231–240 of 323 posts
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One shared his own experience, the other is a direct attack on his kids and the parent. Quite a big difference. The "I pity your kids" is straight up vile.
How is it vile to pity children whose parents regret that they were born? Children whose father loathes spending time with them. Sorry, but maybe some people should feel shame sometimes
Yes you definitely should try that.
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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 saf…
Agreed, I should have clarified that I'm speaking more about friends and family, people's whose situation can be spoken to directly.
I have friends with neurotypical kids who still hand the kids tablets at restaurants instead of actually teaching the kid how to take turns in a conversation, or how to actually go through a menu and order!
Like I get it, it is tiring, but we all signed for the work when we chose to have kids. (At least in my social circle where kids are very well planned for in advance).
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…
Louis C.K had a routine about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr1aAYOhFsQ
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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…
Uhm, who walks around believing kids are well behaved?
Before having kids, I expected it to be this huge life changing thing. That it would effectively end the part of my life where I was free to do whatever I wanted, and start the part where I was just Daddy, doing nothing except serving my childrens' needs. But that didn't happen. We just carried on being Jason and his partner, but with a baby in tow. I had spent most of my 30s cramming in as much "living" as possible,…
> Before having kids, I expected it to be this huge life changing thing. That it would effectively end the part of my life where I was free to do whatever I wanted, and start the part where I was just Daddy, doing nothing except serving my childrens' needs. Had a very similar feeling. When my wife told me the "getting pregnant" worked I mourned a little bit. I recognize we were exceedingly lucky to have had such a wo…
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…
Honestly the only certainty is that unless you have been 100 percent responsible for a very young child for more a few days, you have no idea what you are talking about. I don't mean that directed at you. Just my own generalisation based own experience and the opinion of every other parent I know.
Life as a parent is completely different than life before.
I saw a woman completely lose her shit in a museum with her kid. Before I became a parent I would have judged. But when it happened I just thought "poor woman, I know how it feels, just giving it her all and she's got nothing left to give right now, how many times have I felt like that, how many times have I failed to live up to my own ideals as a parent".
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I probably will first make enough money before having kids at least. I think you’ve hit the key difference. I waited until I was 40 before having kids, and it just feels like I’m doing it on easy mode. We had time and money sorted out, and tons of free baby stuff donated from all our friends who had done it already. It’s still lots of work, but you’re at a place in life where you can handle it. I can’t imagine trying…
On the flip side, you'll still have a 20yo university student to take care of at age 60, while all your friends will have an independent adult child earlier...
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I mean, the birth rate is decreasing everywhere for a reason.
The reason isn't because it is more difficult or people enjoy having kids less (like the parent). Its because children used to be a way to provide security for your family and community. More hands to help or sent off to earn money younger for example. Now with smaller family units and less community interaction they represent a risk to security, mainly financially.
Having children for yourself provides more security for all the other families but barely anymore for your own. Meanwhile you bear most the costs and everyone else bears very little. So the incentives are totally reversed, and even worse the coupling between investment in children and payoff is cut which means the people in the best position to help their kids be successful are the least incentivized to do so.
I don't know, it seems like parenthood asks for a lot to be given up. Younger people like myself are already struggling to live on their own where I am. There's not a lot that can be spared by most of us.
To me, having a child means heavily straining your financial safety - here, care for this other person that can't do anything and has some of the most expensive needs in society. Not only that, but you need to be sure that you can provide for the child for the next 5, 10, 15 years. Who has that sort of confidence? Then there's the part where all your free time is sacrificed to care for the child. The time burden decreases, but it's always a lot of time. And you always have to be extremely risk-averse - if you were just responsible for yourself before, now you have someone you need to take into account for every thing you do in life. Moves, job changes, major risks or investments, career changes, taking on additional responsibilities. All of these things probably become much less doable for parents. And this is a one-way road with no backing out, you commit to it and are stuck with that choice for several decades. By the time your child lives on their own, you've already spent a large portion of your adult life. And there's no guarantees that your child is someone you like, or that your parenthood isn't soured by something else. There's plenty of parents who are stuck in parenthood and hate it.
The thought of having a child scares me. I'm happy that the author is content with how his life turned out, but I'm okay with just watching from the sidelines. Maybe the biological instinct (forced coping mechanism?) is so strong as to justify living through the horrors above in exchange for watching your kids play and participating in similar things. But I don't want to learn what that's like.