave us with?
As I've said to many people on this issue: there's no LAW that says I can't call your grandmother a cunt, but I just wouldn't. And it actually doesn't require all that much social pressure to impel me not to. Again, I'm a First Amendment absolutist and I abhor woke (and conservative) control of free speech. But the ASSUMPTION of free speech also creates a vacuum where people just throw the value of INTENTION out the window.
I think the middle ground between Sarah's position and Meghan's is that great art often DEMANDS that the artist compromise others in their personal sphere. But I feel like artists -- even essayists and Substackers -- should at the very least take every step like that on a case-by-case basis and make a determination. To just open the door to ALL of it in the name of "art" is just so lazy to me. I'm not looking to LIVE in a Woody Allen movie where all I'm doing is observing other people's dirty laundry like a voyeur on the sidelines. I don't find the foibles of the New York Times/NPR demo all that interesting.
At the same time, there are things I feel a strong NEED to say -- because I think, on balance, they'll do more good than harm. I might wait until certain family members are no longer living -- or I might go ahead with it and... brace myself for a very difficult conversation. Not sure. I have to weigh the merits on a case-by-case basis.
On the other hand, someone who falls on Meghan's side of the argument can come back with: "Well you post things about being a parent -- what will say if your kid asks you about that?" The truth is: I don't have a good answer!
Honestly I think people are far too sensitive about the word regret. I didn’t mind the piece at all. It’s human. There are plenty of parents out there that feel this way now and again. There are plenty of kids who know that they were accidents of timing or otherwise. Accepting that a kid is an accident of timing or not something that was planned or anticipated is not a huge issue. In no way does it infer that the kid will not be loved or cared for or that they won’t know that they are loved or cared for. It’s ok. Fleeting regrets are ok. Parents are human. Regrets are ok to acknowledge, even about your kids. It’s ok.
I’m hard team Meghan on this one, especially when Sarah went authoritarian on art having to have a propose in the way she did. No, it doesn’t. Some people don’t get art, partially because it doesn’t have an obvious purpose. That’s what makes great art great and bad art bad.
Thought experiment: If the NYTimes had run an essay with the same tone -- i.e: "I wouldn't change a thing, but I feel like regret is the one feeling I'm not 'supposed' to admit about my abortion" -- what do you think the reaction would be? I don't ask as a "gotcha," or even to drive home a point. I'm just curious what y'all think. (Maybe they've already run a bunch of variations on that kind of piece, I dunno.)
Also thinking of whether admitting regret serves as a deterrent for others, I can see it both ways. It's not the same thing as having a kid, but when you move overseas the first year is incredibly difficult. You can be the most excited about it, have a euphoric first few months, and then spiral into depression. This is common. If you know it, it makes it easier to tolerate and know it's a rite of passage. I can imagine hearing about others' parental regret can be a similar preparation (as long as you know it goes away eventually!)
Right. And the guy who wrote this piece would've benefitted so much from speaking to other parents. Which is why it came off as him having his head up his own navel.
The discussion on defining regret in general was definitely something I needed to hear talked out. There's often the saying of "don't regret anything because it got you to where you are"-or whatever--but sometimes you really can still feel permanently altered in ways you do not want. I can see having an aversion to expressing that opinion when a child--an entire separate human being that depends on you--is involved. But I also get the emotion. I also suspect that as time passes he's probably gonna regret it less, because you get used to the life you have and it becomes harder to image the alternative(s).
Good point, but I mean, it makes sense: Sarah comes from a cultural background where (from what I understand of her description) "personal fulfillment" is an idea people don't even have the wherewithal to >consider<, much less place at the center of their decisions.
(This is obviously not unique to Pakistani-Americans. I mean, go back a generation or two and we see the same thing pretty much everywhere. My own parents were basically forced into their lifelong professions.)
I thought it was odd -- and unsettling -- to hear her say that prior to becoming a mom, she would be so blase about herself dying. That's very strange to hear coming from someone who, from the outside, appears to be driven by a mission to express ideas.
