Do you feel like there is really anything to "catch up" on?
I'm in my mid 30s with no kids - while I can see that my career happens to be more advanced than close friends who had kids early, the signal to noise ratio is pretty high.
I'd think about it this way: enjoy the path you've set yourself on and savour the years where you have both your kids and your health. When they become less dependent on you, the option to lean in to a career is still available, and with a few more grey hairs you probably won't have to work so hard to prove yourself to begin with.
This reads as somewhat mean spirited, which I hope you didn’t intend. I thought his advice was supportive – they very clearly acknowledged not being a parent but then pointed out that there isn’t a clear cut productivity gap. That kind of reassurance seems useful since people can easily tell themselves they’re irrecoverably behind and worry far more than is helpful.
Nothing about their advice is specific to the role of parenting itself, but more about perspective on life choices in general. If they were telling you how to be a parent, sure, but there's nothing wrong with trying to learn from each other's experiences.
Not having kids may afford some advantages in some circumstances, but in my experience, the decision is often made for reasons that most people don't see, and not just because of career goals. I know plenty of parents and non-parents, and if there's one thing I can say about non-parents, rarely is career progression a sufficient form of purpose / satisfaction in life. Most parents I know would never trade their decision to have kids for a slightly faster trip up a career ladder, but that faster trip isn't necessarily real either.
I'm in my mid 30s, and I personally will never have kids. I made this choice partially because of the environment I grew up in, where I was a defacto parent for younger siblings for most of my formative years. I love my siblings, but simply put, I'm done parenting, and have enough of my own baggage I'm still dealing with after that experience. This baggage is heavy enough that work is still a struggle. I may appear unencumbered to those around me, but that doesn't automatically equate to more bandwidth to advance my career.
I've found career success, yes, but not because I don't have kids. If anything, my career focus impeded my personal growth, so I'm working on that in my 30s.
Ultimately it's a tradeoff, and while some people may occasionally find themselves at an advantage in some way, it's unclear if this is an advantage to aspire to, or if it leads to any improvement in life satisfaction.
If there's one thing I can say, it's that work and career progression isn't really what it's cracked up to be, and isn't "enough" for long.
Coincidentally, you are seemingly the least mature person in this discussion right now. Speaks somewhat to your “anyone who doesn’t have kids isn’t an adult yet” comment holding little weight. One would expect a parent to have more empathy, not less, but here we are.
If you continued reading, you'd see the context behind why I made that decision. At this point, you are not making any attempt at a good faith conversation here, and that's unfortunate.
But since I'm curious, is it the age that made you stop listening?
I see. It's really unclear why you're engaging in such a hostile way throughout this thread, but it's really not in the intended spirit of discussion here.
Apparently you did continue reading, but in case it wasn't clear, it was an abusive environment, and sharing my personal decision not to be a parent again is just my attempt to share one perspective on what it means to have or not have kids when working through one's career.
Based on what you've written elsewhere in this thread, I hope you find some peace.
This is a bit crude way to put it, but maybe you're right.
At least for me, becoming a father changed my perspective on everything so much that it's almost like I'm not even the same species anymore as I was before having them. Sometimes people without children feel like they're not even proper adults even if they are older and/or more senior at work or whatever.
FWIW, This doesn't sound like a healthy place for you to be.
Childless people giving parenting advice to people with children is on average going to be just as off target as most times where humans try to give advice without any personal lived experience. It doesn't indicate anything else though, prima facie.
> Spot on, I’m so different now than I was then I disregard anything anyone without kids says.
I would posit this is universally correct. Us not-parents can "believe" we can accurately imagine what you go through or what we would do in your place. Theoretically speaking, the theory matches reality :)
Yet imagining is literally not enough! People without children do not viscerally know what it is to parent, 24/7 for the rest of your days for the foreseeable future. How the accumulated indescribable-joy and the mounting exhaustion that you simultaneously carry influences slash impacts your decision-making and relentlessly molds the options you'll choose to make for the rest of your life.
Good luck explaining how different this parenting experience can be for every person and child, even within the same family in the same environment two children can be polar opposites with no obvious reason other than "life finds a way".
> I feel like they’re not real adults too.
I say this with all my empathy: the fact that for you parenting is such a core part of the adult experience is not only correct but beautiful, and anybody who tries to invalidate that is extremely wrong.
That said, there is another layer of unkindness in your position that you must unpack yourself, if you wish to have adult-level relationships with people with a different set of adult-core concepts.
I'm in my mid 30s with no kids - while I can see that my career happens to be more advanced than close friends who had kids early, the signal to noise ratio is pretty high.
I'd think about it this way: enjoy the path you've set yourself on and savour the years where you have both your kids and your health. When they become less dependent on you, the option to lean in to a career is still available, and with a few more grey hairs you probably won't have to work so hard to prove yourself to begin with.