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Having Kids (2019)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Having Kids (2019)

#211

Post by mothballed »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #201
svachalek wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah mine was colicky and every time getting him to sleep involved rocking him for an hour+ while he screamed in my ear. And he woke up so easily. So I spent about 2 hours a day rocking and patting for the first year or so, not checking off a dozen countries on my passport. Never had a second for some reason.

I’m curious what made you conclude that he was colicky as opposed to something else? I was labeled colicky as a baby and my own children turned out to have some digestive issues with certain common foods that make them cry a ton when they or their mother eat them (and they get it via the milk). If I hadn’t debugged the food issues I might have labeled them “colicky”, but when we avoid those foods religiously they onl…

Well when you go to every specialist and try every type of milk and every diet change imaginable it gets there through a diagnosis of exclusion.

Trust me, the debugging is a big part of the trouble. Everyone is telling you to debug, but that is actually the thing you have to learn to stop doing. Your brain is telling you to debug. But it can't be debugged. I watched multiple women have mental breakdowns trying to debug a baby with a 6 month streak of colic. Eventually their brain just goes psychotic because a baby screaming 6+ months non-stop with nothing wrong while people frantically try to solve the problem is basically sever mental torture. It is not the hours, or days, or even weeks of screaming that get to you, it is the months of never ending ear-pearcing torture that nothing will fix, and they will not fucking sleep because they just want to scream for all of their sleep as well and naturally the caregivers won't be sleeping either due to this. And you cannot rely on crying to figure out when to feed, when to change a diaper, when the baby needs sleep, or some gentle motion -- all of your indicators are worthless.

It is a hell for the baby and it is a hell for the parent. People struggling with this generally do not have any more children. Any other stage past baby for such child is 99% easier, I laugh when people say babies are the easiest stage.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#212

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

dzink wrote: post #145
roarcher wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just packed the kid along and went traveling anyway. He had eleven stamps in his passport by his first birthday. How do you keep a baby happy and quiet on long international flights? I currently have no kids but I may find myself in this situation in the next couple years. I'm dreading being the guy with a screaming infant on a 13-hour trans-Pacific flight that keeps everyone from sleeping.

First two years they can fly for free, but they have to ride in an adult’s lap and that gets tiring. Don’t believe the bassinet offerings - as soon as a plane gets turbulence, you have to get the sleeping baby out of the wall bassinet and good luck appeasing them. Age 1-2 is hardest for travel, so you can skip it. The only thing that worked was getting their own seat with the cosco scenera next car seat (or their own…

Don't go straight to screens in this situation. You can introduce novelty by purchasing a number of cheap toys, even from the dollar store, which they have never seen before. Keep them hidden until the flight.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#213

Post by rauljordan2020 »

meitham wrote: post #7

As a father of 3, nothing is more satisfying than raising kids.

Kudos to you! I have one and it's been the hardest thing I've ever done and it has broken us entirely. We can never imagine having more than one given the difficulty, and are now finished at one 100%. Very huge admiration for parents of > 1. It's 10x the work and not just 2x the work

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#214

Post by drfloyd51 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #150
drfloyd51 wrote: post #14

Before kids it was easy to judge bad parents. Then one day with child I found myself due to circumstances in a store way past my child’s bedtime. She was screaming and crying, because it was way past her bedtime. Then I realized… I was now “the bad parent” I had so easily judged. Then it was easy to judge parents with children younger than mine. Until I learned that not all children have the same issues in the same o…

I still judge parents, because I compare them to other parents. Good parents = kids not 100% glued to phones/tablets, social around friends and family, not throwing tantrums at 8-16 yrs old. Bad parents = kids always throwing tantrums, kids basically always getting their way because they've learned parents will always give in, parents and kids 100% ignoring each other. One set of friends - I go to visit, I play with…

Trust me. Don’t judge.

Even if you compare to other parents, you are judging the reference-parents.

