321–330 of 336 posts
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This lead me to think: "Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago" - well no wonder parents seem stressed and overworked!
Time for bedtime routine for my two children: 3-4 hours every evening.
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Perhaps ... I've spent 12 hours today with my kids, all but the first hour-90 minutes of their day (excepting school time for the schoolies; about 5 hours in the same space as them). I didn't read the article but is this effect coming from father's doing more time as stay-at-home parents? [FWIW we're dead poor financially at least in part through choice to have lots of contact with our kids.]
After spending 12 hours with my kids, they would spend about 6 of those fighting with each other and me pulling my hair out and wanting to bash their heads together because they can't see their way past their rage for the other's existence. No matter what I try, they just cannot accept that each other have free will to do as they please and that isn't always going to coincide with what they want and they need to lear…
Over the years family friends have repeatedly commented on how well they get along (they are 11 & 13 now) but I just see the byproduct of strict training. And it hasn’t stopped, because as they age and make new friends, they develop new mean spirited habits.
I know many parents were at least the father started working more and often far away from their family. Sure they need more money with children, but how good is the money if you only see them on the weekend? Sometimes it sounds like an excuse so they don't have to hang around with them, but maybe I'm just bitter, because my father left me when I was 6 and even the years before I barely saw him :/
It's so weird how different our perspectives are given that my father too left when I was 6. Despite feeling some... I dunno, I guess a wish that I'd had a relationship with him. But I don't feel any bitterness or anger towards him. He did what was right for him and I can't fault him for that. Sure, it meant I didn't have a Dad and we now don't have a relationship because there was never time for that to grow, so tha…
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I've mentioned this before on here, but for me tossing the smart phone and getting a flip phone has utterly changed the dynamic with my children. It has been 3 months, and I am still amazed (although I guess I shouldn't be) that being actually present with them when we interact has seemed to reduce their neediness/anxiety and improved our relationship/bond. If you can, I recommend giving it a try.
I want to do this, but my one hangup is the lack of a decent camera. I know that I probably don’t need to document my kid’s life as much as I do, but I do like being able to share moments with my own parents, who live a ways away. How did you handle this aspect of the change? Do you carry a dslr or point and shoot, or do you just go without (or have flip phone cameras improved a ton since my last one)?
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Maybe just commit to removing the most attention-grabbing apps from your phone? Seems like a good way to keep the aspects of your phone that you value while getting rid of the ones that you don't.
Yeah a time schedule or a really long and cumbersome unlock password for social media and web browser would really help. But then you need that recipe for dinner and you think "this is stupid, I'm an adult, I can handle this" and you remove it.
I don't have a subscription. Does the author consider the broader historical context? For example, on near subsistence agricultural societies, I imagine that families spend a lot of time working together, for example. Same with hunter-gathering, or even son-as apprentice trade crafts.
Somehow I don't think that tilling land with a baby strapped to your back would be counted as 'spending time with'...
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That's definitely the modern day problem! Can't believe how often you go to playgrounds and a parent is on their phone the entire time. It makes me self conscious every time I need to use my phone for something important, as I don't want to be that parent although I have been in the past. I removed the Facebook app from my phone and that's helped, among removing push notifications, putting it on silent etc... phone a…
When you are on a safe playground you don't need to watch your child all the time. I read books at that time.
If a parent is reading a book, I totally respect that! You don't see lots of people walking and reading a book everywhere they go, staring at a book to avoid social conversation, or unable to put it down for more than 6 minutes... phones just seem to takeover the brain, like TV but worse.
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That's definitely the modern day problem! Can't believe how often you go to playgrounds and a parent is on their phone the entire time. It makes me self conscious every time I need to use my phone for something important, as I don't want to be that parent although I have been in the past. I removed the Facebook app from my phone and that's helped, among removing push notifications, putting it on silent etc... phone a…
My city was 95% of the parents just on phones till this year. Now the vast majority of us parents are actually playing with our kids. Serious kids are the best thing I have ever had in my life and they are a blast. Sometimes they really know how to humble you but it is so worth it. (Dad of 5)
I bet an enormous part of it is how unusual it is for kids <13 years old to walk places on their own. It really would stand out if your 11 year old kid walked a mile to school/store. Even though that was entirely common when I was a kid.
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Why do people write ‘baby’ or ‘newborn’ with no article like that? Surely it’s ‘a baby’ or ‘the baby’ or ‘your baby’ or maybe ‘babies’ if you mean in general. Just ‘baby’ sounds like broken English. You wouldn’t write ‘manager sent me an email’, you’d write ‘my manager’ or something like that with an article.
The whole comment is written with fewer articles than you'd expect for good English - my guess is that the commenter is not a native speaker, rather than trying to be cutesy.