Kids and infinite bandwidth

The opening scene of the movie "The Hobbit" is an excellent metaphor for what its like having kids. Initially, Bilbo Baggins is living a very comfortable life, with "all the comforts of home". Then, suddenly, seven dwarfs invite themselves into his home, and his life is never the same again. I believe whether his life is better or worse depends on how you respond to infinite experiences.

Many times we want to count up the positive and negative experiences of having kids and make a conclusion solely on the ratio between the two. This approach neglects a very important aspect of experiences, the size or magnitude of an experience. I have often experienced events of seeming "infinite magnitude" when interacting with my kids. Its often something witty they say, or something unexpected that they do. These experiences are so wonderful they seem to have been pushed into existence from a transcendent realm. They cannot be described. If you try, then your description falls utterly short of reality.

These "infinite experiences" are usually short lived, but that is irrelevant. In calculous, if you integrate a function with even a very short infinite size, you end up with an infinite area under the curve.

The bad moments due to having kids suck, but they are never infinite. You experience far worse moments at work or in the queue at internal affairs.

I therefore believe having kids is absolutely worth it, but only if you're experiential bandwidth is high enough. The higher your bandwidth, the more of the infinite experience you take in. No mathematical calculation will show otherwise.