The hardest job in the world
I have met people who laughed at the concept that raising a child is the hardest job in the world. However, I would think that, while it takes being there to actually know exactly how hard it is, it is not hard to evaluate this as a true statement.
Think about it:
1. At a job you have breaks. Yes, there will be days when you won't be able to take those breaks, but even so there will come a time when you will go home and sleep. Raising a child means that you have to be there all the time. If he cries in the middle of the night you can't say "time out" and just ignore it. You can't just say "fuck it, worst case, I'll get fired" and turn on the other side.
2. Even worse, especially in the starter years, every time your child is left alone to cry, he will perceive it as abandonment, even if that is not fair to you (you may feel sick, you may be literally unable to move - many times the child will not understand this). As such, assuming that you are a normal human being, you will feel this responsibility weigh upon you. And even if just one time will not traumatize him for life (or so you hope), you still feel your heart ripping out of you every time you cannot be there for him. As such, you will try to be there as much as you can, and that will mean holding him when you are in pain and trying to block it out, running to him when you're at an extreme level of tiredness, losing nights of sleep and so on. Compared to that, at a job, for most of the fuck-ups, there is a fix and in many cases you have the option to say "sorry I don't have time for this".
3. If you don't do the above, your relationship with your child is very likely to be ruined for life. The familiarity between child and parent is built from the start and even if in later years he won't know why because he won't remember, you'll know that the reason he can't fully trust you or love you is because you didn't rise up to his expectations at the beginning. This is something you can never take back. Compared to that, at a job, even if you start badly, if you work hard enough, you have a good chance of fixing it.
4. While you could argue that there is an "I quit" when it comes to a child, if you are a normal human being, that option is not on the table, not really.
5. Most of the times when the child is misbehaving, it can truly be blamed on the parents. Either he's asking for attention that you are not giving, or reacting to something you said or did. In the case of a job you can occasionally blame shit on other people which can make it easier to deal with.
It's totally understandable if you don't want to have children. Nowadays the world is populated enough to not be necessary for everyone to reproduce so, even if your relatives may put some pressure, the society in itself will probably not.
But don't dismiss people who have and raise children as "up their own ass" when they talk about the hardships of such a job and don't scoff at mothers who request paid time off to raise their children (paid out of the taxes of other people, including those who don't have children - as has been pointed out quite a lot lately). If not for other reasons that you will live off those children's taxes when you are retired. And you want them to be raised well enough to be capable of paying as high taxes as possible.
Think about it:
1. At a job you have breaks. Yes, there will be days when you won't be able to take those breaks, but even so there will come a time when you will go home and sleep. Raising a child means that you have to be there all the time. If he cries in the middle of the night you can't say "time out" and just ignore it. You can't just say "fuck it, worst case, I'll get fired" and turn on the other side.
2. Even worse, especially in the starter years, every time your child is left alone to cry, he will perceive it as abandonment, even if that is not fair to you (you may feel sick, you may be literally unable to move - many times the child will not understand this). As such, assuming that you are a normal human being, you will feel this responsibility weigh upon you. And even if just one time will not traumatize him for life (or so you hope), you still feel your heart ripping out of you every time you cannot be there for him. As such, you will try to be there as much as you can, and that will mean holding him when you are in pain and trying to block it out, running to him when you're at an extreme level of tiredness, losing nights of sleep and so on. Compared to that, at a job, for most of the fuck-ups, there is a fix and in many cases you have the option to say "sorry I don't have time for this".
3. If you don't do the above, your relationship with your child is very likely to be ruined for life. The familiarity between child and parent is built from the start and even if in later years he won't know why because he won't remember, you'll know that the reason he can't fully trust you or love you is because you didn't rise up to his expectations at the beginning. This is something you can never take back. Compared to that, at a job, even if you start badly, if you work hard enough, you have a good chance of fixing it.
4. While you could argue that there is an "I quit" when it comes to a child, if you are a normal human being, that option is not on the table, not really.
5. Most of the times when the child is misbehaving, it can truly be blamed on the parents. Either he's asking for attention that you are not giving, or reacting to something you said or did. In the case of a job you can occasionally blame shit on other people which can make it easier to deal with.
It's totally understandable if you don't want to have children. Nowadays the world is populated enough to not be necessary for everyone to reproduce so, even if your relatives may put some pressure, the society in itself will probably not.
But don't dismiss people who have and raise children as "up their own ass" when they talk about the hardships of such a job and don't scoff at mothers who request paid time off to raise their children (paid out of the taxes of other people, including those who don't have children - as has been pointed out quite a lot lately). If not for other reasons that you will live off those children's taxes when you are retired. And you want them to be raised well enough to be capable of paying as high taxes as possible.
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