I witnessed a "hospital bed" moment just last year when a former coworker, divorced and living alone, died unexpectedly at home. He suffered an acute illness and wasn't noticed until his boss (another coworker) checked on him a few days later. It got me thinking about how the same thing could happen to me or one of several close family members. The episode stoked hotter my desire to pursue marriage and family, but it sure didn't improve my prospects of the same.
I had kids late, like Aaron. I am very glad I had children, but regret somewhat that I wasn't able to figure things out sooner and get an earlier start; biology seems to have stopped us from being able to reach the family size we desired.
The thing I came to realize in my mid-30s is that life without children has a tendency to get repetitive. You build your career, engage in your hobbies. You travel, see the places you always wanted to see. And then what? Those things are never as fun as the first time. You can never recapture the highs of youth. The closest you can come is to see the world anew through your children's eyes.
The vision I had wasn't so much being alone in my deathbed, but spending my 50s, 60s, 70s just doing the same things, with perhaps -- if my career goes well -- somewhat more money, but more bored, with a body in a more advanced state of decay. Found it extremely depressing.
Then I sat down to lunch with a friend and his 10-year-old boy, and they were discussing Pearl Harbor tactically, operationally, and as a matter of grand strategy, and I was suddenly struck with a sense that I was very far behind and needed children urgently.
For years I did not want a child. That changed fairly recently, maybe about 2 years ago. For me, the tipping point was one day almost in the form of a shower thought. I was reflecting on career to this point, and adult life. Long and short of it about myself: I was a career switcher when younger, going from a finance oriented career to medicine in search of greater "meaning" in my work. Now I was here and reflecting on it having nearly completed the training and finished jumping the hoops. I realized that for me my career, even a supposedly significant one, was simply never going to offer much in the way of personal meaning. It was a heavy thought since I'd put so much work and time into it. I started thinking of leading, guiding, teaching a child about the world. Maybe passing on some of my own hard-won lessons, and also sharing the beauty of the world with them. Enriching my life with another person to love, hoping I'd be worthy of love back as a good father. I sat with these thoughts for a while and they felt right, so I made my decision that I wanted a child. Our first is due in literally a few weeks now; I'm excited, nervous, worried about finances, thinking about all the logistics and making it happen. But happy I changed my mind.
I remember one of your articles about the downsides to singleness. I don’t recall that subject put that way by anyone. You mention the same themes in this article. I married in my 40’s. I’m blessed to be a dad.
Looking back, there wasn’t intentionally positive or aspirational messaging on marriage and parenthood over the past 40 years. I was encouraged by my parents, and at my times friends, to date. I didn’t take it seriously. I saw extended family and friends go through the divorce and breakup ringer. It’s not pretty and it stays with people who witness it. I heard the jokes about marriage. The first time you hear it, it’s funny. The hundredth time, you think there’s a point. The messaging from others, even when it isn’t intended, stays with people.
One thing about fertility: Many grew up in the 1990’s. This was a time of a campaign against teen pregnancy. While this was right to do, there wasn’t an aspirational solution encouraged, such as marriage. People got an introduction about having children, and it wasn’t in a positive way. Are we shocked some are negative about it?
Today, I try to be encouraging to others about finding love, their relationships, and their families. I want to be the best husband and father too. Maybe others will see that and think they can do that.
I think experiencing parental divorce or witnessing divorce in general has made people skittish about marriage in some cases - probably rightly so to be honest. Getting married requires more due diligence today, which is part of the degree of difficulty dial getting turned up.
I concur, and would like to add the negative effects of witnessing marital dysfunction and unhealthy conflict for a decade or more preceding said parental divorce.
Good piece. As a sidenote, It seems fairly common for parents to want their children to do better than them economically, but how many want their children to have better marriages than what they had?
There was that interesting essay a while back that focused on mother's trying to outcompete their own daughters for sexual attention on social media. I have known mothers who want to remain the center of attention in their son's life, and end up sabotaging attractive marriage prospects because they threaten her. I have also known fathers who try to control their daughters dating options, because he wants a dutiful, compliant son-in-law who will get in line. Spoilers - not the qualities that anybody is looking for in a partner.
Is this most homes? I don't think so, but I've seen it enough that I think the church should place more emphasis on the vice of inter-familial envy.
