# The Guardian nails it: Childless at 52: How sweet it would be to be called Dad **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 13, 2016, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658 "2016-08-13T08:34:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/61 "2016-08-14T16:14:31Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > No, my point is nothing like this point. My point is that having children doesn’t make you—relative to someone without children—more sympathetic to people who aren’t your children. That doesn’t mean society is doomed or anything. Yeh, I don’t feel that either. But from what I know of **ZPG’s** past posting on topics like this and others, IIRC, that’s her outlook. Please correct me if I’m wrong, **ZPG.** ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/62 "2016-08-14T16:30:57Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The “selflessness” and “sacrifice” you learn through raising children is to a large extent _to your own benefit_. It doesn’t make you a better person with respect to the people in whom you don’t have a similar personal investment. > > And this is obvious, considering that all the atrocities of human history were conducted largely by people who were parents. Yes, this is what I was trying to say too. I don’t know why some regard it as “selfless”/"sacrifice when it’s taking care of your own child, which is a benefit _to you_. Not saying it is easy to raise a child or that you never have to put the child’s needs ahead of your own, BUT even when it’s hard or even when you have to spend time or money or something for the child instead of yourself, it’s STILL to your own benefit even if it’s harder. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/63 "2016-08-14T16:32:53Z")
> [@Skypist](#): > > Yes, this is what I was trying to say too. I don’t know why some regard it as “selfless”/"sacrifice when it’s taking care of your own child, which is a benefit _to you_. > > Not saying it is easy to raise a child or that you never have to put the child’s needs ahead of your own, BUT even when it’s hard or even when you have to spend time or money or something for the child instead of yourself, it’s STILL to your own benefit even if it’s harder. It’s kind of for the benefit of the child, too. Not that it’s a person or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/64 "2016-08-14T16:43:43Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > It’s kind of for the benefit of the child, too. Not that it’s a person or anything. It’s a person in whom you have a personal investment. Being good to your immediate family really doesn’t make you likely to be good to people outside that relationship circle. It’s just like when someone like Paula Deen gets accused of racist behavior or Bil Cosby gets accused of rape and their inner circles say “well, we never saw that behavior.” Well, of course not! How he or she behaved with you isn’t necessarily proof one way or another how he or she behaved with people at work or with strangers. People who do horrible things to people outside their family are often good to people inside their family. There’s no reliable connection there. ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/65 "2016-08-14T16:44:10Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > It’s kind of for the benefit of the child, too. Not that it’s a person or anything. C’mon, when did I ever say the child wasn’t a person? I thought “we” were talking about how raising a child affects a person and whether or not it can confer empathy, not necessarily something about the children themselves. Of course raising a child well benefits the child but that wasn’t the point of the discussion, I didn’t think? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/66 "2016-08-14T16:55:18Z")
I apologize, I missed that that was the point thus far in the discussion. Of course being a parent doesn’t change how you treat other people (except maybe more tolerance for other people’s kids in public). So, I suppose you can understand my confusion in your arguments in missing that point. I don’t have the time to go back and re-read the thread, but who’s arguing that being a parent makes you an even awesomer person? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/67 "2016-08-14T16:56:37Z")
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with loving your children, but don’t pretend that doing so makes you a philanthropist. I have friends who are parents. I know that they would jump in front of a train to save their own children. I also know that they would throw \*me \*in front of a train to save their own children, and probably not even feel bad about it afterwards. I’ve pretty much stopped hanging around with those friends around railroad crossings. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/68 "2016-08-14T17:02:21Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > I don’t have the time to go back and re-read the thread, but who’s arguing that being a parent makes you an even awesomer person? Here’s one— > [@pool](#): > > … in some ways I feel like people that don’t have children are emotionally incomplete, stunted and many of those people try to fill that gap with pets or something but its not really the same. I feel like having children has brought me greater empathy that I was not able to experience before, it opened me up to emotions that I previously could not have felt. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/69 "2016-08-14T17:02:31Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > I apologize, I missed that that was the point thus far in the discussion. Of course being a parent doesn’t change how you treat other people (except maybe more tolerance for other people’s kids in public). So, I suppose you can understand my confusion in your arguments in missing that point. > > I don’t have the time to go back and re-read the thread, but who’s arguing that being a parent makes you an even awesomer person? It’s what the 2nd post in this thread is arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/70 "2016-08-14T17:03:46Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Now I’m married with children. Everything in life is a trade-off, in some ways I feel like people that don’t have children are emotionally incomplete, stunted and many of those people try to fill that gap with pets or something but its not really the same. I feel like having children has brought me greater empathy that I was not able to experience before… Here is the first example in this thread of a poster hinting that being a parent gives you more empathy than non-parents. Plus the author of the article in the OP is a childless man who says that he feels