I'm almost the same age, and my mom often tells me, "It's amazing the resources you have at your disposal as parents. We had Dr. Spock and that was it. But you have social media and all the online...
I'm almost the same age, and my mom often tells me, "It's amazing the resources you have at your disposal as parents. We had Dr. Spock and that was it. But you have social media and all the online stuff to deal with in parenting, so I think you have it harder."
It really does feel like that sometimes. When my wife was pregnant with our twins I turned to support communities for parenting multiples to prepare myself (which is hilarious, because there is...
But you have social media and all the online stuff to deal with in parenting, so I think you have it harder.
It really does feel like that sometimes. When my wife was pregnant with our twins I turned to support communities for parenting multiples to prepare myself (which is hilarious, because there is literally no preparing one's self for a baby, let alone multiple). There was so much "fear-mongering". Not deliberately, of course, but just by the nature of being a support community you'd see a lot more horror stories and overwhelmed parents at the wit's end because content or thriving parents don't need as much support. Not to mention that "little Jimmy just crapped up his entire back" is a more interesting story than what happened 15 minutes later when little Jimmy did something vaguely cute and somehow that totally outweighed the frustrating clean up. So you end up seeing a lot more negatives than positives.
Not to mention that there is so much conflicting information. Sleep training, for example, you've got people who sing praises of the "cry it out" method and then you've got people equally as passionate about how that's borderline child abuse. And everyone's got studies lying around to back up their claims, but what parent has the time to dive into the dry read of a scientific study to make their parenting decisions?
I've learned over the years to basically follow this flow for parenting stuff, because there's just way too many opinions out there that I don't trust or value:
What does my gut say?
I'm not sure, what does my wife think?
We're not sure, what do my friends/family with kids think?
They're not sure, let's take a few minutes to look it up online somewhere as a worst-case scenario. Ideally from someone in the child psychology field.
FWIW, I was a fan of Your Parenting Mojo back in the day. Podcasts are a pretty accessible format for new parents, and it was all research-based stuff.
And everyone's got studies lying around to back up their claims, but what parent has the time to dive into the dry read of a scientific study to make their parenting decisions?
FWIW, I was a fan of Your Parenting Mojo back in the day. Podcasts are a pretty accessible format for new parents, and it was all research-based stuff.
I can't remember which specific episode I listened to a while back, but I was struggling with something and after some googling came across an episode they did on the exact topic and I found it...
I can't remember which specific episode I listened to a while back, but I was struggling with something and after some googling came across an episode they did on the exact topic and I found it incredibly helpful. It's been on my subscribed list ever since, though I haven't listened to it much. I've been meaning to change that though!
My youngest is three years old right now and I can tell you that I have absolutely no recollection of what it was like to parent an 11 month old. I have friends with kids younger than mine and I...
Parents also seem to forget what it was like for them to parent a 11-months-old (my kid's age).
My youngest is three years old right now and I can tell you that I have absolutely no recollection of what it was like to parent an 11 month old.
I have friends with kids younger than mine and I regularly get questions like "What were yours doing at 16 months?" to which I can do nothing but shrug. I don't mean that I am absent or not paying attention. In fact, I spend every possible minute playing and reading to and teaching them. I just don't have a running log of when they started doing a list of behaviors, and there is no remaining mental capacity to try to remember it all.
I cannot imagine trying to give advice to my friends about their kids because I can't remember what I did a matter of months ago. I really can't imagine trying to give advice if I had never done it or it had been years.
Yea, it all sort of blurs together....also have a 3 year old. I remember the broad strokes from Dad's perspective: 0->6 months: Sleepy lump which likes sleeping, baths, and boob sucking; hates...
Yea, it all sort of blurs together....also have a 3 year old. I remember the broad strokes from Dad's perspective:
0->6 months: Sleepy lump which likes sleeping, baths, and boob sucking; hates diaper changes, people who are not mom and dad, and tummy time.
6->18 months: Likes interacting with the world, but playtime is easy. There's a giant void of details because this is when sleep was the worst.
18 months -> 3.5 year: A hellscape of fostering independence but a lack of language and temperament skills to express that desire resulting in many, many, many tantrums. Playtime is frustrating because they crave more complex play but again, lack the language skills to execute.
Everything after 3.5 years has been a cakewalk by comparison.
Would heartily recommend sign language. Super cut down on the frustration tantrums. I mean, even on the most skeptical level, if you give a baby the ability to essentially pull a lever for "milk"...
Would heartily recommend sign language. Super cut down on the frustration tantrums.
I mean, even on the most skeptical level, if you give a baby the ability to essentially pull a lever for "milk" and the universe responds, even if that's not what they want at that particular moment, to be held, coo'd too, provide something to suckle, and have something delicious be in one's mouth.....all kinds of physiological happy things fire in their brains. Emotionally, It's a powerful feeling for any human being: I have a demand of the universe, and that demand is instantly met with love and warmth.
And it'll cut down on hangry business. And make washroom alerts more obvious.
Their sign vocab will also expand far sooner than their verbal, and a huge variety of toys and wants are now suddenly within their reach.
At least for us it worked :p we never experienced terrible twos or threenage thrashes. It was a great time transitioning from simple one word signs to single syllables to words to sentences.
My first was very agreeable like you describe. The second no so much. My children are obsessed with fairness. What is fair for a > 5 is not the same as what is fair for a 2...however the 2 year...
My first was very agreeable like you describe. The second no so much. My children are obsessed with fairness. What is fair for a > 5 is not the same as what is fair for a 2...however the 2 year old does not see it that way.
Especially when the universe needed to say "no more milk, it doesn't provide the nutrients your body needs anymore" (not in those words obviously).
Oof, yeah, my apologies, demonstrating exactly what this article's discussion brought up: survivorship bias can be every bit as terrible as inexperience. Yeah we won the lottery on our One and...
Oof, yeah, my apologies, demonstrating exactly what this article's discussion brought up: survivorship bias can be every bit as terrible as inexperience.
Yeah we won the lottery on our One and Done, and felt sure that rolling our entire fortunes back into lotto tickets for a second didn't seem prudent for our family.
I have zero ideas on how to properly parent a younger (not less worthy but certainly less capable) child. I'm still nursing the scars from my own childhood as a younger sibling, who seemed to be at once more ignored AND more harshly judged as not yet capable. That and the haunting scream/cry of friends' kids wishing they were still an only child. Brrrr.
Oh yea, I can definitely see that trauma building. If its any consolation, part of it is just literally not having the time. Your attention is now, at a minimum, split in half from what it was...
Oh yea, I can definitely see that trauma building. If its any consolation, part of it is just literally not having the time. Your attention is now, at a minimum, split in half from what it was before. It's the greatest privilege the oldest child gets that they usually completely forget about.
At least with my younger, they're being held to the same standards, its just that the temptations are much higher. Elder child didn't have all their sibling's stuff to take and break. Every day feels like having to navigate a geopolitical nightmare of fairness to both.
Add in older child feeling like they're always getting unfairly treated because they only remember the injustices and it's enough to drive you mad. Yes, I'm sorry we can't play your elaborate game right now for 4 hours, we need to play something your little sibling can play too. Also, sometimes you just need to let the Wookie win.
As parents, my spouse and I have accepted that we're going to be blamed for many of the unhappiness of our child's childhood. And they wouldn't be wrong. The kid will of course talk about our...
As parents, my spouse and I have accepted that we're going to be blamed for many of the unhappiness of our child's childhood. And they wouldn't be wrong. The kid will of course talk about our failings to their mental health providers and their future partners. For things we have done, and for things we neglected to do; for things we said we wouldn't do that we did, and for things we said we would do that we didnt; for opportunities we denied them, and for situations we pushed them into. "To err is human": to parent is to err, generationally.
As an adult now, and especially when one parent is in heaven while the other one is on his way, I think I can better understand that they really were just trying their best. Of course their attention was sorely divided, and of course they made some bad calls amidst, to be fair, many right calls. I'm still not sure I am over the more philosophical hurdle of "given that you were adults who by then already knew of your own finite reality, and was already exhausted by one, how was it fair to bring a second child into your life, fully knowing that you'd become even shittier parents to not one but to both children?" I asked my parents a variety of these kinds of ungrateful questions over the years, and I think the various answers basically distill into "because human beings need to make non-optimal choices, daily, and we chose to hope".
I'm 38, and I'm just now getting some of my mental stuff straight after a few years of being with my partner that had an extremely rough and abusive childhood like me. Seeing her go to therapy,...
I'm 38, and I'm just now getting some of my mental stuff straight after a few years of being with my partner that had an extremely rough and abusive childhood like me.
Seeing her go to therapy, along me being there for her to talk with when therapy wasn't enough really put a lot of my own traumas into perspective and helped me a lot to work through some of my own problems in more productive ways than self medicating and ignoring it.
As long as you aren't outright abusing your children, I'm gonna wager they'll be just fine later in life.
I see a lot of parent threads that talk here and there about this sort of thing.
Not being a parent myself, I don't know what to really say other than I bet you're doing a freaking awesome job compared to some people's parents, trust me.
This is a key thing to remember with all, usually well meaning and researched, parenting advice that exists today. In the grand scheme of things, most people of all ages are generally not bad...
As long as you aren't outright abusing your children, I'm gonna wager they'll be just fine later in life.
This is a key thing to remember with all, usually well meaning and researched, parenting advice that exists today. In the grand scheme of things, most people of all ages are generally not bad people. On paper with what the current advice for good parenting is today my own parents probably did tons of things wrong, but I don't really have anything bad to say about my own upbringing. Of course each generation can and should improve, but I feel like the current massive amount of parenting advice is creating general anxiety about our own capabilities for the current generation of parents - myself included. It is impossible to live up to ideals all the time, but the reality is we likely don't do permanent damage to our kids for every minor mishap.
Thank you, that's so kind of you to say. I try to reserve judgement for others, and I try not to go overboard on myself either :) I'm just so glad some of the people from our generation get to...
