ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

good luck to you, frogbs! lol i am pretty old for a first time parent and every so often i will hint to my husband about possibly having another baby, and he gets this look like, oh damn, can we actually survive that?

great to hear it's going well! Those first 6 months are crazy, then they're gone, then your baby gets magically replaced with an older one and this keeps happening!
I couldn't face thinking about a second babby for a really long time but it has turned out to be an excellent idea. they entertain each other!

we had the 2nd one two years after the 1st and it's incredible how much you forget. babies change so much month-to-month in that first year. tbh I kinda wanted a 3rd but we had a pregnancy scare last month where I actually went through in my head what it would all mean and I realized pretty quick that I just don't wanna do it anymore.

the truth is given the way American society is set up there's really no good time in your life to have a kid. there are even fewer good times to have a *second* kid.

I had a vasectomy immediately after our second child was born. No regrets whatsoever.

When we started getting clues that he would be seriously disabled, I think my wife had a moment of wanting to try again but fortunately that went away with the realization that having two was going to be plenty hard, and there would be no guarantee of an easier time on the third.

For us, the wee-baby stage is over - I do not miss the late-night stuff - but we've basically had 14 years of toddlerdom in some form. Our son is 10 and still not quite there on some stuff - pretty good on toilet training in the daytime but still needs a pullup at night. And he will still do shit like spill all the cereal out onto the floor for fun, or scribble on walls with a marker. Sigh. He's generally sweet and fun, though.

so glad to hear things are good horseshoe!

we’re just past 8 months and she’s still happily immobile but very fun and more and more engaged with us every day. i’m pretty sure we’re done, we are older and for a lot of reasons i tend to think one babby will be the right choice for us.

good luck to you, frogbs!

Update: ouch !!! But it was quick, 80% painless, and one of my balls feels great!

Gonna tip my kids bus drivers tomorrow morning with envelopes of singles from the bar

i think this is a good book for parents who found the first few years hard and/or wonder what life would be like if they hadn't had kids (especially dads) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931085-a-lie-someone-told-you-about-yourself. CW for termination, NICU, developmental difficulties but it's pretty sweet in a nick hornby sense.

that sounds relevant to my interests, thanks for the rec

Trying to decide whether Die Hard is appropriate to watch with my 12 year old. It would be fun and she would like it, but it would be a big step up in terms of mature content. Of course, by the time I was ten I had seen all of the Friday the 13ths, Halloweens, Nightmare on Elm streets, etc. Not that it was good for me.

Go for it

fun parenting moment today, went over a friend of mine's and my son and his (7 and 6) played Mario Kart 8. which we bet $10 on, of course. I won but to be fair they both just tried to hit as many bananas as possible. the whole time they were just laughing and yelling at each other. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" "I SEE YOU I'M GONNA GET YOU!!" "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?"...etc etc. my son ain't too social at school yet so it's awesome to see him connect with another kid like that. he was talking about him the whole car ride home. here's the kicker: this friend of mine is someone I met when we were 10, in 4th grade. we used to play a bunch of Mario Kart 64!!

Xxp I saw “Edward Scissorhands” was on Disney+ and my oldest is at around the exact age I would’ve seen and been messed up by it.

Wife said NO to Die Hard. We watched Sixth Sense instead which turned out well.

Unrelated: 12 year old is turning into a teenager with the constant arguing/testing boundaries. My sanity is slipping away, it is so difficult to be a calm rational parent when someone is arguing with you about the absolute stupidest shit. "I'm going to put the dishes away dirty and we'll just wash them when we need them." "NO ARGHFFADKLAFDJLJS!!!" "But why?" "BECAUSE FJKALDFLJWOAFJLKADFS" "sssssigh..."

Let them have their own supply of dishes they can try this method with. (Probably a terrible idea for many reasons.)

shatter the dishes on the floor. then say "now you can clean these up when you want to eat. you fool! YOU FOOL!"

