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The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

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Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#151

Post by WalterBright »

llm_trw wrote: post #139
beachtaxidriver wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point. But I think you may be taking it to extremes. A parent can snuggle multiple kids at once, read to multiple kids at once, take multiple kids to the zoo at once, etc. Moreover siblings have their own rich relationships. Having closely spaced siblings is pretty normal.

In the west in the year of our lord 1955. And in the year of our lord 2025 it's normal not to have kids in the west. In most of the rest of the world neither of those things were normal. Which is the point. The west is weird when it comes to raising children and has been uniquely bad at it for over 80 years which happens to be living memory for pretty much everyone on here.

80 years? Things started to go awry around 1970. That's when the Boy Scouts stopped treating scouts like young adults and instead began treating them like delicate flowers.

You can see the change in the Boy Scout manual.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#152

Post by llm_trw »

llm_nerd wrote: post #149
llm_trw wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents by definition will only be able to spend 20% of the time on you that they could on a single child if they didn't neglect the others. Seeing children with multiple siblings with less than 8 year difference between them vs single children is shocking just how differently kids are treated. This is the most accurate but least factual description of what it looks like from the outside when a family keeps addi…

I would argue that your position is the "perfectionist parenting" nonsense that many have used to avoid having children. Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the current generation are the most psychologically healthy individuals the world has seen? Do you think they're the most loved or coddled? The most educated? Your anecdote is actually kind of hilarious in context. The idea that 2 children splits th…

>Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the current generation are the most psychologically healthy individuals the world has seen?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/siblings.html

80% of kids under 18 have siblings in the USA today.

>The idea that 2 children splits the love is absolutely insane.

It's also what's blindingly obvious when you spend more than 5 minutes in a playground with single kids and multiple kids.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#153

Post by everybodyknows »

testval123 wrote: post #141
llm_trw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this could be because you have so many children? Anecdotally the more kids in a family the more neglected the child. I can't imagine having more than one child a decade and raising them well.

There is IMMENSE value in having siblings, particularly later in life when you yourself have kids. Especially if they are in the same city.

I feel having no sibling of the opposite sex as a great loss to myself, and to my parents. It seems to me a grievous deficiency in one's life-experience.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#154

Post by llm_nerd »

baxtr wrote: post #132
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…

Agree 100%. People say it’s the cost. But what’s way worse is the effort and time you need to spend for every child. A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly. A couple can’t replace the village unless they have tons of money.

I am lucky that I do consulting through my own company, setting my own schedule and availability. It would be impossible otherwise.

Just as one small example, daycares/schools will call for you to pickup your kid -- blowing up your day -- at the slightest indication of illness. With four kids going to school, this means two to six+ times a month your day is going to be completely blown up at any moment. I'm not complaining (though when I was a kid if you had a bit of a stomach ache you chilled in the nurse's office for a bit and 9 times out of 10 go back to class), but the average person cannot accommodate this without quickly finding themselves unemployed. This is just one of a million cases where two working parents and few or no supports leave you in a precarious situation.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#155

Post by anon291 »

llm_trw wrote: post #130
WalterBright wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was one of 5. I was not neglected. I am a horrible person, though, so there's that.

Your parents by definition will only be able to spend 20% of the time on you that they could on a single child if they didn't neglect the others. Seeing children with multiple siblings with less than 8 year difference between them vs single children is shocking just how differently kids are treated. This is the most accurate but least factual description of what it looks like from the outside when a family keeps addi…

Yes the single child is usually unsociable and verging on narcissistic.

Your issue here is that you have labeled the single kids life as good and the multi sibling family as bad .

It used to be the opposite. People would pity a single child.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#156

Post by llm_nerd »

llm_trw wrote: post #152
llm_nerd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that your position is the "perfectionist parenting" nonsense that many have used to avoid having children. Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the current generation are the most psychologically healthy individuals the world has seen? Do you think they're the most loved or coddled? The most educated? Your anecdote is actually kind of hilarious in context. The idea that 2 children splits th…

>Do you think all of the latchkey lone children of the current generation are the most psychologically healthy individuals the world has seen? https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/siblings.html 80% of kids under 18 have siblings in the USA today. >The idea that 2 children splits the love is absolutely insane. It's also what's blindingly obvious when you spend more than 5 minutes in a playground with single kids an…

>80% of kids under 18 have siblings in the USA today.

I wasn't claiming that all or most kids are single children. I was observing that by your philosophy those single children would somehow have the best outcomes (in a multivariate manner). I don't think that's the case.

>It's also what's blindingly obvious

Sure.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#157

Post by [deleted] »

ariwilson wrote: post #27
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…

I feel sorry for the mother or whoever was taking care of your child for the first 3 years. Someone has to guide the small children towards being functional human beings and it's a lot of work. I found they have interesting personalities and ways of expressing themselves by 1 at the latest.

[deleted]

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#158

Post by baxtr »

llm_nerd wrote: post #154
baxtr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. People say it’s the cost. But what’s way worse is the effort and time you need to spend for every child. A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly. A couple can’t replace the village unless they have tons of money.

I am lucky that I do consulting through my own company, setting my own schedule and availability. It would be impossible otherwise. Just as one small example, daycares/schools will call for you to pickup your kid -- blowing up your day -- at the slightest indication of illness. With four kids going to school, this means two to six+ times a month your day is going to be completely blown up at any moment. I'm not compl…

True that things have changed on the child side as well. I remember being by myself for long stretches on any day.

Parents today not only have lost the village but are also expected to be with their children more.

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#159

Post by halfcat »

Simon_ORourke wrote: post #140

It's f*cking hard work, for those in any doubt. It's the most difficult web server config file you've ever to edit at 4am to resolve some production outage, for years, without any hope of let up. Is it rewarding, yes, but it's a duty and there's no backup or timeout, you get to experience this 24/7 for at least a few year while they're young.

Accurate. There’s this seemingly never ending stream of moments of desperation, where there are no good answers.

But also if you asked me, “what led to most of the goodness in your life?”, I’d answer:

Moments of desperation

Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood

#160

Post by llm_trw »

WalterBright wrote: post #151
llm_trw wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the west in the year of our lord 1955. And in the year of our lord 2025 it's normal not to have kids in the west. In most of the rest of the world neither of those things were normal. Which is the point. The west is weird when it comes to raising children and has been uniquely bad at it for over 80 years which happens to be living memory for pretty much everyone on here.

80 years? Things started to go awry around 1970. That's when the Boy Scouts stopped treating scouts like young adults and instead began treating them like delicate flowers. You can see the change in the Boy Scout manual.

The great depression destroyed the social fabric of the us more thoroughly than did the civil war. The 1950s weren't normal, they were the result of a generations want for stability and domesticity when they had no idea what either looked like. For one thing the end of generational households to be replaced by nuclear family households was seen by the people at the time as worse than single parent households are today and with good reason.

That the majority of conservatives today pine for the 50s us that we not only lost the ability to have a stable society but even the memory of what one should look like.

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