I had largely the opposite experience, perhaps because I started having children relatively later in life but was fortunately able to do so nonetheless.

In particular I'm not especially religious, but also think that the contemporary efforts of people to deny their mortality (singularity, consciousness transfer, medical immortality, etc) are irrational coping mechanisms, religion for atheists, that I refuse to adopt. So that leaves one in a rather uncomfortable existential place.

But since having children, it feels like every day I can see more of myself in them, and it provides an immense amount of comfort, like I've never had before in my life. This is about as close as I think we'll ever get to realistically transferring our consciousnesses, and I'm more than okay with that, and now hope to have many many grandchildren before my final day.