I recommend Spaceballs for 12 year olds

Creepshow is also good

Is there a thread for family viewing recommendations? It’s a constant struggle here with 11 and 14 year olds. Mostly because we think of good ones to watch and then immediately forget! Some winners have been the original Bill and Ted, Galaxy Quest, The Fugitive (had to get them to see it to prove my theory that Clone Wars was referencing it in the Asohka chase) and they both absolutely loved The Martian for some reason.

Original alien is good as well

And 2001

Lol at Karl

xxxp Raiders of the Lost Ark, Happy Gilmore, Hot Rod

We have a 7 and a 12 year old, so movies are tricky. Friday night is 7's movie night and we often watch something that 12 already seen and everybody goes to bed more or less on time. Saturday night is for 12 after 7 goes to sleep and we get to watch more mature stuff. This weekend we watched The Dark Crystal and Sixth Sense. During the week we watch one short cartoon before they go to sleep, if time allows. Right now we're on Owl House, which is great.

Tonight we broke the news to the kids that we are going to be moving out of state. This is the only house they've ever known. Holy shit it was rough.

my spouse showed Dark Crystal to our first kid when they were 2 and it was an immediate "what the fuck is wrong with you" response on my end. i remember sesame street segments traumatizing me at that age.

xpost wow CA that's a big one.

4 days after Christmas and I'm hoping this is peak madness. They are totally out of routine, both giddy and bored despite having new toys, and I think have had enough of each other's company...

feeling this. new toys and books have all been ignored, they just play 2K and roblox like they did before. what has it come to that a father must cajole his boys into picking up a new issue of a comic book

7yo got stacks of books, long ones... and says he's read them already! they were meant to last a few weeks at least! he needs to get out and kick a ball or something

Yeah, he wasn't wrong. It was a sad scene. He held on to the belief until 5th grade I think, which was a few years longer than I did when I was a kid. His mother and I had discussed early on whether we should let him believe in Santa. She was slightly against, but I was very in favor. Something about "kids need to believe in magic" that I'm now not sure is true. Also the awkwardness of being a kid hiding a secret from his other friends. He has always been a terrible keeper of secrets - like, known to blab about things we tell him to keep private. If we had been upfront with him at a younger age, I'm sure a significant portion of his daycare would have been questioning their belief in Santa. Again, at the time I didn't want that on my head, but at this point I couldn't care less.

― peace, man, Thursday, September 2, 2021 9:36 AM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Follow-up on this. Around age 4 or 5, we had gone through a phase where my son read a few Norwegian troll folklore books. And for god knows what reason, my wife told him that Santa was a troll. And he apparently doubled-down on this fact throughout elementary school in arguments with other children. And when asked about it, his mother apparently reassured him about the troll falsehood. So this completely undid any benefit of letting him believe something in common with other kids. I was somehow clueless about this whole Christmas controversy for over a decade.

Found out because they had a mini-argument about it on Christmas morning.

according to clement moore he's an "elf"!

Right! A jolly old elf! I guess I could see her getting elves and trolls confused once, but over time it had to have been a purposeful choice.

hello just want to say that 6 months is a very cute age! She’s babbling and it is great!

agreed, 6 mos was awesome

I guess this is just sort of a parenting win post - I feel like I have done a lot of things wrong as a parent, but one thing I have done consistently is to emphasize that you can get better at anything with consistent practice, that you should never say "I'm bat at ___" only "I can improve at ___" etc., and that determination goes a long way.

My older one, K, was delayed physically - not severely but enough that she got physical therapy and occupational therapy. I knew from my own childhood that physical delays can really hurt self-esteem so I made an extra point of emphasizing practice with her, knowing it might take her a little more practice than some kids to get things down. Early on I saw that it was getting through to her - she would do monkey bars over and over again every day at the playground, first maybe only one or two rungs, then three, then four, eventually all the way, even if other kids might pick it up faster. I emphasized not giving up. This was something I learned myself later in life - that I could overcome a lot of what I had once thought were innate physical problems with a little extra work. For example, while I never played organized basketball, as an adult I started practicing regularly and took a course, and actually started to hold my own in pickup games.