Seeing that in another parent -- that one can have that mission, be in a public space and kind of cross swords with ideas, and then go back to this other domestic sphere and be fulfilled in this broader way -- is really inspiring.
Thanks. The point I was trying to make was less personal/psychological and more philosophical. (2) is a much harder claim to defend than (1), because unlike (1) it is vulnerable to moral anti-realist skepticism. Where do these moral duties and obligations come from? What is the source of them? How do they occur in nature? These are difficult questions to answer, especially for an atheist. Rhetorically, it’s easier to assert (1), a claim that benefits from skepticism, and then elide the fact that (1) doesn’t imply (2).
Whoa. I'm gonna hafta think this one over. I just got a headache -- not because your train of thought is hard to follow, but because my mind isn't so limber at stretching in a philosophical domain.
Just came back to listening after a long while - I became a mother in the meantime so it was fun to jump back in with this particular episode !
I've genuinely loved being a mother so far but I definitely delayed for a while because, well, 1) I was enjoying life before having a child and 2) I'm fairly risk-averse and I think it's fair to say that motherhood is overwhelmingly depicted as a thankless grind that will ruin everything and make you really uninteresting and, worse, someone to pity.
So, yeah, I would have been influenced by a piece about a regretful parent - in fact, I probably was influenced negatively by similar pieces - but, like Meghan said, people are gonna do what they're gonna do and I just fuckin' went for it anyway! Definitely the bravest thing I've ever done -- not because it's parenthood per se -- but because I challenged all of the unsavory accounts that I had internalized about an experience that I didn't have and therefore wouldn't necessarily share the same feelings.
Ultimately, Meghan's points resonated with me more even though I rolled my eyes at the content of the opinion piece and thought "ew how embarrassing" so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I wrote this 6 years ago, and it still rings true:
... ... ...
it seems to be in vogue these days for women to admit they regret having children. Oh, they love the ones they have and wouldn't trade them for anything but regret the 'decision' that led to them.
I don't know what mental jujitsu these mothers are employing to find a distinction between regretting having children and regretting having YOU, my children. because, make no mistake, in these digital, searchable times, there will be a reckoning when these future, already anxiety-filled pre-teens find out that they weren't really wanted.
besides the waning of altruism in the human race (where the pursuit of me, me and more me is on the rise), there's the abdication of social responsibility: let's say ALL women now regret motherhood and stop procreating. cue the plot of 'Children of Men'. Too extreme? Ok, consider herd immunity. this is where the general population is protected against an epidemic thru vaccination of the majority. currently there are parents who choose not to vaccinate (there are risk factors to any immunization, and they love their children so much more than the other parents to open them to that risk). these children enjoy the benefits of herd immunity without experiencing herd risk. Another example? how about the jerk who drives like a maniac on the 401, switching lanes without signalling, and exploiting the relative predictability of the majority of driver who DO follow the rules of the road.
all those women who regret that 'decision'? they have the luxury of making such pronouncements safe on the other side of already experiencing all the joys (and heartaches) motherhood brings. go back in the future, and not have any personal frame of reference to make such a decision. go back to an empty slate. it's impossible to undo and unremember who you are and what you know. regret having hypothetical children and not the flesh and blood ones before you? that is simply not possible.
As for me, I cannot unremember how filled with yearning my life was before children. and those were just the hypothetical children! To have missed the flesh and blood ones I had, that yearning would be impossible to bear
... ... ...
I wasn't even plugged into the zeitgeist yet (I was still actively parenting teens and pre-teens) but I could see the incessant march to individualism and it's deleterious effects. six years later, it's just gotten worse.
Youre phone does not listen you and send you ads based on what you talk about. It GPS tracks you, and your friends, knows both of your spending patterns, and that’s enough to predict what you will talk about if it sees you are having coffee together.
It’s not eavesdropping, our conversations are just THAT predictable.
That's bullshit. Spending habits don't always correlate to a specific thing you JUST said or texted in a conversation. I'm the last person to invoke Occam's razor but sometimes the simplest explanation is just hitting us right in the face.
