I feel like creating and shaping the life of a human should affect your life more than a camera.

Presumes that I'm not a caring individual with responsibilities already. I did not say that I did not care for my child, I said that having a child had not changed my life.

No matter how nice the camera or how little intervention you think is needed to parent.

Presumes that in order to function as a parent I must alter my outlook and behavior in order to care for a child.

The kid is 10 months old so right now all you have to do is keep it alive and you've done your job.

Are you fucking kidding me? So she's like a philodendron - give her water and sunlight and she'll be fine?

But a camera will never wake you up in the middle of the night, so already right there if you are stopping in the middle of your sleep, or whatever you're doing throughout the day to take care of it it will probably change your life.

My wife is a midwife. She delivers babies for a living. I mix sound for a living, often in the middle of the night. Our sleep schedule was unconventional to begin with. Yes, she wakes us up - but lots of things wake us up. It's a matter of degree, not a matter of fundamental change. And yes - a camera will wake you up on the middle of the night. That's the best way to get sunrises and missile launches out at Vandenberg.

I'm thinking you were maybe exaggerating with the comparison to a camera or a motorcycle.

No. I was making the point that someone who does not have children, but who has thought about having children, is likely to have a better understanding of the tasks of having children than someone who has one but didn't really think about it. For example, I suspect having a kid is going to rock your fuckin' world.

Later in it's life (or probably right now) you will be less able to go to parties, stay out late with friends, get drunk by yourself.

Presumes I was somehow irresponsible before and now must be responsible. We have long since had the house that other people come over to and we have a number of people happy to take our daughter when we have a night out. Not only that, but when the wife needs to be somewhere I take the kid and when I need to be somewhere she does. Again - we were responsible adults before we had a kid and we're responsible adults after. Having a child did not put us in OH SHIT LIFECHANGING mode.

You will have to teach it to read and walk and to be a good person which takes a significant chunk of time.

You don't teach kids to walk. Nor do you teach them to be good people. You provide them a safe place to observe the examples of those around them and guide them on their journey to knowledge.

Which all illustrates my initial point: people who have thought about parenting are likely to come into parenting as if they have a clue. Their lives are less likely to be radically changed. People with no attempt at understanding child rearing ("teach it to walk") are likely to be positively gobsmacked.

You're still making an awful lot of insulting assumptions about my life, based on a paltry understanding of me or the subject at hand. It's offensive, just so you're aware.