Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parent is saying he didn't enjoy wasting it. He didn't choose to be alone.
Except he says that he did: "I took a lot of steps to protect my freedom..."
That doesn't say he enjoyed it at all.
Having Kids
861–870 of 902 posts
Re: Having Kids
#862Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that mirrors what I’ve found. Hoping to find something smaller than SF/NYC that’s also dense enough to be walkable. A book I read called “Happy City” mentioned streetcar suburbs (suburbs built when streetcars were dominant for commuting) as good options for walkability, but I’m not sure how to identify those without knowing cities pretty well.
Here in Chicago, half my team bikes or walks to work and the other half takes public transit. Most everyone over age 30 or 35 can scrape up enough to own a property on a rather average tech salary. Other than the intolerable weather during the month of January it really is a fantastic alternative to the coasts.
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. I liked Chicago when I visited (in the summer, not the infamous winter).
I'm really hoping to find a place with no cars where unsupervised kids can get run over by them, but I know that might not be possible to find in the US. Dense and walkable would be a decent consolation prize.
Re: Having Kids
#863Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had this experience too. Being isolated with that amount of responsibility is a huge burden. Not many people actually get it... It's easy to find superficial sympathies, maybe equally easy to find people who discount your struggle, and rare to find those who really get it. Then to find help; nearly impossible. I didn't regret my son back then, but it felt like the ultimate sin to ever express my stress or pains bec…
I appreciate the commiseration. You’re right that it’s hard to find people who really get it. The economic challenges of self-employment combined with the cognitive / mental demands of programming conspire to make “programmer” a uniquely difficult thing to carry on as a single parent, despite the income benefits. There are many days I wish I had a more dull job consisting of some sort of mind-numbing piecework, or a…
Oh my god, I'm sorry. I'm sure that introduces more than enough challenges for the children too, not just you. Drug addiction is hell for everyone involved.
You're dead on about the challenges of programming in this sort of situation. It feels like you're constantly falling a little further behind, losing out on opportunities, endlessly switching contexts... It's hard as hell. I often feel as though within 10 years I'll be irrelevant to this industry because I can't possibly be keeping up with my colleagues.
On the bright side, my relationship with my son is a significant motivator, and things do get easier. There's a light at the end I guess.
Re: Having Kids
#864I really, really want to have kids, but I'm "on the spectrum", have huge troubles with socialising with people, and, after my parents died and my girlfriend left me soon after, struggled with severe depression, which left me hollowed and deprived of any self-esteem - which, in turn, makes socialising even more difficult. At the age of 30, I feel like my life is over. Whenever I read about the joy of having kids, I know I'd want to have my own, but I probably never will :(
Re: Having Kids
#865Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can concur- we have got to the 3 and 5 stage and then choose to have another. That one year while they were both pre-school age was glorious, the kids were getting so much easier. Now we are back to never having time again. For me the one of the best things about having kids is that they give me so much perspective. I might have had a great day or an awful day at work, but no matter what I’m feeling I still have to…
Can I ask what your age is? My wife and I are 36 and age is one reason I'm not as keen as my wife on having another child.
I'm 36 as well & have 2 kids (1.5 and just under 4 year olds). Why is your age a consideration at that point?
I know plenty of people who had kids later than 36 (including my own parents and my in-laws).
Re: Having Kids
#866Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is me now. I’m working on https://losthobbies.com because I think it’s a real problem for people. It’s hard to get back to your hobbies and interests when life gets in the way.
i don't understand what this service provides.
Thanks for asking
It helps people get back into their interests and hobbies that might have fallen by the wayside due to family or work commitments.
The problem I found was that I had been out of the loop for so long and found it difficult to find a starting point. My solution, or part of it, is to give someone a list of items that have recommended by people they follow on Twitter. This will narrow down their search and they could just get back into their hobbies rather than distracted by searching for something online.
Does this help? I’d love some more feedback! Thanks again...