They completely missed my comment about how Muslim street preachers should instead have approached Sarah with a pitch that if she put on a niqab, she wouldn't catch COVID.
I'm also always struck by how much latitude Meghan gives to confessional writing, no matter how masturbatory, ineffectual, hollow, or pointless it is. Just because someone's >cognizant< enough of their behavior to write about it doesn't mean they're "aware" -- or that they're not being insufferable. Confessing to something loathsome doesn't necessarily make the act of confessing any less loathsome! And certainly not artistically noble by default, just because the presentation is artfully done. And no, I don't think all confessional writing needs to be self-indulgent or parasitic by nature.
If the author of that piece were even slightly aware (or if he had just fucking talked to other parents), he would understand that the tension between parenting duties and one's other duties is constant, particularly for men. (Not that mothers don't feel that tension too, but there's less stigma with a mom showing up at Target with 3 kids on a Wednesday afternoon -- no one looks at her and says "What is she doing here? She should be accomplishing more!")
That essayist's experience is not remarkable in the slightest, other than the fact that he comes across as jelly-spined and non-commital, which is exactly the kind of feverish navel-gazing The New York Times sells to its audience like a giant crack factory, endlessly churning to keep up with the demands of its zombie-eyed upper-middle class audience that just cannot get ENOUGH of their own learned helplessness bottled and sold back to them in the these performative burps disguised as essays. 🤮🤮🤮🤮
Here, I think Sarah has a great point -- i.e: how 'bout HAVING A POINT when sitting down at the keyboard that amounts to something more than just lathering oneself up in hand-wringing ennui. My god, that stuff is so fucking TIRED. And it does have a detrimental social effect: it normalizes a corrosive spinelessness that runs rampant through polite society today. The author can't even COMMIT to a decisive feeling! Yikes, no wonder ISIS and China want to kill us.
The most charitable reading of the piece is to kind of reverse-infer that what dude is really expressing is his doubts over whether he was the most worthy candidate to become a dad. THAT would make perfect sense. But to dis-imagine the existence of one's own child -- yes, that's what "regret" infers -- is almost abominable. It comes across as adolescent.
The author also signals his central problem by saying optimism is an adaptive safety mechanism. No wonder he's drowning in his milquetoast "regret" -- he's rationalized himself out of one of the core fulfillments of being a parent -- indeed, of being HUMAN, which is: learning to go with this massive wave that compels you in the service of something far bigger than yourself. That's more than what he mistakenly identifies as "optimism." That's fucking called PURPOSE, which he clearly lacks -- BOTH in his career AND in his parenting.
Eventually, after getting pulled under and feeling like you're drowning, you learn to climb your drenched, battered self on top of the wave and hold your balance on the surfboard enough to get your other stuff done. It's often not pretty. The tension is constant. You get knocked off the surfboard non-stop. Kids and work alike get on your fucking nerves. You feel like you can barely even have a thought to yourself. And yet... it's where we belong. There's immense fulfillment and even joy in that struggle, in being lashed by that wave.
Not to be a dick, but people who've never had kids can't speak to that experience. So they can imagine that parents can kind of walk back to the fork in the road and play-out the act of choosing differently in their minds because, for the person who opted not to have kids, they already chose the one fork in the road. But it doesn't work like that for parents.
People who've had kids generally can't imagine the road they didn't take because the sense of being ON an inexorable path becomes so clearly defined. Even for a lot of shitty parents, there's a flicker of a higher duty. Parents >can<, however, speak to what life was like before they became parents. Only a feckless, narcissistic dipshit would even entertain the idea of "if only I hadn't taken this path." Gimme a break. It's not the kid that made this dude a person who isn't equipped to seize his own destiny.
“But to dis-imagine the existence of one's own child -- yes, that's what "regret" infers -- is almost abominable. It comes across as adolescent.”
That puts it perfectly!
He sounds like a tool.
correction: My kid isn't a teenager yet. Maybe at that point it's perfectly routine for parents to be like "What have I done? I wish I could send you back." But an infant? I actually feel bad for the author of that piece.
