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The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

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Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#101

Post by jajko »

llm_nerd wrote: post #89
IgorPartola wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well th…

"The village" isn't limited to some pioneer dung sifter living seven generations to a hovel. Also absolutely bizarre how so many people so desperately want to make this an economic thing. The village referred to the notion that children were viewed as important to the whole. The whole country, the whole province, the whole village, the whole neighbourhood, the whole family. Everyone cared about and contributed to the…

Yes these were things we lost, but 'we' as in anytime in past 500 years. You just experienced it yourself for your line.

What was gained is meaningless to some, and next to everything to others. I don't fucking ever have to deal with anybody's crap I don't want to. It feels amazing, simple yet right way to live a life. How shitty my life would be if I had to accept and constantly tolerate people in family circle that for example aren't good people, moral ones or just an emotional vampire. Or brutally incompatible with me in any other way. I see it in peers sucking it up over and over, oh boy do they hate relative X from their or spouse's family tree, yet since they live nearby frequent meetings are unavoidable. For some blood is sacred and above else, I don't see it that way if relationships are not at least a bit mutually beneficial.

Freedom, man, to do what you want with your life, that's a wonderful thing. Freedom to form new bonds with literally anybody in this world, as you please. Great friendships trump most of blood relationships, all if you want. Also, people change over time and common ground is getting usually smaller and smaller every year. I'd gladly give it to my kids over some tighter knit family ties with people of variable quality with highly questionable views on life, who raised their own kids only so-so and it shows later on.

Just to be clear - I've experienced most if not all you wrote. It was good. All non-good easily trumps it so thus my opinion on the matters. My kids are growing in very different world than I grew up in, that one is long gone. I look at it as a package with + and -, liking current package more.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#102

Post by mistermann »

lwhalen wrote: post #60
mistermann wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> The vast majority of my belief system is or can trivially be peer-reviewed and reproduced.

Not possible for you to know (more Faith...watch out for misdirection though).

> but it's far less egregious than "sky-daddy says I should love, honor, and obey him - and most crucially give him MONEY as the almighty is somehow perpetually short on cash - so I can be saved".

I will resist the urge to make up something about Your Kind and represent it as True.

> Wait, what am I going to be saved from, you say?

How about: yourselves?

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#103

Post by mistermann »

throw10920 wrote: post #84
lwhalen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Wait, what am I going to be saved from, you say? Oh, what sky-daddy will do to me if I DON'T love, honor, obey, and tithe him, etc. You need to take a look at the HN guidelines because you have very clearly not read them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I am perfectly fine with it.

The HN (and other "intellectual" online spaces) guidelines are a big part of The Problem.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#104

Post by DAGdug »

llm_nerd wrote: post #47

I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudd…

“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury” I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#105

Post by IncreasePosts »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #12
mr_mitm wrote: post #9

Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.

It's certainly not. To speak plainly, I wasn't terribly interested in my son until he turned 3 years old. Then he started talking, started developing a personality with interests of his own, and fatherhood then became much more interesting. But I was intentionally quite uninvolved in those very early years. I don't regret this, don't see how else it could have been, and indeed I feel that some degree of fatherly aloo…

You don't see how you could have spent more time with your kid for the first 3 years of their life?

It's pretty simple, by doing it.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#106

Post by nosefurhairdo »

DAGdug wrote: post #104
llm_nerd wrote: post #47

I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudd…

“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury” I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?

Many people think overpopulation is a legitimate concern. I suspect the argument would be "who cares about social security if we kill the planet" (or something along those lines).

Not my view, just suggesting who might believe the "children as selfish luxury" line.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#107

Post by adolph »

IgorPartola wrote: post #85
627467 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you don't think the destruction of the village and sharp decline in birth rate feed of each other? Individuals have outsourced so much to abstract "institutions" that they can't see alternatives whatever precarious and worsening services these institutions provide.

No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well th…

> No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder.

Wait until people realize the ladder is a treadmill and any movement is an illusion of entropy.

Every wave of humanity is like an ocean's endless beating against a beach.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#108

Post by jajko »

borski wrote: post #78
epicureanideal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Divorce, child support, alimony, and two weekends of time with your kids per month (what the majority of men end up with), can also be transformative! If anyone reading this is thinking about having kids, be really careful who you have them with.

It is obviously extremely important who you choose to have children with. I completely agree. If I’d had kids in my 20s with my ex, I would have ended up with regrets for the rest of my life (not the kids, but my choice of with whom to have them). If I have kids now, there’s no chance I’d have regrets. It’s a very different timeline in my life, being in a non-abusive relationship after 8 years of being in one and lot…

I've been in such relationship once, albeit only few months. Took me few years to recover fully but it was a lifelong wakeup lesson and I started properly looking into psychology. Afterwards, no mysteries in the opposite camp anymore and straight to my wife now.

How to handle various relationships and personalities should be mandatory psychology 101 somewhere around beginning of high school. It would make whole mankind behave a bit better overall, no doubt there.

The problem with your comment is, kids are by far the biggest stressor in marriages. Wonderfully working, fully matching couples are pushed sometimes to their limits and beautiful relationships become just surviving hardships next to each other. You can't fully know how the opposite will handle this, even under good circumstances, god forbid something ain't right (like post natal health issues in kid or mother), even when trying to use psychology a bit. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails in myriad ways. You could have felt your ex was the one for life while pro creating, thats happening during (brutally) easy times.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#109

Post by munksbeer »

mr_mitm wrote: post #9

Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.

No, it certainly isn't. But it is a social sin to admit otherwise.

For me, it led to depression, therapy and medication. The first time in my life I'd experienced actual clinical depression. We do have a particularly challenging situation though. I'm always tired, ill, stressed, eat unhealthy, don't exercise enough. Being a parent is all consuming.

It has been getting easier as they get a bit older, and I love my children in all the ways a typical father does. I'd literally die for them. But a lot of the time I just do not enjoy it.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#110

Post by dgfitz »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #46
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly not. To speak plainly, I wasn't terribly interested in my son until he turned 3 years old. Then he started talking, started developing a personality with interests of his own, and fatherhood then became much more interesting. But I was intentionally quite uninvolved in those very early years. I don't regret this, don't see how else it could have been, and indeed I feel that some degree of fatherly aloo…

[flagged]

Handle checks out.

When the mother breastfeeds, and dad just fills in around the cracks without directly “providing care” beyond holding the kiddo and changing diapers, how can they be judged for feeling aloof? When are they bonding?

You should consider softening your tone, being a dad is fucking hard.

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