Having Kids⁠↗

Adults are sophisticated enough to see 2 year olds for the fascinatingly complex characters they are, whereas to most 6 year olds, 2 year olds are just defective 6 year olds.

Partly, and I won’t deny it, this is because of serious chemical changes that happened almost instantly when our first child was born. It was like someone flipped a switch. I suddenly felt protective not just toward our child, but toward all children. As I was driving my wife and new son home from the hospital, I approached a crosswalk full of pedestrians, and I found myself thinking “I have to be really careful of all these people. Every one of them is someone’s child!”

Work, like love, finds a way. If there are only certain times it can happen, it happens at those times. So while I don’t get as much done as before I had kids, I get enough done.

On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won’t survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?