“That essayist’s experience is not remarkable in the slightest, other than the fact that he comes across as jelly-spined and non-committal, which is exactly the kind of feverish navel-gazing the New York Times sells to its audience like a giant crack factory.” - 💯. I didn’t think this piece was revelatory or insightful or surprising. Middle-aged man ambivalent about having children has a child and discovers he doesn’t always love parenthood: Quelle surprise! What bugged me most was that he wrote it when his kid is only a toddler! Maybe save your regret story when your kid is grown up and you’ve actually gone through all parenting stages? His beautiful sentences couldn’t disguise the immaturity of the piece.
I mean, any of us could've re-written his piece as follows:
Against my misgivings, I decided to become a dad. I must say, I find it quite fulfilling, but I'm also plagued by doubts as to whether I'm suited for the job. I feel my work nipping at my attention, And when I feel myself zoning out, preccupied with my next deadline while I'm supposed to be playing with this 18-month old infant and NOT enraptured by every little thing she does, I get the creeping suspicion: Did I make the right choice for me >or< my daughter?
Then I went to my neighborhood pub and met with a friend whose oldest kid is just about to leave for college. My friend is really great about giving me a wide berth to vent, but after listening patiently as I went on for a good twenty minutes, he burst into laughter and said, "That all sounds about right to me!" And with that, this huge bubble of anxiety popped and I started laughing too. "It comes with the territory, kid," my friend continued. "But you're showing up, which gives you a leg up. And it must mean you want to be there, no?"
I thought about it, and my friend was right -- I mean, how many other important life decisions had I been a HUNDRED-percent sold on before I made them? With jobs, dwellings, relocations, etc, I'd still managed to jump, even if it wasn't always with both feet.
"Just wait," my friend added with a knowing smile, "till she's a teenager and you can't stand the sight of each other. Meanwhile, have another pint."
A wave of comfort washed over me -- like someone mercifully breaking the tension before an extraordinarily difficult, dirty job. When I got home, I found that all of the same anxieties were still there, except I was laughing at myself. With just a few words, my friend put me back in touch with the understanding that billions of others have walked this same exact path. I fell asleep in the chair in my study and woke up to my daughter screeching at 4:00 in the morning, which didn't go well with the beer headache I was nursing, but again I chuckled.
"This must be it," I thought as I watched my baby awkwardly but determinedly wobble her way across the room. "This must be what it is, right here -- she stumbles, and my wife and I stumble right there beside her, but we manage."
The end.
counterpoint (to myself:) What if we as a species NEED a certain segment of our population to remain childless?
There's an inherent condescension in the way parents think about non-parents. I mean I make no bones about it: I feel sorry for them. BUT...
What if that sense of conviction is the biologocal equivalent of Dawkins's "god delusion." I'm not a fan of Dawkins, and I would bet my life that he's wrong. But he could be right!
After all, parenting puts SERIOUS blinders on people, and the innate thrust to do right by our offspring and provide for them is SO strong that it >doesn't< actually help us make the best decisions.
I remember paying it by late 20s/early 30s and noticing how much people with kids just go on this autopilot kind of instinct. It seemed to me at the time -- and still does -- that the instinct to provide can cloud one's judgment to an enormous degree.
Things like kids being in "good" school districts and living in "safe" suburban neughborhoods are really only skin-deep attempts to satiate the parental need to feel like one is doing the right thing.
When we look around, there isn't much depth behind a lot of those decisions: Oh, so my kid is in a "good" school district by the most superficial metrics that I haven't really stopped to think-through? Check! My kid is safe but unhealthy being suffocated in an environment where they have to be driven everywhere and can't go anywhere on their own? Check!
Childless people have the mental clarity to cut through that in a way that parents don't. As parents, we're walking around with like a layer of rolled lard over our eyes, constantly clawing to satisfy this NEED, but we need people who can be sober about assessing that need for what it is.
well put! I wrote something a few years back that echos alot of this...
(Is it the comment you posted elsewhere on this thread?)
yes. I see you found it :)
I'd love to read it! Got a link?
