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American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

derekthompson.org

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Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#61

Post by mothballed »

watwut wrote: post #38
mothballed wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's the parent that is neurotic so much as that it only takes 1 of 1000 assholes, who now have their little snitch device in their pocket 24/7, to call the child snatchers (CPS). And the child snatchers are legally barred from revealing who your accuser is, so the anonymous cowards can fuck up your life for weeks at no cost to themselves and with the utmost convenience. This effectively means every s…

The actual threat of CPS 8s grossly exagerrated here. And the fear is one of the symptoms.

Here's a few examples that's happened to me personally

(1) I didn't personally appear at bus stop, thinking my kid would be able to just walk the short distance from the stop to our house. Nope, school did not let kid off bus, given a timer to show up at the transportation office before child services will be called.

(2) Let my kid walk on our own property, someone drives up and starts interrogating them why they are "alone." Fortunately I was actually watching from further away and I managed to diffuse the situation before they alerted the authorities.

(3) Took my kid to the park so they could have a nice time outside in public. Whoops, looks like my child is a difference race than me. That means I am a kidnapper. Karen (from bodycam, a passing yuppie looking cyclist) calls police, who arrive and scare the shit out of me and my kid and detain us for about an hour. Not released until a woman's voice comes on the phone (they literally did not check, just any female voice) says the man can let his child play at the park. They also contacted child services of both the city of the park, and my hometown -- fortunately even though the city of the park looked like they were ready to fuck with me my hometown CPS did tell them to kick rocks and since I left town there was nothing further they could do.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#62

Post by LeifCarrotson »

ipsento606 wrote: post #57

I can't help but wonder about the relationship between fathers (and, in fact, all parents) spending more time with their children, and people choosing to have fewer children, and later. I think it's unquestionably true that fathers spending more time with their children is, on the whole, much better for those children. But it's also true that it's a huge problem for society that people are having fewer children. And…

If fathers spending more time with their children is better for the children but worse for ~~society~~the economy, is that really even a question worth considering?

Screw the economy, love your kid (or kids).

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#63

Post by compiler-guy »

michaelchisari wrote: post #55
purplerabbit wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And guess why trad household structures are (still) popular in some circles

Except "trad" households (full time SAHM in a nuclear home) are not traditional. Tradition is not something only the upper-middle class in a post-war boom attained for a short period of time. Throughout human history, it was rare for only two people to raise a child, let alone one. Or for women to not bring money into the home. Like many "trad" trends, it's based more on advertising and television than history.

At the very least, you need a whole society of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins, and deep friends to truly do any kind of traditional family structure in the traditional way. Otherwise it's just emulating an extremely narrow portion of the trad that didn't exactly exist in the first place.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#64

Post by giantg2 »

sjhatfield wrote: post #18

I think this only applies to certain segments of society. My child has type 1 so I'm active on Facebook groups for parents. The number of mums who say their partner is not involved really at all in their child's care is so sad. The child's own father can't supervise their child solo because they can't manage the care. And then the divorced parents. Oh boy...

"The number of mums who say their partner is not involved really at all in their child's care is so sad."

While that can be true, I wonder how much of it is true. It's pretty common in therapy to hear partners saying the other one doesn't contribute, but further investigation can often turn up observation biases.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#65

Post by mothballed »

ipsento606 wrote: post #57

I can't help but wonder about the relationship between fathers (and, in fact, all parents) spending more time with their children, and people choosing to have fewer children, and later. I think it's unquestionably true that fathers spending more time with their children is, on the whole, much better for those children. But it's also true that it's a huge problem for society that people are having fewer children. And…

I think it is. It's discouraged and unspoken, but a lot of men don't like spending time with children. I mean for weeks or months, sure, but when you have a kid it drags on for years 24/7 and nothing but having your own child will really reveal to you how that turns out for you.

As it turns out, I don't enjoy extended time with children. My bad, but I power through it for the sake of the child. In older times that would be no problem, my wife would deal with that. Instead I stopped at 1 when I realized I am not the kind of person who enjoys being equally involved with children.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#66

Post by bombcar »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #22

> Millennial fathers have roughly tripled the amount of time they spend with kids. I think this really undersells it. My mom parented a few hours a week. My kids (like most) lived under ceaseless 24/7 adulting. The time I spent with my sons was more like a 20x increase over my parents' generation. Past that, it seems like it's taking forever for anyone to notice the radical changes in modern parenting/childhood. Alon…

I’ve noticed that people don’t notice when the kids are free range anymore, because they’re all connected to an international network and pinging their location every minute.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#67

Post by bombcar »

mothballed wrote: post #65
ipsento606 wrote: post #57

I can't help but wonder about the relationship between fathers (and, in fact, all parents) spending more time with their children, and people choosing to have fewer children, and later. I think it's unquestionably true that fathers spending more time with their children is, on the whole, much better for those children. But it's also true that it's a huge problem for society that people are having fewer children. And…

I think it is. It's discouraged and unspoken, but a lot of men don't like spending time with children. I mean for weeks or months, sure, but when you have a kid it drags on for years 24/7 and nothing but having your own child will really reveal to you how that turns out for you. As it turns out, I don't enjoy extended time with children. My bad, but I power through it for the sake of the child. In older times that wo…

I can tell you that as you have more children the time you can spend and need to spend drops - because there’s more of them, but they also play with each other.

Three are running around yelling and I can’t even join in, as they want me to be “the base” apparently.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#68

Post by gyomu »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #22

> Millennial fathers have roughly tripled the amount of time they spend with kids. I think this really undersells it. My mom parented a few hours a week. My kids (like most) lived under ceaseless 24/7 adulting. The time I spent with my sons was more like a 20x increase over my parents' generation. Past that, it seems like it's taking forever for anyone to notice the radical changes in modern parenting/childhood. Alon…

We’ve also eradicated the unsupervised peer socialization that kids experienced with the free range. It’s common for a child these days to only ever be around other kids in very supervised environments with adults present (play dates, school, organized activities).

Spending long chunks of time with no adults, in a large mixed-age group, is a less and less common experience.

I spent some time in a remote fishing village in Madagascar and that was one of the things that surprised me the most - kids would spend all day together in an unsupervised mob roaming around the village, from the youngest ones who were just old enough to walk independently to age 8-10 or so (older than that and you had things to do).

I also enjoyed this essay on the topic: https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-chil...

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#69

Post by bombcar »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #14

Its kind of shocking after having an infant myself and hearing from his grandparents how little my wife and I's fathers did. One never changed a diaper and has never cooked dinner and the other looked like he had never held a baby in his life despite having 3 kids. I can't imagine not being incredibly hands on and involved.

There’s often been a “kids are mom’s until they’re dad’s” thing going on - dads do whatever with babies and younger children but the older children get heavily involved.

Of course, 50+ years ago diaper changing was often skilled labor (as was cooking) - it’s much easier to change a modern diaper and cook a modern ready-to-make meal.

Re: American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were

#70

Post by geodel »

giantg2 wrote: post #64
sjhatfield wrote: post #18

I think this only applies to certain segments of society. My child has type 1 so I'm active on Facebook groups for parents. The number of mums who say their partner is not involved really at all in their child's care is so sad. The child's own father can't supervise their child solo because they can't manage the care. And then the divorced parents. Oh boy...

"The number of mums who say their partner is not involved really at all in their child's care is so sad." While that can be true, I wonder how much of it is true. It's pretty common in therapy to hear partners saying the other one doesn't contribute, but further investigation can often turn up observation biases.

If someone is saying on Facebook it must be true.
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