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Why Parents Hate Parenting

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Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#111

Post by ergo98 »

mcknz wrote: post #63
ergo98 wrote: post #45

Have only been a HN reader for a short time (though I've been linked from here quite a few times), so please pardon my pollution of this story to ask a question: Does this belong on Hacker News? Is Hacker News turning into Reddit (minus the convenience of subreddits)? I visit both because HN was always just solid tech links and news, but several completely non-hacker stories (outside of the fact that we are humans, m…

File under: gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

Meh. I'll bravely endure the downvotes and say that it isn't a noob illusion. It's reality. It is the arc that almost every site follows when the users start thinking "people here are interested in non-specific stuff as well!"

Reddit started as a HN. It became a general site. The programming subreddit has become a grunty joke. Slashdot started as a differently managed HN. It has become a joke. Digg....okay, forget about Digg.

HN is becoming Reddit. As short as 6 months ago I could say that every day I visited HN I learned something new and interesting in this industry. I can't remember a single thing new or interesting over the past two weeks, and increasingly it is becoming a place for people to avoid work.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#112

Post by euccastro »

hugh3 wrote: post #55
Robin_Message wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But things like paternity leave, maternity leave, requiring employers to consider flexible working -- these kind of things Europe is doing are far more family friendly than the republican party. The family values line of "mothers should stay at home" espoused by Pat Robertson et al. probably is better than both parents working, however much childcare you can afford. No reason it has to be the mother though. And the a…

But things like paternity leave, maternity leave, requiring employers to consider flexible working -- these kind of things Europe is doing are far more family friendly than the republican party. Everything has consequences elsewhere. Make paid maternity/paternity leave compulsory and you make it riskier for employers to hire. So you increase the probability that your father gets three months off after you're born, bu…

So you increase the probability that your father gets three months off after you're born, but you also increase the probability that your father is a long-term unemployed bozo living in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris.

Employers wouldn't hire more than they need anyway. Even if that was the case, the flip side would be job insecurity. You can theorize all you want about these tradeoffs, but the experience shows that these measures do work in Europe, and more so in Scandinavian countries. Never have I seen so many child carts as in Iceland, and despite the crash their unemployment is 8% and going down.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#113

Post by euccastro »

ja30278 wrote: post #8
capital_omega wrote: post #7

Of course, this should not be a surprise. If you are no longer fretting about spending too little time with your children after they’re born (because you have a year of paid maternity leave), if you’re no longer anxious about finding affordable child care once you go back to work (because the state subsidizes it), if you’re no longer wondering how to pay for your children’s education and health care (because they’re…

This is contradicted elsewhere in the article by the observation that families who could afford more childcare were _not_ necessarily happier.

In the context of the article that perception can be explained by the fact that they were missing out on more of the childless life goodies. Also, being able to afford more childcare doesn't imply having more time to spend with their children.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#114

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jasonlotito wrote: post #91
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just love the child. Everything else comes naturally. I disagree. I agree with your encouraging sentiment but I don't agree that simply loving your child is enough - parenting doesn't come naturally to those who haven't grown up around it. Most people nowadays appear to only have their parents model of parenting to rely on and this appears to lead them to polarise away from how their parents treated them. Watched Ch…

> I disagree. You would, because you are taking things far to seriously. Of course loving a child is just not enough. There are a monumental number of other things that need doing. There are mountains of books. A small post on HN isn't going to be the definitive "How to raise your child" post. It was merely a response to a person who is preparing to have his first child. > Veruca Salt is spoiled by her parents who si…

> It's easy, because I love being a father to my son.

I try to remember to tell my lads that last bit every day - but I think what you're really saying is it's damn hard but that even if it were to make demands of you that were impossible to fulfil you'd still keep doing it because you love your son.

Thanks for your comment.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#115

Post by pbhjpbhj »

kenjackson wrote: post #80
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just love the child. Everything else comes naturally. I disagree. I agree with your encouraging sentiment but I don't agree that simply loving your child is enough - parenting doesn't come naturally to those who haven't grown up around it. Most people nowadays appear to only have their parents model of parenting to rely on and this appears to lead them to polarise away from how their parents treated them. Watched Ch…

Regarding your 15mo there's a good book called The Hungry Monkey. It's about a food critic who is trying to get his child to eat well. The upshot of the story, and from talking to various chefs in the story is that kids eat what kids eat. It seems that the palettes of people continuously evolves, so even if he devours ice cream and doritos now, he may end up being the food writer for the Times when he grows up. The k…

Thanks for the advice, I've heard this before about palettes and agree to a large extent particularly as I've seen my eldest move away from some unhealthy foods as he grows up and also to eat several foods that I really can't stomach (eggs, mushrooms).