Thank you, that's so kind of you to say. I try to reserve judgement for others, and I try not to go overboard on myself either :)
I'm just so glad some of the people from our generation get to access mental health providers now. There's good reasons for hope in the future generations
I'm glad there's people out there our age having kids and enjoying that experience. Or at least trying to do a great job at it, cause I think..maybe that's all you can do, sometimes. Try your best...
I'm glad there's people out there our age having kids and enjoying that experience. Or at least trying to do a great job at it, cause I think..maybe that's all you can do, sometimes. Try your best and make the best decisions you can.
My parents at least tried their best, my mom especially. My dad, well...he did what he could, given his own issues and trauma and addictions at the time.
I never felt "ready" for kids, I never thought about having kids as something I wanted to do. I always thought the burden of raising a child into a human would be a monumental task that maybe I'd never be ready for mentally or psychologically.
Frankly, it scared me because I didn't want to be the kind of father my father was to me. I'd rather not have kids than ever put my kids through anything close to what I went through.
So, a few years ago I got a vasectomy. I think I'd do it again, looking back on it.
I read this and laughed out loud. I want to go back and give 18mo-3.5 year you a hug. Sometimes it's so hard. But you did it anyway, and that's what counts.
18 months -> 3.5 year: A hellscape of fostering independence but a lack of language and temperament skills to express that desire resulting in many, many, many tantrums. Playtime is frustrating because they crave more complex play but again, lack the language skills to execute.
I read this and laughed out loud. I want to go back and give 18mo-3.5 year you a hug. Sometimes it's so hard. But you did it anyway, and that's what counts.
Yeah. I think the better summary is most people give bad advice for one reason or another. Either experiential bias, forgetfulness, etc. About the only universal advice is to keep trying different...
Yeah. I think the better summary is most people give bad advice for one reason or another. Either experiential bias, forgetfulness, etc.
About the only universal advice is to keep trying different things until you find what works, and be prepared for that to stop working eventually.
As a parent of an 8 month old, I can tell you it seems like a lot of parents give advice in a way that seems like they are justifying the way they chose to parent. I try to only give advice in...
As a parent of an 8 month old, I can tell you it seems like a lot of parents give advice in a way that seems like they are justifying the way they chose to parent. I try to only give advice in terms of "we struggled with this, here is what worked for us."
You can see it in all forms of legitimate advice online too - some babies respond well to this, some don't. There's no magic bullet in parenting and a lot of people don't like that at all, because it's more important for them to feel "right".
Coincidentally, is it actually bad to give whisky to young children to help them sleep? Does it have worse effects on younger children? Sure it’s a lot more powerful because they are tiny, but is...
Coincidentally, is it actually bad to give whisky to young children to help them sleep? Does it have worse effects on younger children? Sure it’s a lot more powerful because they are tiny, but is it really worse than other drugs?
Of course, I get the “you sleep now” mentality is problematic, and it could easily cause issues if it’s a regular occurrence. But as a once in a while thing, done responsibly, is it really that bad?
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor. Children have lower blood sugar than adults, so alcohol can effect them much more at lower doses. There is no amount of alcohol that is considered a safe dose, as...
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor.
Children have lower blood sugar than adults, so alcohol can effect them much more at lower doses. There is no amount of alcohol that is considered a safe dose, as opposed to many other drugs which do have safe dosage amounts. For example, there are safe dosage tables for things like acetominophen and ibuprofen and you'll note that you can give the first to very young children, but not the second in any amount. Alcohol similarly has no safe dosage.
I think one could take into consideration that politically nobody is going to actually study "is it okay to give kids alcohol really" because of ethics reasons, and that there is likely some kind of non-scientific guiding of things that would prevent anyone from finding that it's okay to give kids alcohol. But I think there's also enough evidence to say that it's generally just not good.
Yeah probably. For one, I don't think alcohol is very good for your sleep... something which most adults can attest to lol. Secondly, alcohol is explicitly toxic and needs to be filtered out by...
Yeah probably. For one, I don't think alcohol is very good for your sleep... something which most adults can attest to lol. Secondly, alcohol is explicitly toxic and needs to be filtered out by your kidneys, as opposed to something like melatonin which is not.
Just because alcohol and melatonin are both drugs (although if you want to be pedantic it's not considered a drug in the US), just doesn't they're both inherently bad for you (alcohol is, though).
All drugs have negative side effects. Children's Tylenol also can damage the liver. It just seems like a weird double standard that we take this particular stance for alcohol. Though to be fair,...
All drugs have negative side effects. Children's Tylenol also can damage the liver. It just seems like a weird double standard that we take this particular stance for alcohol. Though to be fair, that is par for the course when it comes to this particular drug.
In any case I'm fairly convinced now. There's just too many negative effects.
All drugs have side effects, but they're not all toxic, or necessarily negative. At least according to the CDC there is no such thing as a safe dose for alcohol, whereas there is for things like...
All drugs have side effects, but they're not all toxic, or necessarily negative. At least according to the CDC there is no such thing as a safe dose for alcohol, whereas there is for things like tylenol.
I really wouldn't count it as a double standard. For one, alcohol, in addition to having a lot of negative effects, doesn't really have a positive effect either?
It's a recreational drug. I personally enjoy social drinking, but that's not exactly beneficial in any way for your health, despite what the upteempth loosely correlative red wine study says. Tylenol does something for their general health. Melatonin does something for their general health.
I don't think drugging a healthy child to put them to sleep is ever something that can be done responsibly. I'd report a parent for doing the same thing with any other drug. But also, sleep while...
I don't think drugging a healthy child to put them to sleep is ever something that can be done responsibly. I'd report a parent for doing the same thing with any other drug.
But also, sleep while drunk is worse for you (I don't remember the specifics but there is good research out there on this), and children need sleep a LOT more than we adults do.
I am child free by choice and have many friends who are currently making their families or in various stages of raising them. Since my wife and I have no kids, we have plenty of spare time, so we...
I am child free by choice and have many friends who are currently making their families or in various stages of raising them. Since my wife and I have no kids, we have plenty of spare time, so we go to them. We are around lots of parents...parenting. We are also both very curious people, so the strongest tool of our conversational tool belt is questions. Lots of questions, we are very curious about the inner world of anyone we're chatting with. I don't care if you're a stranger I'm in line with, if we're talking, I'm asking you questions.
The other thing about how we live our child free lives is a curiosity about how all the parents are parenting. What methods are they using and how did they come by them? What works, what fails, and how are you making that decision? What internal skills are you trying to develop in your child? What traits do you think your child develops on their own? etc...
No one has answers, parents can barely articulate what intentional decisions they are making, let alone the thought process behind them. 8/10 parents we speak to, including my wife who is a mental health professional, make their parenting decisions based on one thing and it's ironic as hell. "That's how I was raised." Sure there are little variations, hell there are even people who outright say "I am going to raise my kids differently." But even they in, the vast majority of post child rearing hang breakdowns, say they did what was done to them.
One of the most recent fathers I spoke with is diving straight into the deep end, he's married to a woman who has a child. He's tackling some behavior "Issues" that he believes are intentional choices his daughter is making. Most recently, they felt she was in crisis and scheduled her an emergency session with her therapist and the daughter didn't talk during the session. So, when they got home, she was grounded for 3 weeks, she got her gymnastics taken away, and they had a long serious discussion about her addressing some relationship issues between her and her bio-dad. This child is 7 - S E V E N - and they attaching adult logic to her actions, as well as coached her to approach her father for a serious 1 on 1 about the state of their relationship and interactions.
Parents around us are constantly triggers by their kids, attributing intent where none exists, leading their kids through life as blindly as we all are. Parents don't have some secret sauce that puts their advice above non-parents. They have their strengths and weaknesses like anyone and shocker, their strengths don't tend to be in personal investment or introspection, they're too busy for it with their kids. So they just make decisions based on the old code that got written in their heads when they were kids and will occasionally deviate.
All of this is anecdotal, obviously, so maybe your experience is different than mine. But I think it's fair to say my point stands that parents aren't any better equipped to decide how to parent their kids, except where interpersonal meets style.
The main thing I've learned from my parenting experience is that parenting is hard because it is a marathon, not a chess match. I went into it terrified because humans are so complicated and I...
The main thing I've learned from my parenting experience is that parenting is hard because it is a marathon, not a chess match.
I went into it terrified because humans are so complicated and I thought I would have to be making all these intense moral calculations. I wasn't sure if I understood human nature well enough to make the right calls.
It's true, parents do have to make those decisions. But I've found that I do much more damage to my kids not when I make the wrong decision, but when I am too tired or emotionally unregulated to act in the way that I know I should. I think most people can be smart enough and make decent decisions about parenting when they are in the right mindset.
The reason we are such bad parents is because we have to be patient and playful while having no sleep. We have to be kind and loving while our children are being assholes, regularly physically and emotionally attacking us, everyday. Having the same argument, over the same ridiculous demands over and over again: "I don't want dinner, I want candy". it's cute the first 10-20 times and an opportunity to explain nutrition, health, etc. But when you have to have that conversation every night, with the same person screaming at you, for years, It gets old and you slip up and get mad, which makes the situation worse.
I know it's not their fault. I know that the only way to resolve a meltdown is to be calm and patient and help them regulate their emotions. But sometimes I just can't. How do you force yourself to be calm? Even if I pretend to be calm, and speak slowly and say the right things, my kids know when I am upset and it makes them freak out.
For me, I feel like I know how to be a good parent, the same way I know how to win a marathon, just keep running as fast as you can. It's actually making myself do it that is the challenge.
Its a hard slog. My best strategies are honesty and communication. I'm lucky enough to have a partner, so we tag out whenever one of us is just done.
Chilling. That poor child. At least I can cheerfully report that some of the ways I parent are radically different than my own parents. And I can see my sister is doing a much improved version as...
Chilling. That poor child.
At least I can cheerfully report that some of the ways I parent are radically different than my own parents. And I can see my sister is doing a much improved version as well. My brother in law takes the medal for not turning out like his parents. And I could also go on for some of my other childhood friends. Not all, but I would say from my slice of samples, more than half.
Yea it doesn’t match my experiences either. One of the most common grievances among parents I know are grandparents using some sort of variation “well when we did it we just did X, can’t you just...
