Studies have down that people with adult children tend to be happier than older, childless people. Unless you’re a total piece of shit, children give you social contact after all your friends are dead and gone.
My three kids are adult and living on their own.
My wife mentioned that she’d like to see them for her birthday. I texted them and they are all coming to visit the day before.
They still care about us, even though I am a piece of shit. Just not total I guess. Or maybe they tolerate me for their mom.
Could also be the free food, but whatever, I’ll take it.
I’ll add that raising kids is a strange experience. The things that are easy to quantify tend to be bad. Those are the things that you can describe easily in a way that someone without kids can understand.
The good things about raising kids are mostly just feelings. They are harder to explain, and they don’t tend to make his stories.
On the one hand, you’re paying a $500 insurance deductible because your kid misjudged the distance to a bollard during a driving lesson. On the other hand, you’re hanging out watching a movie together that you watched as a kid.
It’s hard to explain how hanging out outweighs the cost of the repairs to someone who doesn’t have kids. It’s even harder to explain that the comparison isn’t even close.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1242460