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What it's like having a kid

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Re: What it's like having a kid

#61
post #39

So let me get this: - baby's heart rate was of concern to your doctor - no progress for several hours - baby pooped - your wife had fever during labor - baby and mother now have an infection - c-section - big commotion, no communication with the wife And people still think epidural is a normal part of child birthing? On top of that - this couple will go on to tell other parents how lucky they were that they gave birt…

tinok - way to make presumptions about our preparation for birth, what my wife's medical history was, the research we did, our conversations with a close friend who is a midwife, my wife's predisposition to extreme pain, and what we've been telling others since having the baby. For you and others in this thread, home births may be the choice you make. A denial of any sort of frugs may be your decision as well. That's great. We decided a hospital environment was more appropriate for us.

To me the decision of how you want to deliver your baby that you and you alone conceived is as personal as religion, abortion, and numerous other topics which I believe people should be left to make their own decisions about. The quick fire judgments of absolute strangers proselytizing from up high should be checked at the door.

Re: What it's like having a kid

#62
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because being a father is the only thing I've ever done that is pretty close to being mystical, and I'm proud of it?

You may think you're a great father, but I don't know you. You're a stranger to me. I don't have any reason to believe you're any better than the last 20 people who tried to offer me contradictory unsolicited advice on how I should raise my children. There is at this point no faster way to get in my bad books than to put your nose in my affairs and tell me how to raise my children when I didn't ask you to.

Maybe I misinterpreted your question. My answer was to a question more along the lines of "why do parents talk about parenting all the time?" If the person offering advice is being a dick about it (be it about parenting or anything else), then sure, it's inappropriate. But at the same time I remember when my first was born, I was pretty darn receptive to advice because _I had no idea what I was doing_. I'm less receptive now because half a decade in I think I have a decent handle on things, but I'm still not hostile about it -- I generally smile and nod and ignore (which, come to think of it, is what I do whenever anyone offers me advice I don't need).
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