Yea it doesn’t match my experiences either.
One of the most common grievances among parents I know are grandparents using some sort of variation “well when we did it we just did X, can’t you just do X”.
In fact it’s so common that there are entirely TikTok/Instagram people whose entire schtick is based on making light of that.
I think its a tragically beautiful reality of human existance, that we both benefit from and can be harmed by the continuation of traditions, and likewise can both benefit from and be harmed by...
I think its a tragically beautiful reality of human existance, that we both benefit from and can be harmed by the continuation of traditions, and likewise can both benefit from and be harmed by new trends..... Call it evolution, even, but if all of us always abandoned tradition, my friends from warm, supportive and loving homes wouldn't be able to pass on such wonderful things to their kids. And likewise, if we always kept to the old ways, those of us from more different families of origins wouldn't be able to achive escape velocity to do something better for our kids.
So, I have definitely seen some of what @BusAlderaan has observed as well: young parents who always speak in that particular exasperated tone, that level of heightened stress and the volume of their voice over very trivial obvious kid things....Attributing insubordination and malice to childhood fears and run of the mill immaturity.....the hitting or threat of hitting or "just" harsh words...... the threats to remove love or safety or comfort.....the emotional instability..... Some of it indeed gets passed on even if the parents vowed not to do so, out of fatigue or reflex or just not knowing how to do anything different.
But. I'm glad you're also chiming in with the opposite experience, of people smiling and sharing the thankfully common experience of being able to provide better than our roots have provided.
I find this experience pretty rare nowadays. All the parents I know (including my self) are pretty well researched and had good perspectives on the aspects of our childhood that was successful...
I find this experience pretty rare nowadays. All the parents I know (including my self) are pretty well researched and had good perspectives on the aspects of our childhood that was successful parenting or not, I'd say the average kid is getting a safer, more enriching infancy since people are having fewer kids, later, with more money and time for them (typically, amongst my peers). Not that I have many childless friends offering me advice or asking me questions, but I always answer and have solid logic/rationale. It was already crazy to some of my older family to not use a pacifier, and to my MIL that the baby isn't cold in her crib without blankets, or not grasping how much agency and intelligence she has even as a 4,6,10 mo old.
The one thing I think is hard to grasp is that as parents you start to understand your child's temperament, it's usually like your own to some degree for obvious reasons, so of the slew of advice the best options are the ones you Intuit work for their personality and that's going to be wildly different baby to baby. The real kicker is just you cannot explain to people the parental instincts and hormonal changes of having a child, and I'm speaking of that as a father, when she was born and first cried it was like getting straight up liver punched (in a good way) and I can see eyes of recognition only in other parents I talk to.
Like I said, it's anecdotal. To expand, though, I was talking about parents outside my inner circle. I am also surrounded by parents who are making leaps and bounds in the methods and quality of...
Like I said, it's anecdotal. To expand, though, I was talking about parents outside my inner circle. I am also surrounded by parents who are making leaps and bounds in the methods and quality of parenting, like you describe. But I'm aware that I live in a bubble I have created, that the people outside that curated bubble go about their parenting with half the intentionality. But I would also say that's them at their best, managing all the rigors of parenting and adult life, they are putting all their available efforts into parenting and most of the time, at best, they're making tiny improvements.
It's interesting that you describe it that way, that interconnected nature of it being your child and seeing parts of yourself in them. But from the outside, it has the distinct tinge of parenting yourself, which is definitely something I know is common amongst millennials. Since they're a bit of you and you see those bits the most clearly sometimes, it's easy to parent them the way you wish you were parented. But talking to Gen A kids hitting their teens, they have just as much dislike for their parents style as I did as a child, because their parents aren't parenting the child in front of them, they're parenting themselves. As many of the features a child may hold from their parent, they're still a different person and in my opinion parents have trouble disconnecting from that. An example of it is my niece who is growing up in a house of two parents who lacked all structure or security growing up, so they reinforce those two things constantly. Well, my niece doesn't feel those fears, so instead she has two parents honing in on a need that has already been instilled in her and she's looking around going "What about my other needs, the one inherent to me and my life?"
Personally, I think it's hard to grasp how well parents know their babies, they develop an extra sense in some ways. But at a certain point I don't think parents know their kids any better than I know my wife. In fact many of them know their kids less and less after 10, since their kids are now developing a rich inner world that they intrinsically protect. You can raise a kid to communicate openly and well, but that doesn't mean you know who is developing inside by proximity. Intentional and frequent connection is the key and that's true of every able minded relationship, not just parent/child. I actually think that's beautiful, that at some point as a parent you don't know your child the same anymore and the rest of your life is getting to know this new person who is redeveloping themselves in real time from the person their parents raised to the person they choose to be.
I grew up in a home with open and healthy communication, as well as bountiful love, and my mom stayed home with us for much of our childhood. She still says that the greatest part of parenting has been getting to know who we chose to become after she didn't have to care for us full time. I'm sometimes sad I wont get to experience that, but I'm happy for others who will, I hope you have a long and happy relationship with your kids for the rest of your life.
Fascinating. That's a good parallel example which suggests to me a different angle of interpretation: perhaps it isn't merely inexperience which lead to to bad advice, but the ability for someone...
Fascinating. That's a good parallel example which suggests to me a different angle of interpretation: perhaps it isn't merely inexperience which lead to to bad advice, but the ability for someone to separate themselves from another that makes it feel okay to share bad advice with an annoyingly patronizing tone.
Your unsympathetic friend hasn't had that kind of experience, and for myself I know nothing about the geopolitical situation in say, Saint Lucia. But while we all know people who have all kinds of out loud opinions about stuff they know very little about, we also know people how are quiet about subjects they don't know about.
I'll provide a baby related counter-example.
When I was pregnant, lots of new parents on the forums or in real life have a mild anxiety about whether or not they will come to love the baby. New dad's are told don't worry if you don't fall in love the invisible bump right away, it'll kick in later at some point. New mom's on the other hand are told they'll fall head over heels when (1) the heart beat is confirmed, or (2) when they feel the flutter, or (3) when they feel the kick, or (4) when they hold baby for the first time.
These assurances are from some of the people who HAVE been there and who had at one point also felt the mild anxiety of "how come I am merely a responsible and loving parent, but not in love". So the experience is there, but the surest people who felt the sharp turn of emotions the most are also some of the people who are the most certain others will also experience the same sharp turn. Not all, obviously.
So perhaps....perhaps your friend might also offer bad advice on other subjects precisely because he'd also been there and chose a certain path.
Edit: the stereotype of the over bearing Aunty/mom/mother in law when it comes to bad baby advice stems precisely from trust in their own experience
I've lived with partners throughout my life. Some have been cool with kids on planes being kids. Others have not. I've never fully understood the need to externalize the complaints in the...
I've lived with partners throughout my life. Some have been cool with kids on planes being kids. Others have not. I've never fully understood the need to externalize the complaints in the slightest.
The crotch goblin is going to crotch goblin. I say it without trying to be rude. Sometimes.kkds are demons. Usually they're not. Being raged oneself is not going to improve the situation. I learned stoicism or thoughts-flow-in-thoughts-flow-out many years ago and it has helped immensely.
I'm not perfect and I absolutely find myself annoyed at times. After all, humans that are not in control of their emotions are unreasonable. I try to give license to the ones that can't vote, but you know, I'm within my rights to mentally say fuck you to humans that are shit in a given moment. I'm not within my rights to call them shit out loud.
But I try hard to not other parents. I hope parents don't other me in social circumstances when I happily share that I don't have kids.
We all can discern the difference between parents that are trying and those that are not.
I think the point of the article is, "hey, sometimes we are trying even when you think we aren't.' Fair enough.
My now-13 year old is still in this phase. She talks constantly and breathlessly from the moment I collect her from her co-parent until the moment I drop her off. I love her, but it's exhausting.
My now-13 year old is still in this phase. She talks constantly and breathlessly from the moment I collect her from her co-parent until the moment I drop her off. I love her, but it's exhausting.
I have some friends who often ask me to "Get in Discord!" Or "Why don't you ever get in Discord?" and it's primarily because I'm "talked at" out. All day, "Dad! Dad! In Minecraft...", "Dad, watch...
I have some friends who often ask me to "Get in Discord!" Or "Why don't you ever get in Discord?" and it's primarily because I'm "talked at" out.
All day, "Dad! Dad! In Minecraft...", "Dad, watch this.", "Dad, there's this thing in Minecraft...", "Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad."
I try to indulge them as much as I can and ask questions, as though I'm really interested in what they have to say, but at the end of the day, I'm done. I have no desire to listen to anyone, including my friends.
Magnificent. I love it. Reminds me of "Lois. Lois. Mom." from Family Guy. Also, I highly identity with Mom just wanting to lay down in the quiet and cool room for sure. I should really watch more...
Magnificent. I love it. Reminds me of "Lois. Lois. Mom." from Family Guy. Also, I highly identity with Mom just wanting to lay down in the quiet and cool room for sure.
I should really watch more Bluey but (1) I'm afraid of crying that frequently and (2) maybe not quite far away enough from second hand stress of parenting for it to be fully funny yet.
Oh I can relate as I have a very talky 7 year old with a tsunami of questions. It is impossible to always be the overbearing listening parent that can enthusiastically answer everything. When we...
Oh I can relate as I have a very talky 7 year old with a tsunami of questions. It is impossible to always be the overbearing listening parent that can enthusiastically answer everything. When we see kids and parents in public we are only seeing a tiny fraction of their day, and it is very easy to make a quick judgement based on 30 seconds of interaction. No one is a bad parent if they are not giving their kids 100% attention all the time.
(laughs internally) Do you......have experience with some of the children on the spectrum? The repetition is real. One time, I attended a good friend's family funeral, which was an all day event...
(laughs internally)
Do you......have experience with some of the children on the spectrum? The repetition is real.
