And it isn't? Every single parent I've ever met has complained to me, primarily, about three things:
The point in that is that they're alone on the matter. Anything done alone is likely to be difficult.
1: Kids are expensive. ("Jesus, a can of FORMULA costs 18 dollars! And have you seen the price of DIAPERS?" Then, when out of those stages you get, "Five dollars for this, ten dollars for that. 50 dollars for a band uniform... it's like they bleed you dry!")
Why buy formula when boobies are (sometimes) filled with glorious breastmilk? Even so, I'm sure not ALL baby formula's are 18 bucks. If push comes to shove with diapers, go old school and have like 5 handkerchiefs and a safety pin ready to mop up the poopdeck.
2: Kids give you as much heartache and anguish as they do happiness and joy. ("I'm gonna throttle that kid, guess what she did today?" "You're not going to believe it, but my son tried to flush the cat down the toilet!" Even, "Jessica is sick and we don't know what's wrong." "Bobby had a flu of 102, we were terrifed we were going to lose him." Even if the reasons is entirely not the child's fault, anguish is anguish.)
And? People period give you both anguish and happiness. Honestly what if your parent/guardian/whoever thought "Good God this child is a real pain in the ass" and treated you like a Chinese female baby? Sold you to whomever for a bag of chicken gizzards or something? I think a human's life > a human's mistakes. If ever one were so frustrated with other people's problems, we'd all have stop reproducing and killed off the rest of the population for, I don't know, happiness?
3: Kids wear you out, put a strain on the relationship, and physical strains on the parents. ("I haven't had a full nights sleep since our oldest was born, and she's now ten." "I get home from work and I have to do the laundry, start dinner, then I have to go to here and pick up Johnny, then to soccer and pick up Jessica. And no, I don't have any free time on the weekends either, I have to take the kids here and there, and catch up on all the choirs I didn't get to do all week, because I'm working for a living. Which I have to do, because we need both of those incomes to raise the kids." )
I've never heard of anyone not being able to sleep once kids are older than (being generous) a year old. If children are THAT much of a burden, men should be castrated once their balls drop and women should get hysterectomies once they become menstrual. I mean honestly, the same could be said about any human being straining to one another. Let alone a child.
I'm not saying that to many, the good far outweighs the bad, but basically, having a kid is a huge responsibility, if you want to do it right. And when someone suggests that having a kid is just too much work for them, they should be congratulated, because too many parents start out thinking, "Oh, a baby will add so much to my life. A baby will solve all our problems. A baby won't be that much trouble!" That's the parent that's going to crash and burn.
I agree completely that the thought that a baby will be the miracle to their own issues unless they work at a farm and need handy work. I'm not really trying to come off rash and honestly I view most of what you said extremes. That's why I used extremes myself. I think child birth, the bond of a parent and a child, and the growth of one little sperm droplet into a full fledged adult is beautiful. Yes, there's some ups and downs with it, but that's life. Nothing's going to be cheap, stress free, and easy without having hidden fees or something within it. Period lol. I personally don't view parenthood for those of whom are able to conceive and able to care for that child as an epic burden.
Just an opinion really.