I agree with your post to some extent: old fashioned values are a good thing. You just have to understand that society's morals have changed a lot as well as most people nowadays are driven purely by self-interest.
I had 6 straight years of over 100 percent returns... til I got married and started having kids. I lost my ability to take risks with my account. The risk of a big drawdown had big consequences... when your single you only have to worry about a roof a t shirt and a burrito. so you have to ask you self... is your account large enough that you could whether a large drawdown, a change in the market... and time to re educate yourself in new ones. I love my kids so I would do it again... but know what you might be giving up.
This is something that i think is very important and should be really thought about. I have no kids yet, but never looked at it this way. Im sure there would have to be some adjustment to risk taking, knowing that, you have to be careful because children are now involved. Its not just you anymore, ok for me to starve, but with children involved, mindset has to be different.
First off, if you are asking these questions in a forum populated primarily by young, inexperienced (in trading and life), misogynists then clearly you have no business getting married or having children. I don't claim to make triple digit returns but I do make a living trading, and you know how many people on the planet care about that accomplishment? Exactly none. I don't produce anything, I don't help anyone or anything, or truly contribute anything to society. There is nothing wrong with trading or a long list of professions that have little social value, but don't kid yourself that we matter. On a scale from 1 to a billion on how important or meaningful things are in this brief blink of time we call life, your trading returns are a .01, and I don't consider that a hyperbole. Spending your life with someone who you actually care about and makes you happy, and having and raising good children are worthwhile accomplishments that few achieve. Chances are in a few hundred years no one will remember you or anything you ever did, said, wrote, or accomplished. No one will care, you may have well not even existed. If you do the one thing that is ludicrously harder than being a successful trader - being a good parent and teaching your children how to be good parents to perpetuate the cycle - then you just may have influenced future generations ad infinitum.
Random Capital, If you want to have kids and family no one is holding you back, but there is no need to criticize people who opt for young women, traveling around the word and a low stress life.
A doctor is a more noble job than a trader but there is nothing to be ashamed if you trade. You take financial risks and you are rewarded on how well you do. You know better that there is no free lunch in the market so if you make money you provided a service people want and pay you for. Do you think that getting married and spreading your semen around is an accomplishment ? Good for you. Do you want to go on the top of a mountain to find God ? Great, but stop applying your morality compass for the rest of us. When we are gone we are gone, Steve Job was a visionary and he is gone just like the anonymous guy burried next to him. The fact that millions of people have an iphone makes no difference because no one cares. I find ironic that you think you will leave your "mark" in the world by spreading you seed. The kids of the kids of your kids will remember your name in the best case scenario and they will be gone too. Marriage is a legal contract and it will be enforced by law. If you are a healthy male and make good money can you name one good reason to marry ? I dare you to name one. Nowdays marriage is a give and take. He gives and she takes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_divorces
From a social prospective, there's a very significant need for that type of criticism (not against specific individuals, but in a general sense). Because the outcome of such actions is the death of Western societies, not to mention a lot of broken hearts elsewhere. Of course, such behavior is motivated partly by bad policy such as no-fault divorce, so the causes are broad and not restricted to a particular individual.
Not true at all. There is absolutely no need to criticize people who feel and do the very opposite of what you do. It is because of people like you and there are too many that we can't just get along. Keep your morality compass for yourself and let others do what they want. If someone decides to date younger women till his penis falls off it is OK.
You have doubts and worry about whether she is a gold digger? This ain't the one, brother Jinx. You are aware that marriage is the leading cause of divorce, right?