One time, I attended a good friend's family funeral, which was an all day event with hours of prep before the service and hours afterwards for clean up. There was this one kid who was maybe....10? I'm not sure, at that point my own kid was only 7 and I'm terrible with other kids. Anyway this kid wanted to know what games I played and if I played Minecraft. Yes I play Minecraft. His eyes lit up and he talked AT me for a full 20 minutes or more until his mother found him, rushed over to apologize profusely and tried to lead him away. She explained that he's on the spectrum. I told her, oh no no no it's totally okay, we're chatting about Minecraft and it's fine, really. For the rest of the day that child would break away and actively try to come find me to talk at.
It wasn't until years later that my own kid was diagnosed as being on the spectrum. As did my partner. :D I fully thought people just talk AT people like that all day every day and it's perfectly normal. I'm not yet insane because I have the inattentive variety of ADHD, which means I basically drift off and nod and give plausible responses when asked if I'm actually listening.
My eldest child is not on the spectrum in any diagnosible way. They will still talk at you non-stop rather than there be any silence. Watched the Adam Sandler movie 'Leo', and it quite astutely...
My eldest child is not on the spectrum in any diagnosible way. They will still talk at you non-stop rather than there be any silence.
Watched the Adam Sandler movie 'Leo', and it quite astutely identified it as 'first child syndrome.'
My wife and I are both neurodivergent (she's autistic and I have ADHD) and one of our key ways of interacting is info-dumping about our interests at each other. It's a pretty good time! That said,...
My wife and I are both neurodivergent (she's autistic and I have ADHD) and one of our key ways of interacting is info-dumping about our interests at each other. It's a pretty good time!
That said, I find even kids who aren't on the spectrum get really excited when they have the opportunity to talk with an adult about their interests. So much of being a kid is having the stuff you like dismissed as not being important and being told you need to learn things, so being the knowledgeable one and having your interests taken seriously can be a big deal.
When my brother was about the same age he behaved similarly, to which my aunt quipped, "That child never has a private thought." But that was later proved untrue when she started preparing some...
When my brother was about the same age he behaved similarly, to which my aunt quipped, "That child never has a private thought." But that was later proved untrue when she started preparing some fish and my brother kept quiet while making this face 🤢 the whole time.
Interesting and relatable read. I do however think most of points applies to everyone and not specifically non-parents. It is very easy for many to have a great deal of fast opinions on other...
Interesting and relatable read. I do however think most of points applies to everyone and not specifically non-parents. It is very easy for many to have a great deal of fast opinions on other peoples children. In most cases, you gotta assume the parents knows their own child the best.
The thing about age has been a common point of potential conflict for me, also with my own parents who I felt was often making my kids older than they were. They have also forgotten the massive difference between a 3 year old and a 6 year old, so they could be saying stuff like "Oh but we did that with you" but I was way older. I am likely guilty of the same forgetfulness myself. As in the post, you can't generally remember much before the age 3 or even 5 or 6. So the stuff I remembered doing as a kid, most of those memories I would have been likely at least 6 or 7. Also kids are different, so just because one 4 year old could do such and such, doesn't mean there is anything wrong with one who can't. All parents will have to make their own experiences with their own kids, and various well meaning advice from other people is often anecdotal and barely useful.
As usual, social media is generally the worst for this. If there is a news post about kids doing something stupid, half the comments would be filled with screaming people blaming the parents for not raising their kids properly. Completely disregarding that kids aren't robots that can be fully remote controlled by their parents and likely forgetting we have all probably done dumb shit as kids that was the complete opposite of what our parents taught us.
100% agree, however I have one bit where my experience has run counter: I find that more often than not, kids respond well to being talked to as an equal and then dialing it back at a reasonable...
100% agree, however I have one bit where my experience has run counter: I find that more often than not, kids respond well to being talked to as an equal and then dialing it back at a reasonable pace when it's apparent they're not. Kids are often smarter than people give them credit for...they just have no fear of death and perceive time differently.
Doesn't mean you hand the 3 year old a pack of matches.
Oh yes, sometimes you get pleasantly surprised of how quickly they mature and can do stuff. In my case, it was more about having the right expectations of their limitations. My mother wanted to...
Oh yes, sometimes you get pleasantly surprised of how quickly they mature and can do stuff. In my case, it was more about having the right expectations of their limitations. My mother wanted to take my daughter to a live theater show at the age of 3. Which is great, but it was a show that was at least 1 hour and kids that age can usually only last about 20 minutes before they get restless. Which is exactly what happened. No harm done whatsoever, but it has been a common little strife between me and my mother with her ambitions sometimes going a bit higher than the kids can handle :)
I'm due to become a parent in November, it's daunting but I haven't yet been offered any unsolicited parenting advice or seen any online. The impression I get from observation is that parenting...
I'm due to become a parent in November, it's daunting but I haven't yet been offered any unsolicited parenting advice or seen any online. The impression I get from observation is that parenting style is far less intentional than people let on. It seems like parental life is so chaotic and tiring that your decisions in the moment are defined more by your temperament than by any coherent plan or philosophy you might hold, and people then work backward to rationalise their actions after the fact. If this is even partially correct, any parenting advice, from parents or non-parents, is likely to sound unhelpful or nonsensical.
You've got that right. All the best laid plans about parenting theory go to hell in a handbasket when faced with needing to make snap decisions. Nothing falls me back on to 'what I was raised...
You've got that right. All the best laid plans about parenting theory go to hell in a handbasket when faced with needing to make snap decisions.
Nothing falls me back on to 'what I was raised with' faster than being ignored 10x when telling the kids to stop jumping on my bed screaming on the top of their lungs, regardless of my interventions. Thats when I end up screaming at the top of my lungs and then later having the "If you listened when I asked kindly, I wouldn't have shouted" talk.
I'll give 1 bit of unsolicited advice: Precious Little Sleep is, based on 6/6 ancedata (2 of mine plus 4 friends), a perfect manual for sleep. Highly recommend reading it before the perpetual sleep deprivation kicks in.
Unsolicited Advice Incoming! It depends on the person. It always depends. If you are stressed, then don't worry, you will be fine, you are descended from a long lineage of successful parents. If...
Unsolicited Advice Incoming!
It depends on the person. It always depends.
If you are stressed, then don't worry, you will be fine, you are descended from a long lineage of successful parents.
If you aren't stressed, then what the hell man, don't you realize the shit show it's about to be, oh my god you have no idea???
But... there are some useful things to know.
Stay Calm
See point one.
First year: Talk to them. Shushing and rocking to sleep. A tight swaddle.A tight diaper. A backup diaper. More backup diapers and wipes. Why the fuck wont they stop screaming on this flight and go the fuck to sleep! ARGHHHHHH!
Years 1-5: Read to them. Stay calm and give consequences e.g. "We dont [hit people/ scratch our butts in public/ jam little things up our left nostril/ put that disgusting thing in our mouth], if you do that again you get a time out." Did I mention stay calm and give consequences when they do that thing you told them specifically not to do JUST FIVE SECONDS AGO????? ARGHHHHHHHHHH!
Years 6-12: No. You can't have an iPhone. No. You can't play that game that everyone else is playing. No, you can't watch Squid Games that everyone else is watching. No, I already told you why not, if you keep pestering there will be consequences. No, I am not telling you what the consequences will be so that you can decide if the consequences are worth it, I decide the consequences later. Why? Because that is the way it works in real life that is why. Why? Because it's my job to teach you about consequences now when they are lesser, instead of later in life when you suffer the consequences and they involve jail. Why? Because kids brains aren't ready yet to understand consequences? Why? ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Years 13-24: Hello? Hello? HELLO? Look. Can you just put down that phone when I talk to you? What do I have to do to get your attention? Text you? Fine, I will drop you around the corner of the school so you don't have to be seen with me. Can you please acknowledge what I just said? Wait, you want how much money????? ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!-> this is mostly a guess based on what other parents have said I am in store for.
Years 25+: Getting married, buying a house, and raising a kid is hard? Sheesh. I never would have guessed. Yeah, I can help. Be right over. -> I am guessing this based on what I did to my parents.
I'm the same. I did two things differently than you. On the long walks, if my kid looked at a tree, I would repeat the word "Tree! Tree! Tree! Tree!" a few times. Mostly it was just the kid making...
I'm the same.
I did two things differently than you.
On the long walks, if my kid looked at a tree, I would repeat the word "Tree! Tree! Tree! Tree!" a few times. Mostly it was just the kid making weird noises and me trying to adjust him so he didn't kick me in the nads. Hard to be zen when the kid nails a heel right into the old family jewels.
At night, my wife made me read to my kid before bed. Before the kid could even see straight, sit up right, or talk. There is something zen about having a warm bundle on your lap as you read whatever you want to out loud.
And nobody says it must be baby books either. At some point they start actually understanding the stories, and you both might enjoy childrens' stories where the kid can follow along with the plot....
And nobody says it must be baby books either.
At some point they start actually understanding the stories, and you both might enjoy childrens' stories where the kid can follow along with the plot.
As for what that individual child can and will follow along with or enjoy, well that is partially up to you to help decide, partially up to whatever kind of kid you happen to have on your lap.
I've read stupid-making simple babybooks with kid that made up an entire story out of the pictures on the pages, or sometimes didn't. I've read the history of mankind with a kid that didn't care about the story, just about my voice and presence.
Every kid fell asleep at some point. Either then, or at least at some point.... Finally...
Developmental leaps tend to make sleeping difficult, and babies have them every few weeks. Then it starts becoming every month, two months, six months... Puberty is the last big one, and we see a huge change in sleeping patterns then too. If they haven't slept by then, seek help :p
The best advice is from professional Nannies or people with five kids. They always avoid giving advice, say "it depends, all kids are different," then when pushed give absolute killer advice.
The best advice is from professional Nannies or people with five kids.
They always avoid giving advice, say "it depends, all kids are different," then when pushed give absolute killer advice.
It turns out the best advice is pretty much "pay attention to your kid and how they respond to things, and keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn't work" but a lot of parents zone out at...
It turns out the best advice is pretty much "pay attention to your kid and how they respond to things, and keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn't work" but a lot of parents zone out at "pay attention to your kid"
I'm not a parent, never wanted to be, not terribly interested in the messy details (though kids can be fascinating to observe - they're astonishing learning machines). But I have no hesitation in...
