> you won't necessarily have a relationship once the kids move out in twenty years or so.

Right here is the problem. You assume a healthy child, one that is capable of living on their own. But you have a responsibility to that child if they can't.

This doesn't mean you give up your dreams. This doesn't mean an end to your life. But it means taking care of your children. It's your responsibility.

I can't just ignore my child's care and go on a long vacation with the wife. Oh, I mean, I could, but that would be tantamount to child abuse. I need to make sure he's cared for, appropriately, or adjust my vacation to accomodate his needs.

> You don't ever own your kids' lives and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years.

This is why you can't just quote a part of the comment, and take it out of context. I'm faced with the very real possibility that I'll be responsible for my son's life for much longer than that. You can't just make assumptions like you are.

So no, you are wrong. Wrong, because you make some obviously wrong assumptions that simply don't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. I think your intent is honest, but frankly, you're trying to argue a point that is, frankly, pointless.

Edit: I do want to point out though, that neglecting your marriage isn't good either. So, please dont' think I'm suggesting that by putting children first, you aren't leaving room for your spouse.

Now, your situation is exceptional and something like that can't be assumed when speaking generally. It's similar to your spouse getting seriously ill. From being a husband or a parent it turns a relationship or a parenthood partly into a special case of taking full-time care of a very ill person. So in that case we're not strictly talking about only parenthood anymore. It's partly patient care, not just parenthood.

However, I think I still carry the same opinion: taking care of yourself first is especially important in a situation like yours where you might have to take care of someone into his adulthood.

A person can only give as much as he's been able to receive himself. If you don't put yourself first ever then eventually you imperatively have no chance of giving anything to your son or anyone else in the long run. (You might be able to trick it for years in the beginning, though.) It's like you have to stop to fill up the gas tank while driving a long distance. Otherwise you just can't do it at all.

I also want to point out that I was not advocating taking a long vacation with your wife just like that: putting yourself or your relationship first doesn't mean leaving your kids in abandon. (Or maybe, naively, for some people, it means just that but it wasn't what I was thinking.) I did write that parents can't just do whatever they feel they need to do and ignore the kids. I'll try to reiterate my viewpoint.

What I mean by putting yourself or your marriage first is that in the worst cases, you do just that, but only in the worst case. If it's not the worst case you will have some energy left for others, too.

For example, if you're truly out of the game, you must be able to say to your wife "Honey, now I just can not do this anymore. I need a weekend alone at the cottage or with my friends or I'll just simply go mad somehow and I don't have anything left for myself or our marriage. I'm sorry I can't be more flexible now and you'll have to take care of all things but I'm so out of everything now that I just can't. I'll be back—but not today."

Or if you're exhausted with your kids, you're going to have to be able to say: "Listen guys, we're so worn out of everything that we're going to have to postpone the beach trip we planned with you and instead send you off to your grandparents for the weekend. You see, we need some adult time alone with your mother so that we'll have time to enjoy ourselves too instead of always working and taking care of others. If we didn't do that, we'd become quite uptight and just plain angry at everything, and you wouldn't like that either. So, we're going to have to take you out to the beach sometime later and you're going to go visit your grandparents for the weekend."

Of course you have the responsibility for your kids and you can't drop that. But kids can survive a night without a proper meal. They will live even if they don't have clean clothes for few days. And they can't always enjoy the privilege of your full presence. Doing such things repeatedly would be detrimental to their childhood but in the worst case it's better for them to suffer little than see their parents gradually losing their grasp on life.

Eye-opener for me. This is very true, and a harsh truth at that.

You made me finally understand what broke my parents' relationship. One of them focused on children, with "at all costs" mindset. And the cost was great indeed.

> and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years.

That much just as well.

Parents' first responsibility should be to their children, who didn't choose to be born (that was the parents' choice) and haven't yet learned the important lessons in life - such as how to care for others. It's not about controlling so much as guiding.

Selfish behaviour begets selfish children.

That's a terribly sad outlook. Your children are extensions of yourself. They should come first forever. They're not pets that you just take in and look after. They're your babies...

I don't know if you have kids or not, maybe you don't have very strong parental feelings :/

Having parents who are burnt out, resentful martyrs does not help a kid.

NOTE: This does not mean it is ok to abandon a child to the wolves, and it's not meant to justify mistreatment of special needs children. If a child has special needs, it will obviously place a much higher burden on the parents.

There isn't anything about that that I disagree with, nor is there anything about that that suggests you are putting your children second.

Indeed, quite the opposite, in fact.

Completely agree. But that as you say is not putting the kids first.

Putting the kids first means that you will leave them to throw tantrums when you need to, or leave them with someone else so they develop in that way.

Giving kids what they want != putting them first.

First: Are you married now (or have you been) and do you have kids? I'll assume you are married/committed but I'm not sure you are a parent, given your views. This is a tremendously important point to help frame this discussion. I fear you probably won't understand my points at all with out first hand experience.