This year (she's 9) a neighbor invited K to join a CYO basketball team, her first team sport ever (and she doesn't even have much experience in basketball). She wanted to do it, so I said ok (CYO is more competitive vs our local rec league, so I was a little nervous for her). She is tall for her age, fwiw. First couple of practices and games were tough for her - any kid with as little experience as her would be confused on the court and she tends to be even slower to process than some kids. I was concerned she would get discouraged, and I didn't want to pressure her, but I did my best to keep emphasizing the message of "Just keep practicing, you will get better, you will get used to it," etc. I told her she had to finish the season because she committed, but that after that she could decide if she wanted to continue.

Third game yesterday, and the team, advertised as being their age, looked about two grades older. In spite of this, K got her first rebound and took her first shot in game!She told me on the way home that she really loved the game and really wants to continue with CYO and doesn't want to do rec league. On top of that, the coach told me she has a great shooting touch and he has "no doubt" she will be a big contributor once she gets used to playing and the game slows down for her. I'm trying really hard to walk that line of not becoming "one of those youth sports dads" but it was the most exciting basketball game I've ever watched in my life.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, June 7, 2021 7:56 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

The saga continues. Tryouts for the CYO thing were extra tough this year and she didn't make it -- they only have a couple spots for non-parishoners and the rest are prioritized for parishoners. Then rec league got cancelled. Then thankfully they restarted this other league and she wound up on a team after all. She loves going to practices and being on a team. She gets super anxious about games. She's had four so far this year. In one of them she actually took the ball coast to coast a couple times and took shots, which was great. At the same time, she is struggling a lot - she gets very sensory overloaded and worries a lot about not making a mistake. Today was not great for her and I know she didn't feel great about the way she played, even though her team had this dramatic improvement from last time (we are generally known as not much of a sports town and we had been losing big to other teams, but we dramatically narrowed the gap and put up a really good fight today).

She actually dribbles and shoots fine and I've seen her do pretty well in lower pressure situations (and she had the one game where she came more alive), but in the game she really kind of seizes up and seems almost like she is avoiding the ball. I'm really proud of her for sticking with it and I always tell her that, and that she just needs to stick it out and keep practicing, and at the same time inside it's bringing up all this tough stuff for me and twisting me up inside to see her struggle like I did. Maybe she's actually not even struggling as much as I did tbh, maybe I'm projecting onto her, but she did have a practice where she came home crying and said she was the worst on her team (which is not even true fwiw). I have no aspirations of raising a scholarship athlete, I just know that she will be happier with herself if she feels like she plays well and contributes to her team, and I know she has the capability to at least be a solid player on her team, because she's very solid when she doesn't seize up from the pressure and anxiety.

I guess I just need to be patient about it, not much I can do other than practice with her when she wants.

Never seen a more exciting basketball game than my own daughter's team losing only 15-8 to a team they previously lost 40-5.

guys i am so burnt out at work. how does anyone work a full time job and raise a kid? i was a miserable failure as a stay at home mom during maternity leave, and i like my job, but i just want to crawl into a loaf of bread and sleep for a week.

She's not even 1 yet, right? It's so hard. I went back part-time at about 1 year old and that was a good balance. My brain was a fuzz, I'd been promoted but could barely remember anything. I think after about 12-18 months things get a little better but it's so dependent on sleep, the nature of your job, your home situation, whether you're feeding at night etc.

Also, you weren't a failure as a SAH mom!! It's only years later I realise how lonely it was with my partner out of the house all day and I had very little energy to 'do' anything and everything was tedious anyway. It is soooo much better when they're a bit older, which seems a lifetime away.