incomplete for not having had children. So I kinda thought that was the main subject here, not so much how good parenting benefits a child but how it benefits/affects the parents themselves. > [@cmyk](#): > > I apologize, I missed that that was the point thus far in the discussion. Of course being a parent doesn’t change how you treat other people (except maybe more tolerance for other people’s kids in public). So, I suppose you can understand my confusion in your arguments in missing that point. > > I don’t have the time to go back and re-read the thread, but who’s arguing that being a parent makes you an even awesomer person? I guess now I’m a little confused as to what you have been arguing in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/71 "2016-08-14T17:06:34Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > It’s what the 2nd post in this thread is arguing. Yep. I just bounced back here to say nevermind, I found **pool’s** post. A silly issue to argue, I think he/she’s in the minority on that one. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/72 "2016-08-14T17:09:09Z")
> [@Skypist](#): > > …I guess now I’m a little confused as to what you have been arguing in this thread. Mainly **ZPG’s** absurd post, which some people here are actually _siding_ with. That blew my mind, and it must’ve blinded me more on the other point(s) here. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > As a former abused child, I will say some of the most heartless, cruel, sociopathic people in the human race are parents. So no, having children does not make one emotionally complete (unless complete is being defined as complete sadist.). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/73 "2016-08-14T17:16:54Z")
> [@Skypist](#): > > …Plus the author of the article in the OP is a childless man who says that he feels incomplete for not having had children. > > So I kinda thought that was the main subject here, not so much how good parenting benefits a child but how it benefits/affects the parents themselves. As for the article in the OP, feeling incomplete is a different thing than having less empathy from choosing to not having kids. It seems yourself and others are mixing the ideas and sentiments between the article and **pool’s** post. Besides, that article was an op-ed piece, and entirely anecdotal. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/74 "2016-08-14T17:19:56Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Do you have kids? > > I honestly, and without exaggeration, would give my life 100x over for my kids. Not sure I could say the same for my dog, or a trip to Venice. You don’t have to have children to understand that. I feel sad for the man in the article. He has no clue about reality. I’ve had quite a few women tell me they love their children with all their heart but if they had it to do over again they would not have had them. When I was 18 I had given great thought to marriage and children. I had even started working out budgets on how to make it happen. But that was geared toward a specific relationship with a specific person. She chose someone else and I moved on. I was happy to believe she would be happy. It was very painful to learn that she was ignored most of her adult life. It bothers me just to type that. I think it takes a very solid relationship to make having a family a worthy experience for all concerned. It’s a lot of work. A LOT of work. IMO there are a great number of people who don’t have a clue what it takes and suffer for it. The guy in the article sounds like one of those people. Not only do I not have any regrets I feel empathy for all the parents out there who live in soul crushing relationships with their spouse and children. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/75 "2016-08-14T17:24:18Z")
Unfortunately, discussions like this often result in people shouting over the back fence at each other without a careful discussion. If people would simply take a little more care, it could be a really interesting discussion. And if people wouldn’t take things so personal, perhaps the conversation would be calmer. So much of the arrows could be avoided in with a little more precision, such as if **ZPG Zellot** **were to say** : So no, having children does not \*\*necessarily \*\*make one emotionally complete (unless complete is being defined as complete sadist.). I would agree with this completely. Parenthood certainly made my father a complete sadist. It doesn’t for 99% of the parents, though. That said, as a parent, I apologize to the world for **pool**. Many of us (and I hope most of us) are capable of realizing that our path to emotional maturity was forced by parenthood, yet are also aware that other people were able to do so in an entirely different manner. For those of us who grew up abused, he should also have to understand that parenting doesn’t necessarily change people. For those good parents who had happy childhoods and can’t understand the pain of someone who grew up in a war zone; it would be easier to have a discussion if appropriate qualifier were added: Parenting **can** change you for the better. . . I’ll try to write more from my perspective. There are a few people here in the tread who have survived the degree of abuse which I experienced, but I can also talk about my experience as a parent now facing the challenges of having to learn an entirely different response to the world in order to break the cycle of abuse. It’s not simply a matter of stopping the physical abuse. That was simple. Just don’t hit the kids. It’s learning how to actually be a parent in terms of being responsible for the emotional welfare of a child and what that all entails. For people who grew up in normal, loving households where parents had enough presence and space to deal with their children’s needs, then it must be almost unimaginable that someone has to sit down with a pencil and paper to try to think of what a child requires. If you don’t get it, then how can you pass it along? To this day, it’s hard for me to ask directly for things, yet somehow I must provide an environment where my children are safe in asking directly so they don’t suffer from the same problems. To one degree or another, I guess that all parents have to learn somethings and have to learn to become less selfish, for example. But when one has a learned response that asking for something directly is not only dangerous, but as terrifying as running into a fire, and that it _must_ be avoided at all costs, then us parents who survived severe abuse also need to learn how to recognize that we need how to not project this fear onto our children. I’ve shared before on how things can be a trigger, of breaking down in tears because the choice of six flavors of ice cream was too much. Somehow there was a moral value in chocolate or vanilla and if I got it wrong, all hell would break lose. Not only do we need to deal with this ourselves, but we also need to make sure that the fears do not pass along to the next generation. