work-life balance

Why having kids is bonkers (if you’re addicted to comfort). Hot take: If your life is all about chasing pleasure, getting the newest shiny thing, and looking for your next dopamine hit, then yeh – having kids is nuts. They’re messy, noisy, and they’ll likely ruin your dreams of becoming a social media influencer. But look around: something bigger is going on with those dropping birth rates.

Sure, economics matters. But my Irish grandparents had five kids, and they didn’t exactly summer in the Bahamas. I’ve seen families in Africa with seven or eight kids despite barely scraping by. So maybe it’s not just about money.

We’ve built a culture that’s an adult daycare for the comfort-addicted. We’re encouraged – by society, marketing, and that little voice in our heads – to stay immature consumers. It’s profitable and predictable, right? Because if you’re constantly shopping, scrolling, or swiping, you’re not rocking the boat.

From a purely “maximise pleasure” angle, kids are a bonkers choice. They’ll cost you sleep, money, and the ability to go to your hot yoga class. But historically, people saw beyond short-term gratification. They had kids out of a sense of meaning, continuity, legacy. Today, we’re not just lacking cash; we’re starved for connection to something bigger than our own endless entertainment feed.

So, it’s about more than just economics. It’s a spiritual crisis. We’re collectively disconnected from the deeper stuff: community, purpose, “God” (call it what you like). And until we find our way back to that, birth rates might keep plummeting because, honestly, who wants to sacrifice the “me me me” of their Netflix-binging comfort for “grown-up responsibilities”?

I’m not saying everyone has to have kids. But maybe it’s time we grew up. I’m certainly thinking about it 😉 Or at least started asking the uncomfortable questions: Do we want a life that’s only about the next hit, or might there be more to it? Believe me, I’ve tried it and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. That’s why I’m planning some pretty big life changes.

Anyway, that’s just something to chew on. Just do so before your next Amazon package arrives.

Freezing eggs is really expensive. I’m 34, about six months away from the age that fertility specialists claim that egg quality starts to decline. So, I’m looking into freezing my eggs.

Some women enter adulthood knowing they want to be moms. I’ve not had that sense since I was 18, but every now and again, I wonder if I’ll have a life partner who has always dreamed of being a dad. I have felt the willingness to be a mom when I’ve been in love and can envision the kind of father my partner will be… and wow—what a gift to give them and a future child. Also, parenthood doesn’t seem so daunting with a really committed, supportive partner. However, if having a child doesn’t happen for me, I won’t feel like I missed out on my life’s purpose.

Even still, something about my biological clock ticking down has me a bit panicked- what if I do want to birth my own children in the future for any myriad of reasons?

Beyond my own personal worries, there’s also this greater societal message that is getting more airtime. Here’s a tweet from Elon Musk that points toward it:

As a woman, I have a societal obligation to bear children– even doubly so because I have abundant resources, am smart, and would probably be a good mom.

It is tough to make a decision like this when I’ve not found a life partner, still have lofty career ambitions, and generally am pretty scared to put my body through the experience of growing another human.

Balancing all these factors has me wondering what I could do to keep my options open.

Enter egg freezing.

Conservatively, it costs $11,000 for one cycle that is likely to retrieve around 10 eggs. If the retrieval is successful, storage of said eggs costs over $1k per year.

I have a bit of a gripe with Elon Musk and the traditionalists who are talking about civilizational suicide. Research has shown that older moms are better moms. They are more prepared for motherhood, and often, their children have better behavioral, social, and emotional functioning.

I’m a 34-year-old woman who is on the fence about bearing children, and my option to mitigate the biological risk of conceiving with aging eggs is to spend over $11,000 for a procedure that may or may not work for eggs that I then may or may not end up using. Also, this procedure isn’t covered by insurance.

The government or these independently wealthy individuals who care about societal collapse need to find ways to make egg-freezing financially accessible. If this procedure were $2,000, I would easily sign up. Due to the cost, I’ll instead decide not to freeze my eggs and just hope that the stars align enough that I meet a life partner with enough time to make a joint decision about child-rearing. So I’ll potentially be childless, despite the fact that having a child later is not only scientifically viable but also could be better for my child’s development.

Of course, I’m okay with all of this in the macro sense. I can surrender and trust God or Love or whatever mysterious force keeps us going, but I’ll also feel sad and helpless sometimes as I reflect on my options.

tldr; we won't be meeting this week. Back the 10th. Still use whenever! UpTrust has a cool policy Blake Borgeson envisioned where the whole team takes a week off (in the summer, and again in winter between christmas and new year). This is the spirit of our mission to do things deeply aligned with well-being; a lot of people working for software companies have found that it can be hard to take time off when the rest of their team isn’t.

I’ll still take a little time to respond to some things, and encourage everyone to use it!

Of course you’re very welcome to jump on the zoom without us; it should work even without a host.

See y’all on the 10th.
love
J