I'm not a parent, never wanted to be, not terribly interested in the messy details (though kids can be fascinating to observe - they're astonishing learning machines). But I have no hesitation in judging parents who say belittling or demeaning things to their children, and even fewer qualms about intervening when someone physically harms a child.
I had a guy who worked for me brag about hitting his wife and pre-teen daughter with his belt, and knew, right that moment, that I would end up getting him fired. Sure enough, it was the most obvious sign of a mountain of personality problems, misbehaviors, and incompetencies that justified ousting him. Was he beaten as a child, and just reproducing the things that turned him into a terrible person? Probably, but that doesn't mean his behavior towards his family in the present is tolerable.
I don't think there's such a thing as intrinsic parenting skill. As others have said, the parents of my acquaintance are following the patterns they know and making it up as they go along. Some parents are better at observing and empathizing, some are calmer and more tolerant. Some lean into authoritarian discipline, some manage their children more loosely. Generally, the kids turn out all right, except for the ones who've been demeaned, neglected, threatened physically, or otherwise twisted by forced too-early caregiving for their parents' inadequately treated mental illnesses. At best, children have an adult other than their parents to turn to so they have a sense of what's normal and what's just strange about their particular family hothouse.
And yes, as most of us have, I've been irritated or annoyed almost beyond bearing by the relatively harmless things parents allow their kids to do, like letting their boy kick my airplane seat for an entire 5-hour flight. And I've said not a word.
I babysat a fair amount through my teenage years, and have quite a bit of contact with families going through the worst times of their lives with pediatric cancer care. Parenthood is beyond...
I babysat a fair amount through my teenage years, and have quite a bit of contact with families going through the worst times of their lives with pediatric cancer care. Parenthood is beyond exhausting, the hardest work there is, and it would be great if the U.S. offered more social burden-sharing. [It still astonishes me that hospitals don't offer on-site daycare centers for the families of patients.]
Over the years, I've worked with a lot of men and women who are suffering from New Baby Syndrome. Their hollow-eyed, zombie non-presence from weeks and months of almost no sleep is one of the scariest things I've ever encountered - it just never stops for a couple of years. And they do it again!
On a related note, I often struggle with parents from older generations who say things like, "When you were a little kid, I would have never let you get away with that" (from my mother) or "I'm...
On a related note, I often struggle with parents from older generations who say things like, "When you were a little kid, I would have never let you get away with that" (from my mother) or "I'm not teaching you how to be a parent and you're doing a good job, but back in my day [TM], I would've received a whoopin' for that." (from an older colleague).
It's a similar sort of "parenting from afar" to what this article talks about because I can guaran-damn-tee that my mother would, in fact, let me get away with a lot of things. It's very easy to preach to someone in the form of your ideal self instead of your actual self. And our memories are not that great, unfortunately.
The problem is that, even if you consciously try to ignore or rationalize these types of remarks, they still have some sort of subtle effect that is probably adjacent to peer pressure.
Parenting is incredibly challenging and there is no singular way to do it correctly.
In a general sense, this sounds like the Curse of Knowledge. Experts often forget what it's like to be a beginner, so they give bad advice. Also they are really knowledgeable about one person...
In a general sense, this sounds like the Curse of Knowledge. Experts often forget what it's like to be a beginner, so they give bad advice. Also they are really knowledgeable about one person (themselves), but unless they have experience with raising a variety of people, it's just one data point.
One example I see all the time is that really good guitarists often say that if they started over again, they would have played more scales to start. The problem is that they would probably have quit from boredom if they'd actually done that. If we're looking at an all-time great in some field, they're going to want to talk about what worked well for them and what they think they could have done better, but given the results, maybe their path was largely the correct one... for them.
The other part is trying to generalize your experience. A long time ago, I tried to coach my girlfriend on weight lifting movements, and it did not go well. I realized that the cues that worked for me did not work at all for her, and that even if I think I'm pretty good at something, teaching yourself doesn't really prepare you for teaching someone else.
So this basically ends up being the core of the article. We are expert humans and don't remember what it's like to be a beginner human, and we think our experience is more generalizable than it is. I wonder if there's something innate about wanting to give parenting advice though. I don't have kids, but when I hang out with my sister and her sons, I have to try really hard to keep my mouth shut about what things I would do differently with them. Maybe it's just that growing up is hard, and while we all wish it could be easier, that's probably just the way things are.
I'm almost the same age, and my mom often tells me, "It's amazing the resources you have at your disposal as parents. We had Dr. Spock and that was it. But you have social media and all the online stuff to deal with in parenting, so I think you have it harder."
It really does feel like that sometimes. When my wife was pregnant with our twins I turned to support communities for parenting multiples to prepare myself (which is hilarious, because there is literally no preparing one's self for a baby, let alone multiple). There was so much "fear-mongering". Not deliberately, of course, but just by the nature of being a support community you'd see a lot more horror stories and overwhelmed parents at the wit's end because content or thriving parents don't need as much support. Not to mention that "little Jimmy just crapped up his entire back" is a more interesting story than what happened 15 minutes later when little Jimmy did something vaguely cute and somehow that totally outweighed the frustrating clean up. So you end up seeing a lot more negatives than positives.
Not to mention that there is so much conflicting information. Sleep training, for example, you've got people who sing praises of the "cry it out" method and then you've got people equally as passionate about how that's borderline child abuse. And everyone's got studies lying around to back up their claims, but what parent has the time to dive into the dry read of a scientific study to make their parenting decisions?
I've learned over the years to basically follow this flow for parenting stuff, because there's just way too many opinions out there that I don't trust or value:
FWIW, I was a fan of Your Parenting Mojo back in the day. Podcasts are a pretty accessible format for new parents, and it was all research-based stuff.
I can't remember which specific episode I listened to a while back, but I was struggling with something and after some googling came across an episode they did on the exact topic and I found it incredibly helpful. It's been on my subscribed list ever since, though I haven't listened to it much. I've been meaning to change that though!
My youngest is three years old right now and I can tell you that I have absolutely no recollection of what it was like to parent an 11 month old.
I have friends with kids younger than mine and I regularly get questions like "What were yours doing at 16 months?" to which I can do nothing but shrug. I don't mean that I am absent or not paying attention. In fact, I spend every possible minute playing and reading to and teaching them. I just don't have a running log of when they started doing a list of behaviors, and there is no remaining mental capacity to try to remember it all.
I cannot imagine trying to give advice to my friends about their kids because I can't remember what I did a matter of months ago. I really can't imagine trying to give advice if I had never done it or it had been years.
Yea, it all sort of blurs together....also have a 3 year old. I remember the broad strokes from Dad's perspective:
0->6 months: Sleepy lump which likes sleeping, baths, and boob sucking; hates diaper changes, people who are not mom and dad, and tummy time.
6->18 months: Likes interacting with the world, but playtime is easy. There's a giant void of details because this is when sleep was the worst.
18 months -> 3.5 year: A hellscape of fostering independence but a lack of language and temperament skills to express that desire resulting in many, many, many tantrums. Playtime is frustrating because they crave more complex play but again, lack the language skills to execute.
Everything after 3.5 years has been a cakewalk by comparison.
Would heartily recommend sign language. Super cut down on the frustration tantrums.
I mean, even on the most skeptical level, if you give a baby the ability to essentially pull a lever for "milk" and the universe responds, even if that's not what they want at that particular moment, to be held, coo'd too, provide something to suckle, and have something delicious be in one's mouth.....all kinds of physiological happy things fire in their brains. Emotionally, It's a powerful feeling for any human being: I have a demand of the universe, and that demand is instantly met with love and warmth.
And it'll cut down on hangry business. And make washroom alerts more obvious.
Their sign vocab will also expand far sooner than their verbal, and a huge variety of toys and wants are now suddenly within their reach.
At least for us it worked :p we never experienced terrible twos or threenage thrashes. It was a great time transitioning from simple one word signs to single syllables to words to sentences.
My first was very agreeable like you describe. The second no so much. My children are obsessed with fairness. What is fair for a > 5 is not the same as what is fair for a 2...however the 2 year old does not see it that way.
Especially when the universe needed to say "no more milk, it doesn't provide the nutrients your body needs anymore" (not in those words obviously).
Oof, yeah, my apologies, demonstrating exactly what this article's discussion brought up: survivorship bias can be every bit as terrible as inexperience.
Yeah we won the lottery on our One and Done, and felt sure that rolling our entire fortunes back into lotto tickets for a second didn't seem prudent for our family.
I have zero ideas on how to properly parent a younger (not less worthy but certainly less capable) child. I'm still nursing the scars from my own childhood as a younger sibling, who seemed to be at once more ignored AND more harshly judged as not yet capable. That and the haunting scream/cry of friends' kids wishing they were still an only child. Brrrr.
Oh yea, I can definitely see that trauma building. If its any consolation, part of it is just literally not having the time. Your attention is now, at a minimum, split in half from what it was before. It's the greatest privilege the oldest child gets that they usually completely forget about.
At least with my younger, they're being held to the same standards, its just that the temptations are much higher. Elder child didn't have all their sibling's stuff to take and break. Every day feels like having to navigate a geopolitical nightmare of fairness to both.
Add in older child feeling like they're always getting unfairly treated because they only remember the injustices and it's enough to drive you mad. Yes, I'm sorry we can't play your elaborate game right now for 4 hours, we need to play something your little sibling can play too. Also, sometimes you just need to let the Wookie win.
As parents, my spouse and I have accepted that we're going to be blamed for many of the unhappiness of our child's childhood. And they wouldn't be wrong. The kid will of course talk about our failings to their mental health providers and their future partners. For things we have done, and for things we neglected to do; for things we said we wouldn't do that we did, and for things we said we would do that we didnt; for opportunities we denied them, and for situations we pushed them into. "To err is human": to parent is to err, generationally.