Re: Having Kids
#867Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for this comment. I was just about to close the tab, having read over the comments for the past couple days and finding mainly my age with kids my kids age or younger/childfree comments. Yours was the comment I was looking for and I see myself really asking these questions now about time management now. Actually as I type this out, my kids have converged on me in my office to play with random things around. Bu…
>> What did you mean by, "values"? What kind of things should I be be figuring out now that my kids are 4 and 2? What your life goals are. Identify what your purpose is. I developed expertise and experienced in a field that was rare. I like what I work on. I knew that I needed to like what I do and find pride in my work. I also have a long history of creativity. I feel like I will be judged by what I have created. I…
My life goals are to take care of my family and have a material positive impact on human health, in that order. I guess what worries me is that both of these are long-haul, compounding-type efforts when I've spent my entire life pursuing short-term goals like finish school-grade, finish college, finish grad school, finish post doc, start job. Now that I've been working in my career for the longest stretch of my life (just recently passing length of grad school), it's no longer a "sprint" and I'm not sure exactly how to do it fully. I have been taking on different functions at work every few years, so I have new and exciting things to do but there is no end-goal. Sure retirement is a possible end-goal, but I really, truly love what I do and I would love to not retire fully from science--I doubt I ever will. So then what is the life-goal? Keep on trucking, compounding the gains. That scares me because it's so nebulous, no count-down, no "number of steps left". Same now with parenting now that we're done having kids. Now what? Compound those gains. With children there are always new things since they're changing so fast, but that's so much of a gradient as to be unchanging when analyzed in the moment. I guess my wife and I discuss, "once the kids get into school" and "once the kids go off to college". sigh I imagine this is a common thing ambitious people feel at this point in their career-life matrix. Sorry for the rant, thanks for the opportunity to reflect. Didn't mean to take your time without asking.
Re: Having Kids
#868Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you check the people from the 15th century, 1950s villages, or even the "tribes" you mention, you'll find that the children are either helping (small tasks, actually working, after a certain still young age), hanging out with members of the community at large, or mostly playing around with other children. They don't hang out with the parents after a certain age, and they don't helicopter them...
Most of the work children did was for the parents. That’s spending time with them.
That's neither, but it is better than what we have today, let me explain:
I was raised by my grandparents in the countryside, the worst part was my parents randomly showing up every 2-3 weeks or so, letting me always longing for them.
Now, as to the relationship with my grandparents, even if I was doing chores for 1 hour alone, it was no big deal at all, as long as I knew they were in close proximity or other significant adults were in close proximity.
Again, what really sucked was when my grandparents were out in the fields in the summer until dusk and I didn't know when they would show up.
As long as the child has ACCESS to the attention of significant adults, he can develop longer and longer duration of time when he doesn't really need the attention, it's absolutely normal and beneficial for the emotional development of the child to grow independent of significant adults, but the child absolutely needs to have a firm support base in significant adults and know he can rely for their support.
Maybe it's my bad experience with overcrowded daycare/kindergarden, but educators there were absolutely not in the role as significant adults, maybe in places where there are more educators per child, better trained, they can take that role as a significant adult.
Re: Having Kids
#869Earlier quoted context omitted.
-Do go on vacations with your kids. You are investing in having them travel with you in the future, and liking it. You can do it! Just give them tasks and treat them with respect. -Ignore the kids menu. It's shit. Just order off the regular menu and share with your kids. -Some kids are hard to raise, some are easy. You will probably have both if you many more than 1. C'est la vie. -If you're like me and value time, g…
You should most definitely not take them on vacation and traveling. You are already forcing them to live their adult lives in a world wrecked by climate change, no need to hasten the demise even faster. Stay at home and teach them skills useful in their future, like growing crops and repairing failing machinery.
Yeah, totally, let those instagram hipsters traveling off the hook, they are allowed to travel 10 times a year, God forbid a parent take his children on a vacation once or twice a year!
Re: Having Kids
#870Earlier quoted context omitted.
It gets better. Way better. Last night I explained quicksort to one kid. Now we are designing cards to laser cut. The kids get interesting and independent quicker than you might imagine. The days are long, but the years are fast.
I love how inquisitive my 7 year old daughter is. She doesn't want or take a simple explanation and I enjoy teaching her about seemingly mundane topics that she makes exciting for me again.
Oh, God, I hope my almost two year old daughter turns out that way too, right now she seems most enthusiastic about me chasing her, dancing, airplaning her around; though I see some seeds of inquisity because she wants me to help her open up every drawer and appliance, pushing every button, opening every faucet and so on.
Her godmothers son, which is just 4 months older is so happy sitting in my lap for ages as I explain ilustrated books to him; my own daughter gets bored real quick with that.