I have to say I agree with Sarah, it’s appalling to think that Olivia will read that article or hear about it in future years, it’s just unnecessary and self-indulgent to write these kinds of pieces. It’s one of the things that get me about the modern world, how people feel they just have to express every feeling no matter what the cost because ‘my truth’ is so important. Just keep things private people or write it anonymously, but don’t sell out your family for a byline. It’s this kind of ‘spewing’ mentality that I’m sure has contributed to the mental health crisis. Life is uncomfortable and difficult a lot of the time, and often that pays off in terms of feelings of accomplishment and meaning, but people just don’t hear that, instead they hear constant discharge of unchecked emotions.
Olivia will be fine with the article. Her father clearly loves her. I always find this pearl clutching about how the child will feel when they learn that their parents wrote about the downsides of parenting borderline absurd. I know my parents didn't enjoy all aspects of parenting, Nor did I. It leads you to pass on a more realistic view of what being a parent is like. And I can assure you, no one in my extended family has been hurt by the knowledge that being a parent isn't 100% wonderful 100% of the time.
It's not pearl-clutching. "Being a parent isn't 100% wonderful 100% of the time" isn't THE SAME THING as being indulgent in this fashion. And just for context, one of MY parents once confessed to me that they were so grief-stricken at one point during my early childhood that they entertained thoughts of taking their own life AND killing me and my brother too. I was honored that they would share that with me.
So my objection here is with the intent and utility of this kind of presentation. Meghan can't off-handedly wave it off, like "pfft, the kid will be fine" because she's not in the position to make that choice about someone she cares that much about. Writing about one's own mother is difficult, sure, but she DOESN'T KNOW what she would or wouldn't be comfortable with regarding disclosures about her own child. You can't say these things until you're there.
The squinting to legitimize JD Vance's 180-degree turn really baffles me. What Sarah says about people's entire worldview falling out from under their feet after being blown to smithereens makes perfect sense, but surely we're not forgetting that politics is an arena that rewards full-of-shit'ism, are we? Why give someone in politics the benefit of the doubt? I mean, it's the ONE place we should be pro-actively cynical, no? Seems almost irresponsible to presume sincerity when politicians do this -- especially when they get away with it so flagrantly.
I disagree. His nascent electoral aspirations just happened to coincide with a heartfelt, sincere conversion to the MAGA cause. There’s no reason whatsoever to assume a connection between the two.
Ha! I love it. Yes, exactly. And this episode is Exhibit A for how even a brilliant, razor-sharp thinker can reason their way into being willfully, almost obtusely naive.
😂
I’m surprised Sarah is so bent out of shape about that regret piece. Her concern about how the kid will feel strikes me as the kind of overprotective culture she normally rails against.
I bet the kid doesn’t read that piece until her twenties at the earliest. In the meantime he likely will write a dozen more pieces about how much he loves being a dad.
The father’s *job* is to crank out content, why would this one immediately float to the top of the pile?
Conan O’Brien talks a lot about how his kids have zero interest in his work, and most of his celebrity guests all say the same thing.
The kid will be fine.
I really enjoyed their debate. I'm a little older than Meghan and didn't get married and have a kid until my 40s - so I had Meghan's experience for more than half my life and Sarah's experience for the other. I find myself going back and forth with who I agree with. I think motherhood matures you in unexpected ways - you HAVE to put others’ needs ahead of your own - it feels like a biological imperative. But single adulthood allows you to observe with some distance, which is valuable. Thank you.
Agreed. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I absolutely HATED how the parents I knew seemed to get completely swallowed-up in their identity as parents. I thought it was so lame -- almost repulsive -- how their entire selfhood seemed absorbed.
At the same time, I've known since I was a young kid that I wanted to become a parent someday. And when I >became< one, I was equally repulsed by the way I'd previously been unable to look past myself.
The way I see it now, "both of me" had a valid point. I mean, I try not to be "that dad" who just won't shut the fuck up about having a kid -- the same way I feel about people who constantly go on about their DOGS. (I love dogs, but come on.)