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/76 "2016-08-14T17:29:39Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You don’t have to have children to understand that. > > I feel sad for the man in the article. He has no clue about reality. I’ve had quite a few women tell me they love their children with all their heart but if they had it to do over again they would not have had them. > > When I was 18 I had given great thought to marriage and children. I had even started working out budgets on how to make it happen. But that was geared toward a specific relationship with a specific person. She chose someone else and I moved on. I was happy to believe she would be happy. It was very painful to learn that she was ignored most of her adult life. It bothers me just to type that. > > I think it takes a very solid relationship to make having a family a worthy experience for all concerned. It’s a lot of work. A LOT of work. IMO there are a great number of people who don’t have a clue what it takes and suffer for it. The guy in the article sounds like one of those people. > > Not only do I not have any regrets I feel empathy for all the parents out there who live in soul crushing relationships with their spouse and children. Totally agreed, although I have zero regrets about having kids, I am going through a divorce at the moment, but luckily it’s ending amicably and the kids are mostly grown. I also count myself lucky I didn’t end up with truly horrible kids. You don’t know what kind of person is going to come out the other end when you have a child. And it’s a far more tragic thing, I think, to “divorce” yourself from your kids than it is from your spouse. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/77 "2016-08-14T17:36:46Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Unfortunately, discussions like this often result in people shouting over the back fence at each other without a careful discussion. > > If people would simply take a little more care, it could be a really interesting discussion. And if people wouldn’t take things so personal, perhaps the conversation would be calmer. So much of the arrows could be avoided in with a little more precision, such as if **ZPG Zellot** **were to say** : > > So no, having children does not \*\*necessarily \*\*make one emotionally complete (unless complete is being defined as complete sadist.). > > I would agree with this completely. Parenthood certainly made my father a complete sadist. It doesn’t for 99% of the parents, though. > > That said, as a parent, I apologize to the world for **pool**. Many of us (and I hope most of us) are capable of realizing that our path to emotional maturity was forced by parenthood, yet are also aware that other people were able to do so in an entirely different manner. For those of us who grew up abused, he should also have to understand that parenting doesn’t necessarily change people. > > For those good parents who had happy childhoods and can’t understand the pain of someone who grew up in a war zone; it would be easier to have a discussion if appropriate qualifier were added: > > Parenting **can** change you for the better. . . > > I’ll try to write more from my perspective. There are a few people here in the tread who have survived the degree of abuse which I experienced, but I can also talk about my experience as a parent now facing the challenges of having to learn an entirely different response to the world in order to break the cycle of abuse. > > It’s not simply a matter of stopping the physical abuse. That was simple. Just don’t hit the kids. > > It’s learning how to actually be a parent in terms of being responsible for the emotional welfare of a child and what that all entails. > > For people who grew up in normal, loving households where parents had enough presence and space to deal with their children’s needs, then it must be almost unimaginable that someone has to sit down with a pencil and paper to try to think of what a child requires. > > If you don’t get it, then how can you pass it along? To this day, it’s hard for me to ask directly for things, yet somehow I must provide an environment where my children are safe in asking directly so they don’t suffer from the same problems. > > To one degree or another, I guess that all parents have to learn somethings and have to learn to become less selfish, for example. > > But when one has a learned response that asking for something directly is not only dangerous, but as terrifying as running into a fire, and that it _must_ be avoided at all costs, then us parents who survived severe abuse also need to learn how to recognize that we need how to not project this fear onto our children. > > I’ve shared before on how things can be a trigger, of breaking down in tears because the choice of six flavors of ice cream was too much. Somehow there was a moral value in chocolate or vanilla and if I got it wrong, all hell would break lose. > > Not only do we need to deal with this ourselves, but we also need to make sure that the fears do not pass along to the next generation. Well thought out and said. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/78 "2016-08-14T18:03:04Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Well thought out and said. Thanks. Thanks, but you know you can trim the damn thing. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/79 "2016-08-14T19:51:05Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Thanks, but you know you can trim the damn thing. 😉 I have my kids do my editing, but it’s their day off, so… y’know. ---
**Author:** ![Gladys\_Overnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Gladys\_Overnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gladys_Overnow)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/80 "2016-08-14T20:52:21Z")
I know a single man in his 40s who adopted the older brother of a girl his friends had adopted. It gave both of them an instant extended family and changed both their lives dramatically. Now he coaches baseball and carpools to soccer practice. I guess you can write about it or you can do it. But it’s not about the adult and never should be. It’s about the child. People can be complete without having children and those who know they wouldn’t be good at it should be supported for making a selfless decision. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658.md?page=5)