What you are saying isn't technically wrong, but it requires precise compromise in order to be successful. That's exactly what jasonlotito is saying: You can't get what you want all the time, especially with your partner, most certainly with your children.

You and your partner need to understand, respect, and tolerate each other, first and foremost. Some people are simply incapable of doing this, period. Some people conflate this with making their life completely about the other person. Both of these people will be miserable regardless. For the rest of us though, simply understanding that statement means the marriage is a compromise - sometimes you get your way and your partner tolerates, sometimes you tolerate and your partner gets to do their thing, most often you are both getting your ways, as they are the same, but sometimes both of you are tolerating, for the good of the family/marriage.

Of course, with children, that last point becomes a vast majority of your life. Kids are the centre of their worlds and don't really understand how to be anything else. It takes literally years to impact the knowledge that life is better when they look outwards towards others into their little heads. Until then, you and your partner will do a lot of tolerating in your lives. How well you can do this (and when not to) will pretty much define how successful a parent you will be. It's an approach governed by the exact opposite thoughts that you are presenting however: Child first, couple second, self last.

Be clear than I'm not suggesting your entire life should be one of self-sacrifice, That doesn't work either. But it must be the last of your concerns 90% of the time if you are to make raising kids and marriage - especially marriage - work. Ensure the kids are alright (not necessarily that they get their way all the time), ensure your spouse is alright (happy wife, happy life after all) and ensure you are alright in that order, and you have a winning formula.

Looking out for yourself first is a guaranteed path to conflict. It's very rare that you can do this and remain in sync with other people, even best friends and spouses aren't going to want to do the same things all the time. Your children will never want to do the same things as you in any consistent fashion, which is way most happy family spend time in parks during the day as opposed to bars late at night.

PS: Describing Marriage as a Nash Equilibrium is probably a better description for HN.

If you take a look at modern societies, such as the US, you'll notice that people are more and more disconnected from their families and their place of birth and their culture. Good friends and big families are increasingly rare occurrences. Incidentally this is why people give birth to fewer and fewer children: because they've got no family to rely on.

And really, life is hard and hollow that way.

Putting yourself first does not necessarily make you happier, while compromises done for the good of your family can make you happier in the long term ... not much different than how abstaining from sweets and soda will make you healthier and thinner. Really, don't be a self-centered jerk, as you'll regret it in the end.

Times have changed. Marriage used to be about survival, and that requires a forever committal. These days everyone can survive by himself but marriage is a vehicle for learning and growing in your life through intimately living with someone. Some marriages still last but many break down because either one of the spouses has learned something and moves on in his or her life. The other one doesn't so they don't sing the same song anymore, and there's nothing they can serve really by staying together anymore.

Fair enough. I'm married, second time now. I have two kids. They're around 9-10 years old now so obviously I don't know everything yet, there's another decade to be seen.

This is a tremendously important point to help frame this discussion. I fear you probably won't understand my points at all with out first hand experience.

I tried to guard my post against extreme interpretations but nothing works out perfectly. I did follow up to the original poster, though, for some clarifications. You might want to read that.

I don't fully agree with what you wrote, though. For example, "Ensure the kids are alright (not necessarily that they get their way all the time), ensure your spouse is alright (happy wife, happy life after all) and ensure you are alright in that order, and you have a winning formula." is correct but in my view it goes in the exactly opposite order.

It might be just me but I see awfully many people who put everything else first and theirselves last. And they're bitter, resentful, exhausted, tired, and generally just giving the impression of asking the world go fuck themselves. They might momentarily glow in selfish proudness for doing so much for others but that doesn't last long when they figure out they're left with nothing much to themselves. Then they become martyrs and start fishing for attention, care, and attendance that they could've just provided themselves originally.

Maybe there are people who can just give and give, and think for other people first and genuinely be happy and energetic. I don't know. I've seen many who seem like that but a closer discussion with them reveals some leaks in their identity. Things that aren't working and things that they're not willing to face themselves.

I have a surprisingly good marriage; I'm not always so sure what I've done to deserve one but I can certainly attribute part of it to myself taking care of myself. There are times I have to ignore my wife's needs so that I can attend to them most of the other time. I first ensure I'm well-rested and happy myself before I do things with my kids because only then I can be relaxed and happy spending time with them, too. Otherwise I'll just be frustrated and unhappy and it always shows, and I don't want to give my kids the impression I have to force myself being with them. And there are times we want to do things together with my wife and tell the kids to just find something to do themselves, even if it wasn't exactly the best time to do that. Or if my wife needs me more badly than my kids (who, categorically, always need me if I only give them), then I'll just tell them that I'll be with my wife now as she needs me, and we will listen to the kids too again, but only later.

Only when we feel we're together again with my wife we can actually give something to the kids. And only when I'm whole I can actually give something to her, too.