__________ is/are overrated.

[Rothman]

You'd be amazed how many disgusting things you can put up with when the responsibility of precious life is in your hands. A lot of physical stuff becomes trivial in the heat of the moment, and a lot of problems tend to evaporate when focused on parenting. But those moments are honestly far and few between unless you have a child with a lifetime of digestive issues (not "lettuce makes me sick", I mean those who require G-tubes and frequent visits to actual hospitals) or you're an incapable meth head of ceaseless escapist fantasies. Some of this is because I've had households of cats and dogs for decades so kids are just another animal in the household and your monkey brain instincts tend to kick in and prioritize things. You wind up becoming a zombie, mechanic, cook, chemist, equipment manager, club bouncer, political strategist, and air traffic controller on top of your daily duties. In a lot of ways, parenting shattered a lot fears and it helped widen my scope of tolerance for the imbalances in this messed-up world, and that gives me more peace than just getting my way in a battle to settle a temporary score with the cosmos.

On the other hand, it seems to open up the possibility of random people telling you detailed stories of their kids' excretions while eating...that's only necessary if we're visiting a pediatrician. They can go get lost.

I can never remember who does and who does not have kids on here.

[mgk920]

(I didn't have time to go back through and study this thread, so if this has been mentioned before, my apologies)

College/university degrees.  And they are FAST becoming more over-rated and useless with each passing day.

Mike

[Scott5114]

Complaining about college degrees when one is way the fuck too old to be in college.

Keyboard

[Roadgeekteen]

What do you see as the root cause of the SERIOUSLY declining fertility rates in the 'west'?

Mike

Having kids is no longer a requirement in modern society. Most people do want kids, but those who do usually only want 2 or so which is below replacement rate. Out of the people who want 2 some never find the person to have kids with, some can't have kids, some never feel financially stable enough to have kids, and some have 1 and figure that's enough. Some people want like 4+ kids but is balanced out by people who never want and don't have kids.