If you have data over time you can draw conclusions on things you want to try as a parent.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#215

Post by Balgair »

pimlottc wrote: post #162
Balgair wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before kids, you take a look around a diner or a store or a playground and you see little ones happily eating some chips or browsing the foodstuffs or playing on a slide. You think that this is what kids are like. They sit there, they walk a little, they giggle on the playground, they look cute as all get out, etc. Then you have kids and you know. You know . Those kids sitting there in the booth sipping on their milk…

That's not the impression I hear from my many intentionally childless friends. They take the negative behavior - the screaming, tantrums, chaos - as the norm. It sounds like you always wanted kids. I don't say this to criticize - it's great that those who want to start families do so - but I don't think your experience is universal.

Oh then it's even worse! As again, only the more well behaved kids are going out in public.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#216

Post by mothballed »

com2kid wrote: post #208
mothballed wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been detained by police under suspicion of "kidnapping" for taking my kid to the park (my kid is a different "race" as me so it was "suspicious"). On another occasion my kid was interrogated because they were walking home from school on our own property, and someone wondered "why they were alone." On the other hand, no one has ever called the police on me for handing the kid a tablet and melting their brain insi…

> I've been detained by police under suspicion of "kidnapping" for taking my kid to the park (my kid is a different "race" as me so it was "suspicious"). On another occasion my kid was interrogated because they were walking home from school on our own property, and someone wondered "why they were alone." And this is why I pay an arm and a leg to live in Seattle. Kids here are running around outside playing soccer in…

Yes the park thing happened to me while visiting a white suburb of a very racially segregated city.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#217

Post by bregma »

svachalek wrote: post #178
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the baby. Some are nightmarish. That’s the main thing - each family and each child are different, so it’s kind of hard to base your decision on what you see and hear from others.

Yeah mine was colicky and every time getting him to sleep involved rocking him for an hour+ while he screamed in my ear. And he woke up so easily. So I spent about 2 hours a day rocking and patting for the first year or so, not checking off a dozen countries on my passport. Never had a second for some reason.

Our first was colicky for the first 18 months or so. A nightmare, really, just like you described. Back arched, face red, for hours every day, no comforting.

We went on to have more kids. They were all quiet and easy. We sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with them.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#218

Post by EvanAnderson »

jasonkester wrote: post #92
nDRDY wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have just the one kid, right? We were the same ;-)

Two now. That’s still manageable.

Good on you. We were 'one and done'. Two sounds more than 100% more difficult, if only just because the number of edges in the relationship graph going up.

My parents managed four kids, albeit for most of that time there were only 3 living in the home at a time (13 years between the oldest and youngest).

A friend of mine had eleven (!!!) siblings. That horrifies me. Cliques could form in that size population! Utter craziness.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#219

Post by pixl97 »

qsera wrote: post #134
corry wrote: post #28

This is one of my favourites from PG, not least because it's a bit antithetical to what I perceive as a growing trend among smart, ambitious people (for whom children might represent friction, inconvenience, etc)... as well as folks for whom COL is making the question irrelevant due to practical concerns. Actually, it's really striking that even in America -- the developed country with the #1 highest birthrate -- sti…

When someone asks me if starting a family is worth it, I borrow words from Agent K and tell them, "Yes, if you are strong enough"... But as you say, I suppose everyone ends up becoming strong. Because there is no other way...

Oh, if you read some of the headlines in the news... no, not everyone.

Re: Having Kids (2019)

#220

Post by cknoxrun »

com2kid wrote: post #184
phatfish wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Badly behaved kids I am more understanding of now (at least the younger ones). But there are defintely easy ways out of problems some parents take that are not good for children.

Yeah, with a kid I still judge. I'd rather see kids running around and playing and being kids in public than on a tablet. Even grocery shopping I see toddlers on tablets sitting in the cart. My son has been actively involved with meal planning since he as a a year and a half old. "What type of bread today? What type of fruit in your yogurt tomorrow?" I won't judge kid's behavior, so long as they are acting like kids.…

The only thing I'll add is that you never know what people are going through. Both of my children have pretty intense ADHD, and when I went through my divorce I definitely leaned into too much screen time for a while. It wasn't permanent though, and I managed to get back closer to the ideal you speak of (but as a single parent, it took a lot of processing of guilt to find a balance that worked).

I've decided it's safer to just never judge, that parent you see pushing the toddler around in the cart might indeed be a terrible parent, or they might be going through grief and at their breaking point.

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