As an adult now, and especially when one parent is in heaven while the other one is on his way, I think I can better understand that they really were just trying their best. Of course their attention was sorely divided, and of course they made some bad calls amidst, to be fair, many right calls. I'm still not sure I am over the more philosophical hurdle of "given that you were adults who by then already knew of your own finite reality, and was already exhausted by one, how was it fair to bring a second child into your life, fully knowing that you'd become even shittier parents to not one but to both children?" I asked my parents a variety of these kinds of ungrateful questions over the years, and I think the various answers basically distill into "because human beings need to make non-optimal choices, daily, and we chose to hope".
I'm 38, and I'm just now getting some of my mental stuff straight after a few years of being with my partner that had an extremely rough and abusive childhood like me.
Seeing her go to therapy, along me being there for her to talk with when therapy wasn't enough really put a lot of my own traumas into perspective and helped me a lot to work through some of my own problems in more productive ways than self medicating and ignoring it.
As long as you aren't outright abusing your children, I'm gonna wager they'll be just fine later in life.
I see a lot of parent threads that talk here and there about this sort of thing.
Not being a parent myself, I don't know what to really say other than I bet you're doing a freaking awesome job compared to some people's parents, trust me.
This is a key thing to remember with all, usually well meaning and researched, parenting advice that exists today. In the grand scheme of things, most people of all ages are generally not bad people. On paper with what the current advice for good parenting is today my own parents probably did tons of things wrong, but I don't really have anything bad to say about my own upbringing. Of course each generation can and should improve, but I feel like the current massive amount of parenting advice is creating general anxiety about our own capabilities for the current generation of parents - myself included. It is impossible to live up to ideals all the time, but the reality is we likely don't do permanent damage to our kids for every minor mishap.
Thank you, that's so kind of you to say. I try to reserve judgement for others, and I try not to go overboard on myself either :)
I'm just so glad some of the people from our generation get to access mental health providers now. There's good reasons for hope in the future generations
I'm glad there's people out there our age having kids and enjoying that experience. Or at least trying to do a great job at it, cause I think..maybe that's all you can do, sometimes. Try your best and make the best decisions you can.
My parents at least tried their best, my mom especially. My dad, well...he did what he could, given his own issues and trauma and addictions at the time.
I never felt "ready" for kids, I never thought about having kids as something I wanted to do. I always thought the burden of raising a child into a human would be a monumental task that maybe I'd never be ready for mentally or psychologically.
Frankly, it scared me because I didn't want to be the kind of father my father was to me. I'd rather not have kids than ever put my kids through anything close to what I went through.
So, a few years ago I got a vasectomy. I think I'd do it again, looking back on it.
I read this and laughed out loud. I want to go back and give 18mo-3.5 year you a hug. Sometimes it's so hard. But you did it anyway, and that's what counts.
Yeah. I think the better summary is most people give bad advice for one reason or another. Either experiential bias, forgetfulness, etc.
About the only universal advice is to keep trying different things until you find what works, and be prepared for that to stop working eventually.
As a parent of an 8 month old, I can tell you it seems like a lot of parents give advice in a way that seems like they are justifying the way they chose to parent. I try to only give advice in terms of "we struggled with this, here is what worked for us."
You can see it in all forms of legitimate advice online too - some babies respond well to this, some don't. There's no magic bullet in parenting and a lot of people don't like that at all, because it's more important for them to feel "right".
Coincidentally, is it actually bad to give whisky to young children to help them sleep? Does it have worse effects on younger children? Sure it’s a lot more powerful because they are tiny, but is it really worse than other drugs?
Of course, I get the “you sleep now” mentality is problematic, and it could easily cause issues if it’s a regular occurrence. But as a once in a while thing, done responsibly, is it really that bad?
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor.
Children have lower blood sugar than adults, so alcohol can effect them much more at lower doses. There is no amount of alcohol that is considered a safe dose, as opposed to many other drugs which do have safe dosage amounts. For example, there are safe dosage tables for things like acetominophen and ibuprofen and you'll note that you can give the first to very young children, but not the second in any amount. Alcohol similarly has no safe dosage.
Also children are prone to alcohol poisoning according to several articles I saw (this was the most notable one IMO).
I think one could take into consideration that politically nobody is going to actually study "is it okay to give kids alcohol really" because of ethics reasons, and that there is likely some kind of non-scientific guiding of things that would prevent anyone from finding that it's okay to give kids alcohol. But I think there's also enough evidence to say that it's generally just not good.
Yeah probably. For one, I don't think alcohol is very good for your sleep... something which most adults can attest to lol. Secondly, alcohol is explicitly toxic and needs to be filtered out by your kidneys, as opposed to something like melatonin which is not.
Just because alcohol and melatonin are both drugs (although if you want to be pedantic it's not considered a drug in the US), just doesn't they're both inherently bad for you (alcohol is, though).
All drugs have negative side effects. Children's Tylenol also can damage the liver. It just seems like a weird double standard that we take this particular stance for alcohol. Though to be fair, that is par for the course when it comes to this particular drug.
In any case I'm fairly convinced now. There's just too many negative effects.
All drugs have side effects, but they're not all toxic, or necessarily negative. At least according to the CDC there is no such thing as a safe dose for alcohol, whereas there is for things like tylenol.
I really wouldn't count it as a double standard. For one, alcohol, in addition to having a lot of negative effects, doesn't really have a positive effect either?
It's a recreational drug. I personally enjoy social drinking, but that's not exactly beneficial in any way for your health, despite what the upteempth loosely correlative red wine study says. Tylenol does something for their general health. Melatonin does something for their general health.
I don't think drugging a healthy child to put them to sleep is ever something that can be done responsibly. I'd report a parent for doing the same thing with any other drug.
But also, sleep while drunk is worse for you (I don't remember the specifics but there is good research out there on this), and children need sleep a LOT more than we adults do.
I am child free by choice and have many friends who are currently making their families or in various stages of raising them. Since my wife and I have no kids, we have plenty of spare time, so we go to them. We are around lots of parents...parenting. We are also both very curious people, so the strongest tool of our conversational tool belt is questions. Lots of questions, we are very curious about the inner world of anyone we're chatting with. I don't care if you're a stranger I'm in line with, if we're talking, I'm asking you questions.
The other thing about how we live our child free lives is a curiosity about how all the parents are parenting. What methods are they using and how did they come by them? What works, what fails, and how are you making that decision? What internal skills are you trying to develop in your child? What traits do you think your child develops on their own? etc...
No one has answers, parents can barely articulate what intentional decisions they are making, let alone the thought process behind them. 8/10 parents we speak to, including my wife who is a mental health professional, make their parenting decisions based on one thing and it's ironic as hell. "That's how I was raised." Sure there are little variations, hell there are even people who outright say "I am going to raise my kids differently." But even they in, the vast majority of post child rearing hang breakdowns, say they did what was done to them.
One of the most recent fathers I spoke with is diving straight into the deep end, he's married to a woman who has a child. He's tackling some behavior "Issues" that he believes are intentional choices his daughter is making. Most recently, they felt she was in crisis and scheduled her an emergency session with her therapist and the daughter didn't talk during the session. So, when they got home, she was grounded for 3 weeks, she got her gymnastics taken away, and they had a long serious discussion about her addressing some relationship issues between her and her bio-dad. This child is 7 - S E V E N - and they attaching adult logic to her actions, as well as coached her to approach her father for a serious 1 on 1 about the state of their relationship and interactions.
Parents around us are constantly triggers by their kids, attributing intent where none exists, leading their kids through life as blindly as we all are. Parents don't have some secret sauce that puts their advice above non-parents. They have their strengths and weaknesses like anyone and shocker, their strengths don't tend to be in personal investment or introspection, they're too busy for it with their kids. So they just make decisions based on the old code that got written in their heads when they were kids and will occasionally deviate.
All of this is anecdotal, obviously, so maybe your experience is different than mine. But I think it's fair to say my point stands that parents aren't any better equipped to decide how to parent their kids, except where interpersonal meets style.
The main thing I've learned from my parenting experience is that parenting is hard because it is a marathon, not a chess match.
I went into it terrified because humans are so complicated and I thought I would have to be making all these intense moral calculations. I wasn't sure if I understood human nature well enough to make the right calls.
It's true, parents do have to make those decisions. But I've found that I do much more damage to my kids not when I make the wrong decision, but when I am too tired or emotionally unregulated to act in the way that I know I should. I think most people can be smart enough and make decent decisions about parenting when they are in the right mindset.
The reason we are such bad parents is because we have to be patient and playful while having no sleep. We have to be kind and loving while our children are being assholes, regularly physically and emotionally attacking us, everyday. Having the same argument, over the same ridiculous demands over and over again: "I don't want dinner, I want candy". it's cute the first 10-20 times and an opportunity to explain nutrition, health, etc. But when you have to have that conversation every night, with the same person screaming at you, for years, It gets old and you slip up and get mad, which makes the situation worse.
I know it's not their fault. I know that the only way to resolve a meltdown is to be calm and patient and help them regulate their emotions. But sometimes I just can't. How do you force yourself to be calm? Even if I pretend to be calm, and speak slowly and say the right things, my kids know when I am upset and it makes them freak out.
For me, I feel like I know how to be a good parent, the same way I know how to win a marathon, just keep running as fast as you can. It's actually making myself do it that is the challenge.
Its a hard slog. My best strategies are honesty and communication. I'm lucky enough to have a partner, so we tag out whenever one of us is just done.
Chilling. That poor child.
At least I can cheerfully report that some of the ways I parent are radically different than my own parents. And I can see my sister is doing a much improved version as well. My brother in law takes the medal for not turning out like his parents. And I could also go on for some of my other childhood friends. Not all, but I would say from my slice of samples, more than half.
Yea it doesn’t match my experiences either.
One of the most common grievances among parents I know are grandparents using some sort of variation “well when we did it we just did X, can’t you just do X”.
In fact it’s so common that there are entirely TikTok/Instagram people whose entire schtick is based on making light of that.
I think its a tragically beautiful reality of human existance, that we both benefit from and can be harmed by the continuation of traditions, and likewise can both benefit from and be harmed by new trends..... Call it evolution, even, but if all of us always abandoned tradition, my friends from warm, supportive and loving homes wouldn't be able to pass on such wonderful things to their kids. And likewise, if we always kept to the old ways, those of us from more different families of origins wouldn't be able to achive escape velocity to do something better for our kids.
