Oh, I know it's easier! xD and I'm one to talk, since I wail 'I HATE CHILDREN!' at the rooftops at least three times a day. It just might not be right, is all. But pffft, who cares about right, right? ;) Also, call me a fool but I prefer society the way it is now - flawed, but currently not producing an unmanageable amount of unhinged product - to how it might be if kids' importance was denigrated. Enough young people are messed up these days without them being sidelined - maybe this is just the way the world has to work. I dunno. I bain't no phillyosepher, just a humble country bumpkin. ;)
Seriously, though, on your second point. I'm honestly not sure it works like that - not sure that people have a polished mental coffee table of all the things they like to do (like writing articles or spending time with your baby), and that when one arrives the others must all be pushed around and reduced to fit the newcomer. Humans aren't that complex, lol. I think we're much more likely to enjoy the activity we're currently engaged in and, for that time, forget everything else (at least to the extent where it would downgrade our enjoyment of something). It's like your love for Rowling, if you'll pardon the analogy - you enjoy watching Zero Punctuation too, but when you're reading Deathly Hallows you don't randomly spring yourself out of the immersal to declare, 'Gee! I love this book, but I really love Yahtzee too! My feelings are conflicted! I can't enjoy Harry's scarring as much as I once did because now my priorities have shifted, and maybe I'd be having a better time watching a potty-mouthed cynic raving about terrible game design! I can't decide!'
You'd go insane, thinking like that - which is why I think all those actresses you mention (and I've seen them too) are talking out of their behinds. When they're shooting a sex scene with whichever droolworthy individual is lucky enough to be picked for the job, are they thinking about Little Baby Wonderboy? Are they monkeynuts. Yeah, at the time of the interview, they're probably humming on their hands and wishing they were back home breast-feeding, as do I, so I can get my ladder, so naturally their answers are going to be tainted by their current thoughts. I could be wrong, but I'd wager decent money that in interviews where the actresses are laughing and hanging out with their co-stars, Babyface McJunior doesn't come up half as much - if at all. It's all about the circumstance.
Deep breath. Essentially, positive experiences don't tend to rub against each other in a nasty scrapey splintery fashion, I reckon... lemme pick apart your answer IN FORENSIC DETAIL to try and prove that point. >:)
You argue that Brooker 'doesn't enjoy the work as much as he once did, instead preferring to spend time with his new baby because that is more important than any article he could ever write'. I doubt that's true. If it was, you could apply it to anything he did (which I think was the point, right?) - that, post-priority-shift, you are overwhelmingly fixated with spending time with your new kid at the expense of everything else.
For the first few weeks, maybe. Maybe. But after that, the novelty wears the hell off and parents start actively seeking time away. Just look at this survey I conducted two seconds ago with the aid of my trusty companion Google McGoogleson. Just look.
It's the most searched query prefaced with 'I need a break'. Not holidays, not work, not even Kit-Kats - nothing tops kids. Because they're exhausting little creatures. Brooker's article about the birth is biased in the extreme because - I reckon - the novelty is just beginning. Ask him in a year and he'll probably mutter darkly under his breath about that incident with the hosepipe and the squirrel and the tractor prior to anything else. Yeah, there's arguably a glandular instinct to bond, but we're humans. We're brilliant. We ignore just about all of our other base instincts in order to form societies where 99% of us are routinely and royally screwed over, which at first glance doesn't sound like an achievement, but is - if only because we're the only animals in the world to have that capability. A month from now, article-writing will probably seem like the greatest escape ever - and I'd even go so far as to say he'll enjoy it even more. So stick that in your Child-Catcher™ branded pipe and smoke it. ;)
...Also I freaking HOPE it wasn't an April Fool's after all the words we've expended on it ;) and yeah, Yahtzee's always been a big fan of Brooker. Funny story, actually - when Brooker decided to do a Gameswipe, he heard about ZP, watched him, became a fan and tried to get him on the show. And thus the wheel turned full circle. ;) Apparently it fell through though, as did the show, so there we are.
Oh, and I joined your club today, so be a good fellow and add me to the list. ;) That can be before or after you smash my knees in with a baseball bat (since I have no intention of EVER becoming a writer, xD - I don't possess the necessary self-discipline), either's good. I'm not fussy about impending personal injury. xD
also i wrote 50 pages of harry potter fanfic once. somethin like 60k words. yeah. you're not reading it because it's genuinely freaking terrible, i only bring it up because maybe i do have self-discipline! maybe i do! i love my newfound confidence, it burns with beautiful brightness! ;)
it took me SIX MONTHS. i wrote EVERY NIGHT WUT NO SRSLY