In my view, it's a kind of mental paradigm shift. Before you have your own kids, they're an abstraction. Afterwards, they're people, and in fact they're your family.
I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved.
For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable.
Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)
I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved.
For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable.
Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)