So, I have definitely seen some of what @BusAlderaan has observed as well: young parents who always speak in that particular exasperated tone, that level of heightened stress and the volume of their voice over very trivial obvious kid things....Attributing insubordination and malice to childhood fears and run of the mill immaturity.....the hitting or threat of hitting or "just" harsh words...... the threats to remove love or safety or comfort.....the emotional instability..... Some of it indeed gets passed on even if the parents vowed not to do so, out of fatigue or reflex or just not knowing how to do anything different.
But. I'm glad you're also chiming in with the opposite experience, of people smiling and sharing the thankfully common experience of being able to provide better than our roots have provided.
I find this experience pretty rare nowadays. All the parents I know (including my self) are pretty well researched and had good perspectives on the aspects of our childhood that was successful parenting or not, I'd say the average kid is getting a safer, more enriching infancy since people are having fewer kids, later, with more money and time for them (typically, amongst my peers). Not that I have many childless friends offering me advice or asking me questions, but I always answer and have solid logic/rationale. It was already crazy to some of my older family to not use a pacifier, and to my MIL that the baby isn't cold in her crib without blankets, or not grasping how much agency and intelligence she has even as a 4,6,10 mo old.
The one thing I think is hard to grasp is that as parents you start to understand your child's temperament, it's usually like your own to some degree for obvious reasons, so of the slew of advice the best options are the ones you Intuit work for their personality and that's going to be wildly different baby to baby. The real kicker is just you cannot explain to people the parental instincts and hormonal changes of having a child, and I'm speaking of that as a father, when she was born and first cried it was like getting straight up liver punched (in a good way) and I can see eyes of recognition only in other parents I talk to.
Like I said, it's anecdotal. To expand, though, I was talking about parents outside my inner circle. I am also surrounded by parents who are making leaps and bounds in the methods and quality of parenting, like you describe. But I'm aware that I live in a bubble I have created, that the people outside that curated bubble go about their parenting with half the intentionality. But I would also say that's them at their best, managing all the rigors of parenting and adult life, they are putting all their available efforts into parenting and most of the time, at best, they're making tiny improvements.
It's interesting that you describe it that way, that interconnected nature of it being your child and seeing parts of yourself in them. But from the outside, it has the distinct tinge of parenting yourself, which is definitely something I know is common amongst millennials. Since they're a bit of you and you see those bits the most clearly sometimes, it's easy to parent them the way you wish you were parented. But talking to Gen A kids hitting their teens, they have just as much dislike for their parents style as I did as a child, because their parents aren't parenting the child in front of them, they're parenting themselves. As many of the features a child may hold from their parent, they're still a different person and in my opinion parents have trouble disconnecting from that. An example of it is my niece who is growing up in a house of two parents who lacked all structure or security growing up, so they reinforce those two things constantly. Well, my niece doesn't feel those fears, so instead she has two parents honing in on a need that has already been instilled in her and she's looking around going "What about my other needs, the one inherent to me and my life?"
Personally, I think it's hard to grasp how well parents know their babies, they develop an extra sense in some ways. But at a certain point I don't think parents know their kids any better than I know my wife. In fact many of them know their kids less and less after 10, since their kids are now developing a rich inner world that they intrinsically protect. You can raise a kid to communicate openly and well, but that doesn't mean you know who is developing inside by proximity. Intentional and frequent connection is the key and that's true of every able minded relationship, not just parent/child. I actually think that's beautiful, that at some point as a parent you don't know your child the same anymore and the rest of your life is getting to know this new person who is redeveloping themselves in real time from the person their parents raised to the person they choose to be.
I grew up in a home with open and healthy communication, as well as bountiful love, and my mom stayed home with us for much of our childhood. She still says that the greatest part of parenting has been getting to know who we chose to become after she didn't have to care for us full time. I'm sometimes sad I wont get to experience that, but I'm happy for others who will, I hope you have a long and happy relationship with your kids for the rest of your life.
Fascinating. That's a good parallel example which suggests to me a different angle of interpretation: perhaps it isn't merely inexperience which lead to to bad advice, but the ability for someone to separate themselves from another that makes it feel okay to share bad advice with an annoyingly patronizing tone.
Your unsympathetic friend hasn't had that kind of experience, and for myself I know nothing about the geopolitical situation in say, Saint Lucia. But while we all know people who have all kinds of out loud opinions about stuff they know very little about, we also know people how are quiet about subjects they don't know about.
I'll provide a baby related counter-example.
When I was pregnant, lots of new parents on the forums or in real life have a mild anxiety about whether or not they will come to love the baby. New dad's are told don't worry if you don't fall in love the invisible bump right away, it'll kick in later at some point. New mom's on the other hand are told they'll fall head over heels when (1) the heart beat is confirmed, or (2) when they feel the flutter, or (3) when they feel the kick, or (4) when they hold baby for the first time.
These assurances are from some of the people who HAVE been there and who had at one point also felt the mild anxiety of "how come I am merely a responsible and loving parent, but not in love". So the experience is there, but the surest people who felt the sharp turn of emotions the most are also some of the people who are the most certain others will also experience the same sharp turn. Not all, obviously.
So perhaps....perhaps your friend might also offer bad advice on other subjects precisely because he'd also been there and chose a certain path.
Edit: the stereotype of the over bearing Aunty/mom/mother in law when it comes to bad baby advice stems precisely from trust in their own experience
I've lived with partners throughout my life. Some have been cool with kids on planes being kids. Others have not. I've never fully understood the need to externalize the complaints in the slightest.
The crotch goblin is going to crotch goblin. I say it without trying to be rude. Sometimes.kkds are demons. Usually they're not. Being raged oneself is not going to improve the situation. I learned stoicism or thoughts-flow-in-thoughts-flow-out many years ago and it has helped immensely.
I'm not perfect and I absolutely find myself annoyed at times. After all, humans that are not in control of their emotions are unreasonable. I try to give license to the ones that can't vote, but you know, I'm within my rights to mentally say fuck you to humans that are shit in a given moment. I'm not within my rights to call them shit out loud.
But I try hard to not other parents. I hope parents don't other me in social circumstances when I happily share that I don't have kids.
We all can discern the difference between parents that are trying and those that are not.
I think the point of the article is, "hey, sometimes we are trying even when you think we aren't.' Fair enough.
My now-13 year old is still in this phase. She talks constantly and breathlessly from the moment I collect her from her co-parent until the moment I drop her off. I love her, but it's exhausting.
I have some friends who often ask me to "Get in Discord!" Or "Why don't you ever get in Discord?" and it's primarily because I'm "talked at" out.
All day, "Dad! Dad! In Minecraft...", "Dad, watch this.", "Dad, there's this thing in Minecraft...", "Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad."
I try to indulge them as much as I can and ask questions, as though I'm really interested in what they have to say, but at the end of the day, I'm done. I have no desire to listen to anyone, including my friends.
Bluey, Season 1, Episode 22: The Pool. Specifically this moment
Magnificent. I love it. Reminds me of "Lois. Lois. Mom." from Family Guy. Also, I highly identity with Mom just wanting to lay down in the quiet and cool room for sure.
I should really watch more Bluey but (1) I'm afraid of crying that frequently and (2) maybe not quite far away enough from second hand stress of parenting for it to be fully funny yet.
Oh I can relate as I have a very talky 7 year old with a tsunami of questions. It is impossible to always be the overbearing listening parent that can enthusiastically answer everything. When we see kids and parents in public we are only seeing a tiny fraction of their day, and it is very easy to make a quick judgement based on 30 seconds of interaction. No one is a bad parent if they are not giving their kids 100% attention all the time.
(laughs internally)
Do you......have experience with some of the children on the spectrum? The repetition is real.
One time, I attended a good friend's family funeral, which was an all day event with hours of prep before the service and hours afterwards for clean up. There was this one kid who was maybe....10? I'm not sure, at that point my own kid was only 7 and I'm terrible with other kids. Anyway this kid wanted to know what games I played and if I played Minecraft. Yes I play Minecraft. His eyes lit up and he talked AT me for a full 20 minutes or more until his mother found him, rushed over to apologize profusely and tried to lead him away. She explained that he's on the spectrum. I told her, oh no no no it's totally okay, we're chatting about Minecraft and it's fine, really. For the rest of the day that child would break away and actively try to come find me to talk at.
It wasn't until years later that my own kid was diagnosed as being on the spectrum. As did my partner. :D I fully thought people just talk AT people like that all day every day and it's perfectly normal. I'm not yet insane because I have the inattentive variety of ADHD, which means I basically drift off and nod and give plausible responses when asked if I'm actually listening.
My eldest child is not on the spectrum in any diagnosible way. They will still talk at you non-stop rather than there be any silence.
Watched the Adam Sandler movie 'Leo', and it quite astutely identified it as 'first child syndrome.'
My wife and I are both neurodivergent (she's autistic and I have ADHD) and one of our key ways of interacting is info-dumping about our interests at each other. It's a pretty good time!
That said, I find even kids who aren't on the spectrum get really excited when they have the opportunity to talk with an adult about their interests. So much of being a kid is having the stuff you like dismissed as not being important and being told you need to learn things, so being the knowledgeable one and having your interests taken seriously can be a big deal.
When my brother was about the same age he behaved similarly, to which my aunt quipped, "That child never has a private thought." But that was later proved untrue when she started preparing some fish and my brother kept quiet while making this face 🤢 the whole time.
Interesting and relatable read. I do however think most of points applies to everyone and not specifically non-parents. It is very easy for many to have a great deal of fast opinions on other peoples children. In most cases, you gotta assume the parents knows their own child the best.