I confess it was a slightly made up problem intended to elucidate the point. He tends to have rice snaps for brecky with some fruit but his diet the rest of the time is quite varied. He is less accepting of new foods than his brother was.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#116

Post by superuser2 »

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #51
bitwize wrote: post #15

A time out in his crib? No wonder she hates parenting. If I threw shit at my parents it would have gotten me the mother of all whoopings.

Same here, and I'm sorry that some of the commenters immediately play the "child abuse" card. Teaching your kid that there are boundaries is a good thing, or you will end up with, well, the current generation of teenagers and college-aged kids in the US, who have a whole arsenal of excuses why there aren't doing what they should be doing, a sense of entitlement the size of Montana, and zero sense of responsibility. B…

Timeouts aren't about punishment (at least, not the way they were used in my house). I think it's difficult for people who were raised that way to see the discipline side of parenting as anything other than coercing your child to behave, but it isn't always necessary. For my parents, it was about teaching.

When I had tantrums, my parents sent me to my room. Not because having a tantrum is wrong and I needed to be punished, but because I wasn't in control of myself and needed to let my anger play out without bothering anyone. And you know what? They stopped. They got boring. They taught me that I couldn't get what I wanted that way. (Some parents give in and teach children that tantrums are an appropriate way to get what you want. I don't advocate for this at all.)

Misbehavior was "punished" by the natural consequence of the action. Being rude in a social situation = being removed from it. This how they taught me that you follow society's rules or you don't get to appreciate it. (Intentionally) breaking my stuff = losing it. I don't break things.

The spoiled kids aren't necessarily the ones whose parents never coerced them to behave; the spoiled kids are the ones whose parents hid them from the real consequences of their actions.

Saying "Mommy doesn't like it when you do that" and then driving them to the Zoo anyways is completely different from "Mommy doesn't like it when you do that and I've asked you to stop three times. I don't want to take you to the Zoo anymore; we're going home." The latter option sends the message without also making you an enemy worth rebelling against. Spanking does.

"Teaching" someone that bad behavior leads to a spanking doesn't make them understand why it's bad. It's not true of everyone, but some children (myself included) would not think "when I do this, there is pain, so I shouldn't do this.", as with touching a hot stove or an electrical outlet. They would think "when I do this, my parents hit me, and because they hit me, I don't like them, so let's think of some good ways to make them angry... hmm..." and so the arms race begins.

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#117

Post by superuser2 »

yason wrote: post #14

Parenting is about showing the kid his boundaries. And by showing the boundaries I don't mean canonically forbidding all nice things and always being "the bad guy". Limits and boundaries have a bad rap in some literature. The concept of boundaries is universal: boundaries don't enforce anyone to choose one option over another: they just enforce one to choose. Showing the kid his boundaries is not an easy undertaking…

I agree completely. I'm basically cribbing from my reply to a different comment, but the spoiled kids aren't the ones whose parents never punished them; the spoiled kids are the ones whose parents made it look like the real boundaries didn't exist. (Replacing the toys they carelessly or intentionally broke, giving in to tantrums, etc.)

Sometimes these people also explain why their children shouldn't do something, and people see the "discipline through understanding" crowd as part of this, but saying "don't do this" while sending the message that nothing changes is completely different from saying "When you do that to people they don't want to do nice things for you anymore. We're not going to the Zoo today anymore."

Re: Why Parents Hate Parenting

#119

Post by xom »

euccastro wrote: post #108
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just love the child. Everything else comes naturally. I disagree. I agree with your encouraging sentiment but I don't agree that simply loving your child is enough - parenting doesn't come naturally to those who haven't grown up around it. Most people nowadays appear to only have their parents model of parenting to rely on and this appears to lead them to polarise away from how their parents treated them. Watched Ch…

This is besides the point, but you may try playing with some handicap. E.g. starting with no rooks.

Also try switching sides when you're ahead.
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