Any parent will tell you that having kids is not going to help your sleep, but most parents find sacrifice unequivocally worth it on the net.
Not sure if this is truly what you meant but I would find it highly abnormal that a child does not bring your sufficient joy and meaning that would offset sleep loss.
1. Most people would never say bad things about parenting because it makes them look like demons. I basically tell my friends and colleagues that it is OK and I'm still not sure whether it worths it or not. That's as far honest as I'm willing, although it is pretty close to truth nowadays. I was a lot more snarky a year ago.
2. Humans are very good at adapting. If you told me 3 years ago that I have to go through all these, I'd never think about getting a kid. But somehow it actually feels OK now. And that's what I tell other people.
3. Having kids basically means having a completely different life style for me. I can see why some people actually feel so excited about it because their life style actually fit. It's about trading one life style to another, and this is something we rarely told others, who nevertheless never bother to ask anyway, because they don't know what to ask. Nowadays, I'd tell any young people to get their dreams done before getting a kid, unless they really really want it. You want to go travel the world? Do it before getting a kid. You want to teach yourself a long chain of Mathematics/Physics topics? Do it before getting a kid. I'm not saying you can't do them after having kids, but it's a LOT safer to do them before.
On point 3, I've never met a parent (at least a first time parent) who knew exactly what having a child would be like. I don't know that people can have a life style that "fits" children without having them. Of course, with such a subjective topic I'm sure I'm bound to be mistaken.
In my experience, the original excitement and expectation fade away slowly after birth and is replaced by paternal/maternal love, as well as different excitement and expectations. Then over a longer time, you start understanding how profoundly your life is being reordered and how you've become a different person, for both the positive and negative. No one can know this a priori.
This resonates. For me personally, having kids has been amazing both because of the direct benefits in joy and love and fun, and because the challenging aspects of having kids are the challenges that can make you grow as a person.
Probably different for everyone but for me the kid-driven growth areas are time management/prioritization and patience. Having kids forced me to prioritize how I spend my time in a way that has made me more effective in life because while I have fewer flexible hours, I am putting them to much more intentional use. And learning how to speak kindly and patiently to a toddler who is being difficult has made me much better in a slew of professional and personal types of interactions.
Obviously subjective but I don't agree with the final bullet point.
I believe that human happiness is primarily determined by the amount of meaning and impact we have.
If someone is learning math/physics because they are committed to furthering the world through some breakthrough then yes kids would be deteminetal to that
But if you are just randomly amusing yourself learning topics and one day you are 50+ the ship on family has basically sailed. And you look back on your life as a bunch of short term amusement that gets you to a very depressing place.
how old are your kids? Based on everything i've read on the matter, your satisfaction with having kids just continues to increase over time and by the time they are independent adults its probably more rewarding that almost anything else you could possible imagine doing.
Not sure if this is truly what you meant but I would find it highly abnormal that a child does not bring your sufficient joy and meaning that would offset sleep loss.