Can you actually take a break, like even a long weekend or something when you do minimal stuff at home? Honestly the best holiday I had after I went back to work was when I had (planned, minor) surgery.

my brain is totally fuzz! i feel like i'm just dumb now? maybe forever?

yeah, she's 8 months. i do get sleep because we're lucky and she's a good night sleeper, but i think the thing that's hardest is the at-home work that i need to figure out a way of finishing at work (grading, basically; i'm a teacher.)

i do have spring break coming up; hoping the beeb is down for chilling out hardcore.

Not dumb forever but your brain becomes filled with more important, practical stuff like everything that needs doing for the kid! And I have forgotten loads of book and movie plots that I saw not that long ago.
Glad the sleep is ok! Our first was ok by about 9 months then had a wobble about 12/13 months. They are both vv good sleepers now.

Also she's been out of your body for less time than she was in it! You gotta allow yourself time to get back to yourself.

pic.twitter.com/czc9u84LTI

— Austin Flowers (@theedgeknight) March 12, 2022

A thing I wish I understood better earlier in parenting: separate the feeling from the thing underlying it. The feeling can be very real even where the ostensible thing they are upset about doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to be upset about. Focus on the feeling, not the objective thing, try to address the feeling, then figure out if there's a solution that doesn't require you to do the unreasonable thing they are asking or to not have boundaries.

Example, K (10yo) had an absolute meltdown claiming that she had "nothing to wear." Initially felt annoyed - her dresser and closet are overflowing with clothes. So what's really going on? Anxiety about being liked (clothes not being 'good enough'. Of course they are good enough by any standards, but the feeling is real. Talked to her calmly about the worry rather than continuing to argue with her that she objectively obviously has 3x "enough clothes." Stayed firm that we were not going to start buying her even more clothes than she was already getting for spring, but talked the feelings through with her. Realized that part of the issue is how we got the clothes - we signed her up for Stitch Fix, which seemed like it was working well (clothing actually works out very cheap on a per-item basis, and she seemed to enjoy getting it), but it turned out she had been keeping a lot of stuff she probably didn't really like that much because she was under the impression it was "cheaper" since you get the discount if you keep everything. Of course, it isn't cheaper if you only like half the things. We agreed that going forward she will just get fewer items and the ones that she really likes and needs (either from Stitch Fix or from a store) and we talked about how her friends also do not have perfect clothes and how they seem to like her a lot and it seems unlikely that they would drop her as a friend for not wearing the perfect outfit one day. Made clear that we weren't going to buy her even more clothes ahead of the plan we already have to get her spring/summer clothes next month.

The social anxiety she felt was very real and deep and understandable from the circumstances of her life. The idea that she "had nothing to wear" was of course not real, and we didn't give in to that idea, but we addressed the fear underlying it, and it seemed to work.

Good post, our eldest is a little young yet to analyse her feelings like that but definitely the approach to aim for.

B's oldest is now into vinyl! Dad has proudly set up his pro DJ turntable and mixer in the lad's room and got out all his old TISM records and various northern soul soundtracks, its so nice to hear the music filtering down from upstairs, reminds me of my own teen years and feels good.

xp I think some of it applies even with younger kids - maybe you can't analyze the feelings in as sophisticated a way, but you can remember the principle that their feelings are real even if the thing they are upset about is not "reasonable," and that you can validate their feelings without giving into everything they want or losing boundaries.

Yes absolutely.

Although I'm reminded of the parenting manuals which suggest that to calm your child down when they're having a tantrum e.g. about something they can't have, you just have to get on their level, make eye contact, and say 'i know what you're feeling'. Never. Works. Ever.

ha, yeah, when I'm in the park with preschoolers and their parents and you hear all these cries of "I UNDERSTAND YOU FEEL DISAPPOINTED" as they tear off around the park trying to catch up with the kid who's legged it in a tantrum

Up to a certain age, “Look! Did you see that monkey?” while pointing out the window was an absolute lifesaver. Doesn’t work on an 8-y-o sadly.