I'm sure my old self would roll his eyes in disapproval, but I would also tell my old self to step it the fuck up. An outside observer would be like "You're both right!" Or: "You both suck." Ultimately -- hopefully -- you at least slide a bit towards the middle.
❤️👆🏻
I remember playing music with an extremely talented musician who'd become a parent and being so AGGRAVATED that he seemed to completely lose his fire to express that side of himself. He seemed neutered. Now I kind of get it. I mean, he doesn't play anymore, which is a real tragedy, but I'm not sure it's parenting that was to blame. I mean, I've recovered my ability to create.
It's not that it becomes "less important" per se. It's just not the ONLY thing that's important. It's as important to >me< as breathing, but >I< am now only important insofar as I can exist to support the sustenance of this other person who, frankly, IS more important than I am. And there's an enormous comfort in that -- which, oddly, makes my work better (I think!)
So... if my insatiable IMPERATIVE to create was like a spool of bright red thread, now that thread is woven into a fabric with another color. The bright-redness isn't what stands out so much, but the thread is still there. I take it way less seriously. Would I give up creating? I >can't<. Nor should I -- it wouldn't serve my kid anymore than it would serve to, like, not notice flowers or the blue sky.
But I'm no longer hurling myself at the altar of ART to make this really showy dramatic BLOOD SACRIFICE 😂. I'm just showing up there to doodle for a few hours before taking my kid on a bike ride. The shocking thing is that I get more done. I get a lot further because I'm not pressing so much. And it doesn't appear to be in conflict.
As an eldest daughter, I could see that my mother was often unhappy with her lot in life. She also loved her family and claimed that the life she had was what she had always wanted. Ambiguity is human. Two simultaneous feelings do occur. "I love you and you drive me crazy." So....does the old saying still stand? "If you don't have anything nice to say, better to say nothing at all." Writers write what some feel better left unsaid. I think the differing views on the article by the man with regret over becoming a parent is due to a generational gap. Sarah has so many interesting points of view, but Meghan's larger perspective is undeniable. It's simply a matter of more time living on earth. I think reminding younger people that life is full of tradeoffs is a worthy service. Offering other parents a bit of solidarity that some regret may be part of the package and does not make them a "bad" person.
A lot of great art wouldn't exist if "no one can ever be hurt" became a rule. Sarah was asking for something completely unworkable.
Yes and no -- I don't think her position was meant to be literal. I think in the most basic practical sense, it's just a matter of artists going up to the page/ canvas/ whatever and asking themselves "what is my INTENTION here -- and how will this affect people?" By all means, write or record or paint whatever your muse inspires you to say/ do/ express -- I'm a creative person who writes and I'm also a first-Amendment absolutist. But there's a difference between legislating something and just employing a sense of basic decorum.
For years, when I would ask metal bands about their imagery of fucking corpses and dismembering people, they would immediately bristle and assume I was advocating censorship. And I'd be like "No. Nobody's saying you CAN'T say what you're saying. But I'm asking you: WHAT. ARE. YOU. SAYING???" Very few of them have ever had an answer that satisfied me. They mostly just huff off, as if somehow they're put out by being ASKED about the very thing they exploited to get attention.
I love that music, btw, but I don't think it's putting artists at a grave inconvenience to at least CONSIDER what they're saying -- outside of the bubble of parents blaming music for their kids going out and doing stupid or terrible things. Let's just take for granted that the blame conversation is off the table -- THEN what does that leave us with?
As I've said to many people on this issue: there's no LAW that says I can't call your grandmother a cunt, but I just wouldn't. And it actually doesn't require all that much social pressure to impel me not to. Again, I'm a First Amendment absolutist and I abhor woke (and conservative) control of free speech. But the ASSUMPTION of free speech also creates a vacuum where people just throw the value of INTENTION out the window.
I think the middle ground between Sarah's position and Meghan's is that great art often DEMANDS that the artist compromise others in their personal sphere. But I feel like artists -- even essayists and Substackers -- should at the very least take every step like that on a case-by-case basis and make a determination. To just open the door to ALL of it in the name of "art" is just so lazy to me. I'm not looking to LIVE in a Woody Allen movie where all I'm doing is observing other people's dirty laundry like a voyeur on the sidelines. I don't find the foibles of the New York Times/NPR demo all that interesting.