I served in the Navy for 20 years. Being a Mom in the Navy was tough..had to wait til I was done with sea duty. Even then..I asked myself..do I want to be 65 and childless?? NO! So I realized I better get busy. We had 2 sons when I was 35 and 37..smart decision..very smart.
This is an important article. I have made a lot of important decisions, that I did not realize were important. Getting married at 25 was one of the best and then 3 kids before 31 was the next best. The life satisfaction return on those today is better than most of my career decisions.
Re: We all know we are going to die, but when we are young, that doesn’t mean anything to us.
Unless death comes entirely too close. My mother died of cancer when I was nine. My father of COPD when I was in college. And when I was still quite young I had an awfully close call myself. I sometimes say I have a medieval mindset in one respect: that death was not stranger to me even at a young age.
Aaron, thank you for continuing to beat this drum. The hospital bed argument is worth making, and I'm glad someone is making it to audiences who need to hear it.
I want to add something that I think sits underneath your argument, something I couldn't have articulated in my 20s but that decades of marriage and fatherhood have made undeniable to me.
Marriage and children don't just provide for your future -- they form you. They pull you permanently out of the center of your own story and install obligations you can't set aside when they become inconvenient. There are days when you don't feel loving toward your spouse or your children, but you show up anyway, because they need you and you made a commitment. That gap between feeling and action, navigated over and over across years and decades, is where the formation actually happens — and it's extraordinarily hard to replicate voluntarily. You can choose to be generous. You cannot choose your way out of your child needing you at 3am when you're exhausted.
I believe that a society composed of people who have been through that crucible has different properties than one composed primarily of people whose primary obligation is to themselves. Not better people necessarily — but people who have learned to love someone they didn't choose and can't unlove. People with skin in the future because their children will live in it.
The hospital bed is a real consequence. But I think a critical parallel argument is what marriage and children do to us along the way, and what that does to the world we share.
What an interesting point! I'd never thought of it in those terms, but marriage and especially children are forcing functions that change people profoundly (and likely permanently) towards commitment, community, future orientation. Doesn't work on everybody, but in aggregate at the level of society? Probably does move the needle.
I witnessed a "hospital bed" moment just last year when a former coworker, divorced and living alone, died unexpectedly at home. He suffered an acute illness and wasn't noticed until his boss (another coworker) checked on him a few days later. It got me thinking about how the same thing could happen to me or one of several close family members. The episode stoked hotter my desire to pursue marriage and family, but it sure didn't improve my prospects of the same.
I had kids late, like Aaron. I am very glad I had children, but regret somewhat that I wasn't able to figure things out sooner and get an earlier start; biology seems to have stopped us from being able to reach the family size we desired.
The thing I came to realize in my mid-30s is that life without children has a tendency to get repetitive. You build your career, engage in your hobbies. You travel, see the places you always wanted to see. And then what? Those things are never as fun as the first time. You can never recapture the highs of youth. The closest you can come is to see the world anew through your children's eyes.
The vision I had wasn't so much being alone in my deathbed, but spending my 50s, 60s, 70s just doing the same things, with perhaps -- if my career goes well -- somewhat more money, but more bored, with a body in a more advanced state of decay. Found it extremely depressing.
Then I sat down to lunch with a friend and his 10-year-old boy, and they were discussing Pearl Harbor tactically, operationally, and as a matter of grand strategy, and I was suddenly struck with a sense that I was very far behind and needed children urgently.
For years I did not want a child. That changed fairly recently, maybe about 2 years ago. For me, the tipping point was one day almost in the form of a shower thought. I was reflecting on career to this point, and adult life. Long and short of it about myself: I was a career switcher when younger, going from a finance oriented career to medicine in search of greater "meaning" in my work. Now I was here and reflecting on it having nearly completed the training and finished jumping the hoops. I realized that for me my career, even a supposedly significant one, was simply never going to offer much in the way of personal meaning. It was a heavy thought since I'd put so much work and time into it. I started thinking of leading, guiding, teaching a child about the world. Maybe passing on some of my own hard-won lessons, and also sharing the beauty of the world with them. Enriching my life with another person to love, hoping I'd be worthy of love back as a good father. I sat with these thoughts for a while and they felt right, so I made my decision that I wanted a child. Our first is due in literally a few weeks now; I'm excited, nervous, worried about finances, thinking about all the logistics and making it happen. But happy I changed my mind.
