Since your decision seems to come down to the expected positive effect on your happiness, I’m curious whether you considered even cheaper happiness-boosting interventions. For example, hundreds (thousands?) of hours of meditation might give you the “love, belonging, connection” and “personal growth” benefits with fewer downsides, though this might work less reliably than having kids.
Thanks! Good question—indeed I did consider lots of meditation, writing a book, and various other things, and the decision was close. Having kids had the added bonus of “exploring the breadth of human experience” and that felt important. It also has a certain reliability as you mentioned.
Thanks for writing this!
Since your decision seems to come down to the expected positive effect on your happiness, I’m curious whether you considered even cheaper happiness-boosting interventions. For example, hundreds (thousands?) of hours of meditation might give you the “love, belonging, connection” and “personal growth” benefits with fewer downsides, though this might work less reliably than having kids.
Thanks! Good question—indeed I did consider lots of meditation, writing a book, and various other things, and the decision was close. Having kids had the added bonus of “exploring the breadth of human experience” and that felt important. It also has a certain reliability as you mentioned.