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I never thought raising a kid is like investing in the stock market…until I had a kid. Someone once described parenting to me as “winning the lottery while losing a leg”, and I didn’t quite get it but now I know they were trying to convey the emotional rollercoaster ride of having a kid. Compared to being childfree, the emotional highs are breathtakingly higher, but the lows are also devastatingly lower.
Just like investing in the stock market, which is also an emotional rollercoaster. Your heart rate is constantly soaring and crashing.
For example:
Companies releases higher than expected quarterly earnings. Your portfolio makes more in a month than you do in a year.
Soar!
Your child smiles at you for the first time! Barely a week ago they were an immobile blob with two modes: cry, and cry harder.
Soar!
Inflation keeps rising despite interest rate hikes. Your portfolio dives, losing an entire year of gains in one month.
Crash.
Your family decided to gift you the Plague for Christmas, and you’re now taking care of your feverish husband, and hacking, phlegm-filled child, while surviving on 2 hours of sleep and blowing your nose so often you use up a whole box of tissues in an hour.
Crash.
AI enthusiasm drives tech stocks to new heights, pulling up the entire S&P 500.
Soar!
Your child does a happy dance every time you enter the room. To them, you’re the most important person in the world.
Soar!
Just like the stock market, on good days you think “This is the best thing ever! Why isn’t everyone doing this?”
And on bad days you think “This is the worst thing ever! Why is anyone doing this?”
When you’re in drowning on the bad days, you forget the good days. And when you’re knocking it out of the park on the good days, you forget the bad days.
Both investing and parenting can make you lose a lot of sleep. For investing, if you ignore the day-to-day fluctuations and concentrate on the long term, you’ll see that it’s going in a positive, upward trajectory, and the progress your portfolio makes years later astounds you.
Parenting is the same way. Day-to-day, it doesn’t seem like your child is growing that much and there are so many ups and downs, but months and years later, you see the fruit of your labour in your kid’s development, and it makes you happy and proud.
I knew parenting was going to be hard, but nothing really prepares you for it and nothing can explain how it feels until you experience it yourself.
Investing, on the other hand, is relatively easy (it’s just Wall Street that tries to make it look hard so that you need to rely on their financial advisors) and gets easier as time goes on.
Okay, now for the opposite take:
How a Kid is Nothing like the Stock Market
Quiet = good in the stock market. Investing should be quiet and boring. Seasoned long term investors know that gambling is not the same as investing and adrenaline junkies should go to a Vegas casino instead.
Kids are generally rambunctious and loud so when it gets whisper quiet, that’s when parents get suspicious. Quiet = bad. When it’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop in Wembley stadium, your kid has likely discovered the box of knives you’ve hidden in the basement or decided it’s a great idea to throw all your TV remotes into the toilet.
Other ways your stocks will never be like your kid:
Your portfolio will never stomp their foot into their own poop and then try to eat it.
Your stocks will never try to dive out of your arms while kicking you in the eye. Then get mad you didn’t let them plummet to the ground, head first.
It will also never spit out the gourmet baby food you bought in disgust and then try to eat half a worm he found on the ground in the park.
Here are just some of the things I don’t usually have to say to my portfolio:
“Please stop twisting Daddy’s nipples, he’s not a Japanese businessman in an S & M club.”
“Please refrain from practicing your Cirque-du-Soleil audition while I’m changing your diaper”
“Please stop sticking your hand in the toilet and jamming it into Mommy’s mouth.”
Kids are weird and raising a kid is hard work! Despite all that, I’m relieved to be enjoying parenting and know it’s the right decision for me. There are so many rewarding moments and I’m grateful to have my son, but as much I love being a mom, I’m 100% convinced that as a society we should not shame people into having kids. It’s definitely NOT for everyone.
Investing though, is, for everyone.
Just like parenting, it has daily fluctuations, and you get a positive return in the long term but with WAY less work.
What do think? Are there any ways you can see investing being similar to child rearing? What are some of the crazy stuff your kids have done? And if you’re childfree, are there any annoying things parents have said you?
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Maybe I’m digressing but reading that piece reminds me of what someone said on a review for a book on FI when he and his wife decided to FIRE.
-NOTE: this was said around the time of the Great Recession and the stock market was about to get its flying feathers around March of 2009…
“Of course, the fact that the stock market has crashed pretty much every day since I decided to jump hasn’t helped. But I am realizing that just like having children, VERY few people ever reach that point where they consciously think “I’m ready for this,” yet people become parents all the time and they deal with it. I think that retirement may be much the same: If you aren’t careful, you can talk yourself “out” of retirement, day-by-day, until you’ve wasted YEARS…DECADES…and it’s too late. It’s scary, but I’m now more afraid of wasting my life in a high-pressure job than I am about running out of money when I’m 75.”
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Kristy, I loved this article! I have two kids, ages 10 and 12, and I was literally thinking last night how I went through the lowest and highest emotions over the span of one weekend. And it’s always like that! When the kids are fighting or we’re all exhausted or sick, I think, “why did we have kids again?” And then when we’re laughing together at dinner or out on a family bike ride, I think, “life can’t get any sweeter.” Your compare/contrast with the stock market is hilarious 😆 I’m glad index funds are boring – I don’t have time for anything more complicated anyway!
With older children, and now grandchildren, I can honestly say with a high level of confidence: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
If you can, recall how you felt during your first market crash, multiply that gut wrenching feeling by a factor of three to ten, tear up any history that shows it’ll recover eventually, because in some cases it doesn’t, and now you’re getting closer to a parenting low vs a stock market low. Children can/will have problems that you can’t fix. You’ll try, which does help, and you’ve gotta give it your best shot. As you say, like the stock market, there are ups and downs, but market gyrations are piddly little nothings compared to the joys and pain of raising a child from 0 to adulthood.
A little dark, I know, but just keep on doing your best and try to keep the road ahead as bump free as possible. Having money to fall back on for extra education, life changing adventures, further education, to fast-track medical diagnosis and treatment, and to aid recovery from divorces/breakups, etc. is priceless (pun intended, but you get my point).
Definitely this! There is no comparison between the two if you ask me. This felt like a half thought out piece of writing.
I love this article, refreshingly original and eye opening. 10 thumbs up!!!
That is so funny. It would be helpful if both parents are on the same page. Sometimes when my 7 year is not cooperative and his dad is acting like his teenage brother, I have to take a deep breath and deal with it and then reward me later. How would that look like investment, lol.
Thanks all! Speaking of highs and lows (sorry if this was mentioned already, but can’t find the search button on the website!) – what do you think about the risks that we all don’t really own any of the shares we purchase through ETFs, as they are not registered in our names and are churned by market makers? And that some market moves (Koss, GME etc) highlight that there are way more shares sold through ETFs that are really available from the companies? Thinking of this is scary as like most readers here I’m also investing in low cost index funds. So thinking that this is not really supported by the real ownership and can blow up as a new 2008 bubble makes you wonder if ETFs if the right strategy to grow wealth… What do you think about this?
term vision. Just as market fluctuations challenge investors, parenting has ups and downs. You must be adaptable and resilient, knowing that the effort you put in today can yield significant future returns. Success in both areas involves continuous learning and balancing risks with rewards, hoping for growth over time.
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Having money to fall back on for extra education, life changing adventures, further education, to fast-track medical diagnosis and treatment, and to aid recovery from divorces/breakups, etc. is priceless (pun intended, but you get my point) smashy road free.
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The article “How Raising a Kid is Like Investing in the Stock Market” is insightful! Both require patience and strategy. Truly a “level devil” in parenting!
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