Thanks for sharing!
I remember one of your articles about the downsides to singleness. I don’t recall that subject put that way by anyone. You mention the same themes in this article. I married in my 40’s. I’m blessed to be a dad.
Looking back, there wasn’t intentionally positive or aspirational messaging on marriage and parenthood over the past 40 years. I was encouraged by my parents, and at my times friends, to date. I didn’t take it seriously. I saw extended family and friends go through the divorce and breakup ringer. It’s not pretty and it stays with people who witness it. I heard the jokes about marriage. The first time you hear it, it’s funny. The hundredth time, you think there’s a point. The messaging from others, even when it isn’t intended, stays with people.
One thing about fertility: Many grew up in the 1990’s. This was a time of a campaign against teen pregnancy. While this was right to do, there wasn’t an aspirational solution encouraged, such as marriage. People got an introduction about having children, and it wasn’t in a positive way. Are we shocked some are negative about it?
Today, I try to be encouraging to others about finding love, their relationships, and their families. I want to be the best husband and father too. Maybe others will see that and think they can do that.
I think experiencing parental divorce or witnessing divorce in general has made people skittish about marriage in some cases - probably rightly so to be honest. Getting married requires more due diligence today, which is part of the degree of difficulty dial getting turned up.
I concur, and would like to add the negative effects of witnessing marital dysfunction and unhealthy conflict for a decade or more preceding said parental divorce.
Good piece. As a sidenote, It seems fairly common for parents to want their children to do better than them economically, but how many want their children to have better marriages than what they had?
There was that interesting essay a while back that focused on mother's trying to outcompete their own daughters for sexual attention on social media. I have known mothers who want to remain the center of attention in their son's life, and end up sabotaging attractive marriage prospects because they threaten her. I have also known fathers who try to control their daughters dating options, because he wants a dutiful, compliant son-in-law who will get in line. Spoilers - not the qualities that anybody is looking for in a partner.
Is this most homes? I don't think so, but I've seen it enough that I think the church should place more emphasis on the vice of inter-familial envy.
Another great article!
Thanks!
I served in the Navy for 20 years. Being a Mom in the Navy was tough..had to wait til I was done with sea duty. Even then..I asked myself..do I want to be 65 and childless?? NO! So I realized I better get busy. We had 2 sons when I was 35 and 37..smart decision..very smart.
Great to hear!
This is an important article. I have made a lot of important decisions, that I did not realize were important. Getting married at 25 was one of the best and then 3 kids before 31 was the next best. The life satisfaction return on those today is better than most of my career decisions.
Re: We all know we are going to die, but when we are young, that doesn’t mean anything to us.
Unless death comes entirely too close. My mother died of cancer when I was nine. My father of COPD when I was in college. And when I was still quite young I had an awfully close call myself. I sometimes say I have a medieval mindset in one respect: that death was not stranger to me even at a young age.
Aaron, thank you for continuing to beat this drum. The hospital bed argument is worth making, and I'm glad someone is making it to audiences who need to hear it.
I want to add something that I think sits underneath your argument, something I couldn't have articulated in my 20s but that decades of marriage and fatherhood have made undeniable to me.
Marriage and children don't just provide for your future -- they form you. They pull you permanently out of the center of your own story and install obligations you can't set aside when they become inconvenient. There are days when you don't feel loving toward your spouse or your children, but you show up anyway, because they need you and you made a commitment. That gap between feeling and action, navigated over and over across years and decades, is where the formation actually happens — and it's extraordinarily hard to replicate voluntarily. You can choose to be generous. You cannot choose your way out of your child needing you at 3am when you're exhausted.
I believe that a society composed of people who have been through that crucible has different properties than one composed primarily of people whose primary obligation is to themselves. Not better people necessarily — but people who have learned to love someone they didn't choose and can't unlove. People with skin in the future because their children will live in it.
The hospital bed is a real consequence. But I think a critical parallel argument is what marriage and children do to us along the way, and what that does to the world we share.
Thanks, Jim.
What an interesting point! I'd never thought of it in those terms, but marriage and especially children are forcing functions that change people profoundly (and likely permanently) towards commitment, community, future orientation. Doesn't work on everybody, but in aggregate at the level of society? Probably does move the needle.