At the same time, there are things I feel a strong NEED to say -- because I think, on balance, they'll do more good than harm. I might wait until certain family members are no longer living -- or I might go ahead with it and... brace myself for a very difficult conversation. Not sure. I have to weigh the merits on a case-by-case basis.
On the other hand, someone who falls on Meghan's side of the argument can come back with: "Well you post things about being a parent -- what will say if your kid asks you about that?" The truth is: I don't have a good answer!
Honestly I think people are far too sensitive about the word regret. I didn’t mind the piece at all. It’s human. There are plenty of parents out there that feel this way now and again. There are plenty of kids who know that they were accidents of timing or otherwise. Accepting that a kid is an accident of timing or not something that was planned or anticipated is not a huge issue. In no way does it infer that the kid will not be loved or cared for or that they won’t know that they are loved or cared for. It’s ok. Fleeting regrets are ok. Parents are human. Regrets are ok to acknowledge, even about your kids. It’s ok.
I’m hard team Meghan on this one, especially when Sarah went authoritarian on art having to have a propose in the way she did. No, it doesn’t. Some people don’t get art, partially because it doesn’t have an obvious purpose. That’s what makes great art great and bad art bad.
Thought experiment: If the NYTimes had run an essay with the same tone -- i.e: "I wouldn't change a thing, but I feel like regret is the one feeling I'm not 'supposed' to admit about my abortion" -- what do you think the reaction would be? I don't ask as a "gotcha," or even to drive home a point. I'm just curious what y'all think. (Maybe they've already run a bunch of variations on that kind of piece, I dunno.)
Also thinking of whether admitting regret serves as a deterrent for others, I can see it both ways. It's not the same thing as having a kid, but when you move overseas the first year is incredibly difficult. You can be the most excited about it, have a euphoric first few months, and then spiral into depression. This is common. If you know it, it makes it easier to tolerate and know it's a rite of passage. I can imagine hearing about others' parental regret can be a similar preparation (as long as you know it goes away eventually!)
Right. And the guy who wrote this piece would've benefitted so much from speaking to other parents. Which is why it came off as him having his head up his own navel.
The discussion on defining regret in general was definitely something I needed to hear talked out. There's often the saying of "don't regret anything because it got you to where you are"-or whatever--but sometimes you really can still feel permanently altered in ways you do not want. I can see having an aversion to expressing that opinion when a child--an entire separate human being that depends on you--is involved. But I also get the emotion. I also suspect that as time passes he's probably gonna regret it less, because you get used to the life you have and it becomes harder to image the alternative(s).
Sarah sometimes seems to conflate two positions:
1. People do not have a right to personal fulfillment.
2. People have moral duties to others, and they have a moral obligation to put those duties above their own desires and fulfillment.
It’s much easier to argue for the former than the latter, but these are not equivalent statements.
Good point, but I mean, it makes sense: Sarah comes from a cultural background where (from what I understand of her description) "personal fulfillment" is an idea people don't even have the wherewithal to >consider<, much less place at the center of their decisions.
(This is obviously not unique to Pakistani-Americans. I mean, go back a generation or two and we see the same thing pretty much everywhere. My own parents were basically forced into their lifelong professions.)
I thought it was odd -- and unsettling -- to hear her say that prior to becoming a mom, she would be so blase about herself dying. That's very strange to hear coming from someone who, from the outside, appears to be driven by a mission to express ideas.
Seeing that in another parent -- that one can have that mission, be in a public space and kind of cross swords with ideas, and then go back to this other domestic sphere and be fulfilled in this broader way -- is really inspiring.
