I learned a lot about parenting from an amazing man I met in Barcelona. His son and he were staying in the same hotel as me, they were traveling Europe together after he just graduated college.

His son met a really cute Czech girl in Spain, so Dad rightfully gave him space. But the father and I really hit it off, so we'd sit at a Spanish bar and eat tortilla sandwiches and drink coffee and we had some really interesting chats. He's a very successful real estate developer from Los Angeles, even post-crash. He converts rental properties into vacation properties, which is a lot more work but can generate 3x-7x stable rents. (Of course, you've got to rent/clean/maintain/etc - definitely more active and risky money than standard landlording).

He told me about his family. After having his second son was born about 15 years ago, his wife got depressed and wanted to get out of the marriage and family life ASAP. She was breaking down mentally, basically, and wanted to run - fast.

So the man says, "I understand, that's fine, but you can't support yourself right now, and you'll need to be able to do that before we can get divorced. Even if I take the kids, they'll still spend a lot of time with you and you need to have a clean, nice place and income so they can have a nice life with you and be proud." She got into a nursing program, and got either a certificate or a degree in nursing. By the time she finished 2-4 years later, she's cleared up. They had another child and went on to both be very happy and successful. She pulls down $80k/year now as a nurse, and they've done very well investing too. His son seems like a hell of a guy, thoughtful, mature, intelligent, cultured, poised. The Dad's a very cool guy too. A good family.

One thing he told that made a lot of sense - "Sebastian, you've got to understand, kids are the most selfish, ungrateful creatures in the world when they're young. All they do is demand, demand, demand things, and they're not grateful at all. Later they realize and appreciate what you've done for them, but a woman who just raises kids pours in so much effort for so little gratitude and appreciation and respect...." He goes on to explain how the regular praise, promotions, and the steady paycheck are instant rewards and validations from work, and help a person's self esteem. He thinks any woman would do well to have at least some part time work or project that she gets respect, appreciation, and validation from - because kids won't provide that until they're 20+, and you need to not go crazy in the meantime.

Maybe now in the West, society doesn't value parenting as much as traditionally, so women get even less respect for being a good parent now. Not sure about that myself - if that's true, then it's even harder to raise children than historically. But his points really resonated with me - I've talked about it with all the girls I've dated. I personally date two types of women - hyper-driven, top of the game, ambitious high performance girls, and quite traditional, feminine, nurturing girls - and usually not much in between. But all of them, with some talking to, come to agree about keeping a part time project to help women stay sane. If I make my life with a traditional woman who is happy to be just a good mother and keep a good household, it'll still be good for her to do a little bit of work for the validation that comes from that. Even something small like teaching a one hour class twice a week, or doing some flower arranging for a couple local small businesses. Same with driven women - they'd go crazy if they completely hung up their spurs and only raised kids.

I'm probably a bit more traditional than most American men from the international cities - I place a lot of respect and value on having a woman who is very in tune with my emotions after a long day, can cook well, can clean and mend clothing well, and has mastered the other domestic skills, which I consider quite invaluable. It's less important to have hyper-intellectual conversations with my girl or play Chess with her - I get plenty of that with my male friends anyway. But even if I take the most traditional, old world European or Japanese girl to make a life with, I still think something that provides her that instant positive feedback is very good for happiness.