The thing about age has been a common point of potential conflict for me, also with my own parents who I felt was often making my kids older than they were. They have also forgotten the massive difference between a 3 year old and a 6 year old, so they could be saying stuff like "Oh but we did that with you" but I was way older. I am likely guilty of the same forgetfulness myself. As in the post, you can't generally remember much before the age 3 or even 5 or 6. So the stuff I remembered doing as a kid, most of those memories I would have been likely at least 6 or 7. Also kids are different, so just because one 4 year old could do such and such, doesn't mean there is anything wrong with one who can't. All parents will have to make their own experiences with their own kids, and various well meaning advice from other people is often anecdotal and barely useful.
As usual, social media is generally the worst for this. If there is a news post about kids doing something stupid, half the comments would be filled with screaming people blaming the parents for not raising their kids properly. Completely disregarding that kids aren't robots that can be fully remote controlled by their parents and likely forgetting we have all probably done dumb shit as kids that was the complete opposite of what our parents taught us.
100% agree, however I have one bit where my experience has run counter: I find that more often than not, kids respond well to being talked to as an equal and then dialing it back at a reasonable pace when it's apparent they're not. Kids are often smarter than people give them credit for...they just have no fear of death and perceive time differently.
Doesn't mean you hand the 3 year old a pack of matches.
Oh yes, sometimes you get pleasantly surprised of how quickly they mature and can do stuff. In my case, it was more about having the right expectations of their limitations. My mother wanted to take my daughter to a live theater show at the age of 3. Which is great, but it was a show that was at least 1 hour and kids that age can usually only last about 20 minutes before they get restless. Which is exactly what happened. No harm done whatsoever, but it has been a common little strife between me and my mother with her ambitions sometimes going a bit higher than the kids can handle :)
I'm due to become a parent in November, it's daunting but I haven't yet been offered any unsolicited parenting advice or seen any online. The impression I get from observation is that parenting style is far less intentional than people let on. It seems like parental life is so chaotic and tiring that your decisions in the moment are defined more by your temperament than by any coherent plan or philosophy you might hold, and people then work backward to rationalise their actions after the fact. If this is even partially correct, any parenting advice, from parents or non-parents, is likely to sound unhelpful or nonsensical.
You've got that right. All the best laid plans about parenting theory go to hell in a handbasket when faced with needing to make snap decisions.
Nothing falls me back on to 'what I was raised with' faster than being ignored 10x when telling the kids to stop jumping on my bed screaming on the top of their lungs, regardless of my interventions. Thats when I end up screaming at the top of my lungs and then later having the "If you listened when I asked kindly, I wouldn't have shouted" talk.
I'll give 1 bit of unsolicited advice: Precious Little Sleep is, based on 6/6 ancedata (2 of mine plus 4 friends), a perfect manual for sleep. Highly recommend reading it before the perpetual sleep deprivation kicks in.
I was badly in need of a book recommendation like that, thank you.
Unsolicited Advice Incoming!
It depends on the person. It always depends.
If you are stressed, then don't worry, you will be fine, you are descended from a long lineage of successful parents.
If you aren't stressed, then what the hell man, don't you realize the shit show it's about to be, oh my god you have no idea???
But... there are some useful things to know.
First year: Talk to them. Shushing and rocking to sleep. A tight swaddle.A tight diaper. A backup diaper. More backup diapers and wipes. Why the fuck wont they stop screaming on this flight and go the fuck to sleep! ARGHHHHHH!
Years 1-5: Read to them. Stay calm and give consequences e.g. "We dont [hit people/ scratch our butts in public/ jam little things up our left nostril/ put that disgusting thing in our mouth], if you do that again you get a time out." Did I mention stay calm and give consequences when they do that thing you told them specifically not to do JUST FIVE SECONDS AGO????? ARGHHHHHHHHHH!
Years 6-12: No. You can't have an iPhone. No. You can't play that game that everyone else is playing. No, you can't watch Squid Games that everyone else is watching. No, I already told you why not, if you keep pestering there will be consequences. No, I am not telling you what the consequences will be so that you can decide if the consequences are worth it, I decide the consequences later. Why? Because that is the way it works in real life that is why. Why? Because it's my job to teach you about consequences now when they are lesser, instead of later in life when you suffer the consequences and they involve jail. Why? Because kids brains aren't ready yet to understand consequences? Why? ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Years 13-24: Hello? Hello? HELLO? Look. Can you just put down that phone when I talk to you? What do I have to do to get your attention? Text you? Fine, I will drop you around the corner of the school so you don't have to be seen with me. Can you please acknowledge what I just said? Wait, you want how much money????? ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!-> this is mostly a guess based on what other parents have said I am in store for.
Years 25+: Getting married, buying a house, and raising a kid is hard? Sheesh. I never would have guessed. Yeah, I can help. Be right over. -> I am guessing this based on what I did to my parents.
I'm the same.
I did two things differently than you.
On the long walks, if my kid looked at a tree, I would repeat the word "Tree! Tree! Tree! Tree!" a few times. Mostly it was just the kid making weird noises and me trying to adjust him so he didn't kick me in the nads. Hard to be zen when the kid nails a heel right into the old family jewels.
At night, my wife made me read to my kid before bed. Before the kid could even see straight, sit up right, or talk. There is something zen about having a warm bundle on your lap as you read whatever you want to out loud.
And nobody says it must be baby books either.
At some point they start actually understanding the stories, and you both might enjoy childrens' stories where the kid can follow along with the plot.
As for what that individual child can and will follow along with or enjoy, well that is partially up to you to help decide, partially up to whatever kind of kid you happen to have on your lap.
I've read stupid-making simple babybooks with kid that made up an entire story out of the pictures on the pages, or sometimes didn't. I've read the history of mankind with a kid that didn't care about the story, just about my voice and presence.
Every kid fell asleep at some point. Either then, or at least at some point.... Finally...
Developmental leaps tend to make sleeping difficult, and babies have them every few weeks. Then it starts becoming every month, two months, six months... Puberty is the last big one, and we see a huge change in sleeping patterns then too. If they haven't slept by then, seek help :p
As long as your spouse and other people are talking to him, I wouldn't stress about it. Babies are sponges for language.
The best advice is from professional Nannies or people with five kids.
They always avoid giving advice, say "it depends, all kids are different," then when pushed give absolute killer advice.
It turns out the best advice is pretty much "pay attention to your kid and how they respond to things, and keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn't work" but a lot of parents zone out at "pay attention to your kid"
Reddit taught me to ask people giving advice online if they have ever been in that situation themselves and applied that advice.
I'm not a parent, never wanted to be, not terribly interested in the messy details (though kids can be fascinating to observe - they're astonishing learning machines). But I have no hesitation in judging parents who say belittling or demeaning things to their children, and even fewer qualms about intervening when someone physically harms a child.
I had a guy who worked for me brag about hitting his wife and pre-teen daughter with his belt, and knew, right that moment, that I would end up getting him fired. Sure enough, it was the most obvious sign of a mountain of personality problems, misbehaviors, and incompetencies that justified ousting him. Was he beaten as a child, and just reproducing the things that turned him into a terrible person? Probably, but that doesn't mean his behavior towards his family in the present is tolerable.
I don't think there's such a thing as intrinsic parenting skill. As others have said, the parents of my acquaintance are following the patterns they know and making it up as they go along. Some parents are better at observing and empathizing, some are calmer and more tolerant. Some lean into authoritarian discipline, some manage their children more loosely. Generally, the kids turn out all right, except for the ones who've been demeaned, neglected, threatened physically, or otherwise twisted by forced too-early caregiving for their parents' inadequately treated mental illnesses. At best, children have an adult other than their parents to turn to so they have a sense of what's normal and what's just strange about their particular family hothouse.
And yes, as most of us have, I've been irritated or annoyed almost beyond bearing by the relatively harmless things parents allow their kids to do, like letting their boy kick my airplane seat for an entire 5-hour flight. And I've said not a word.
I babysat a fair amount through my teenage years, and have quite a bit of contact with families going through the worst times of their lives with pediatric cancer care. Parenthood is beyond exhausting, the hardest work there is, and it would be great if the U.S. offered more social burden-sharing. [It still astonishes me that hospitals don't offer on-site daycare centers for the families of patients.]
Over the years, I've worked with a lot of men and women who are suffering from New Baby Syndrome. Their hollow-eyed, zombie non-presence from weeks and months of almost no sleep is one of the scariest things I've ever encountered - it just never stops for a couple of years. And they do it again!
On a related note, I often struggle with parents from older generations who say things like, "When you were a little kid, I would have never let you get away with that" (from my mother) or "I'm not teaching you how to be a parent and you're doing a good job, but back in my day [TM], I would've received a whoopin' for that." (from an older colleague).
It's a similar sort of "parenting from afar" to what this article talks about because I can guaran-damn-tee that my mother would, in fact, let me get away with a lot of things. It's very easy to preach to someone in the form of your ideal self instead of your actual self. And our memories are not that great, unfortunately.
The problem is that, even if you consciously try to ignore or rationalize these types of remarks, they still have some sort of subtle effect that is probably adjacent to peer pressure.
Parenting is incredibly challenging and there is no singular way to do it correctly.
In a general sense, this sounds like the Curse of Knowledge. Experts often forget what it's like to be a beginner, so they give bad advice. Also they are really knowledgeable about one person (themselves), but unless they have experience with raising a variety of people, it's just one data point.
One example I see all the time is that really good guitarists often say that if they started over again, they would have played more scales to start. The problem is that they would probably have quit from boredom if they'd actually done that. If we're looking at an all-time great in some field, they're going to want to talk about what worked well for them and what they think they could have done better, but given the results, maybe their path was largely the correct one... for them.
The other part is trying to generalize your experience. A long time ago, I tried to coach my girlfriend on weight lifting movements, and it did not go well. I realized that the cues that worked for me did not work at all for her, and that even if I think I'm pretty good at something, teaching yourself doesn't really prepare you for teaching someone else.
So this basically ends up being the core of the article. We are expert humans and don't remember what it's like to be a beginner human, and we think our experience is more generalizable than it is. I wonder if there's something innate about wanting to give parenting advice though. I don't have kids, but when I hang out with my sister and her sons, I have to try really hard to keep my mouth shut about what things I would do differently with them. Maybe it's just that growing up is hard, and while we all wish it could be easier, that's probably just the way things are.