Thanks. The point I was trying to make was less personal/psychological and more philosophical. (2) is a much harder claim to defend than (1), because unlike (1) it is vulnerable to moral anti-realist skepticism. Where do these moral duties and obligations come from? What is the source of them? How do they occur in nature? These are difficult questions to answer, especially for an atheist. Rhetorically, it’s easier to assert (1), a claim that benefits from skepticism, and then elide the fact that (1) doesn’t imply (2).
Whoa. I'm gonna hafta think this one over. I just got a headache -- not because your train of thought is hard to follow, but because my mind isn't so limber at stretching in a philosophical domain.
Awww, thanks, I’m flattered :)
Just came back to listening after a long while - I became a mother in the meantime so it was fun to jump back in with this particular episode !
I've genuinely loved being a mother so far but I definitely delayed for a while because, well, 1) I was enjoying life before having a child and 2) I'm fairly risk-averse and I think it's fair to say that motherhood is overwhelmingly depicted as a thankless grind that will ruin everything and make you really uninteresting and, worse, someone to pity.
So, yeah, I would have been influenced by a piece about a regretful parent - in fact, I probably was influenced negatively by similar pieces - but, like Meghan said, people are gonna do what they're gonna do and I just fuckin' went for it anyway! Definitely the bravest thing I've ever done -- not because it's parenthood per se -- but because I challenged all of the unsavory accounts that I had internalized about an experience that I didn't have and therefore wouldn't necessarily share the same feelings.
Ultimately, Meghan's points resonated with me more even though I rolled my eyes at the content of the opinion piece and thought "ew how embarrassing" so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I wrote this 6 years ago, and it still rings true:
... ... ...
it seems to be in vogue these days for women to admit they regret having children. Oh, they love the ones they have and wouldn't trade them for anything but regret the 'decision' that led to them.
I don't know what mental jujitsu these mothers are employing to find a distinction between regretting having children and regretting having YOU, my children. because, make no mistake, in these digital, searchable times, there will be a reckoning when these future, already anxiety-filled pre-teens find out that they weren't really wanted.
besides the waning of altruism in the human race (where the pursuit of me, me and more me is on the rise), there's the abdication of social responsibility: let's say ALL women now regret motherhood and stop procreating. cue the plot of 'Children of Men'. Too extreme? Ok, consider herd immunity. this is where the general population is protected against an epidemic thru vaccination of the majority. currently there are parents who choose not to vaccinate (there are risk factors to any immunization, and they love their children so much more than the other parents to open them to that risk). these children enjoy the benefits of herd immunity without experiencing herd risk. Another example? how about the jerk who drives like a maniac on the 401, switching lanes without signalling, and exploiting the relative predictability of the majority of driver who DO follow the rules of the road.
all those women who regret that 'decision'? they have the luxury of making such pronouncements safe on the other side of already experiencing all the joys (and heartaches) motherhood brings. go back in the future, and not have any personal frame of reference to make such a decision. go back to an empty slate. it's impossible to undo and unremember who you are and what you know. regret having hypothetical children and not the flesh and blood ones before you? that is simply not possible.
As for me, I cannot unremember how filled with yearning my life was before children. and those were just the hypothetical children! To have missed the flesh and blood ones I had, that yearning would be impossible to bear
... ... ...
I wasn't even plugged into the zeitgeist yet (I was still actively parenting teens and pre-teens) but I could see the incessant march to individualism and it's deleterious effects. six years later, it's just gotten worse.
This whole podcast is a speech crime. LMAO
Youre phone does not listen you and send you ads based on what you talk about. It GPS tracks you, and your friends, knows both of your spending patterns, and that’s enough to predict what you will talk about if it sees you are having coffee together.
It’s not eavesdropping, our conversations are just THAT predictable.
https://gizmodo.com/your-phone-is-not-listening-to-you-1851220787
And I would sooner trust the Hogwarts Book of Divination than fucking Gizmodo.
That's bullshit. Spending habits don't always correlate to a specific thing you JUST said or texted in a conversation. I'm the last person to invoke Occam's razor but sometimes the simplest explanation is just hitting us right in the face.
They completely missed my comment about how Muslim street preachers should instead have approached Sarah with a pitch that if she put on a niqab, she wouldn't catch COVID.