I’m currently researching rites of passage in various cultures with the idea of doing something for my boy when he is a bit older.
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Do it, don’t wait!
Nowhere is. America, country where social mobility is ingrained, write books about how hard to is to make friends after 30. So what to say about us, sedentary Europeans.
Do it, it’s the best show in the world were you can participate. You don’t become ready for parenthood, you just become parent and then learning parenthood.
You mthfker don’t know what it means to be tired until you have at least two kids. 
Young girl is more adaptable, but once she ‘figures herself out’ you have problems.
Older girl knows what she wants, but they are less adaptable and brings her ‘old luggage’.
It’s always trade offs, just different timeline.
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In my experience, it’s hard to make meaningful friends everywhere and I was able to make friends in a country where the society is even more closed off than in Switzerland (Japan) - after all, making friends is just a skill, like any other.
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I installed Hinge. I got no matches after hundreds of swipes. I showed my pics to a friend. He said I should smile more.
Also, I somehow don’t feel committed to it. First of all, I still live with my “ex”, so I’m not going to invite anyone home. Then I don’t know if I should look for someone here if I might be moving back to Poland? I also don’t want to attract a gold digger, but how is a balding 40yo going to convince anyone to swipe right? 
To me there was least friction when my Polish friends were my neighbors. It’s easy to spontaneously chat up your neighbor and then play a game, go for a walk, or just chat. When they moved out, we stopped seeing each other so frequently. When they got a kid, it got even worse.
I just wonder if feeling jaded is a good enough reason to get kids.
Oh please, don’t oversell it!
I think so too. I wouldn’t like to be her lifebuoy / Plan B. Either she’s excited about me or she can beat it. I don’t want to be Mr Beta Bucks 
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Sorry to tell you, but this is not how the average dude gets any success… Go talk to people, despite how internet Forums tell you “no woemen don’t want to be talked to”…
Ehevertrag auf Gütertrennung - I did the same with my wife, but in hinsight, it wouldn’t have been necesarry. I even think that later in life, I’ll change the contract, so it is communal property or the default Errungenschaftsbeteiligung, whatever is more favorable for her. She endured my mistrust in women and handled it like a champ!
The distrust still was justified imho - a bad divorce can ompletely ruin your FIRE plans, so yeah.
Some of my younger cousins have grown up without TV (nor phones). Their parents spent a lot of time with them, took them out and taught them active hobbies like climbing, plane modelling, caring for birds…
They have become very adventurous, one of them is travelling the world and packrafting/kayaking his way trough the wilderness. They’re all very dependable, crafty and self-reliant. I’d trust them to handle a tough situation either in a technical or social context (dealing with someone wanting to aggress/rob them).
I think spending time with them doing active things requiering craftiness and not immediately handing them the solution over made the heavy lifting. It requires time and patience but can be done in Switzerland.
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Exactly, all of that is possible here. On the other side of the sea it might not.
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That’s kind of the only relatable point to me in your posts. Don’t take it as personal attack, but I would also look into that attitude of considering anyone else a failure compared to you (just some examples below) and lead by example around the kids.
For me, it’s just cringe, but kids just absorb the behavior of their parents, not yet able to reflect. Then, either carry that into school, sports etc, or eventually struggle, without “”.
Just a thought.
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Amen
This is very accessible in Switzerland and close by! Lots of places to hike and camp and climb and bike.
We try to push physical endurance too. When my eldest was around 4 years old, we took him to do part of the first stage of Tour du Mont Blanc: around 8km hike with a 700m climb at an elevation reaching over 2000m. He surpassed even my expectations managing to do all except for the last 1km downhill: he said he needed to rest and lay down on the path and promptly fell asleep! We carried him the last kilometer and when I put him down on the grass to continue his nap, he immediately woke up full of energy and decided it was time to play in the ice cold stream…
Even the cities are very walkable, at the weekend I took the kids to Basel and instead of using public transport or bike around the city, we walked and clocked up over 8km of walking just in the city!
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I think cliff climbing and high mountaineering expose people to extreme conditions where failure can result in death (a slow one where one gets to see themselves die in the case of mountaineering), with books and stories about it all around making its presence very real in the eyes of the practicioner. I’m sure other sports like canyoning can bring this too.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that you may very well get to see your child go out in (mountain) tongues and without a phone to cross a glacier for the weekend without telling you which one so that you only know on Monday if they’re alive or dead and you wouldn’t know where to send rescuers if they didn’t show up, as the parents of one of my friends have learnt.
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There is the option of going full-steam to FIRE and then moving to the place you feel at home. Personally, I see that as a fundamental difference between the FIRE mindset (sacrifice now for long-term happiness) and the consumer mindset (sacrifice long-term happiness for now). But that’s just my take.
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I don’t consider them a failure because I compare them to me (don’t consider myself to be exceptional in any shape or form - I think I have a very normal CV for someone in my situation), I’d say if you’re 30, haven’t kept a job for more than 6 months and yorur biggest achivement is to have aborted 3 degrees, you are a failure in my book. If you’re happy, then so be it. Being judgemental and holding members of a society accountable is what makes a society - thank god. It’s also why Switzerland is still on avg. much better than Germany in this regard.
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We’re getting philosophical and offtopic, but just a short comment on this. I wouldn’t get so bashful on the younger generation that they’re not willing to give 150%. You are not in their shoes. They look at the World today and they often can think that:
- they probably won’t be able to afford a flat
- they probably won’t start a family
- they probably won’t get promoted very fast
So why should they strive, if there is nothing to strive for? I think giving it all as an employee without getting properly rewarded for it creates a bad power imbalance, where the companies can exploit junior employees. I’m kinda grateful to gen Z for not buying into the rat race, because they set the baseline of expectations.
Would you like the education and job market to look like it does in South Korea and China? When I read what these kids have to go through, I want to kill myself.
I do indead prefere the asian education system over let’s say the German one.
I think here again, Switzerland has a very good balance of demanding from and lecturing the students
Unpopular opinion, but I think young people have it better than ever and are being overly entitled and unrealistic.
When I started to work, I wasn’t thinking about house, family, promotion. Just doing a good job, working hard and learning to develop myself to have better opportunities.
For sure, house prices have become more expensive, but that’s largely down to low interest rates so partly balances on affordability. And there are so many other opportunities, we’ve had a massive stock market run, we’ve had bitcoin, Mag 7, internet, mobile revolution, app economy, social media, e-commerce and a thousand new low-barrier business models where you can make a fortune.
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And I hope you never develop one. I can tell you from experience, it is not the least bit fun, not for the person nor their families. Calling depression made-up belittles people who are genuinely suffering. And your attitude is part of what keeps them from asking for help.
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Well, again, that’s a matter of perspective- we left the Asian education system to be in Europe.
Yeah, depressions- not visible. Burn outs-not visible. Migraines- not visible. If your arm isn’t falling off, then for some, somehow, you’re not sick.
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IMO, the Asian systems are way too intense and not good for kids. Sure, if you end up in a cut-throat competitive society where you need to sacrifice your childhood to have a future, then you gotta do what you gotta do. But thankfully that is not the case in Europe and kids can have a balanced childhood here.
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Even then, you just need to rub dirt on it and it will be fine!