It's just hard now. Before I had kids I had a network of friends and had a great social life. Now it's just me and my wife. If I want more friends I'll have to have more kids I guess? I have 4 now. One (my first) is severely autistic.

Financially the cost? I pay about 6,000 a month in daycare. 2k a month in healthcare expenses.

Then community wise. Every time I've gone to take them to the movies, or to a restaurant or hell now even the grocery store I always get shafted. Everything is so overstimulated and kids get in the way to strangers trying to ignore reality with their phones. So when one of my kids throws a tantrum everyone's looks and disdain doesn't help. It's a part of growing up that I think most young adults don't realize.

Then for your career it's the most destablizing thing there is. Everyone around me who doesn't have kids the sky is the limit. Midnight PR's and no problem handling oncall. I missed a pagerduty alert when I was careflly bottle feeding my 8 month old who caught pertussis from some idiot who thought they were above that. I had no choice in getting out of pagerduty because 'it's only fair'

Don't get me start on dog/cat people who equate their struggles to mine... or people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled.

Having a family sucks hard sometimes. But I wouldn't change my past for the world. They are my everything. The advantages of having kids are lost on most but I'll let others provide input if they feel like it.

As a dad of 3 I have huge respect for your 4 and I doubt there is much I can offer you in terms of information but I think I would have more complaints similar to yours had my wife not been a lot wiser and more proactive than me, so I'll share.

First is where you live. I would have picked based on access to nature and cost, she made us pick based on where other families live and proximity to family. In my town everyone is either actively parenting kids or had raised kids already, so the residents (and businesses) are super accommodating of families with kids. To the point where if I have to take a little one to the bathroom in a restaurant, people often invite my big one (5 year old) to hang out at their table so I don't have to worry about it.

Similar for social circle. Because everyone is my town is roughly dealing with the same things it's relatively easy to bond with new people. We've met people talking at the park, at t school drop off, while waiting at the martial arts place etc. Most people are nice if not super interesting but you meet enough people you like.

And living close to family (my wife's family in this case) means you have more network around etc.

Obviously it's not easy to just pick up and move but I am sharing this because the benefits of living in the right, family oriented, place would have been lost on me. Thank G-d my wife was wiser.

You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends...unless they also have kids, in which case we play DnD together when the kids go to bed.

Going out to eat? Going on vacations? Sleeping? Your own health? Your finances? Say goodbye to all of that for 5+ years if you have kids, even more if you have a special needs child.

And despite all that, we love them and we want to have them, and probably the vast majority would do so again. And we will have our children to keep us young-at-heart, learning, active, and to help us in old age. Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old, while we'll have the vibrancy of a family life.

"people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled"

I have two disabled siblings out of the four kids my parents had - I didn't really appreciate what that meant for my parents until I had kids - I can only guess at the stress they must have gone through.

So yes, having kids sucks sometimes, but its also the most important thing that most of us do. And yes, as a dog-owning empty nester, I can confirm its not the same, not even close.

$6,000 / month in daycare for 4 kids? You have a sweet deal my friend. At the daycare in my neighborhood this does not cover even 2 kids : https://www.kidspaceseattle.org/enrollment - click on Tuition link at the bottom and weep.

When I read things like this I find it confusing in so many ways. I've been out of the US for a while now so perhaps there's some contemporary issues I'm just not considering? For $6k a month, why not hire a private nanny? You could also work with other parents in your area to setup something for a bit more socializing depending on their age.

Similarly, I find it practically impossible not to meet people literally every single time we go to e.g. the park. The kids want to play with other kids, we meet their parents, and it's basically an endless source of friendships - even better because it's other parents who probably live relatively close to you enabling you to start setting up aforementioned ideas.

> Don't get me start on dog/cat people who equate their struggles to mine... or people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled.

I’d never have believed this until it happened to me.

> So when one of my kids throws a tantrum

If you're with your spouse, what I do is pull them out of the store until they calm down. Sometimes I wait in the car and my wife comes to the car because she is done shopping. I then remind them that they put themselves into that situation.

Not sure how old they are, but we found that this loneliness phase got better once they were in school (and better as they got into middle, then high school.)

> It's just hard now.

I completely sympathize with the challenges, though I don't understand (and might completely misunderstand) the word "now". Do you meant 'in the current world'? What is different that makes it harder? And what defines now - the social media age? Post-WWII?

> I pay about 6,000 a month in daycare.

My sister did this too until it got to be nearly as much as her entire salary so then she stopped working again and became the daycare. And that is super hard when your children have special needs. I think the worst may be that in-between area, where working and paying for daycare still seems to make sense financially because you take home more than you spend on not being at home but the net practical result is working for a very low effective salary to also spend less time with the children, which is its own kind of utterly draining.