Investing from a young age, radical parenting and why I still don’t have kids in my late 30’s

I said something to my partner today that kind of shocked me. It just kind of came out without much thinking and when I said it I realized that it was true.

I said something like: “I think for the first time in my life I am not scared of anything. It’s not like I couldn’t be scared of something or that I won’t feel scared again, I just don’t feel that old compulsion to worry about things that aren’t right in front of me. If I see a bear I’ll be scared. If I get kicked out of the country I might feel some stress that you could call fear, but I’m eating here with you and teaching and working on building a life that looks and feels like the one I dream of and there is no more fear around it at all.”

It’s true. And it’s an awesome feeling.

I don’t feel distracted by all the things I “should be doing”. There are a lot of things that society would say I should be doing, but if those things don’t feel like they are taking me where I am going, I no longer stress over them.

I “should” be spreading my work on social media. I “should” be searching for new students. I “should” be looking for a part time job if I don’t find any. I “should” be doing events I don’t want to do just to get my name out there. I “should” be putting more time and effort into interacting just for the sake of “staying relevant”.

But I don’t feel like it. And this not feeling like it doesn’t come from being lazy or depressed. It comes from knowing that I’m already on the path. I am constantly becoming a better version of myself and I know it. And the newest versions of myself command a level of respect that the old ones could not because they are based in some real shit.

We talked about the potential of having kids. Previously I felt like I needed to have kids and she felt like she never wanted kids, but both of these thoughts came from fear. Fear of my lineage dying out or fear of not being able to experience a big part of being human or missing out on this unique and fundamental form of creation, In her case it was a fear of bringing someone into a fucked up world that she herself never felt comfortable in.

It seems we have both come to the point where we are neither for or against the idea. We can imagine what it might be like without any baggage complicating our vision, but both of us feel we are not ready just yet. Even if we only have a few years left to make this decision, there isn’t any complicated insecurity that pops up from talking about it.

We talked about how if we had kids we would teach them to invest from a young age, she said 12 and I said 7. We’d make it into a game and let them lose money without making a big deal of it. People spend tends of thousands of dollars a year to study business and marketing and they don’t spend the money to take them to places where they may actually see how the world works or take a risk.

Every month I’d tell my kid we have $50 to invest in whatever you want, what do you think will go up and why? And we’d talk about it, I’d give my insight and let them make the final decision. For their birthday I’d give them a choice between a present and a bonus $200 for investment.

Our parents both worried so much about giving us the best life with the most opportunities. Neither of us want to do this. We think it would be better to let them try things without pressure throughout their youth in order to find what they enjoy and what they are good at. Real things that matter in the world, either because they relate to jobs that they can earn money from or because they inspire people and create happiness.

Whether it’s gardening or music or education or physiology or history or baseball, we would want them to spend the majority of their time doing things that are interesting to them.

We also wouldn’t want to let them feel that just because they decide to put energy into something means they have to commit to that thing. I played a lot of sports as a kid and later decided I didn’t like sports very much. But the experience of learning what those sports were about helped me learn things about myself. I don’t feel like a failure because I quit lacrosse or soccer. In fact I feel like more of my own person.

We also agree that we don’t want to force our beliefs about the world on our kids. Both of us had a lot of negative beliefs imparted on us by our parents. Beliefs about money or friendship or happiness. We would want to make them feel that anything is possible but also show them the challenges involved. Some of the things we consider difficult they may not see as difficult, especially if they are pragmatic things that will help them achieve their goals.

Both of us grew up feeling that you had to work hard to make money and that life wasn’t easy. While it’s really easy to find evidence of these claims in the world, you also find that there are people for whom they do not apply.

There are people who love their work to the point that they can work 15 hours a day and not even feel they are working. There are people who make good investment decisions and can opt out of the rat race relatively early. There are people who can leverage their skills to a degree that they don’t feel anything about life is hard.

We are now becoming those kinds of people in our mid 30’s but if we had stayed in the places we grew up in with our families and old friends it would have been impossible.

If we had a kid we would want them to feel emotionally supported enough and have enough realistic optimism around them so that they could potentially find that great version of themselves in their teens. We would have very little expectations of them other than that they don’t hurt themselves or do anything that would explicitly hurt others.

Lastly, both of us believe that “putting your kids first” is overrated. I know this one is a bit controversial but both of us had parents who put us first and it wasn’t good for either of us. Our four parents all sacrificed their happiness and time to the degree where we were the only thing that brought them joy. They had no hobbies other than watching tv because they wanted everything to be perfect for us.

They never felt this as resentment but when they were under a lot of pressure and we didn’t become what they hoped we would become we could both feel that they had a lot of despair because they had dedicated everything to try and turn us into kids who would live their definition of happiness and success.

Obviously we had our own ideas about happiness and success and we both clashed with our parents for years because of this.

We both feel that love and emotional support, being strong enough to keep it together to not feel any resentment towards our kids would be our top priority. That means making ourselves happy and fulfilled first.

If kids end up throwing a wrench in all our plans, why would we go out of our way to have them and put pressure on ourselves? Because society says we should? That’s not a good enough answer for us.

On the other hand, we want to make it easier on ourselves by not expecting ourselves to be ideal parents in an ideal situation. I don’t think parents need to make all their plans around kids, moving to places they don’t personally like or giving up the things they enjoy because they don’t want to have a bad influence on their kids. They can do what they want so long as their kid is safe, knows that their parents love them and has some kind of positive influence around.

We have a handful of friends who raise their kids in very atypical ways. One is a dj and and another is a painter and they never sacrifices their art time for their kids even if they are doing other work to supplement their income. Basically painting and music becomes a family activity. Mom paints her paintings and baby paints his. Dad makes music and invites his kid to play along on an instrument.

If the kid doesn’t want to join, they can find something else to do. The parents don’t let it stop them from doing what they love. I have another friend with a restaurant. She lets her boy run around the shop even if it disturbs customers. “That’s the vibe of my shop, and I invite other parents to come too cause they will understand and they can help each other” and she’s created a kind of community of freedom loving parents who help each other with babysitting and have social events where they can get drunk and there will be a designated babysitter for the night.

When I went to the country the other day there were 3 pairs of parents and 9 kids from 2 years old to 11 years old. The kids ran around in nature and the parents chatted without really paying much attention to the kids. If they heard something crash or someone shout one would volunteer to go check it out. They were able to enjoy their time with their friends and if one of the kids missed their parents they could come hang out if they didn’t disturb the conversation. There were no problems.

I realize that raising kids is not always without surprises and they demand a lot of attention even if you have other plans, but that’s why we won’t think about having kids unless we are in the right environment.

In any case, our priority now is to become more fulfilled as individuals and as partners, to live the way we want with fewer and fewer compromises instead of more and more compromises. If at some point we feel ready to bring some more people into the mix, we will.

I am excited to be without those worries about money and security. Life is not much more stable than it was before but my emotions are a whole lot stable than they were before and a whole lot stable then my parents emotions ever were. That allows me to make better decisions that lead to more sustainable outcomes.

This is how I approach things, with a focus on the base layer. It’s the same for investment as it is for having kids and it’s the same when you work on a skill or start a business. If the base isn’t strong, everything else is flimsy. If the base is strong, you can build upon it without constantly worrying about things falling down.

Let’s see what the future holds!

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Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha

Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha