From a pretty early age I decided I didn’t want to get married or have kids cuz both my parents seemed utterly miserable. For a long time I found it weird anyone wanted to do it at all, why would you want to be trapped with someone you hate who you get into screaming arguments all the time?
And it’s not just me, you see a lot of jokes online about people like playing that one scene from Marriage Story while playing old N64 games for nostalgia.
I think the experience of seeing our own parents be so miserable maybe soured a lot of us on starting families.
I think this needs some nuance. Having kids in the US especially is certainly very hard. On the whole though the positives dramatically outweigh the negatives. For me at least it is the greatest joy in life. But not without its drawbacks. My wife and I spend less time together. My health has suffered as I have less time for fitness.
Doing this without community support however is extremely difficult if not impossible. Taking care of a family consumes all your free time, and marriages suffer. No two ways about it. The relationship needs to be really strong to shoulder the burden alone.
If you have family to help that burden lightens considerably. Obviously if you are a single parent it’s much harder as well. It truly does take a village and in the US we have no village.
Still I wouldn’t trade being a father for anything in the world. I love my kids and raising them is my life’s most noble purpose.