[ThomPete]

I always look at it this way.

Both parents and non-parents are trapped on their own side of ignorance.

The childless because they haven't tried to the experience of having a child and the love that most feel.

The parents because they forget how it was to not have the obligations of a child.

My personal opinion on the matter is that children are 49% horrible and 51% of pure bliss and it's that 1% which makes the whole difference.

[purplethinking]

> My personal opinion on the matter is that children are 49% horrible and 51% of pure bliss and it's that 1% which makes the whole difference.

In my head I think of it similarly: the mean of the experience of living before and after having a child is roughly the same, but the variance is much higher after. Which side of the mean I'm on varies, and I honestly don't know where it will end up over time. That's why it's so hard to know whether I regret it or not. Given all the positive stuff (ya know, the unconditional love and all that), I can never say that I regret it, but in so many ways life is also just objectively so much worse now.

[elefanten]

Well put. That also strikes me more broadly as the dynamic between youth and age, or inexperience and experience. The BEFORE phase is always ignorant by nature, but the AFTER phase is remarkably good at forgetting what it was really like.