Showing posts with label Pukar Hamal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pukar Hamal. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

28: Pukar Hamal

Having Kids Before I had kids, I was afraid of having kids. Up to that point I felt about kids the way the young Augustine felt about living virtuously. I'd have been sad to think I'd never have children. But did I want them now? No. ............ If I had kids, I'd become a parent, and parents, as I'd known since I was a kid, were uncool. They were dull and responsible and had no fun. And while it's not surprising that kids would believe that, to be honest I hadn't seen much as an adult to change my mind. Whenever I'd noticed parents with kids, the kids seemed to be terrors, and the parents pathetic harried creatures, even when they prevailed. .................. Now when people have babies I congratulate them enthusiastically and I mean it. Especially the first one. I feel like they just got the best gift in the world. .................. What changed, of course, is that I had kids. Something I dreaded turned out to be wonderful. ................ Partly, and I won't deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children. As I was driving my wife and new son home from the hospital, I approached a crosswalk full of pedestrians, and I found myself thinking "I have to be really careful of all these people. Every one of them is someone's child!" ........................ one of the great things about having kids is that there are so many times when you feel there is nowhere else you'd rather be, and nothing else you'd rather be doing. ............. I remember my mother telling me once when I was about 30 that she'd really enjoyed having me and my sister. My god, I thought, this woman is a saint. She not only endured all the pain we subjected her to, but actually enjoyed it? Now I realize she was simply telling the truth. .................... Some of my worries about having kids were right, though. They definitely make you less productive. I know having kids makes some people get their act together, but if your act was already together, you're going to have less time to do it in. In particular, you're going to have to work to a schedule. Kids have schedules. I'm not sure if it's because that's how kids are, or because it's the only way to integrate their lives with adults', but once you have kids, you tend to have to work on their schedule. ...................... You will have chunks of time to work. But you can't let work spill promiscuously through your whole life, like I used to before I had kids. You're going to have to work at the same time every day, whether inspiration is flowing or not, and there are going to be times when you have to stop, even if it is. .................... And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project you're working on. .............. I remember perfectly well what life was like before. Well enough to miss some things a lot, like the ability to take off for some other country at a moment's notice. That was so great.

Why did I never do that?

................ See what I did there? The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it............ ...I had plenty of happy times before I had kids. But if I count up happy moments, not just potential happiness but actual happy moments, there are more after kids than before. Now I practically have it on tap, almost any bedtime. ............. Adults are sophisticated enough to see 2 year olds for the fascinatingly complex characters they are, whereas to most 6 year olds, 2 year olds are just defective 6 year olds.

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